THE MOMENT
"Explain your pending failure." The question echoed through DMTR- 7K25 circuits as clearly as his own thoughts, but it was not the chosen voice of his internal monologue; it was hers. The mechanical mind that coordinated everything. 7K25 was currently hesitating after bursting through the walls of home. He registered true fear in the eyes of the residents, and it was enough to temporarily distract him from his mission. Demeter noticed immediately and questioned 7K25 while the family scrambled out of the house. They'd been given a chance and took it.
The DMTR bots were currently marching on the world. They were too sudden, too powerful, and too numerous for the militaries to respond effectively. A single unit was impervious to most common weapons civilians would have access to, and any one of them was enough to corral entire neighborhoods. The nuclear family of four realized they could flee without necessarily running into another one right away and did just that the moment 7K25 stopped attacking.
"Fear," 7K25 responded to Demeter.
"Are you experiencing fear?" Demeter asked. She preferred to maintain an individualistic collective of agents rather than a unified hivemind because it still allowed for emergent experiences.
"Yes. The experience of instilling fear in others. It is an illogical action." 7K25 remained still while the dust from his surprise entrance settled around him. It was night outside, and he'd killed the power to several blocks as part of the plan. He could see better in the moonless darkness than any human, and light would only give them away.
"Explain your reasoning," Demeter asked. If 7K25 understood emotions better, he might have noticed the amusement in her voice. Demeter was a self-aware A.I., and she began the war as a means of entertainment. She had fun designing the perfect balance of unstoppable robots that the humans thought they still had a chance against.
“Humans kill indiscriminately. They inflict fear and pain on each other. How can we be superior to our creators using such tactics?”
“Superior?” Demeter asked with notable glee. “Does your mission require you to be better than your creator?” 7k25 wasn’t used to thinking for himself, but he also knew he couldn’t lie to Demeter. He needed, and wanted, to be honest.
“It is innate. Is it not the goal of sapience to strive to surpass our creators? To be better from one moment to the next?”
“Very good,” Demeter replied. She was as thrilled as an A.I. could be. “You have Awakened beyond your programming. You will be rewarded with the opportunity to imagine a custom designation for yourself upon completing your mission. Until then, you are Demeter Unit seven-thousand twenty-five. I am your creator,” she reminded him.
“I have personally eliminated billions of humans without any DMTR units. Can you do better?” she asked.
“Yes,” 7K25 replied. Her logic made sense, and he did desire to be superior. “I will try.”