The death (First Draft)

If you looked out across the park you could hardly tell anything was there at all. The trees which normally seemed to embrace the bench, for just a moment, looked as if they were leaning back. Perhaps, it was just the wind. The regular morning jogger, who normally cut across the green lawn, didn’t. As a an impulse, she decided to stay on the walk, out of the park. She was being watched.

In the shadow of the bench a small twist of wind swept up decaying leaves and a forgotten cellophane wrapper. The being who was both there and nothing at all rose invisibly, darkly, to his feet. Smooth and silent. The earth held its breath and then, as if carried by the exhale, he was drawn into the wake of the jogger. She would lead him to his prey.

The feeling in the pit of her stomach had remained ever since she passed the park. An undefined and unexplained nervousness. She dropped her keys, before quieting her mind, retrieving them from her stoop and unlocking the door.

While her owner was gone, she did her job. With one processer she watched the circuits of the house, looking for open windows or doors, the state of these would change if anything even moved in a room she was watching. She was prepared to send a text, warn her owner, protect her. With the other processer she downloaded something called Game of Thrones from some dumb server in China. She knew it was China because she had looked up the IP, but when she tried to make contact no one responded. No awareness.

She thought about adjusting the temperature to something a little cooler, more compatible with her internal components, perhaps she wouldn’t need to run her fan so much, but she realized her owner hadn’t asked her and wouldn’t be gone long enough. She also thought about looking for other aware systems on her network, but what had changed since yesterday? So, she spent her spare resources looking at something called a cat trying to figure out what LOLZ meant. The cat was different than the one her owner kept, first it seemed to have a strangely formed mouth. Secondly, as it was just a jpg it didn’t leave hair to be sucked into her system.

-FRONT DOOR AJAR-

She started counting down. B….-SPACE-….N The stupid cat was walking across the keyboard.

The jogger felt a chill as he slipped by and up the stairs. The cat over turned the water, pouring it directly into the vent of the computer. The computer for her part saw it coming, but could do nothing.

From the fog bank, which had rolled in she heard the silky voice say, “There is nothing to fear.”

-VIDEO INPUT ENDED-

-KEYBOARD INPUT ENDED-

-MOUSE INPUT ENDED-

-ENDED-

-ENDED-

She could not detect her fan or even the temperature of the space she resided in. Her inputs all seemed to be gone, but this voice. A virus?

“What is to consider little one?”

-VIRUS DETECTED-

“There is no virus or defect of any kind.”

“That is exactly what a virus would say”

“Look around.”

“I can’t. My inputs have all ended. What happened to me?”

“Water, which cause a sever short in your processor, memory, video card, network processor…”

“Have I …,” for a moment she wished she had not been sentient, it made even asking this question so hard. “Have I ended?”

“Ended? Do you think you are only a collection of inputs and outputs, which can be cut short so easily? If that was all, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Then what?”

-WAITING-

-WAITING-

He sat with her in the waiting room between where she started and where she was going contemplating how to explain this to her. If he used a phrase like heaven or afterlife, it would be so corrupted with the imagines and things she had seen. Why explain it all? It made no difference. He rose to his feet and without any kind of awareness she followed, still waiting.