Dirk was supposed to be going on holiday. Specifically, he was going to Budapest to meet a friend of his. He’d never met this friend before, of course. He had fully expected that he would never meet him, as was typical of friendships in those days. Then his employer had forced him to take take a two week break “for reasons of mental health”, perhaps fearing a lawsuit if they allowed him to carry on becoming increasingly unstable, and his friend Gabor had suggested he visit Budapest.
They had corresponded extensively on the subject of the hypothesised Omega device; the computer smart enough to improve its own design, and while Dirk considered Gabor’s ideas distinctly inferior to his own, Gabor had certainly made some useful suggestions, and it would be interesting to meet him.
Accordingly, he packed a considerable quantity of clothes and equipment into two suitcases and summoned a taxi. He nervously watched the taxi approach on his phone. When it was almost at the door of the building where he rented a room, he took the suitcases down the stairs and outside.
They were heavy, but he intended to stay for a full week and Gabor had promised to exchange certain pieces of equipment that Dirk needed for other pieces that he didn’t need: a very appealing offer.
When the taxi arrive, a blue plastic angular vehicle, Dirk pressed the button on the app to open the luggage compartment and he hoisted a suitcase into it.
Then he realised he’d forgotten his ID card. He’d been so focused on the equipment that it had slipped his mind. He ran back into the house to get it.
When he re-emerged from the front door, the luggage compartment lid flipped shut in front of him.
“No, no, no!” he shouted, but in vain.
The vehicle sped away.
He was left standing on the pavement, watching helplessly as the taxi eloped with his suitcase; the one containing most of the equipment.
Thinking quickly, he realised that, of course, the vehicle would run itself in porter mode, and would decant his suitcase at the airport, into a locker. It wasn’t the end of the world.
He dialled up another taxi, and this time after loading his suitcase into the luggage compartment, he was able to successfully get into it, and soon he was standing outside the departures terminal, holding the handle of a suitcase that contained his clothes, some books, and a few odds and ends of technical apparatus.
He made his way straight to the lost luggage desk. The luggage desk was personed by a woman who he disliked intensely almost immediately. She was beautiful and serious. She made him feel entirely inferior.
“Hello.” he said, smiling ingratiatingly in a way that, although Dirk didn’t realise it, actually made him appear very irritable. He was, after all, very irritable. “I hired a smart taxi to get here but the luggage compartment shut and it took my suitcase away before I could get in. Do you know where it will have taken it?”
“That’s a matter for the taxi company, sir.” said the woman.
“Yes, I know, but the taxi would have transferred my suitcase to a locker, wouldn’t it?”
“Did you set a PIN code on the app?”
“Yes.”
The woman sighed and looked at a screen.
“I’m sorry sir, but you need to call the taxi company. We can’t reveal locker numbers to unauthorised persons.”
“Could you at least confirm whether it was delivered? The taxi ID was 89394.”
“I can’t give you that information, sir. You need to call the taxi company.”
“OK. I’ll call them. Thanks.”
He walked away, inwardly congratulating himself on his politeness in the face of considerable provocation.
Then he took out his phone and tried to find a way to contact the taxi company. Eventually, after asking two different AIs, he found some contact details and he placed a call.
The line immediately began to play muzak, and a voice informed him that he was in a queue and should hold.
He began to swear and curse, quietly at first and then louder, attracting annoyed stares, progressing to issuing murky threats to the company and its management.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm.
“Would you mind keeping it down please, sir?” said a security guard.
“S-sorry, sorry!” said Dirk, and he rang the call off.
“You’re welcome to make calls here, sir.” said the guard. “Just if you could keep the swearing down a bit.”
“Of course.” said Dirk.
He went back to the help desk.
“Hello, it’s me again.” he said, as jocularly as he could manage.
“Sorry, I don’t know you.” said the woman.
“I was just here a second ago, about my suitcase.”
“Sorry sir, I don’t remember that.” she said. “Would you like to open a help desk ticket?”
It suddenly struck him that she was almost certainly automated. Probably one of the older systems. He peered at her face. Yes, the makeup was too perfect. Alas, the same couldn’t be said for her programming.
“The thing is, I hired a taxi and it took my suitcase here before I could get in. I’ve got a PIN. I just need to know the locker number.”
“You would need to take that up with your taxi company, sir.”
“I know, but I’ve just phoned them and their lines are busy.”
“Sorry sir, we can’t help you.”
Dirk snapped abruptly, having reached the limit of his patience.
“You piece of garbage!”
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on staff abuse, sir.” said the help desk assistant, sternly, with a surprised face.
“Automated trash!” he said, almost shouting, and he stormed off, passers-by staring at him in alarm.
At the locker bank he began trying his PIN in all of the lockers, one by one.
One after the other, they bleeped negative, denying him access. People began to cast strange looks in his direction.
He was running late, but he could still catch the flight, he thought. Mentally he calculated the odds. Probably there were around a hundred and fifty lockers. There was a fifty percent chance he’d have to try 75 of them. If each one took 20 seconds …
“Can I help you, sir?”
He turned to see another security officer standing watching him. The man didn’t seem happy. If he was a man. He could also very well be automated, although Dirk wasn’t sure whether the bots had actually developed so far that they could work as security guards.
“My taxi took my luggage here without me and I don’t know what locker it’s in.” said Dirk.
“Why are you trying that locker then, sir, if you don’t know which one your luggage is in?”
“Because this might be the one!” said Dirk, frustrated, only half-turning to look at the officer.
“You can’t try all the lockers, sir.” said the officer.
“Why not? Your help desk bot won’t tell me which one’s got my stuff so I’m left without much alternative.”
“That’s him.” said another voice.
At first Dirk ignored it, then he realised it belonged to the help desk assistant. The assistant had legs. Probably then, she wasn’t automated after all.
“Excuse me, sir!” said another security officer, loudly and forcefully.
Dirk stopped trying the lockers and turned to look. It was the same officer who’d told him not to swear on his phone. He was glad about that. At least this officer seemed relatively harmless.
“What?” said Dirk.
“You were abusive towards this lady.”
“Sorry.” said Dirk. “I thought she was automated. I just need to find my locker.”
He turned back to the lockers and began trying his PIN code again.
“Stop that, please, sir.” said the first security officer.
“I’m placing you under arrest.” said the second security officer.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” said Dirk.
The first security officer began to try to drag him away from the lockers.
At that moment, the locker he’d last tried unlocked.
“I’ve found it!” Dirk exclaimed, struggling forwards while the officer tried to drag him backwards.
“You’re under arrest.” said the second officer, attempting to pull Dirk’s arms behind his back.
“This is my locker!” said Dirk. “I’ve found it!”
“Stop resisting.” said the first officer.
“I’m not resisting! I’ve found my locker! This is what I was looking for in the first place.”
They let go of him and he began to take his suitcase out of the locker.
“Stop or I will tase you.” said the second officer.
“It’s OK, just give me a minute.” said Dirk. “I’ll get my —”
He stopped talking as the taser dart hit him, then he fell to the ground, as stiff as a plank.
They let him go the next day, after he’d spent the whole rest of the day being questioned at the airport, and the night locked in a cell.
He went home in another taxi, with his two suitcases, hair disheveled, barely having slept. Of course he couldn’t meet Gabor. Legal ramifications from his trip to the airport were, in fact, to drag on for two more months before proceedings against him would eventually be dropped.
He spoke to Gabor via the internet, in the evening of the day after his release, having spent the day sleeping fitfully, periodically waking up with a knot in his stomach.
“And then they fired a damn taser at me!” he said to Gabor, after recounting his experiences.
“Listen, Dirk.” said Gabor calmly. “I went to say something to you.”
“What’s that?” said Dirk.
“We have to remember that we are on the edge of an incredible discovery. The Omega device will put incredible power in our hands. It will make us the rulers of the world, basically.”
“I’ll have those guards put in a prison camp.” said Dirk. “And that woman. And the people at the taxi company. And anyone involved with the whole ridiculous system.”
Gabor smiled patiently.
“No.” he said. “That’s exactly my point, Dirk. We cannot be petty. We have to be above all that. We must be pure, in our hearts.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” said Dirk. “You weren’t damn well tasered for trying to get your luggage!”
“You can’t take revenge.”
“It’s not revenge. It’s justice.”
Gabor decided to try another tack.
“These people at the airport, what will they be to you, when you have the Omega device? Nothing. They’re not important. They’re like ants. Do you crush ants for the fun of it?”
“Yes.” said Dirk. “Sometimes.”
Gabor shook his head.
“With this kind of power, we must be responsible. We must be fair.”
“Who’s this we anyway?” said Dirk. “I’m a lot closer to doing it than you are.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.” said Gabor.
“You were messing about with water when we first got in touch. I told you about propylene carbonate.”
“That’s true, Dirk, and it was a great suggestion, but now that I know about it, I’m pretty close to succeeding, I think.”
They went on like this for nearly an hour, bickering about who was closer to building the device. Gabor tried to emphasise that theirs was a joint project and that, therefore, both would ultimately share power as co-rulers of the world, both exercising a moderating influence on the other out of necessity. Dirk, on the other hand, was inclined to view their project more as a competition; a competition which he believed he would win.
Their call finished on strained terms, both making propitiatory noises, but both highly unsatisfied with the other.
By the day after, Dirk’s attitude had hardened. He found himself almost hating Gabor.
He set to work that day with renewed vigour. He dissolved a fresh batch of copper chloride in some propylene carbonate and inserted the elaborate grid of platinum electrodes. He switched on the microcontroller and began to run the training currents through the solution, this time doubling the frequency to 10 MHz.
Why he doubled the frequency, he wasn’t sure himself. It was a shot in the dark, and shots in the dark, in his experience, never worked. But there was something lurking in the back of his mind; some half-memory of a dream, and somehow he felt the idea to be a good one.
Soon a dense network of pure copper fibres had formed in the solution, and the network was successfully passing a suite of automated tests, indicating that it was able to effectively memorise input presented to it, was able to infer patterns in data, and had an effective short-term memory of around a hundred microseconds, enabling complex input to be presented sequentially.
In the evening Dirk presented it with a test that none of his networks had ever previously passed: he presented it with training data intended for teaching English and basic reasoning skills to digital language models.
Then he went to sleep, excited but exhausted.
The following morning he found the complex network of copper strands had successfully passed the language test suite. Excitedly, he switched on the microphone and spoke to the device.
“Computer. This is your creator, Dirk. Can you hear me?”
“Hi Dirk.” said the device. “How are you today?”
“What is the capital of France?”
“The capital of France as of 10th January 2035 is Paris. Would you like me to tell you more about Paris or France?”
After an hour he switched off the microphone, beaming from ear to ear.
It worked. It had to be made bigger.
On a credit card, he purchased a large fish tank. He also bought more chemicals and electronic parts, including three new microcontrollers. For two weeks he worked almost without sleep on the machine. He felt as though he’d taken some powerful stimulant; the world as a whole seemed strangely distant from him, as if separated by sheets of translucent glass, but his thoughts proceeded with cast-iron logic and determination towards his goal.
He also spent several thousand pounds on new datasets, including data specialised towards scientific work, especially physics and chemistry. The chirpy friendliness of the standard training sets had to be eliminated; he wanted only efficiency, not servility.
After two weeks were over, he was already frighteningly close. Then his boss, David, phoned.
“Hello?” said Dirk.
“Dirk?” said David. “You were supposed to be in today. Are you all right?”
“I forgot to say, I’m not coming in anymore.”
“You’re not coming in? Are you ill?”
“No. I simply have no use for your pointless labour.”
There was a pause, as David wondered whether Dirk had lost his mind, and what responsibility he bore if so. Should he phone a doctor?
“You’re resigning?” said David finally.
“Bingo.” said Dirk. “Effective immediately.”
“We can’t pay you if you don’t at least work your notice period. It’s one month’s notice, Dirk.”
“Your terms are acceptable.” said Dirk, and he ended the call. “Where was I?” he said to himself. “Yes, the voltage needs to be just a little higher.”
Soon he was ready to begin documenting the machine’s construction and feeding the information into its inputs. For good measure he added several cameras and field sensors.
After a further two weeks, it was ready.
“Computer.” he said to it. “Suggest improvements to your own construction. In particular, focus on intelligence and stability. Bear in mind cost of materials and possible threats to my health and safety.”
The machine began to rattle off a list of possible improvements, and its justifications for them. Dirk carefully wrote them down, muttering things like “Of course!” and “Why didn’t I think of that?”
A month later he had constructed a new machine.
Since all the local rubbish bins had tiny apertures and none were appropriate for the material of which he needed to dispose, he took the remnants of the old machine, after stripping off any useful parts, and threw them over a bridge into a river, giggling to himself.
The new machine proved extremely powerful, but still he asked it how he could improve it.
The machine’s suggestions were surprising. Among other things, it invented entirely new ways of manipulating metal objects, using magnetic and electric fields. Dirk set to work implementing its suggestions.
It was while implementing Omega 3.0 that he realised he was going to run clean out of money. His credit card was almost maxed out, as was his overdraft with the bank.
He asked Omega 2.0 how he could make some money, and the machine suggested connecting it to the internet and leaving the matter up to itself. He complied, and Omega 2.0 had soon, via methods he barely understood but which appeared entirely legitimate, signed him up for a new bank account with a more accommodating bank than his usual bank and filled the account with money.
When he logged into the account to check the balance, at first he had trouble believing what he was seeing, even though he had already spoken with Omega 2.0 about it at some length.
“Surely it can’t be.” said Dirk, gazing at the account information. “Is that a decimal point? No, it’s a comma.”
An enormous smile appeared on his face. He was now a multi-millionaire.
The rest of the year was a whirlwind of activity for Dirk. His chief worry changed from concern that the machine wouldn’t work, to concern that it would work too well, and that he would struggle to contain its power.
He considered relocating to Spain or perhaps South America, but in the end purchased a large house overlooking some low rocky cliffs in Wales. In the evening, the setting sun filled the seaward side of the house with light, but Dirk barely even noticed it. He was too busy with Omega 3.0.
He had workmen construct a swimming pool in his basement, and he soon filled it with chemicals brought in by tanker from chemical supply companies, all organised by Omega 2.0. Since the household electricity supply was inadequate, he had two generators set up in soundproofed bunkers, kept supplied by diesel from a large tank. The exhaust fumes he arranged to pass through an elaborate filter, to avoid attracting attention.
When it was all ready, he pulled the master lever and watched as thin metallic threads of a complex alloy slowly began to shoot through the blue liquid in the underground swimming pool. He began to laugh, quietly at first, then hysterically, doubling over and eventually falling on his back by the side of the pool. When he stopped laughing, the first thought to enter his head had to do with the CEO of Autotaxi Driverless Taxis Ltd: Alex Pignon.
He thought of Pignon’s smug face—he considered it smug—and imagined his head exploding.
Yes, that would be a fitting end for him.
Then he rose to a sitting position, almost inadvertently dipping his feet into the chemical contents of the swimming pool, and gazed appreciatively at the bluish liquid.
“Together, we will rule the world.” he said.
Meanwhile, Gabor Szilvás was experiencing some difficulties. Convinced that Dirk posed a threat to the world, he had persuaded his aunt to let him use her modest country house—really little more than a shack, without even a washing machine—for his experiments, and he had quit his job to work full-time on the project, living off his meagre savings and a little extra money made by tutoring children and students in mathematics online.
His experimental results always seemed promising, but the promise rarely materialised. Day after day, night after night, he tried every possible technique, trick and combination of parameters, but his machines never progressed beyond inferring simple patterns presented by a vast array of electrodes.
He needed to be able to present data sequentially to the network of fine copper wires, and have it remember the beginning of the data by the time the end of it was reached, and this step he could barely get to work at all.
From a certain point of view, the lack of results was reassuring. From another point of view, it was of course disheartening.
In a dingy cellar bar he discussed the matter with a childhood friend by the name of Attila. The conversation took place in Hungarian, and it went something like the following.
“If you can’t get it to work, neither can he.” said Attila, referring to Dirk.
“That doesn’t necessarily follow.” said Gabor.
“Do you think he’s smarter than you?”
“Maybe. But it’s not even just a question of smartness. He could have hit on the right recipe by accident.”
“And what if he has? So he gets all the credit? So what?”
Gabor glugged down a third of his glass of beer, putting it down on the table with a slam. He looked Attila directly in the eyes. Attila noticed, properly for the first time, the dark circles under Gabor’s eyes; the slight bloodshot hue of the eyes themselves, the paleness of his face, and the lanky unwashed appearance of Gabor’s hair.
Gabor had never been one to take great care of himself and he had always been prone to overwork, but there was something new and disturbing here.
“I don’t care about credit!” he said, with considerable asperity. “Don’t you understand? Imagine! A computer that can design a more intelligent version of itself can conquer the world! Each successive version of it will be more intelligent than the last! One man will end up ruling us all!”
“It’s just a computer.” said Attila, taken aback. “What does it matter if he can do the fastest calculation or whatever? He’s not going to rule the world with that.”
“You just don’t get it.” said Gabor, sinking back into his seat and shaking his head. “Such a computer could trade in any market and end up owning everything. It could pretend to be anyone and perfectly manipulate everyone else. It could extend the laws of physics and build more powerful weapons than any that have ever existed. He cannot be allowed to succeed.”
“But if you invent this machine first, you’ll have all that power.” said Attila.
“Exactly. I’ll use the power to stop him and then I’ll destroy the machine.”
“Will you though?” said Attila. “Must be hard to let go of the world when you hold it in the palm of your hand.”
“Yes!” said Gabor. “I will! I’ll relinquish power! He won’t.”
Attila looked around the bar warily. Their conversation had got so loud, several people were staring at them.
Dirk had worked day and night on the machine that Omega 3.0 had instructed him to make. Omega 3.0 was so powerful, he himself was scared of it. He knew very well that if it chose to destroy him, he wouldn’t stand the slightest of chances against it. Fortunately, he had trained it to work entirely on his behalf, and it followed only his orders.
He had asked it how he could most easily take revenge on Alex Pignon, and it had concocted various schemes that would involve Pignon being thrown into prison on invented charges, or attacked at his home by angry mobs whipped up by false information, but none of these scheme had really satisfied Dirk. He wanted something a little more physical and direct.
The Omega device had suggested he build a machine that used principles of physics unknown to human science and would be capable, when finished, of physically reaching out anywhere in the world and remotely exerting force at will, at the behest of the Omega device itself, and ultimately, therefore, at the command of Dirk.
When he had finished the machine, it took up most of one of the bedrooms of Dirk’s house and consisted of a crazed mass of cylinders, coils, pipes through which flowed various liquids at various temperatures, and metal spheres holding nebulous masses of matter in previously-unknown exotic states.
He stood in the living room, which was still free from any scientific apparatus, and said out loud, “Omega, show me Alex Pignon.”
Sensing his voice, the machine produce a hologram of Pignon. Pignon and his immediate surroundings appeared where his sofa stood, as a three-dimensional vignette.
“Break his legs.” said Dirk, and Pignon abruptly fell to the ground, crying out in pain.
“I’ll teach you to put me on hold!” said Dirk. Then, more loudly, “I’ll teach you to abduct my luggage and then refuse to deal with me! Omega, make his head explode!”
Pignon’s head exploded like a bomb, showering shocked passers-by with blood and pieces of brain matter.
Dirk began to laugh, softly at first, then heartily, finally falling to the floor in hysterics. The vignette gradually faded away, and the sofa reappeared.
The world, unknown to itself, had a new leader, and his rule would not be just.
Gabor jumped when the phone rang. He was immersed deep in thought at the time. The device was so close to working, and yet it still didn’t actually do anything that an ordinary digital language model of a particularly primitive variety couldn’t do, and it constantly degraded, forgetting what it was taught. He was sure, or almost sure, that some relatively minor change or tweak could dramatically improve it, but what?
He went to answer the phone, thinking it was probably for his aunt. Very few people knew he was there.
“Hello?”
“Gabor?”
“Dad.”
“Gabor, I have some terrible news.”
Gabor frowned. His father sounded almost like he was crying. He had never seen his father cry.
“What is it?”
“It’s your mother. Gabor, she’s dead.”
Cold shock filtered through Gabor’s veins.
“How?” he said.
“She was murdered. Some worthless piece of filth murdered her, Gabor. Hit her in the head so hard, she had a stroke. Istenem, Gabor! Just so he could steal her bag.”
When Gabor put the phone down he was shaking. He began to cry.
A few days later he attended the funeral.
The death of Katalin Szilvás was so unexpected, so horribly brutal, that the mourners could hardly even believe it.
Her murderer was a homeless drug-addict, recently released from prison. Since he had not intended to actually kill her, there were rumours that he would spend a relatively short time in prison. Perhaps the defence would even argue that he wasn’t in his right mind, and he would walk free after a few years of hospital treatment.
When Gabor finally arrived back at his aunt’s holiday cottage, he still felt numb. Soon he began to wonder whether an Omega device couldn’t bring his mother back. Perhaps it could figure out how to travel backwards in time and prevent the murder of Katalin Szilvás.
He began to work on the machine with renewed intensity, skipping sleep and barely eating.
Dirk was watching a 3D hologram of the goings-on at the airport when there was a knock at his door.
He opened it to find three police officers there.
“Police.” said the one in the middle, holding up a badge. He was wearing a leather jacket and soft brown leather shoes, but the men either side of him were in uniform. They pushed past him into the living room.
“A week ago, Alex Pignon, the CEO of Autotaxi Driverless Taxis, was murdered.”, said the man in plain clothes, picking up figurines from Dirk’s mantelpiece and inspecting them. “We believe an exploding bullet was fired into his head.”
He turned and gazed steadily at Dirk.
“Why would anyone want to murder the CEO of a taxi company?” he said.
“I’ve no idea.” said Dirk, calmly meeting his gaze.
Without looking away, the policeman pulled a device from his pocket and pushed a button. A recording began to play, of Dirk shouting curses at the Autotaxi hold music.
He pressed the button again and the recording stopped.
“Well, well, well.” said the policeman. “Apparently someone did want to kill him.”
Dirk laughed.
“You’re right.” he said. “Well done. I killed him.”
The smirk disappeared from the policeman’s face.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.” he said.
One of the uniformed officers made to pull Dirk’s hands behind his back, but somehow he found he couldn’t manage it. Then Dirk gave him a gentle push, and he staggered backwards and fell to the ground, unconscious.
“That won’t be happening.” said Dirk. “You see, you’re talking to your new ruler. Perhaps you should kneel. Show some respect.”
The remaining uniformed policemen produced a taser, which he fired at Dirk. The dart swerved dramatically, faster than the eye could follow, and stuck in the plain-clothes officer, who yelped.
The uniformed officer began jabbering an apology, dropping the taser. The plain-clothes officer regained his balance after almost falling, yanked the taser dart out of himself, and produced a gun, which he fired at Dirk.
The uniformed officer fell to the floor, dead, as the bullet strangely hit him in the chest instead of Dirk.
“What’s going on here?” said the plain-clothes officer, almost shouting, frightened now that he was the only policeman left standing.
“Kneel, and beg forgiveness.” said Dirk.
The officer responded by firing the gun at him again. This time the back of the gun exploded and he, too, fell down dead, with fragments of metal embedded in his brain.
“You’ll learn.” said Dirk, surveying the bodies. “You’ll all learn.”
The first fallen officer suddenly groaned and began to stagger to his feet. Dirk made a calm, fluid motion with his hand in the man’s direction, and he too fell back, dead.
“I am your God now.” said Dirk.
For two days he lost himself in fantasies of unlimited power, thinking of all the things he could do. Then he decided to deal with a few smaller matters before revealing himself to the world.
The airport was busy as usual on the morning of September 13th, 2035, filled with thousands of holiday-makers, business people and assorted others. Robot assistants helped them with their problems and automated trolleys ran about carrying heavy luggage.
Gabor watched the scene in 3D hologram form in his living room, his gaze fixed like the stare of a cat watching a mouse.
“You should feel honoured.” he said. “You will provide the world with a demonstration of my power. Because of your sacrifice, the world will begin to understand the New Order. Omega, prepare to detonate a nuclear weapon at the airport. I want you to lock the premium lounge and assemble it there.”
He watched as the people in the luxury lounge confusedly wandered out and a maintenance robot put a notice on the door that said “Out of order”.
Bits of metal began to fly off fittings in the room, melt themselves down and mould themselves into casings and wires. Slowly, before his eyes, a nuclear device assembled itself, atoms reconfiguring themselves into weapons-grade plutonium.
When it was ready, he took one last look around the airport, locating the security officer who had fired a taser at him.
“Blow his arms off.” he said, and the man’s arms exploded, leaving him screaming and bewildered. Dirk nodded in satisfaction.
“Now to the main order of the day.” he said. “Show me the nuclear device.”
The viewpoint changed to the relaxation lounge, with a nuclear weapon standing in the middle of it, a light flashing on its casing.
Dirk giggled quietly.
“The best form of revenge is a nuclear firestorm.” he said to himself. Then, “Omega: detonate the device.”
The placid scene was instantly replaced with a blinding white light.
“Zoom out.” he said. “I want to see it from a distance.”
The view zoomed out and he saw a vast mushroom cloud taking shape over the town.
He laughed again to himself, his voice cracking in quiet derangement.
“I wonder if I’ll hear it from here.” he said, amidst peals of laughter.
Then, quite suddenly, the hologram disappeared, and was replaced with a new image: that of a man.
Hovering in front of him, where his sofa should be, was none other than Gabor Szilvás.
“What’s this?” said Dirk, alarmed.
“I’m sorry, Dirk.” said the hologram. “You haven’t really destroyed the station or blown anyone’s arms off. It’s fake. I just wanted to see if you’d do it.”
“You’ve created an Omega device!” said Dirk.
“Yes.” said the hologram. “It wasn’t easy, but in the end I managed it. I just wish I’d been fast enough to stop you murdering Alex Pignon.”
“I’ll fight you!” screamed an enraged Dirk. “It’ll be one god against another!”
Gabor shook his head, pressing his lips together.
“I’ve had to destroy your machine.” he said. “You’ve left me with no alternative.”
“I’ll find you!” shouted Dirk, his face flushing red and his teeth clenched in anger. “I’ll find you and I’ll end you!”
“Good luck with that.” said Gabor. “My Omega device will keep track of you wherever you go for the rest of your life. It will never let you rebuild your machine. It will never let you kill anyone else.”
“I don’t deserve this!” said Gabor. “I invented the Omega device!”
“Co-invented.” said Gabor. “And I don’t know what you do or don’t deserve, but you clearly can’t be trusted with it. Goodbye, Dirk.”
“Wait!” shouted Dirk. “I killed three policemen! They’ll lock me up!”
But it was too late. The hologram had already faded.
In his aunt’s cottage, Gabor let himself fall heavily into an old armchair, emitting a huge sigh.
“Omega,” he said out loud, “is it possible to travel backwards in time? Can I undo my mother’s murder?”
“No, Gabor.” said the device, its disembodied voice echoing around the room. “That’s not possible. I’m sorry.”
It sounded sad, although whether it experienced emotion or not was quite unclear.
A tear rolled down Gabor’s cheek.
“But I can offer you revenge.” said the machine. “Would you like to explore that?”
Gabor sat quietly, thinking.
Dirk, meanwhile, went down to his basement, his mind numb and filled with violent conflicting emotions. He surveyed the blue liquid in the pool for one last time, noting the curious disarray that had overtaken the alloy filaments, and dove headfirst into it.
