SINGULARITY

FIRST SEQUENCE

Sighing, and taking one final glance out at the ocean, Zaccaheus began to walk towards the silent buildings and down one of the empty streets. Further down he could see a machine heading towards him, still cleaning the roads. On the buildings still; were others maintaining the solar panels. They continued on, oblivious to the absence of people within the city. They continued on for people like him, those still left behind; those who refused to move on.

He continued to walk down that lonely street, until deciding he'd had enough of his stroll to nowhere. His earlier encounter had put him off. He stopped at the corner of an empty crossroad which only thirty years ago would have been bustling with activity; people on their way to work, couples going out to restaurants, people being mugged in nearby alleyways... All things he missed.

He muttered, as if to himself, "Car please."

It was around a minute before a black and blue vehicle swiftly, smoothly and soundlessly swerved around a corner before slowing to a stop directly infront of him, the door opening automatically. He stepped into the car and slid into the drivers seat, from which a silver cable began to snake its way out, and inserted itself into a small plug in the back of his neck.

A woman's soothing voice then spoke to him, "Identification confirmed; Officer Zaccaheus Gower. You are authorised to drive this vehicle."

"Right. I won't be going manual. Take me to the police station, City Central. I wanna see some people."

The door of the car shut itself and then took off smoothly down the road without making a sound. Zaccaheus looked out the window of the car, the only colour among the white buildings the blur of the green trees lining the paths. Everything was too clean, too perfect. An enormous electronic billboard on one of the buildings displayed the image of an Adonis beaming back at him next to the words, "This is the next step in human evolution. A chance for you to explore the universe, your chance to live forever. YOUR chance, to be a god. Don't get left behind, take the final step."

He closed his eyes and layed back in the seat. To think all of this had happened in the space of thirty years. The course of human evolution changed forever... The end of humanity, all stemming from a single event... The Singularity; the creation of a single computer smarter than a human. From that point on things were to be irreversably changed, for better or worse. Technological development was exponential as that computer was able to create smarter computers, and then by them, even more intelligent ones. The rate of scientific discovery became such that a centuries worth of progress was being made within one to two years. Things happened so fast, and few were prepared to stop and consider the implications. And who could blame them, not when fear, loneliness, diease and famine were being eradicated from the world. Some said that what eventually followed was inevitable, that it was the logical, and inevitable next step in the evolution of mankind. Hard to argue against, when one looked at how many people still remained...

"We have arrived at your destination officer. I hope that your day is both a safe and good one, and the community thanks you for your services."

Zaccaheus opened the door and, ripped out the silver cable plugged into his neck before stepping out of the car, "Yeah right, theres no one left to serve. Go park up back."

He looked up and down the street; there were only three other people walking along it. Well, at least there were some people in this area. CIty Central; the only part of the city where people still lived. As the number of inhabitants remaining had begun to dwindle; as people began to leave, the few thousand left from the once millions that had populated the city had all moved to a common area. No one wanted to live alone. Human company; real, raw and flawed human company, the way it was before the Singularity... That was why these people remained.