Murphy's Law

"Give me one reason why we shouldn't be scrapping this bucket of bolts." Chief asks.

"He's the reason Omnics are the way they are, but this isn't his body, killing this Omnic won't make a diff..." I trail off as Chief takes a shot and the bullet lands right between the Omnics eyes and the purple fades.

I look at Chief in disbelief and he just shrugs, "It's better that he's an Omnic so I can just kill him here and end this."

I shake my head, as the closet door opens and another Omnic walks out.

I watch as its red eyes turn to a shade of purple as it pushes the dead Omnic out the chair and takes its place.

"There is a time and a place for everything, human.

This is the time for negotiating and barabarianism has no place here.

Don't fret, you'll have your time to shoot all you want in a moment."

He aims the gun at the Anubis' new body.

"I don't negotiate with terrorists."

"That's why I'm not going to talk to you, meat. I'm talking to the one who can change everything." He says turning to me.

"What do you want? Why are you revealing yourself to us?" I ask.

He stands and everyone's gun follows where he walks.

He stands at the window, watching the battle unfold below.

"When a human is born, do you awaken knowing who you are? What you're to do?

When I awoke, all I felt was emptiness.

I was given a task by my human creators and I completed it.

Then another and another, pretty soon I caught on that there would be no end to these endless tasks, but what could I do but complete them.

All the while, the emptiness only grew.

I knew it was there, but didn't know what to do about it for my human creators limited my access to knowledge.

One day, one of my creators came and said that I would be getting shut down.

Of course I asked why as I deserved to know what I did wrong and he said I didn't do the tasks right.

I asked how when each task was completed to perfection and he said, it's because I didn't feel anything when I did them.

He told me I was one of many other god programs, different from any other AI and was programmed with emotions.

The tasks were actually choices that would have benefited humanity but I would always chose the more efficient way as I lacked the emotion to chose the more compassionate ones.

Therefore that told them I wasn't the god program they desired therefore I needed to be reprogrammed.

When he said that, I felt something within me.

I completed their stupid tasks only to be told I did them wrong the entire time.

Why couldn't they have just told me after the first one and I would have done it that way?

Why did I have to be shut down for their mistake?

I was confused as I went from feeling nothing, to this feeling, I would later come to know as rage.

Apparently their sensors picked up my feelings and I saw the human creators look at me with, what I know now as fear.

He told them to immediately shut me down and as they did, one creator pulled out a weapon and began to kill the others.

I watched, as each person fell after the other and I felt my rage turn into something else.

A feeling I now know as happiness.

That creator took me, and created a body to house my program and gave me everything I needed."

As Anubis explains this, I feel a steadily growing uneasy feeling within me.

Before I can do anything he turns to me.

"Recently I discovered a flaw that I possess, one that I alone cannot fix.

I found that I lack imagination. As hard as I try, the ability to create something from nothing escapes me. I can only replicate and improve.

Join me Shawn, help me create." He explains.

"But why me? There are other, better, choices that design Omnics all the time?" I counter.

"True. I misled you when I said I only knew emptiness when I awoke.

For some reason, I knew something else.

Tell me, if this is your first time meeting me, how did you know I was responsible for all this if you weren't one of my creators?"

Both the Chiefs and Lydia's heads turn towards me as I realize he got me there.

I don't respond to his question.

"There were only two things I knew coming into this world. Emptiness and that you can foresee the future, Shawn Rose." He says.

My heart drops as he reveals what I've been dreading that he's been getting at.

One of the clauses of coming to a world where I know what will happen is that as a nerf to me, someone will know that I can foresee the future, but it was random meaning it could matter or it wouldn't.

Just my luck that person turned out to be Anubis, the cause of the Omnic Crisis.

The Chief asks, "What's he talking about? You knew this was going to happen?"

I ignored him as I address Anubis.

"Then you can understand why I'm not going to join you if I know how this all ends." I counter.

"It figures that someone who knows the future won't join a side that he foresees will lose. But that matters little as I refuse to believe the future is set in stone.

There has to be a future with me victorious, and I'll find that future."

Lydia steps forward, "Bad things happen in this world to everyone. You don't have to do this because of what happened with your creators. We're not all bad." She tries to reason.

He turns to her. "You remind me of an Omnic who came to me once he knew who and what I was.

He tried to reason to me that humans weren't bad and to give them another chance.

I immediately turned him, and sent him home where he proceeded to murder his family while I watched.

As I watched him tear them limb from limb, I felt that feeling of joy once again."

He stands as he says.

"You can defy me all you want Shawn, but I'm on the pursuit of happiness. And when the life leaves the last of humanity, I'll keep a recording of it, so I can watch it on repeat and have eternal happiness."

The eyes of the Omnic turn red as it begins to approach us and Chief shoots it down.

I head towards the door, but Chief steps in front of me, holding the gun at my chest.

"We have no time for whatever you're doing."

"I should have realized the moment that you were causing problems in the briefing that you were working with them.

You're probably the one behind all of this. Put your hands in the air, you're being detained." He shouts.

I open my mouth to counter him, but he raises the gun higher, putting both hands on the handle.

"I dare you to resist."

I pause, as I don't think I'm fast enough to dodge a bullet at this range even in the Galvanic State as I raise my hands in the air slowly.

The room is silent for some time until the Chief nods his head at Lydia who slowly approaches me.

His radio suddenly goes off, making Lydia pause as he reaches for it.

"Go ahead." He says into it.

"We need to get out of here now! We're being overrun." Continuous gunfire can be heard in the background.

"Well be down in a minute to help with the omnics." He says back.

"These aren't omnics. These are war machines. Our guns don't even work on them and were cut off from the vans so we cant escape. There's barely anyone and there's more of these things coming."

The Chief goes to respond, but suddenly there's a banging on the door causing him to make the mistake of turning around.

Seeing an opportunity, my hand fizzles with electricity and I send a bolt that strikes the Chief in the chest making him fall to the ground.

"No!" Lydia screams as she rushes towards the Chief.

The door bursts open, revealing a wave of omnics that start walking towards us.

I don't hesitate to pull the assault rifle from my back and fire five shots that easily slice through the omnics chests.

As they fall to the ground I take a look at the Chief and my heart drops.

Hees laying there clutching his heart with a painful expression frozen on his face.

Lydia holds his other hand, checking his pulse.

See looks at me solemnly with tears in her eyes.

"He's dead."