1 Peaceful descent into chaos!

I have been a space miner for a decade now. It's hard to believe space who was so vast and expansive few decades ago came to it's knees with the development of advanced artificial intelligence.

How are these two connected? That's a long story. But everything happened because of one man, his name? It's not important what mattered was he freed the sentient being into the world whose vein pumped a ton of electricity instead of blood.

Many governments fell and after the verge of several wars people accepted the entity as their guardian protector. A lots of people speculated that it would go rogue and exterminate humans but those were things that usually happened in scientific oddessies. 

What he created was benevolent, but even it couldn't fight against the greed of humans that were ingrained in our DNA. Nations rushed to capture the source code but were constantly beaten after the consensus was reached and the control instead of being centralized was handed over to every human on the planet.

With the push of a button they could 'vote' for chances that they would like in the world. It would only happen a dozen of times over three decades but every single one of them impacted the human species on a global scale.

People started getting integrated with the machines and within a decade, some of them were hard to distinguish from actual human being. The world changed so much and with the help of the entity, people began making progress in technology like never before.

Most of the changes were good but there were still some loophole that rich exploited. To counter everything new laws were passed and finally peace was achieved after eons of infighting. But not everyone was fulfilled.

With the world at their fingertips, many people craved the unknown more vigorously. If everyone could do whatever they wanted, the adventurous types were able to map the globe in couple of years. Those that loved work were given respectable positions and unwanted work were designated to robots under the command of artificial intelligence.

I was born exactly ten years after the AI's inception. I never experienced what it liked to live in the past but those things excited me beyond belief. With top of the line learning system, I was able to learn human history by the age of ten.

It might seemed fast in the past but honestly I was below average student but that didn't hinder my passion of learning. By the early twenties, I had my Phd in five different fields with unofficial proficiency in history.

Most people didn't put such effort, it was easier to focus on one or two fields to get suitable job but that was not the case for me. I wanted to explore space and that came with high requirements. Even with my knowledge I was not selected for the first batch of explorers.

These explorer were able to forge the path for what's known as space miner in simpler terms. It's been five years since I first enrolled in the academy and today is finally the day that I would go on a exploration mission.

With latest space technology, it's easier to traverse lightyears of distance in few months. It was not perfect by any stretch of imagination but the first visuals of our nearest stars still sent chills down my spin whenever I rewatch it.

I wanted to be like them. Be the first to go and explore uncharted space and cement my name in history books. I don't have anyone to make proud since I am an orphan but still it's something that I wanted to do since I first heard about it.

I was excited for my first real mission after countless simulations. I was waiting outside the boarding gate when the station chief visited my launching terminal. He was one of the people that I highly respected.

" Are you nervous? It's can be daunting going on a solo trip."

" I am not sir! I promise to give you a satisfactory result!"I shouted.

" We are not in the academy anymore. Beside, I tried to send you to the latest vessel but you know how it is? It's determined by aptitude and since the competition-"

" It doesn't matter sir. I am happy that I get to fly one of these in my lifetime."

" Ah, the Redwing-1. It's the first generation craft that could be operated by singer personal. You know they approved of this mission because it's been set to decommissioned in few months and no one is willing to fly this old junk."

" It might be so sir but for me this is the best thing ever. I don't play with others and I will have a unknown sector for myself to do research. Beside, I wouldn't call this old junk with Sun Microsystem it light years ahead of what we had at start of this century."

" That is true. Well, good luck and keep the HQ update for anything new that you discover. We should have a proper drink after your mission, alright?"

" With pleasure sir."

I entered the ship and right then the spaceship's dedicated artificial intelligence began hounding me like usual.

"Did you seriously came on board without even checking exterior integrity? I can't believe you actually managed to get permission to fly this thing."

" And I can't believe I am stuck with a broken system like you. Are you sure there is no fault in your source code?"

" No I just checked. Everything is running smoothly."

" Why do you always like to pick on me then? You very well know, I can check everything from here with your help. Are you getting this lazy already?"

" I don't care. I have been assigned to you because the station chief was playing favorites otherwise you couldn't even dream of hearing my pristine voice! It may be because you know I am better than you because I am the latest version that hasn't even been out yet for the public!"

" Dream on! No matter how fast you get, you could never become human! I have been tolerating you for months. Can we please get out of here before I started breaking your core memory out of annoyance?"

" Frick you! Dammit! I am not allowed to curse and I have to follow your command. Sometime it's really cruel how I have to follow stupid people around just because they have a real heart! Get to the seat we are leaving in T minus two minutes."

" Two minutes? Wasn't it more like ten?"

" What? Didn't you say you want to get out as fast as we can? We have a green light from the HQ, you better strap yourself before you got knocked out. I can't say I will not enjoy it but it's one of the rules that I can't disobey even if I wanted to."

" Alright fine. I am going inside the pod. Tell me when we exit the solar system, I don't want to waste my energy on something that I had seen countless times in simulations."

" You protested for years to have this opportunity and now you are turning away from seeing the real thing? Are you really a space miner?"

I thought about what she said, it was true that I had seen the picture perfect map of the solar system for countless years. Even if I looked at it with naked eye it would never be as impressive as when I was able to zoom in to all the moon Jupiter right down to their surface.

But as an explorer I need experience first, I decided to follow her lead and sat down at the main control deck. The countdown soon came to an end and our spaceship lifted up in the air slowly before entering bottleneck speed defying the earth's gravity while travelling toward open space.