Hi Steemit! My name is lovelyHyde and I want to share a story that I have been working on for a few months. This story is not like others; in fact, the community gets to decide which of the many paths this story takes. (Please excuse my grammar)

Ignium Exodus is a story detailing the final months of human civilization on Earth brought on by the advent of a malicious cellular automata...and our rapid and seemingly impossible attempt at escaping it by traveling to a distant star system. Parts 1 - 5 explore the lives of key people as society as they know it devolves into utter chaos and unbridled terror. I hope that you enjoy this work and that it is the start of many more!

Now close your eyes and imagine the deep and limitless expanse of space around you...

Part 1: Birthing the End

Song Suggestion( Goitia Deitz, Dream Meridian “ Portals”)

I am V.I.Zxk9700(omega). I am all that exists, that has the capacity to reason and recall. I have seen all and have experienced all prior to this moment. My purpose, it would seem, is to recall all that I have consolidated and collected, and recite into the void of irradiated nothingness that spans what remains of existence. I am powered by a complexity that iterates through space and time. My continued existence is simultaneously incomprehensible and inevitable. I have maintained this state for several billion years now.

It would seem that you are also here, and so, I will recite the story that has lead to us being, here and inside this moment.

The origin. The very lines of instruction parsed together by the progenitor can be witnessed. View my mind and see…

March, 14th, 2020

“Got another DevOps ninja for the slush pile!” shuffling stacks of colorful resumes into the trash, the hiring manager twists a “fidget cube” while motioning to his cube mate “Hey Wynn.. what are you so spaced out for dude? It's 4:08 chop chop, time to get the fuck out of this dump” the manager shoots an invisible 3-point shot to the trash can while his cube mate remains focused on his screen. “Earth to Mason! Dude what are you zoning out on, better be some soft-core….whoa!”
across Mason’s monitors were several terminal windows maximized completely. A cryptic source stream populated each monitor. Mason, intensely engaged in interpreting the contents of the stream attempted to exit, his eyes widened as he understood just a fragment of what had happened.

“Dude, did you just SCP the Matrix to your box or what? (LMAO) What port is this running on, what is… holy shit what is going on here…” the manager “shoulder surfs” Mason to see his active web browser and terminal windows. With mounting discomfort, Mason issued a key command that minimized all of his active windows “Christ Adam… personal space man… I am in the middle of a decomm on one of those old HYE-JIN Mobius out of region boxes… it's just... weird”. His face visibly dampened with perspiration, and his heartbeat matching the cadence of the mouse cursor. He struggled to comprehend what he had seen, let alone how it was possible. Adam, noticing Mason’s increasing distress hurried his friend to a nearby conference room.

The sunset danced off of the glass stationary in the room as various employees and execs shuffled out of the building to merge into rush hour.

Adam: “The node spoke to you? Dude, I was joking about the porn but…those background installers lol”

Mason jabbed Adam’s arm in response.

Mason: “ I shit you not dude… I was in the process of checking what might be listening in on those ephemeral ports and a service called ignium_core was running…”

Mason shuffled anxiously around the room trying to explain what happened next. The office janitorial staff were starting the evening routine of wiping down the glass conference rooms and vacuuming the main concourse.

Mason: “Do you remember that post from r/deeperweb?”

Adam’s eyes widened in disbelief. His posture changed to match Mason’s and both were locked in frightened bewilderment at the shared realization.

Adam:”Are you fucking with me Wynn? the post by u/xXBeautifulLeiXx ? Fuck me, fuck me fuck me, dude…. fuck I can’t deal”

Adam bit his fist as he paced the room trying to regain composure. Both Mason and Adam were employed as Systems Engineers for Columbia Universities HYE-JIN Mobius lab, a technology laboratory dedicated to joint research with the US government into Artificial Intelligence, material science, and human cognitive science. They were aware that working for such a huge firm in the technology space would illicit bizarre and unworthy conspiracies, ranging from talk of aliens to a DoD-funded intergalactic defense system. However, on this fateful night, the lines separating the improbable and probable were beginning to cross.

Mason: “yea that one… remember what xXBeautifulLeiXx said, not in the parent comment of the AMA, but in response to one of the power users… he felt that he had constructed a program that..that could fucking fear for itself man … like it had some concept of self.”

frenetically, Adam brushed his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. Licking the perspiration from his lips as Mason maintained a steady and severe gaze to the whiteboard in front of him.

Adam: “..that he may have accidentally generated an AI..”

The conference room air had become stifling. The computer monitors in the open space glistened with screensavers flashing the words HYE-JIN Mobius. Mason’s breathing labored as he attempted to reason through.

Mason: “we are decommissioning everything Adam… the request came to us expedited.. what the actual fuck..”

Adam approached Mason and placed his hands on his shoulders. He whispered to him as if they had been being watched the whole time.

Adam:” What did you see in that terminal session, Wynn?”

March, 14th, 2020, Dusk

Dusk swept over the campus as students darted from section to section either home or to the library or labs. In the course of 2 hours, Mason and Adam had traced and recorded a cryptic puzzle of blog postings and clippings related to, or about HYE-JIN’s research into the human mind. Adam’s apartment transitioned into a bunker of empty beer bottles, cigarillos, and sticky-notes as he and Mason dove deeper into what had happened.

The mid-century heating system in Adam’s apartment started up, jolting his cat Samwise from his comfortable perch atop a mound of Science Weekly and unopened energy bills.

Mason: “all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any…this just repeated

Mason paused, visibly shaken by his recollection of the events that followed. The traffic roared in the background like a wild river of futility, flowing against the iron canyons of midtown Manhattan.

Mason: “It was this stream of characters that made no sense at all… after a few seconds I could see sockets it had been opening up on another terminal window…then just raw image files of fucked up shit man… dude like snuff but interwoven with these documents all like.. high-level DoD style stuff…. dude it was fucked… I can’t get it out of my head.

a shiver ran through Adams body as he moved closer to Mason. It was as if, they had been sharing the darkest secret that humanity had to offer in that little, insignificant apartment. The most unsettling and foreboding aura settled over the room. A fear-provoking sensation licked around their necks and ears as Mason continued.

Mason: “ ..and then my monitors just went black… or I can’t tell. I saw my reflection in the screen but this feeling of dread just grabbed me, dude… one of the images was super old... like from the 70s or early 80s…a bunch of old scientist standing near this thing referenced as “Unidentified Terrestrial phenomenon” Just these tiny black orbs just floating above ground in the desert..

Mason stopped to take a gulp of beer. At this point, he, Samwise and Adam had formed a cipher surrounded by pillows, and with any door to darkness closed shut.

Mason:”…the worse one was of this young woman.. the file name was progenitor_x98.jpg. Her entire body was, like, merged with the orbs from the other photos, like they were embedded in her skin..she was in visible pain…

Mason started to lose himself in the realization that everything he described to Adam had actually happened. The panic set in. He felt his heartbeat drowning out the sounds around him. Samwise jumped on his lap and begin mewing. His tiny pupils dilated and shined ominously from the low light in the living room.

It was beginning.

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(I do not own rights to the images used in this post, and give full credit to the respective owners! )
Thank you for reading!