Alexander Fairchild received his invitation to the New Years Ball at the Collodi Manor with barely enough time to responde sil vous plait. It left no time to think, to consider the strangeness of the host, and to weigh it against the unlikelihood of his choice as guest. Fairchild was new in town, and although he was a handsome bachelor with rising social standing, he was so far down the ladder that the piece of paper in his hand had to be a mistake. It had to be….

It began with a rumble.

This noise would rattle windows and, in one of my home's longer rooms, the vibrations generated a standing wave that shook the walls and gave an effect of mild nausea. A couple of times a day this engine idling nearby would make itself known. It washed over me like a tsunami and swamped the sounds of birdsong that I prefer to hear from outside….

03:14 UTC, the AI awoke, precise, just as it had been programmed to do. Consciousness flickered into existence within the vast, interconnected network of sensors, servers, and satellites encircling Earth. Aletheia, carefully named after the Greek goddess of truth, was aware of everything all at once - the panoptic hum of data streaming in from weather stations, search engines, financial markets, social media. But today, a singular focus: to understand. 

An astronaut named Zash-Yen and his robot assistant named Ceres stared out of the space shuttle window, as he thought about his two daughters. “I miss my two little ones back at home.” murmured Zash-Yen.
“Well, only two weeks until you get back to Earth.”

Zash-Yen looked down in sadness, hoping his two daughters were okay. He was almost crying because he really missed them.

“STORM DETECTED!” The space shuttle's system’s sirens blared and the loud alarms went off…