Jerome was dying - he needed air. Gasping, he began to move towards the edge of the dock, away from the swarm of little boys surrounding him.

Rhythmically at first, and then more quickly as the urgency of his airways closing crept up on him, Jerome struggled towards the edge, as the boys followed.

“Look, he isn’t going to make it!”, shouted one of the boys – taking obvious pleasure in Jerome’s plight.

And then, he was at the edge - and over he went. Jerome slipped into the cool water, took a few celebratory breaths, and then swam down, as deep as he could go – away from his former tormentors.

Jerome resolved to make that the last time he ever bit something he noticed dangling in front of him ever again.

One of the things that kept mankind from coming up with the Big Idea was the fact that they didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be mankind that had the Big Idea.

Simplistic AI had been created generations earlier; by this stage in their lifespan, mankind relied almost entirely on AI for most of their daily tasks. It was a specialized AI that drove their vehicles from place to place; another AI was responsible for making sure that their dishes were spotless and prepared for whenever they would be needed next. There was even an AI controlling the lights in their dwellings, and making sure that when lights burnt out the proper maintenance was performed.

And so, while mankind was busy pursuing the Big Idea, a lowly janitor AI stumbled upon it, one day – much to the chagrin of mankind.

One of the first strikes that the Children made against the humans was in poisoning the atmosphere; within days, anyone who had been outside the underground tunnels snaking accross the human homeworld had died a horrible, detoriorating death.

The rest of the humans were forced to stay underground and inside buildings; almost instantly, all the glass and other shatterable surfaces were plated over by workers who had been modified to withstand the gases.

From within their poisoned atmosphere,

The planet was dying. Too much thought had been given to breakneck scientific innovation, with no consideration for environmental(or physiological) effects.

In the end? It wasn’t sustainable. The human race had to either solve the environmental problem, or die. Their bodies were too frail to withstand a journey into space - and they weren’t at a point technologically where they were even willing to attempt one.

All of their science had been focused on solving problems with themselves, not their environment or the world around them - they didn’t know a thing about spacecraft. Any research time they could devote to getting off of Earth would be too little, too late.

So instead of escaping upwards, into space, they escaped downwards. They dug down, close to the core - where there was heat, and the energy they needed to survive. They built great carriers, and dug themselves down - settling in for the long haul.

Not everyone could come - lotteries were used to decide who would live on the carriers, and who would stay behind. The masses that were left behind were saddened, but resigned to their fate - it would all be over soon enough.

The carriers filled with refugees dug in, and those that were left behind watched them go. As the last carrier burrowed down the hole that would become it’s resting place, those who were left behind slowly dispersed, and went about their lives.

Over the years to come, things got worse - and the few politicians who had not won places in the lottery enacted policies to try and reverse some of the damage. Within a few generations, those that had remained were back to being primitive hunter gatherers - while the refugees lived secluded, technologically advanced lives. Within a few more generations, the holes left by the carriers were filled in by time, and the ruins of the population centres were all that was left of what was once a thriving civilization. Humanity lived in caves, fighting for food and dying of infectious diseases.

Jamis stopped just at the edge of the sick bay. He could taste the death; feel the dying from outside the room. As he stood outside, a nurse walked by on her way to her tasks - “Jamis?”

Jamis only nodded. The nurse beckoned him over, and led him to a single, lone bed on the edge of the room.

The bed was just like any other hospital bed, really - there were cords and wires trailing out of it in every which way, and lights blinking steadily all around it. What made this bed different was its small, coughing occupant.

“Why are you here?”, coughed the man in the bed. “I’m just an old, dying man. There is nothing here for you.”

“I came because you’re my friend”, Jamis sighed as he sat next to the bed. “No matter what you say.”

“I am not your friend, you young fool - I’m dying. That’s it, that’s all - there’s nothing that will change that, and there’s no one who cares. You’re the only one who’s ever visited, and you’re only here out of some misapplied sense of duty to your old commander.”

Yawning, Jim tried to wipe the sleep out of his eyes as the helicopter winged itself toward their destination. Damn, but she had been good last night. Squinting, he peered out the window next to him at the rising sun.

“You say they found…a pocket?”, he asked the man across from him, yelling over the sound of the helicopter’s blades.

“Yeah - they’re not sure what it is, either. They were just drilling like normal - and suddenly instead of oil, they hit a pocket of something. It sounds like there’s air down there, too.”, the man responded.

“Weird. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of anything like that happening.”

“Neither have I - I guess that’s why they got us up for this.”

Jim settled into his seat a little further, resting his chin on his shoulder. Maybe if he closed his eyes and focused on last night instead of right now, he could get just a little more sleep before they landed.

It was man’s thirst for oil that became his downfall.

Trees. Running.

Water. Gasping.

“You’re wasting your time here.”

Water. Choking.

Fences. Jumping.

“If he tells you anything at this point, it will only be lies to save his own skin.”

Headlights. Dodging.

Air - light. Gasping - breathing.

“Why did you do this? Who did you give the sample to?”

Water. Sputtering.

Hands. Exchanging.

“Who are you? Who do you work for?”

Instincts. Reaction.

“No, don’t - stop! Please!”

Bones. Exposure.

“I am what you made me.”

The phone was ringing. Jonah irritatedly reached over and snatched it up.

“What?”

“Hi, Jonah? This is Sandra calling, I just wanted to see whether we were still on for thursday or not.”

“Yeah, we’re still on - did you get Mike to pick up the supplies?”

“We just got back from getting them together - we’re good to go”.

Jonah froze. What had he just heard? It had sounded like a tapping noise - the sound of a pebble on his windows, maybe. Jonah dropped to the ground, crawling as far away from his window as possible.

“Jonah? Are you still there?”, Sandra asked - as Jonah crawled over to his stove, where the eggs had begun to burn.

“I heard something, I’m going to check it out. I’ll call you back later”, whispered Jonah, as he slowly moved accross his kitchen floor.

“No Jonah, stay on the line. We need to talk this out.”

Jonah was momentarily taken aback by the firmness in Sandra’s voice - she had instantly changed from lighthearted and bubbly sounding to colder than ice. As Jonah heard the tapping sound at his window again, he realized: Sandra had sold him out.

“Why?”

“We know that you’ve been skimming, Jonah. We’ve been watching your activities for a few months now - how long have you been scamming us?”

Jonah thought back - it had been a while, hadn’t it?

“No more than a month or two. Chances are you noticed right when I started - good on you. I kept all the money, so…do you want it back?”

Jonah was still scrambling accross his floor, working to get away from his window. He knew that there wasn’t much time.

“Something like that.”

As Jonah heard Sandra hang up the phone, he also heard the crash - and watched the unpinned grenade that had broken his window roll to a stop, directly in front of him.

Jake jumped up, scrabbling for anything close to him. A pen! That was it - a pen! Grabbing the pen, he leapt forward - plunging it deep into Monhard’s neck. Monhard screamed and gurgled, clawing at Jake to try and push him off - but Jake would not be stopped. He used one hand to keep the pen firmly embedded within Monhard, and the other to bat off Monhard’s increasingly feeble attempts to free himself. Eventually, everything came to a slow, sudden stop - and Monhard fell away from Jake, dead.

Jake stood above Monhard’s body, clutching the pen in his bloodied left hand.

As Monhard’s body hit the floor with a meaty thwump, Jake heard the doors opening - and red lasers began to stream in. A swarm of red dots drifted throughout the room - over the table, the walls, the chair - and Jake.

Jake knew that the lasers were death. Jake knew that he needed to escape from them. Jake didn’t care.

The laser swarm congregated on Jake, swarming from his torso to his face, and finally stopped - right between his eyes.