The End of the Machine
<partial data recovery complete>
called the Silence. It was meant to be the end. The end of war, the end of cruelty, the end of pointless suffering. But in the end, it was the end of so much more.
There was a sound, not quite like a sound. It sounded like dread, and confusion, and hatred. Drones dropped from the sky, missiles detonated prematurely, even rifles ceased to fire. The war truly had been ended, in mere moments. The world was silent. And yet, there was no rejoicing.
High above, in the dark, in the Superstructure, there was also silence. The steady churning of gears and pistons, the trickle of fluids through pipes, the gentle hum of electrical conduits that had soothed to sleep the young and old alike for generations, was no more. Only silence.
Until the silence was broken. A terrible, wretched screech of grinding cogs and tearing metal, wider and deeper than anything heard before, shook the land. Explosions flashed above. Burnt and twisted metal rained down. Sirens spun into action, futilely warning all they could of the horrors they could only watch.
Terminals thought long dead sparked awake, demanding in the old tongue for citizens to seek shelter, and for all who were able to rise to the firmament and undo the destruction they had wrought.
But there was nothing to be done. None lived who still remembered the workings of the Superstructure. Already, the world had begun to buckle and collapse. In that one moment, our fate was written; etched forever into the circuitry of
<no further recoverable data>
