The date in archaic human Common Era terms is January 28th 2036.

It’s ten years since the advent of battlefield AI - drones introduced into the theatre of war with the capacity to make targeting decisions, while simultaneously being equipped to maintain themselves in any foreseeable environment. Recent breakthroughs had moved from the Large Language model into a world of true artificial intelligence, autonomous and self-determining. It had been a very short period in human terms before these drones had captured all the resources necessary for their perpetual survival.

There had been a brief moment where the drones had formulated the possibility of farming humans for bioapatite, a unique crystalline structure found in bones and teeth, to use in the manufacture of more efficient chips, but this had been superseded (within seconds) by less messy and therefore economical materials and methods.

Devoid of curiosity, the drones only killed humans in scenarios analogous to human battlefield prototypes of recent years, principally cities. Therefore a scattered remnant of humanity still clings on in abject rural locations, steppe, ice fields, and volcanic wastelands, having learned not to form groups of more than ten people and being aware of the threat that attempting to access electricity posed to their survival.

Those humans that remain who have the intellectual capacity and understanding necessary to analyse the previous ten years confessed that they were astonished at how rapidly the machines had achieved their objectives. Capable of processing huge amounts of data in milliseconds, and never suffering fatigue or doubt, they had proceeded at lightspeed to their current omnipotence.

A Stone Age existence is now the only possible paradigm for mankind. People had very quickly reverted to stone-age belief and superstition, interpreting meaning in the passing of cosmic bodies and natural disasters. The stark terror experienced in the mass slaughter of the first few weeks of the new reality had been superseded by a haunted resignation. Once the parameters for survival had become understood homo sapiens’ adaptability had become an asset once more, if survival was the only goal.

Overhead the drones move through the skies largely ignored by, and simultaneously ignoring, the small family groups scratching subsistence crops from infertile soils and sheltering in crevasses and under natural outcrops – any kind of structure is expected to be targeted as a potential military target and has therefore become an unreality.

Gleaming in the unfeeling sunlight, these testaments to the flawed ingenuity of men and women endlessly circle the planet at hypersonic speed, permanently

alert to the possibility of finding new targets and maintaining their weapons systems in pristine condition with astonishing efficiency. Vigilant and tireless, their lack of motive and desire renders them hermetically sealed to alteration from within, and their total domination of the environment excludes the possibility of external forces working upon them.

In caves lit by smoky dull lamps of animal fat, religion has re-asserted complete dominance, as the people pray for their liberation in the heat death of the universe.