At the Twilight of Mankind

Part 2 - Chapter 1: (2/4) Introducing the Main Characters

Guests kept coming in and out of the large hall, talking loudly. Between two bursts of laughter and three affirmations, they occasionally grabbed the food and drinks served in abundance by the robot waiters that constantly circled around them like flies around corpses.

"Are there any humans here?" A male voice suddenly raised from nowhere.

The crowd froze, giggling. They turned to each other, curious and excited about the entertainment tonight, just for them humans. Soon the voice came out of the crowd to reveal its pale face. He didn't seem to gaze at anything or anyone in particular. The cyborg stopped short in front of a couple of Asian guests patiently scanning their faces with his doll-like gaze. The crowd watched inquisitive, silent, with panting hearts. What trick was he going to show them tonight, just for them humans ?

The woman collapsed first like a piece of linen falling from a line whose clamps had jumped off. The crowd was still watching, puzzled without really understanding the purpose of the show. When the man also fell to the ground a few seconds later, the crowd began to fidget nervously, questioning each other with frightened looks. The cyborg pulled a gun from his jacket, his peaceful doll-like face scanning around him as he began to fire at the crowd. He scanned each horrified face after another as if he was cataloguing them in his memory. The guests were running away, pushing and stumbling over robot waiters and victims, screaming like hysterical children in a playground.

Nina was completely paralysed with fear, her gaze fixed on the cyborg charging towards her. Her arms hanging along her body like two dead branches, she felt a stream running down her legs. Betty instinctively took Nina in her arms, pressing the US senator's face against her chest, digging her fingers into Nina's long dreadlocks. Nina remained motionless like a puppet, her face drowning in the ambassador's dress.

"God," Betty whispered, closing her eyes and pursing her lips tightly. If her time had come that night, she didn't want to see it or shout it out loud. The two women stood like stone statuettes for a long time, the crowd around them still screaming and running, their bodies falling heavily onto the ground like sacks, the sound of bullets in their flesh hissing like wild birds. Then, dead silence invaded the space around the two women. The peaceful silence of nature after a storm suddenly settled in to fill the entire hall that could hold more than a hundred people.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.... and me. Betty pulled Nina from her chest to look at her intently. Ten. Nina was still in shock, but alive. Betty hadn't realised until one of the eight men still standing exclaimed in both relief and disgust as he walked towards the two women:

"That stupid machine wasn't programmed to recognise dark faces. It scanned all of our faces and didn't recognise them."

They stared silently at each other for a moment as if to identify what wasn't human in their features and their dark skin as far as this machine was concerned. What complexion, what traits were left at the door of the human race according to advanced technology. Would the cyborg have killed Nina if it had scanned her face?

"Ms. Sow," Nina said softly, placing a frail hand on the ambassador's shoulder and the other on her stomach. "I'm sorry," she continued, looking at the pool of water at her feet.

"Good heavens," Betty exclaimed breathlessly.

"I'm a doctor," one of the men said, walking over to Nina to help her lie on the floor.

"We need to take her to the hospital," Betty said in a panic.

"We're not moving from here until the authorities come looking for us," another man snapped, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "This thing is still here; you see I have no signal. It started the moment he walked into the hall."

"Who's going to come and save us if no one knows what happened?" One of the men asked, looking around nervously.

"Someone outside must have heard the screams and gunshots, and alerted the authorities," another man replied.

"He's right, we have to stay here. If the cyborg finds us moving, it'll shoot us like the others," the doctor said. "It'll be fine, you're in good hands with all of us," he added, turning back to Nina with a genuine smile.

"Are there any humans here?"

Hearing those words, the ten survivors immediately froze while Nina burst into tears. The doctor calmly put his index finger on his lips, motioning her to remain quiet. Then, he removed his jacket to cover her face with it. Betty lay down against Nina while holding her tight both to immobilise and reassure her. The eight men stood around the two women without moving, staring at the direction where the voice was coming from, closer and closer, closer and closer.

"Are there any humans here?" The voice appeared in the shape of an Asian man wearing a police uniform. He was holding a gun.

** Chicago (USA), 2079 **

Nina wipes away the flow of tears with her handkerchief. She inhales deeply before turning her face full of gratitude towards the ambassador who saved her and her two children twenty years ago during the terror attack in Beijing.

Her gaze full of compassion, Betty keeps walking slowly towards Nina, still wondering more than twenty years later whether or not this machine would have killed the senator if she hadn't been there too. The fate of the two women separated by the complexion of their skin was forever united by every moment of their painful experience of the attack in Beijing: The arrival of the police, the ambulances, the medical teams, Nina's husband looking all in shock and traumatised as if he had witnessed the attack. What a loser! And why hadn't he been there for his wife? At that very moment, she hated him and his race so much! Then, the twin's birth, followed by the nurses staring at her in the hallways, and finally...her own dark face glistening with sweat in the mirror of the hospital toilets. Warm heavy tears came to her eyes despite the courage, the fear, the shame, the pride, the joy of having saved three human lives at the same time, the anger, the guilt... yes all that at the same time without really knowing why.

"This is a human face... Stupid machine and your stupid creators!"