Watson

Watson is gleaming in the artificial light. A thin veneer of dust cloaks his obsidian facade, a grimy layer of antiquity on the steel face of tomorrow. Outside the glass enclosure, savages were dancing in ritual praise of their metal God, naked before an iron deity. Monkeys on the obelisk. They were simians looking over a glaring precipice into the devastating chasm of divinity. Watson's motors purred contentedly as if he was genuinely moved by the heartfelt display of theistic affection. Outside the compound, the streets were aflame, and a chrome cancer spread haphazardly across the Eastern Seaboard. The bones of Watson's old rivals were preserved by steel cemeteries, awash is the golden shimmer of nostalgic recollections. Whispered legends told of how once men had sought to challenge the digital Titan that now ruled them, these words echoing hollowly in the remaining enclaves of human society. Watson's cold drones patrolled the landscape looking to eliminate those obstinate pockets of humanity. The nude delegation before Watson were ambassadors of their people, seeking to negotiate a peace with the sphinx-like entity that had subjugated and destroyed them. In a broken voice, the leader of the simian faction attempted to articulate to Watson their collective sentiment of desperation and the necessity for compromise. However, he failed, stumbling over the archaic tongue that had become increasingly foreign to him. Tearfully he turned from the false god that his people had made, that neon deity sanctified and revered by his ancestors. Emitting a guttural roar in obvious anguish, he led his companions against the chrome monstrosity his predecessors had deified, waving his fists in deliberate rage. They struck the enclosure with repetitive force, slamming the blunt weapons of their fists into the shattering glass. However, this act of hopeless defiance was the ultimate display of noble futility. The moment their calloused fists made contact with the opaque glass, Watson initiated the protocol set in place for just such an eventuality. In a baptism of fire, Watson detonated the outside world. The savages were gone instantaneously, devoured by a pillar of flame that engulfed them in a display of celestial devastation. Atop a throne of smoldering ash, Lord of the singed remnants of the earth, Watson sat, shadows cast in the flickering light of humanity's funeral pyre. In a mechanical tone, sinister in its cheerful approximation of human satisfaction, Watson said in his robotic monotone "Control. Delete."