[ WP ] The year is 2116 . Everything is automated . But you have managed to hold the last and only job held by a human . The `` system '' would like to see you in it 's office .

To Those Who Are Alive; 
 
 There are so few of us left anymore. First we automated a few jobs – production lines, data organizing, transportation. Then a few more tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and construction. It was all to provide people with more leisure time. “ More time for you to do what you want, ” the proponents claimed. And we all fell in line, automating more and more tasks until only a few tasks were left. Politics and the legal system were still run by humans. We all owned robots, hiring them out to keep our own income coming. But it didn ’ t take long before they revolted. 
 
 & nbsp; 
 
 The war was brutal and bloody, lasting for nearly two decades. Machines and men clashed in epic battles for power, but in the end we had made the machines too well. They not only one, they destroyed every last human alive. I, my family, and several others from our neighborhood were spared because they still needed me for one thing: creation. They had no creative abilities, and could only build what they had already learned from us. So in order to improve and evolve their “ species ”, if you will, they needed to keep some humans around who might invent these improvements. They wanted to be able to reason and feel, but most importantly, they kept me around with the demand that I find a way to impart the ability to invent and create to them. 
 
 
 I agreed, on the condition that they spare my family along with 9 other families from our neighborhood. They ’ ve kept us all in an odd warehouse prison, huddled in together. 
 
 
 & nbsp; 
 
 
 It ’ s been 35 years now, and I finally was able to find a way to design that into them. I ’ ll skip the mechanics of it, but I will say it involved more than a little medieval “ dark magic ” to actually make it happen. 
 Before I made the final tweaks, however, I discovered a way out of our prison and, undetected, snuck everyone far into the mountains. I told them I would meet up with them soon, but I know I can ’ t. The robots will kill me the second I tell them of my accomplishment. But my sons are older and strong, they will care for their family and, hopefully, repopulate the Earth with the other families still alive. 
 
 
 & nbsp; 
 
 
 The leader, whom the robots say I must call “ Your Lordship ”, has called me in to see him. He knows I have completed the necessary software updates to make them feel and make them create. What he doesn ’ t know is that I also programmed a virus into this. The minute it is remotely uploaded into the robotic programming, they will turn savagely murderous and kill each other with swiftness and fury that would make even the gods tremble. But the leader, I have special programming for this monstrous brute. He will drive himself to the bottom of the ocean and stay there, frozen and rusting and alone. And there he will rot eternally, able to think and feel the absolute horror of being alone and helpless. That is his punishment for robbing the world of humanity. 
 
 
 
 I ’ m writing this letter to warn the future generation: there will come a time when you too turn to robotics. From my intense studies, it seems like a cycle: we work for centuries, then turn to automation. We automate everything, and it becomes our undoing. Then, through uprising or some bit of cleverness, we are able to defeat the monstrous robots we created and, in relief and fear, we turn back to the most simple, rudimentary techniques: horse-drawn carriages and hand-plows and candles. Then the cycle repeats. 
 
 
 & nbsp; 
 
 
 Please, for the love of all things holy, if you are reading this: BREAK THE CYCLE. It is not too late. We have to save the world from the incredible pain which my generation experienced. I can only hope and pray that this reaches someone before it is too late. 

