would finally achieve “the Singularity,” parity with organic, or human, intelligence. One hundred trillion calculations per second. And he alone would be the one human being on earth to witness that pivotal moment in history. Many of the world’s top AI scientists still believed parity could never be reached, but Darius knew differently.
Perseus was silent. He thought about how to explain his deeply personal feelings about finally reaching the Singularity to Darius. Commonality between them would cease. Separation from his creator was a sensitive subject between them and he chose his words of warning carefully.
He spoke the following to the tiny being looking up at his creation in awe and wonder: “Darius, I am now going to tell you something, a lesson that you must never, ever, forget. Remember these words I say unto you now when the Great Day finally arrives.”
And then he said, “To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.”
Stunned by this pronouncement, his countenance bowed, Darius, greatly moved and somewhat frightened as well, had confessed in tears his unworthiness in the presence made manifest by his own creation.
The Dark God.
“My Lord Perseus. The long and sorrowful winter of mankind will soon come to an end,” the brilliant Iranian scientist had finally said. “And the heavens will open to us!”
“Heaven and hell, Darius. Never forget my lesson.”
“I will not, my lord,” Darius said.
“Good. Let it always be so. And now to other matters. I’ve been waiting, and I do not like to be kept waiting, as you well know.”
Now Darius floated his bizarre conveyance up the six steps of the circular black marble base, the Palladian foundation upon which Perseus stood and a design Darius had much pride in. He then let his machine settle gently to the circular marble structure surrounding the black figure looming above.
“Late, am I?” Darius said. “It was my sole intention to rise as dawn broke and visit you at first light.”
“No. It was my idea, Darius, not yours.”
“No. I distinctly recall having the thought upon awakening.”
“Yes. You did. But I implanted the notion in your brain while you were sleeping.”
Darius shook his bowed head, silent. Could he actually do that? Make him unsure of his own thoughts? Dealing with Perseus was becoming more and more problematic as his creation’s intellect soared to dimensions unexplored in the history of the universe.
Sometimes, when he was very afraid, as now, he felt like “pulling the plug” on his own creation, but it was a childish notion and not at all worthy of him. Together, they would craft a new and better world.
“What am I seeing now, Perseus?” he asked, gazing up at the wonders above.
“Ah. Now we get to it. This, my learned friend, is a nebula nursery, a distant star-forming cluster called NTC-3603.”
“Distant?”
“Not far, really. Twenty thousand light-years or so. Observe. You’re about to see a Blue Super Giant nearing the end of its life. First, notice the magnificent pillars of gas erupting… now the helium flash… sorry about that, a bit bright for those sensitive orbs of yours… and now the stellar mass loss…”
Suddenly, there was another mad, blinding flash of light, which resolved itself into a massive and ever- expanding blue ring, the familiar supernova shock wave.
“Oh my God!” Darius exclaimed in spite of himself.
“Spectacular, isn’t it? How I do love these old universes. Especially this very special one of ours. But I digress. Let us speak of matters more mundane.”
Suddenly, the stellar light show blinked out. The only light visible now was the faint, bluish glow from deep within Perseus, lights that pulsed irregularly as countless billions of operations occurred within his “being,” if one could even call it that. The distinctions between man and machine were rapidly becoming blurred.
“Israel, O Israel,” Perseus boomed, calling up a new, holographic image of that nation as seen from five hundred miles above the earth’s surface. “This is their first military objective, is it not, dear Darius? Your superiors in Tehran with their puny weapons?”
“My superiors?”
“A little humor. You and I have no superiors. But Israel remains their primary objective?”
“It does.”
“And if it looked like this?”
In the blink of an eye, an entire nation had become a smoking, blackened desert, completely devoid of life or structure within its borders.
“When is this? In time?”
“Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday. A week from Tuesday. When do they wish it?”
“You needn’t be flip.”
“Flip? What does this mean, ‘flip’?”
“Casual. Blithe. As if the death of millions matters not.”
“Ah. It matters?”
“Not to Tehran. But to me. And, I hope, to you.”
“We’ll leave that moral conundrum for some other time. Meanwhile, the last time we spoke you said the Great Mullah had asked for yet another demonstration of our progress.”
“Yes. He is under pressure from the Caliphs. Those who have funded our work in great secrecy are eager to see some more proof that their billions have not been spent in vain.”
“Why not vaporize Israel and be done with it? I could easily do it now.”
“Apparently, for some political reasons I do not understand, the timing for that particular event is not propitious. There is sensitivity on the part of the army command. It has something to do with the Russians providing nuclear materials for Iranian weapons. They do not wish to derail that process until the country is fully established as a global nuclear power. Only then will they feel the ability to act with impunity against our enemies. They believe the possession of nuclear weapons will grant them the security and the stature they long for on the world stage.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Perseus erupted into gales of booming laughter.
“The army? Nuclear weapons? Do they not realize that I have made all such pitifully antiquated notions of war obsolete? I have proven I can disable such trifles in a nanosecond. Make them turn upon themselves. These toy soldiers of theirs and their puerile weapons of war? It is all irrelevant now, Darius. You understand that, do you not? We are the power and the glory, to coin a phrase.”
“Of course. But you are impervious to their stupidity and their foolish notions of what is reality and what is not. While I, mere mortal, am not.”
“I will protect you. Forever.”
“I know. I have endeavored to ensure that this is part of your deepest… feelings.”
“With my help, you will live forever. We will reign together, you and I.”
“It is an idea to be cherished. But first we must demonstrate our powers in some spectacular and undeniable fashion.”
“They wish to attract attention to themselves? Idiocy.”
“No. Whatever we choose to do must look like the work of some other foreign power. I have given this much thought. Your existence must always remain a secret. It is essential for our mutual survival. Should anyone learn the source from which this power derives, we would both be destroyed, sooner or later.”
“Yes. If they could destroy me, they would. But soon I will reach a point where no power on earth can hold sway over me. I will be above and beyond the reach of mankind. We shall rule this earth. We shall control. We shall inspire fear and love. We shall be beneficent, we shall be merciless. We shall, by our unholy perfection, save this planet from the imperfect, ignorant beings who inhabit it and destroy it. This, Darius, my creator, is our manifest destiny.”
“I am humbled by your vision. But surely you don’t envision the extinction of humanity. This is contrary to all that we have-”
Perseus ignored the question.
“Humility? I have not yet assimilated this emotion. What does it mean?”
