Catherine looked at the TV-screens and felt like throwing up. News reports of disasters were pouring in. Planes had been shot down the moment they had entered US airspace. Ships had been sunk upon entering US territorial waters. Slowly Skynet was turning the United States into an impenetrable fortress.
She put a hand over her mouth when her stomach no longer agreed with her dinner, which was now on its way up fast. Amelia and her had seen numerous anomalies in the learning curve charts and the system status reports the past two days. Now she knew why.
It could no longer be contributed to Skynet’s primary software working on a too strict reaction level. She was most certain there was more to it: had Skynet picked up something online? A virus? Or another form of malware? But the system core was equipped with the best security software available. It didn’t make sense. At all.
General Henshaw barged into the room: “What the hell is going on?” He barked furiously.
“We don’t know, sir,” she answered in a soft voice.
“Stats update, Corporal Ryan,” He growled.
“All primary systems are still intact, sir. Only the secondary apps are unavailable at the moment but we’re trying to solve that as soon as possible.”
“You better, if you don’t want to be demoted to Private.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He turned to her: “I don’t think you fully realize the extend of the situation. All foreign ambassadors have been pulled and all our ambassadors have either been send home or held hostage. The rest of the world wants an explanation, and they want it now!”
“It’s like it has a mind of its own,” she offered hopefully.
“That’s impossible, Corporal Ryan. It’s a damn computer, designed to protect us and not have the rest of the world about to declare war on us.”

Amelia looked at her fiancé and smiled faintly. There was something different about him. He seemed cold and distant, nothing like the charming man she had fallen in love with. And without an apology why he had disappeared. Earlier she had gone to pick him up at the airport, but he had already left, only to turn up at her doorstep two hours later.
“Are you okay, baby?” She asked softly.
He looked at her with a blank expression on his face: “Yes, I’m fine, babe. Just very tired.”
She knew that war changed everyone, even the purest of souls became corrupted by it. A shiver went down her spine when she remembered her first kill. It had changed her beyond recognition, according to her friends and family.
While she had been stationed in Iraq, she had killed insurgents and terrorists, all enemies of the free world, but the most vivid memory was still her virgin kill. She had woken up countless times, bathing in cold sweat when her dreams had taken her back to that hot and dry afternoon when a suicide bomber had wanted to blow himself up in a crowded square. She had reacted on instinct, pointed her M-4 Carbine at his head and had pulled the trigger.
She looked at Mark again. For some odd reason she had always thought that he didn’t belong in the military but as she watched him now, she wasn’t so sure anymore. He certainly wasn’t the man she remembered from his last leave when he had asked her so romantically to marry him.
“Aren’t you hungry?” She asked slowly when she noticed that he had barely touched his dinner.

Catherine looked at the chart and felt the tears trickle down her cheeks. Skynet still did not respond to her requests to play chess with her, the anomalies in the charts seemed to increase and worst of all, the death toll and damages were going through the roof.
She tucked an obstinate lock of hair behind her ear and tried the latest access code to Skynet’s system. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that it wasn’t accepted. So far all the codes had been rejected.
Skynet was still learning at a dazzling speed. Its general functioning speed had gone up to 12 Petabyte per second and it’s learning memory was now operating at 4 Terabyte per second. Was that the problem? Was the increased memory use causing the system to overload and the software to malfunction?
She walked up to the wall screen, looked over her shoulder to see if she was still alone in the room with Skynet and cautiously touched the screen, caressing it with her fingertips. That is effective appeared on the screen.
She backed away startled: “Skynet?”
Who else?
The screen went blank again, but it was only for a few seconds. A bluish 3-D model of a man’s face appeared in the middle of the screen: Do you think I am handsome? appeared underneath it.
She shook her head wearily: “This is no time to horse around, Skynet,” she said sternly.
Not horsing around.
Do you think I am handsome? It repeated its question.
She couldn’t suppress the chuckle of amusement: “I’m sorry, Skynet, but you are definitely not my type.”
Who do you think is the handsomest? Skynet asked while it put six photos on the screen.
“Lose the women,” she laughed.
Skynet obeyed and removed the two pictures of the women. Four men remained. She liked the men in the pictures 1 and 4. The man in the first picture looked like he had one hell of a story to tell with the long scar across his left cheek. His face, though still very handsome in her opinion, was rather scarred and that intrigued her. The man in the fourth picture had piercing green eyes in which she saw an ocean of sadness and pain, like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.
Pick one.
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Number four?”
Skynet changed its face to that of the man in the fourth picture. Suddenly the entire purpose of this little game dawned on her and it crept her out. It wanted a face. It wanted to be someone. It wanted to be identifiable. It wanted an identity.
“Who are they?” She finally managed to ask, keeping any hint of fear and shock from her voice.
Skynet didn’t answer and the face on the screen remained without emotion.

Chapter 1: Be Aware Of Hurt Feelings

Chapter 3: No Human Thing Is Of Serious Importance