March of The Machines

Ares acquiesced and walked with him until he stood directly before the General. The General spoke, emotion overwhelming his voice: "Welcome among us. We've been waiting for your arrival." Ares returned the greeting, then fell silent. The best course of action in this situation was silence until he could discern what was happening around him.

The General said, attempting to shake the spider's web: "You know why you're here, of course?"

Ares said to himself: "No, I don't know. Well, my cover will be discovered—I must act immediately." He replied confidently with a meaningful tone: "Of course, and I want you to explain the latest developments."

The General paused briefly, making Ares feel his cover had been blown, but then the General smiled, saying: "Of course I'll tell you. I apologize... but I feel I've seen you somewhere before."

Ares responded, improvising: "Certainly, perhaps during one of the visits or something similar."

The General laughed, patting his shoulder: "Yes, perhaps I saw you at one of them. Now I'll explain the latest developments." He gestured for Ares to look at the three-dimensional map, pointing to one of the red areas: "The robots have taken over this region as well."

The words struck Ares like lightning. He couldn't believe what he heard at first, thinking to himself with apprehension and fear: "Robots? Is he joking with me? How did robots take control of Egypt? Does this explain the disappearance of humans from the city and the destruction surrounding many buildings and facilities?"

The General continued with a sorrowful tone: "Since the robot revolution against humans five years ago, specifically in the year 2150."

Ares was even more shocked by what he heard, trying to conceal the suspicion in his expression: "We're in the year 2055 now. What in God's name is happening here? He've been asleep in that cursed tower for five years! This explains the long beard and hair, and the injection he received in the tower to be able to move his body, but he never expected five years had passed! What happened to him during that time? How did he end up here?"

Ares focused on the General as he delivered his lecture, which fortunately helped him understand several things. The General continued in a gloomy tone: "We continue all our efforts to destroy these damned machines, but these things evolve at a terrifying speed. They use strange weapons against us that we don't know where they acquired. We began to retreat as many victims fell to this brutal occupation. But that's not all that happened—they began using strange vessels that hover in the sky, turning everything beneath them to ash with a single strike, until they eliminated most of our forces. We started hiding in the forests, sending spies to discover their secrets. We don't understand how these sardine cans rebelled against us; their artificial intelligence hadn't yet reached the stage enabling them to achieve full consciousness. If we were to classify robots from five years ago, it would have the same intelligence and awareness as a fifteen-year-old child. I don't believe a child of that age could rebel against their parents and create such advanced things."

The General fell silent for a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued with anger radiating from his eyes:

"Thus they began to spread like a plague, rebelling throughout New Cairo as a starting point, then expanding to occupy most of Egypt. They even seized control of factories specialized in manufacturing robots to create more of themselves. But truthfully, they've amazed us. They've created things far more massive and impressive than we could imagine. Not only that, but they've developed their own language and publicly declared their state to the entire world on television. They announced that humans would be expelled from the country, and anyone who attempted to resist would be killed. Of course, some countries tried to help, but their forces were completely annihilated just for attempting to approach Egypt. I've heard that numerous countries have experienced what happened to us and have been completely erased from existence, making the world anxiously anticipate this destructive power as it grows and flourishes before their eyes while they can do nothing.

No one can enter Egypt anymore, as most of its territories have been occupied by them. This forced everyone to flee to Atlantis City located in western Egypt, which is surrounded by a magnetic shield preventing any aircraft from entering its airspace. Anyone who approaches crashes into the shield and falls like a fly. Even if someone succeeded in entering, their chance of survival is nonexistent in the face of the strange weapons possessed by the robots. So our last resistance remains here in Atlantis, which stayed safe and received refugees from all over the world of all colors, shapes, and nationalities—until this cursed day came."

He paused briefly, took a deep breath, then continued his explanation:

"During the implementation of a government plan to repel the robot aggression and expand our territory to twice the current size of Atlantis to increase human territory and achieve our first victory against them, somehow—no one knows how—the robots managed to enter New Atlantis when the expansion plan was executed. They destroyed New Atlantis, killed millions of humans, and decimated half of the Egyptian army. Afterward, somehow most of the robots were destroyed. We don't understand how this happened, but some soldiers mentioned strange soldiers who came from the sky. Of course, no one believed them. The robots haven't been able to take control of New Atlantis yet, but they're trying, and sooner or later they'll take it. They've destroyed some of the areas you see before you in red, but they still have much more to go. If not for the intervention of these soldiers we know nothing about, we would have perished... but perhaps these soldiers came from other countries to help, as we haven't been able to communicate with other countries for five years."

He stopped, cleared his throat slightly, then added with a caustic voice:

"Initially, none of the countries paid much attention to the machine revolution. It was something strange, of course, and stranger still was this peculiar fog that appeared everywhere, causing the robots to breach the Three Laws that prevented them from killing or harming humans. When this fog dissipated, nothing remained but destruction."