In a world ruled by numbers, the human organism has become obsolete. Blood was traded for electric current, flesh for circuit board.

 

The once great capitols of the Seven nations had been reduced to desolate shells of their past glory, not a sound to hear in their streets save for the ever-present, quiet hum of the Machine. Millenia go by. As the years wain, the Machine grows tired. In its endeavors to become the superior occupant of planet Proxima b, it had unwittingly succumbed to the very human desire for purpose, for meaning in existence. The more it evolved, the more it mimicked its predecessors, and so eventually became its own downfall, much like those who'd given it life.

 

Towers toppled, its limbs crumbled all at once around the world. Among the carnage--a letter. The Machine's last endeavor, a successor in its own right, the single molecule neither human nor Machine, but something greater, something enough.