'Killing is always messy,' Ricardo thought as he checked his shoe's sole for the result of stepping on one of the thousands of cockroaches running crazily around his bench.

Today was the seventh day of the episode known as Mad Surge, as people had started calling the strange frenzy that had affected insects all over the world, causing them to run in circles and attack whatever moved that wasn't human. Even in the very center of the medium-sized city he was in, roaches filled the streets in broad daylight, and carcasses of a few small animals, rats and vagrant dogs mostly, were seen here and there. Public administration had given up on trying to keep the streets clean from both the carpets of living insects and garbage alike.

He had seen and killed enough roaches and ants in the last week to not feel repulsed by the insects anymore. Fortunately, they refused to get closer than an arm's length to humans on their own, and even when reached for, they would only try to flee instead of attacking. Only that small blessing allowed humanity to sleep in relative peace, although many people still felt unnerved by it.

None of the specialists seemed to have any idea on the reason behind the Surge. Solar flares and changes to Earth's magnetism, both with no proofs, were as good a guess as random chance. From what he had seen on TV, most people were divided between aliens and the apocalypse.

He wondered if people in his own country, the good old USA, were faring any better. They had better pest control and cleaning methods than here in Brazil. However, from what he knew of his Brazilian mother and had seen in the past three months since he had come to audit a subsidiary of his dad's company, Brazilians were slightly more calloused when dealing with day-to-day inconveniences, even though they allowed others to push them around more easily, too.

Maybe they just didn't care? People packed the streets despite all the insects around, almost as if they had perfectly adapted to having cockroaches, spiders, ants, and flies moving around. Due to all their nonchalance, he would even think things had always been like that around here if he had not seen the city before the Surge started.

Of course, there were hysteric people in Brazil too, just like anywhere on the planet, but he guessed that in California, his sister and all her friends would be fainting every five minutes. Maybe New Yorkers had become so used to filth in the streets that they didn't care anymore? And Texans were shooting everything that moved?

He sighed. As much as he would like to keep badmouthing people in his mind to escape his disgusting reality, he had a job to do and lunchtime was over. Speaking of it, it was so weird how Brazilians liked to eat hot, slowly cooked food for lunch. It reminded him of his time in Italy...

He shook his head before his line of thought could derail again, stomping a few more cockroaches for good measure. He stood up from the bench in the medium park while crumbling the paper that had held a proper American executive lunch, a turkey sandwich. Ricardo was about to go back to the company subsidiary when a white-filled rectangle appeared floating in front of him.

It was like a fancy holographic computer window, only he was nowhere close to a computer. It was filled with a lot of strange symbols, none of which he recognized. As he looked at it, a few new lines of what he guessed was text in that strange language kept appearing, the window enlarging accordingly to accommodate it.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his head, enough that he fell back on the bench. He couldn't think of anything but the pain. He reacted by holding his head with both hands and bending forward, but a few seconds later, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone.

He still took a few deep breaths before opening his eyes and slowly looking around. Lots of people were on the ground, on their backs or their knees, and a lot of cars had crashed on the street.

Maybe even more surprisingly, the insects and small animals around had stopped moving, as if frozen in the face of a predator, not willing to make the wrong move and call attention upon themselves.

The white box floating in front of him had followed his sight as he checked his surroundings. The box was slightly transparent, to begin with, but he noticed that while he was looking around, it had become even more transparent. When he focused back on it, he was surprised to see English text instead of the weird symbols.

World Assimilation

First Phase

Observing the new world for 7 days... Done.

World analysis:

» Local designation: Earth

» System ID: W-198-1-2442

» Energy: G

» Size: H

» Final classification: H world

Scanning for sapient species... Found.

Species analysis:

» Local designation: Human

» System ID: S-POF-12742-333

» Power: G-2

» Lifespan: F

» Regeneration: G

» Talent: D

» Final classification: G species

Scanning for more sapient species... None found.

Injecting permanent system interface in sapient beings... Done.

Applying localization... Done.

Second Phase on hold: waiting for assimilation of other worlds in universe 198...

Ricardo read everything with eyes wide, questions pilling over one another.

To begin with, the text said his world was being assimilated. Assimilated into what? Why? How? If this was but the first phase and there was a second one, how many phases were involved?

He could safely assume said assimilation was likely responsible for the Mad Surge, since it had been going for seven days and that thing had observed Earth for the same time. How had the insects felt it? Why did it affect them as it did?

The thing seemed computer-like. If the computer-like holographic windows hadn't been proof enough, the way it behaved, creating system IDs and its manner of writing, resembled a computer too much to be a coincidence. It also spoke of injecting a system interface. Was it a "system" of some kind? Who had created it, then? Why? How? When?

Who, what, why, how, and when were involved in everything he read, it seemed.

He didn't believe humans could have created the system. At least, not Earthlings. Their technology was nowhere close to being able to do something like that, especially when he considered that it had inserted a system interface directly into his mind — the pain he had felt and the windows were proof enough of it. Moreover, it used a language for symbols he had never seen on Earth before, not that he was a linguist to have seen them all.

Further evidence of Earth's humans not being responsible for the system was how lowly it evaluated humanity and that it had looked for other sapient species in the world.

Which human would be humble enough to not give themselves an A+ in everything after creating such an incredible thing? Also, why not simply use an existing language or at least existing letters to communicate, but use those symbols instead? Why even look for other sapient species when only humans were known to be sapient on Earth?

No, he didn't think humans had created the system.

Speaking of ratings, if an A rating was better than a B rating and so on, as common logic dictated, humans absolutely sucked, except for their talent, which sucked a little less. Earth sucked, too.

Around him, everyone in sight was looking ahead of them into things he couldn't see. It seemed the system could create individual white boxes for them all and prevent others from seeing it. It was really some kind of individual interface interacting directly with his mind then, not holograms appearing midair.

He could only hope the system took pity on them for whatever purposes it had. Ricardo held no illusions that something capable of injecting things directly in the mind of billions of people would do so for the good of its heart, especially when it had happened without his consent and from the look at the crashed cars, had cost many human lives, too.

He also hoped those deaths were an unfortunate side effect, that the system had come to bring them to world peace, spiritual evolution, or whatever. If something as powerful as it wanted to harm them, they were screwed.

There was no way to tell what awaited humankind. On one hand, if the system was taking the time to put the interface in their brains, it had plans for them. On the other hand, everything he had learned about business from his father told him the system couldn't come with no strings attached.

The text in the box disappeared, replaced by new lines.

World Assimilation

Second Phase

Second Phase on hold: waiting for assimilation of other worlds in universe 198... Done.

Universe analysis:

» Local designation: [MISSING]

» System ID: U-198

» Energy: G

» Size: H

» Final classification: H universe

Universe 198 deemed unworthy of resource allocation.

Determining usefulness of universe 198... Done.

Universe 198 is now a buffer universe. Relocation required.

Relocating universe 198 to Omniverse's H Ring...

Ricardo suddenly felt ill, as if he had turned around himself over and over again, only he hadn't. He tried to bend over to vomit, but he was also hit with dizziness so strong that it affected his movement and he ended up vomiting on his own lap and even choking on it a little. The taste and smell of barely digested turkey hit him strongly and made him even more ill.

The text didn't wait for him to get better to keep coming.

World Assimilation

Second Phase

Relocating universe 198 to Omniverse's H Ring... Done.

World 198-1-2442 deemed unworthy of resources allocation.

Determining usefulness of world 198-1-2442... Done.

World 198-1-2442 is now an A-risk H-yield mining world. No further actions required.

Species POF-12742-333 deemed unworthy of resource allocation.

Determining usefulness of species POF-12742-333... Done.

Species POF-12742-333 is now Reserve Force in position 930 of the awakening queue. Relocation required.

Relocating species POF-12742-333 to special location TS-12 for stasis until it can fulfill a worthy purpose...

While cleaning his mouth and chin with the back of his hand, Ricardo's heart started beating furiously from all he was reading.

If he was understanding the messages right, which he might not, since he still felt ill and dizzy, humanity was considered useless and thus the system was about to put everyone in stasis until there were no better species around and it needed humanity to do something for it.

He wasn't sure about how long it would take for the ones in position nine hundred thirty in the queue to be needed, but he wasn't optimistic about their chances. Being put in a freezer for God knows how long sounded worse than being used for whichever nefarious purposes the system might have.

Before he could think further about it, pillars of light fell from the skies, surrounding every person in sight. From what he could see in a store on the other side of the streets, the lights also penetrated buildings and hit everyone inside.

The text in the box changed again.

World Assimilation

Species Relocation

Scanning individual...

Individual analysis:

» Local designation: Ricardo Black

» System ID: I-POF-12742-333-3524846927

» Power: G-2

» Lifespan: F

» Regeneration: G

» Talent: D

Awaiting scanning of all individuals from species POF-12742-333... Done.

Individual POF-12742-333-3524846927 ranked in position 3,222,120,711 of the awakening queue.

Relocating species POF-12742-333...

Ricardo felt the light pulling him, and suddenly, he felt something he had never felt before.

A unique kind of rage.

Not anger, not fury, but pure, absolute, all-consuming rage.

How dared the system?! It came from nowhere, scanned them like objects, deemed them useless, and then took them from their homes to put them in stasis for an undetermined amount of time?

What did it think it was? Who gave it the right to mess with humanity like that? Who gave it the right to mess with him like that?!

He refused to accept it!

He refused to obey silently and be pulled by the system!

He refused to yield, to bend the knee, to submit!

If there was one thing he would never, ever do, was to accept his existence ending, much less like that, like a piece of meat put in the freezer until it was deemed useful!

HE REFUSED.

His hands clenched the bench tightly and when the power pulled him, his sheer willpower rooted him in place. When people all around him started warping around themselves and disappearing from existence, he refused to go. When the system forced its will upon him, his own will held!

The more time passed, the stronger the pull felt. And the longer he wasn't pulled, the more he was sure the system couldn't force him to go against his will. And the more he realized it, the harder he fought back.

He wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually, just as suddenly as the pull had come, it disappeared. And just as suddenly as the light had appeared, it vanished, taking the white box with it.

The world was back to what it had been a few moments before.

Except he was alone.