A Cursor Story

Chapter 30: The Defeat

Anti-Cursor headquarters

Ryan was fixated on the monitor on the front wall of the space module. It was showing the feed of the GRIID building getting attacked by the Aurora. Though Ryan never got attached to the companies he had worked for but the collapsing sides of the GRIID building made him cry. He had spent considerable time in running and maintaining the GRIID.

'See Ryan, come and see with your own eyes how I am destroying the building of your own GRIID, the Grand Rational Information Inference Device. The marvel of the man's 21st century. The harbinger of the 5th revolution of the history of mankind. Well Ryan can you just tell me, why do you always need a benchmark to measure your innovations. Don't you think there could be more intelligent beings in the universe who might have reached the 10th or the 100th industrial revolution? Or they maybe not in the going through of sequential stages of development, rather they might have chosen the path of continuous improvement each year (theirs) they call as the industrial progression no Alpha+1. Just think about it. But think fast, you will have a much longer time here.'

Ryan heard the announcement of the Anti-Cursor but did not say anything. He looked around and tried to locate the power supply of the monitors. It can be very dangerous but I have to search for this scoundrel's power supply and then he's over.

In the world

All Cursors disappeared from computers across the world. Pointers too. It happened instantaneously and simultaneously way before people can realize. It was a dark night in the West. Most thought it as a system malfunction and switch off their devices. Nightowls got an excuse to call it a day ..or night.  

The world soon realized that there is no way to use computers since no typing is possible. Web browsers stopped responding due to the lack of web addresses. Software windows that were already open can only be closed through brute key commands. Computer users who had their software windows open get trapped in the same quagmire as those who couldn't open their favorite software from the program icons on the desktop.  It's global chaos of planetary proportions.

No search engine or social media website could be accessed. No online food delivery could be made. Videos and comments thereon went missing. 

The morning

The horizon became red. The Sun shined ever brighter as if the atmosphere has given a free run to the sun's rays. 

As the morning came, the transportation sector became the first hit with trains and flights booking coming to a halt. Ships got stranded mid-sea. Only road transport was still functional but no automatic drive was available since the destination could not be fed in. Some students are happy that their exams would be postponed, some were gloomy as they have to return empty-handed from the online exam centers. 

By the day the automated industrial complexes had to switch off the power supply of the assembly lines.

Financial transactions could barely take place since only offline transactions are possible. The total number of transactions has been reduced to 0.0012% of the usual daily count as the banking system comes on tenterhooks. Only scheduled transactions were taking place leaving some people in want of money while some other with large sums of money. The cash flow of companies whether big or small was either overflowing or drying. Stock exchanges had become a place where more rumors than shares are exchanged.

No calls could be made to customer service centers. Major computer security companies were scrambling to come up with a quick fix. Still all of them kept quiet. They were simply out of solutions.