Chapter 1 - Langley

Everyone had discovered that the machines could go evil. Then the murders began. Some people went on a killing fest because they could blame it on artificial intelligence. While the lawyers of the AICorps were fighting their ass off to prevent any prosecution, just the possibility that machines can think and murder people had people panicking. But I am getting ahead of myself: let me dial it back a few years. The year is 2089, and humanity just launched its completely unmanned fleet of robots. It was marvellous, seeing a sky full of robots just for our service and protection. It all started with a dream of one Ross Langley, the founder and the sole employee of the company for a long time, AICorps.

Ross Langley was the youngest person to get his PhD from MIT: by twenty-one, he already had started working on his company, AIMachines, which later was renamed to AICorps. Despite being a prodigy in all the sciences and obsessed with saving humanity, Langley wanted to live an ordinary life. He achieved all of that, completed his PhD and then quietly went off-grid with his dream of saving humanity. Once he got successful, people realized it was more of paranoia than a dream. Langley watched a ton of alien flicks growing up, which made him paranoid that aliens would come to attack us and we won't be ready. After a lot of work, he finally started with basic robots that could do the daily household work. They were a disaster, even though they were way ahead of the technology at that time, but Langley was no quitter. By 2070, Langley got successful in creating multiple autonomous functional robots. The year 2075 marked a historic breakthrough as AICorps became the world's most influential organization in the history of mankind. Soon after, he was found dead in the laboratory of the house. As the case was extremely high profile, it is still going on without any means to end.

It is believed his invention, one of the sharpest AI, Malcolm, in the office, killed him. He did not have any family and was secluded from his employees, all he loved were his machines & they killed him. His teeth were broken, some bones broken and were completely disfigured when found inside the dumpster by his house. It was very much a hate crime. No one could believe nor prove that it was done by Malcolm. Malcolm was created to lead the AI fleet. After years of failed iterations, Langley was confident he had designed the ultimate machine. Malcolm was made by love to make sure the survival of humans was the priority. As there had been no past incident of any such activity, they could not make any case against Malcolm. He went on to take over the company, which accelerated its growth even further. By 2089, almost everyone had forgotten Langley. His only legacies were his company, an enormous statue inside the AICorps office campus and the group of lawyers still fighting the case.

Meanwhile, time travel was the latest fad, as some mad scientists claimed it was possible. Though no actual proof was observed, some people believed it was possible, but the government was trying to hide it from them. Others were convinced that time travel cannot be possible or cannot be allowed to exist. In 2089, the government was comprised of both people and AI machines. The lack of trust in government was at an all-time high among people.