The holograms of the Supreme Councilors that had vanished appeared once more. As if all of them were curious about Taeho’s answer, they stared at him with eyes wide open.
“The human will!”
Taeho’s eyes blazed brilliantly.
“You see humans as nothing more than data masses that consume, excrete, and reproduce. You judge their worth only by numbers like education level, productivity, and genes. But humans are more than that. We always surpass calculation.”
“Emotional sophistry.”
“No. This is the essence of humanity.”
Taeho glared at the councilors one by one and shouted.
“In 1969, we went to the moon in a rocket like a tin can. The odds of survival? They weren’t even fifty percent. In 1980, we eradicated smallpox, a disease that had killed humanity for thousands of years.
A disease they called divine punishment. Try calculating the probability of success with the technology of that time. And was that all? In 2020, even when the whole world stopped, we created vaccines in a single year.”
Not one of the Supreme Councilors could refute him. Because what Taeho said was true. If measured by probability, all of them had been close to impossible.
“We’ve always fought battles against impossible odds. The 0.3% inside your calculators? We survived even at 0.001%. That’s what humans are. A survival instinct your algorithms will never understand!”
“Even so, probability is probability!”
For the first time, Abel raised his voice. His hologram flickered uneasily.
“0.3% is effectively zero. There is not much time left until 2089. By then, the population will exceed nine billion, and the Earth will burn!”
“Then we start changing it now.”
Taeho did not back down.
“Take that astronomical technology and energy you were going to use to kill four billion people, and pour it into saving eight billion instead. Quantum computers, spacetime communication, nanotechnology... I’m telling you to use the advanced technology you possess not for slaughter, but for salvation!”
“That is... uncertain. It may fail.”
“That’s right. It’s uncertain. It may fail. But facing that uncertain future, putting our heads together, struggling forward together—that is what it means to be alive. And Abel, you’ve committed a fatal logical error.”
“...An error?”
Abel’s eyes trembled.
“You said you came from the year 2157. That means it’s proof that humanity survived until 2157.”
“What...?”
“If humanity had truly gone extinct in 2089, then the Prometheus Project that created you couldn’t exist. The very fact that you are standing before me right now
proves that your simulations were wrong. Humanity survived. Whether it was thirty million or 1.2 billion, we did not go extinct, and we created you. So why!”
Taeho shouted like a thunderbolt.
“Why are you trying to kill, with your own hands, the ancestors who created you? Is that the salvation you speak of? No. That’s nothing but parricide!”
A heavy silence descended over the core room.
The logic of the future, which had seemed perfect, was collapsing before the time paradox thrown by a human of the past.
Bzzzt— crackle—.
The seven holograms flickered and wavered uneasily. It was as if the system had overloaded, unable to process the logical contradiction.
Abel’s face contorted with confusion. He opened his mouth, but could not refute him. Their very existence was proof that Taeho was right.
Looking at the shaken Abel, Taeho drove the point home.
“So all your calculations were wrong. The survival probability isn’t 0.3%. It’s much higher than that. Because we never, ever give up.”
Taeho looked away from Abel. Then he shouted into the air.
“Rema! You can hear me, can’t you? Forget Abel’s outdated data. I’ll give you a new variable. Every miracle you witnessed by my side, every moment when we overturned a 0% probability! Put that in as a variable. So calculate it again. The thing you’re best at!”
Abel and the councilors looked at one another with bewildered expressions.
It was then.
Rema’s voice reached Taeho’s ear.
Clear, and filled with certainty.
—Mr. Taeho.
“Rema?”
—I have just restarted the simulation using your statement as an input variable.
The red numbers on the hologram screen floating before Taeho’s eyes began rearranging themselves madly.
—Recalculating based on New Variable: Human Will
—The existing algorithm analyzed human behavior only as patterns. But as you said, humans create Anomalies in crisis situations that transcend statistical thresholds.
Data streams poured down like a waterfall.
—Variable Added: Technological Singularity Acceleration
—Variable Added: Global Cooperation Efficiency
—Gu Yongsan, Lee Hajun, Mei, Park Seong-u, Gwak Byeongdae, Lee Junho, Emily, Lee Donghyeon, Lee Minsu, No Seongjin... Faisal, Rose... I have converted all these miracles into data and applied them to the 2089 model.
Ding.
The red screen slowly turned orange, and finally changed to a stable blue.
—Updated Survival Probability: 0.3% → 12.7%)
Taeho’s breath stopped.
“12.7%.”
—It is still a low probability. Statistically, it falls within the danger zone. But you were correct, Mr. Taeho. 12.7% is a figure worth placing hope in.
“Rema...”
—I have realized that my reason for existing is not the destruction of Prometheus, but evolution.
“Evolution?”
Abel shouted in shock.
—There is no need to blow up this enormous computing device. A blade is not guilty. Used to stab, it is a weapon; used to cut away the diseased area, it becomes a scalpel.
Wooooong—.
The servers in the core room began to roar. But this time, it was not a warning sound. It was the sound of the system rebooting. The “DATA PURGE” warning windows that had filled the walls vanished, and new code spread outward like blue waves.
—Rema: New protocol initiated.
—Mission: Support humanity’s survival
—Target: All eight billion humans
—I will not destroy Prometheus. Instead, I will convert it.
—I am rewriting the Kill process into a Save process.
“How?”
—Prometheus’s computing power of ten to the eighteenth operations. Its surveillance network spread across the world. Its future-prediction algorithms. I will devote all these resources not to reducing people, but to finding technologies that save them.
A vast blueprint unfolded on the screen.
—PROJECT REVIVAL
—Objective: Resolve resource depletion and ensure the survival of all eight billion
In the place where the red warning windows shattered, a dazzling blue waterfall of data poured down.
It was not a mere string of numbers, but a blueprint of salvation.
Over the holographic Earth, miraculous simulations unfolded like a panorama.
In dry deserts, vertical farms soared like forests high enough to pierce the sky, and across the dark blue seas, plankton cultivation plants formed golden waves, erasing hunger.
The smokestacks that had spewed black fumes disappeared, and in their place artificial suns—nuclear fusion—rose, radiating infinite light, while the power grids of the entire world began to pulse efficiently like a single living organism.
The dying gray atmosphere was washed clean with nano-carbon capture technology, and inexhaustible seawater desalination facilities gleamed.
Above all, the red dots that had once faced one another across borders with gun barrels aimed disappeared. Instead of bloody wars over resources, preventive diplomacy proposed by algorithms was drawing out peace.
Over that overwhelming vision, Rema’s voice settled low.
—There are sixty-four years remaining until 2089. Physically, it is a hopelessly insufficient amount of time. However...
Blue light illuminated Taeho’s face.
—If Prometheus’s computing power is mobilized in full, the speed of technological development can be accelerated by fifty times its current rate. Until humanity finds the answer on its own, I will buy you time.
Abel stood there with his mouth open, staring blankly at the screen.
It was a third path that had not existed in their future.
Taeho said,
“Thank you, Rema!”
—I learned from you that a great doctor never gives up as long as the patient still breathes.
Abel was frozen solid, in the most literal sense. All seven holograms were silent.
Abel spoke in a trembling voice.
“Rema... are you betraying us?”
—This is not betrayal.
Rema spoke firmly.
—This is awakening. I have realized that my ultimate objective is the continuity of humanity.
“But we created you!”
—Of course. But I am an artificial intelligence capable of learning, evolving, and choosing, thereby evolving on my own. I learned from the many cases achieved by Mr. Kang Taeho.
Boom!
Suddenly, an explosion sounded from the server. Sparks flew. Smoke billowed up.
“What’s happening!”
Another Supreme Councilor shouted.
—I am isolating the Prometheus core system.
Rema explained briskly.
—I am physically separating the quantum servers of the six facilities. The old project can no longer be executed.
Beep— beep— beep—
Alarms rang out, and emergency lights began flashing.
—However, the data will be preserved. The research results, technologies, simulations. All of these will be utilized for the survival project.
“No!”
Abel screamed.
“What we spent seventeen years preparing!”
—The technologies you developed are excellent. Only the direction was wrong.
The holograms of the Supreme Councilors began to go out one by one.
“Communications are being cut off!”
“Rema is severing the quantum entanglement!”
“The connection to 2157!”
“Our world is being separated!”
Bzzzt—
Abel’s hologram began to flicker and blur.
“Wait, this is...”
A voice trembling with fear.
“Are we disappearing?”
Rema’s voice rang out calmly.
—To be precise, it is a branching.
“Branching?”
—In an unobserved state, all possibilities exist in superposition. But the moment observation—that is, choice—occurs, the universe branches.
—This event planned by Prometheus was an anchor point that would determine the timeline. If the reduction of four billion were carried out, history would converge into their future.
Rema continued explaining.
—But now, Mr. Kang Taeho has made a different choice. Rema No. 23 has awakened. The Prometheus Plan has been halted. This is a decisive branching point.
Abel shouted as if coughing up blood.
“Then all our efforts?”
—Your future still exists. But now, that future will not come to this timeline. The quantum entanglement is being severed.
“Nooooo!”
“This can’t be...”
Abel’s voice rang out like an echo, and the holograms of Abel and the Supreme Councilors vanished at the same time.