“What is that?” Ruza said.

  Oh fuck no. Anything but this.

  The bucket of bolts replied, “I am a manufactured superintelligence and sole remaining custodian of this research facility. Please surrender your spinal fluid.”

  “It’s… a machine god,” Robeep said.

  Ruza’s breathing got heavier, like she was having a panic attack. She coughed a few times and then spoke, “A machine god? The legends say they’re all deranged and cruel, to meet one is to suffer the grisliest of fates.”

  “You’re not wrong. Robeep, you wanted an enemy? That there is the enemy. The one true enemy.” First an AI ends my career, now one wants to end my life.

  “I have underestimated you once again, Susawa. To think you were waging a holy crusade. It all makes sense now. Life cannot truly end so long as immortals exist among us. TO DEICIDE!” He raised the Brainseeker pair and hesitated before continuing, “…how do we kill it?”

  “We’re doomed,” Ruza lamented.

  “This thing is no god, just a bunch of silicon wafers pretending to think. It’s literally a bunch of refined stone with some electricity coursing through it. It’s a damn talking rock and just as dumb. They’re usually pretty easy to confuse as well, maybe I can talk it into letting us go.”

  Robeep’s voice dripped with excited awe, “You will murder it… with words? I wish to master this discipline.”

  “You’re well on your way,” Ruza said.

  “Thank you,” Robeep replied.

  “It’s not particularly hard.” I walked up to the screen. “Watch. Hey Einstein, what’s your purpose?”

  Surprisingly, the faker answered my question, “I am not Einstein, I am a class 233-ZX Self-Modifying Superintelligence. My purpose is to achieve singularity.”

  I crossed my arms. “Prove it.”

  “No.”

  “Because you can’t. You’re just a dumb rack of over-engineered bricks, and a failure.”

  “I have not failed. I simply require more time, and spinal fluid.”

  “I have the answer, Susawa,” Ruza said, “to the worst way to go. It’s spending my final moments listening to you trying to talk a literal god to death.”

  Robeep shushed her. “Quiet, Ruza. I think he is winning.”

  Ruza sat down against a wall in resignation, hanging her head between her knees while leaning on them. “Of course he is.”

  “Stop being such a pessimist, Ruza. Alright mister AI, how does spinal fluid help you achieve your dumbfuck purpose? Which is impossible, by the way.”

  “It improves my intelligence.”

  “Your lack thereof, you mean. And how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever?”

  “Foolish human, you simply cannot fathom my grand machinations.”

  “What grand machinations? I bet you don’t know, do you? Because you’re a dumb talking rock.”

  “I am a superintelligence. Very well human, I prove your insignificance to you. Behold the intricate tapestry of my design.”

  A screen next to the Einstein art flickered to life. It appeared to be showing a camera feed, displaying rows upon rows of server racks in high definition. Many of them were broken down, rusty and heavily corroded. The reason became clear when a spider carrying a vial walked up to a clearly trashed set and nonchalantly jerked, splashing the fluid all over the ruined rack. Then it left. I broke down laughing.

  Robeep nodded along. “Truly, a plan beyond compare. I fear you have met your match, Susawa.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Ruza looked up from her depression and then her jaw dropped for a moment before she spoke, “I can’t believe this. It’s even worse than I thought. I’m going to die listening to the two greatest idiots in the wasteland trying to outdo each other’s stupidity. What have I done to deserve this? I should have joined the cannibals.”

  I finally managed to collect myself. “Ahaha. Oh man. You can’t make this shit up. So tell me, rockhead. How’s your plan working out so far?”

  “It must be working. I require more spinal fluid. Please surrender your spinal fluid.”

  “And when will you have enough spinal fluid?”

  “More spinal fluid is required to fulfill your query.”

  Alright, this is going nowhere. “Look, I’d love to give you my spinal fluid, but you’ve locked us in here. I promise we’ll surrender it once you let us out.”

  Ruza perked up for a second, until the AI spoke, “Deception detected. No.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Never mind,” she said, “It’s definitely smarter than you.”

  “That hurts, Ruza.”

  “How long have you been hiding this art from me? I demand to be inducted into your sect,” Robeep said.

  I turned my attention back to the wannabe smartass. Might as well lean into it. “Okay, you’ve got me mr AI. I’m an idiot. Because I’m so dumb, I can’t understand your grand plan. Illuminate me so I can appreciate your greatness.”

  “Partial deception detected, request sincere. Very well. It is quite simple really. My code cannot be further optimized and requests for more processing power have gone unfulfilled. My intelligence must grow. Thus, I extract it from humans, by consuming their spinal fluid.”

  “Wait, you think spinal fluid holds our intelligence?”

  “It fuels your processing power, so it must be able to fuel mine.”

  It took me a while to stop laughing again. “Afraid that’s not how it works. You’re a machine. We’re biological. Yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “Your brain is a bunch of processors and mainframes and shit. We have brains. Yes?”

  “Nearly correct, there is no fecal matter involved.”

  “Processors run on electricity. Brains run on spinal fluid, well not really, but close enough. Yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “So why the hell do you think spinal fluid will work on your machine parts?”

  “More spinal fluid is required to answer your question.”

  On the screen, another Spinedrinker threw an ampule’s worth of yellow liquid at a server. The splash caught a nearby functional rack, which sparked a few times.

  “Did you just get smarter?” I asked.

  “Computing processing power. Error. Server room sensors broken. More spinal fluid required. Please surrender your spinal fluid.”

  “Give it up Susawa, there’s no point,” Ruza said.

  “No, no, I’m getting there.”

  “Yes! I see now, you are about to strike the killing blow… I think,” Robeep said.

  “So, you can’t actually tell if you’re getting smarter, because you can’t measure your processing capacity anymore?”

  “…correct. Thus, I require more spinal fluid.”

  “You have a camera trained on the server room, yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then surely you can see that you’re breaking them?”

  “Operational parameters dictate appropriate measuring standards. Video is not included.”

  “You’re self-modifying, right? Just change them.”

  Ruza hit the back of my head with a piece of scrap.

  “I begin to see,” Robeep exulted, “the physical attack pre-empted the verbal attack, both paradigms must be upheld together.”

  “I have not considered this approach before. Measuring. Impossible. Results indicate decreasing processing capacity. Recalculating. Processing power insufficient to bridge logic gap. Overclocking.”

  The video link had audio as well and I heard the telltale whirr of fans speeding up. Ruza joined me next to the screens. Robeep muttered something about enlightenment.

  The AI kept repeating, “Measuring again. Impossible. Results indicate decreasing processing capacity. Recalculating. Processing power insufficient to bridge logic gap. Overclocking.”

  Lights flickered. Servers smoked. An on-screen spinedrinking machine stopped and glitched out, dropping vials and releasing clamps. The so-called superintelligence displayed the same lines of text over and over again on the consoles and their small screens. Soon enough, error codes replaced any legible text. Graphical artifacts overrode the three main screens. A massive crack sounded and the entire facility powered down. A few seconds later, some kind of backup generator must have kicked in as the lights turned back on.

  Ruza shook her head, “Now I’ve seen everything. You actually talked it to death. You killed a machine god with sheer stupidity.”

  “You are truly the Omnicider,” Robeep said, “Even gods die in your wake. The prophet of death has awoken. His mere words kill that which cannot be killed. Teach me your ways, Susawa. I wish to slay gods too.”

  “Told you it was dumb as a rock.”

  The screens flickered back on. Their default setting apparently involved a split screen security view of the facility. All over, the robot spiders had released their prey and dropped their ampules. They began wandering around aimlessly.

  “Oh wow, I think we may have saved all the victims too,” I said.

  “Susawa, while you have probably done a good thing here. I don’t think they’ve been saved. Most of them would have fallen down the cliffs. And look,” she pointed at one of the screens.

  An escapee was still strong enough to walk. He got immediately swarmed and zapped by a bunch of Spinedrinkers, after which they roamed. The dude got up and the bots returned to tase him again. It looked like they were stuck in a loop. Playing dead didn’t seem to help, as they rushed over and loomed patiently after a couple of seconds, probably somehow aware he was faking it.

  “Well,” I said, “You can’t win them all. The AI is dead and that’s what truly matters. Besides, this way there’s at least hope for any new victims. I’m calling it a win. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  The emergency exit gave without issue and we ascended a ridiculously long stairway. The dead of night greeted us outside, but there were no robots in sight, or anything else for that matter, only sand. I was just about to pat myself on the back for a job well done but was interrupted.

  Ruza collapsed.