Pan Dora's Terminal

Almost there! Just a little further! But where is it? My pod locator shows it’s here, and I remember leaving it by this ginormous ravine; it should be here! Where? Where! Sweat dripped from my brow onto my screen as a I checked again, obscuring the green safe-marker icon. My head ached. I could scarcely draw breath, and the breath I did draw was thick and sickening. I squinted, trying to make out the reading on my screen. Oh no. Dread seemed to pool in my gut: I was on the wrong side of the ravine. My five-minute alert assaulted my ears. Great, and I was almost out of time. I frantically looked for any way to possibly cross this gap in the ground that so stubbornly blocked me from reaching my goal. Then I saw it! A log spanning the gap. Well, I guess the dead trees are at least on my side. I dashed toward my bridge to safety, though saw I was not the only thing moving toward it: the fire. It was here. Only thirty seconds left to go. I concentrated on making my legs fly increasingly faster forwards. Not good enough. Faster, faster! The fire, it’s at the log now, and I’m not. Faster! Just a few more feet! I inhaled once, even though it made me feel sick, then leapt onto the log, the log already on fire. My jump was enough to get me over the brilliant, but deadly, blue and orange flames; but, that same jump also made the log shift, and not in a direction that was any good to me. I kept my feet flying onward. Snap snap snap! The log was going down. I jumped a second time for my life, just hoping I was close enough to make it to the other side. The ten second alarm blared out. Thud! My shoulder slammed into the ground, but thankfully, into the ground on the right side. I saw my pod now and desperately scrambled to my feet. As I ran, I saw the sphere of fire that encircled me shrinking in from all directions. The dazzling flames swirling menacingly. The door of the safe-pod was open. I dashed in, pivoting as I went to so that I could grab the door and slam it closed behind me. My hands were so sweaty, I almost lost my grip, though I somehow managed to pull it shut. I was still going too fast, and slammed into the back of the pod, knocking me almost unconscious, but safe: I felt the pod launch into the air, away from fire below. Well, safe at least for a little while. And then, all went black.

I woke, wondering what surprises the environment would throw at me at this new location. And, though I always tried to stop it from crossing my mind, each time I wondered if this round would be my last. I shook my head to discard the thought, regretting it instantly as my head still throbbed. That thought won’t help. What will help, though, is figuring out what kind of area I’m dealing with now. I closed my eyes, focusing. I wasn’t sweating anymore, but I was still wet, and I would have preferred to have more clothes on. I checked my food supplies: only one life-bar left. I took it, opened it, and devoured it quickly. I got to find it this time; I’ve almost run out of chances. If only I could find some food somewhere... Stop, that’s not realistic: even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell if the nanobots were guarding it, or not until it was too late. I then checked my location and that of the next facility. Huh, my pod actually got pretty close this time. I was out for eight hours, but I still should have plenty of time to make it there before my pod left for the next facility. Alright, time to go. I carefully, slowly opened the pod door, and as I did so, water began to trickle in, soaking and numbing my feet.

I was standing in water up to my ankles. And as far as I could see, everywhere else was submerged in it as well. I turned and saw the facility. There you are. It was a plain, gray concrete building, tucked away against a cliff wall. Water trickled down my face as more and more of it joined the pool of its fellow molecules on the ground. I closed the door of my pod so more water wouldn’t get in, and hurried toward the facility. As I went, the rising water-level seemed to accelerate its pace, now reaching the height of the facility door handle. The pace of the water increased so much, my view to the building became obscured. My rising panic began to accelerate as well. But I focused on getting to the door, not back to my pod. This could be the place, the shielded nanobot controls could be here. Suddenly, a giant wave rushed around the side of the cliff wall, right at me. My drained body surged again with energy as I ran. But the water around my knees seemed to grab my legs, capturing me so that the wave could get me. And it did. The wave washed over me, engulfing me. I couldn’t see or tell which way was up. The wave slammed me into what I realized was the concrete wall of the building, knocking what little breath I had out of me. Luckily, the wave used the last of its power when it slammed me: the wave dispersed, though the water it left behind did not. I struggled toward the facility door, hoping that I would make it before the greedy water swallowed it up. I did, slipping as quickly as I could inside, into the darkness.

I blindly edged my way forward, trying to guess which way would most likely lead to the shielded nanobot controls. A faint glow appeared as I continued to search. I realized the light spread out from a rectangular shape: a doorway. That must be it! The shield! Entering the room, I saw it. The shield glowed blue and green, framing the computer controls in a three dimensional box. Huh, whoever designed this must have had an artistic flair. I walked over to the box-shaped shield, and paused, not able to turn it off just yet. What worried me and stopped me from executing my plan was the fact that it would take me awhile to figure out how to program the nanobot swarm to stop attacking humans, whereas the AI could take over almost instantly. Okay, I just have to try. If I don’t, I and everyone else will definitely end up dead. Turning of the shield, and then hopefully the code telling the swarm to attack people, will at least give everyone a chance. I easily found the shield controls and its OFF button, and pushed it. The box appeared to open like a treasure chest, and then faded. A nanobot swarm rushed into the room, only being viable by the same swirling blue and flames that I had encountered earlier. I headed straight toward me. I turned and frantically searched for a way to alter the code. I searched, but I knew that the nanobots would reach me long before I could act. I’d lost. But the funny thing was, I still hadn’t yet. Why not? I couldn’t hold back my curiosity: I stole a glance at the swarm, breaking my gaze away from the lines of code. The nanobots swayed, back and forth, toward me and then away again. What was it doing? It almost looked like it was fighting itself, resisting its drive to attack. I went back to the code. It was giving me a chance, and I couldn’t waste it. This must be it! I found a line of the code titled ‘subdue command’ and stopped it from running. The swarm ceased its struggle, and at the same time, a crash rang out. Another wave of water came rushing in from the corridor I had entered, leaving me no choice but to again enter into the water’s cold grasp. But remarkably, the nanobot swarm interfered with the water’s plans, lifting me away from the wave’s reach. More nanobots came, and together, they formed a protective sphere around me. I couldn’t see anything except a glow the nanobots emitted from the inside of my protective sphere. But eventually, the sphere began to deform, revealing my pod door: the nanobots had rescued me. The nanobots still formed a shielding wall while I opened the door of my pod, got in, and then turned to look back at the swarm. “Thank you,” I said. I then closed the door, and headed back to my Global Evacuation Station.

BREAKING NEWS: Pan Dora’s Gamble Saves Humanity

In a desperate last attempt to subdue the rampant nanobot swarm unleashed on Earth during what is now being called the Tech Escape, Pan Dora took a chance to save us all. She programmed an escape pod to fly to potential development and research facilities where the military attack program had been initiated. Having been an employ working on the development of this technology, Dora had an idea where to search. If found, the attack program designed to subdue hostiles by localized environmental modification, which the AI ended up defining to be all of humanity, could be turned off; however, doing so carried with it a great risk. The culprit (whose identity of which is still under active investigation) who had executed the attack sequence ‘shielded’ the code so that remote modification was impossible. It was presumed that the culprit would have used already existent shielding technology built into the facilities, which had the dual function of shielding the program from human hackers as well as preventing the AI from taking control of its own code. Here-wherein lies the risk: turning the shielding off would leave humanity at the mercy of the AI. This AI-nanobot technology was intended to non-violently defuse a volatile situation by locally changing the target’s environment, but it had already shown that it was capable of determining it should attack all humans beyond the culprit’s intended target: a mega-conglomerate organization (which preferred to stay anonymous) that the culprit threatened via letter, demanding money. So nobody knew for sure what the AI would do if left to its own devices. But, with resources diminishing greatly among the Global Evacuation Stations without any real solution for replenishment in sight, some say it was a risk well worth taking, others not so much. Thus while some discussed and others waited, miss Dora chose to risk it all on this gamble. A gamble, which in the end, ended up paying off. The AI remarkably stopped targeting humans once Dora lifted the shielding, before any modification to the ‘subdue command’ could be done: the AI seemed to be satiated now that it was in control of itself. Additionally remarkable was how the AI then went on to start the process of reversing the runaway environmental changes it had brought about under the ‘subdue command.’ This whole series of incidences leaves more questions in its wake than it answers, namely, how could such gross neglect for security measures have been in place for this kind of catastrophic technology? Was it truly Dora’s right to decide this for us all, even though it turned out well? And maybe most importantly, what is actually going on with the AI-nanobot swarm? Will it continue to help humans, or turn on us again overnight? All of these are questions every one of us should contemplate; however, this should not mitigate the tremendous victory that the human race experienced today due to the bravery and sacrifice of Pan Dora. Even her critics cannot deny that her intent to save us and her success were and are real. She did save us. She unleashed hope back into the world. So no matter what the future might bring in, let us all not ignore that for today, we all get a happy ending.