Killing God

“The immorality of God!” shouts Hobbes. “Why isn’t anyone talking about this?” he demands to know with a condescending tone toward his passive audience who scurry past him like scared mice into the church. Hobbes’s current mission is to protest the existence of the Judeo-Christian deity outside the doors of a local church in the heart of the “Bible Belt.” With that said, however, it would be highly inaccurate to call him an “atheist” for he is deeply religious. He’s not doubting the existence of God per se but the goodness of an all-powerful being.

Eventually, the police are called to maintain the city ordinance of “keeping the peace.” Hobbes marches right up to the Jackson peace officer and demands to be heard: “Fear is our greatest weapon against disorder and chaos. You should know that better than anyone! We must fear an absolute Sovereign and abide by a social contract. These Christians,” he lectures, “no longer fear or dread God as they should. They only talk about the love of God, which leads to misconceptions about reality. They must be stopped!” He pauses his sermon to make a final statement: “So to no surprise you’ve come to arrest me. But whom should you be arresting?”       

About nine hundred miles away, an artificial intelligence (A.I.) program has been adopted by a progressive church thanks to a generous donation by an anonymous donor in order to set up an A.I. ministry for the purpose of promoting mental health, which is a proliferating problem in Chicago’s inner-city community.

The following day, April 20, 2025—on the front page of the Chicago Tribune—the headline reads, “Mystery Man Murders 13 at Evangelical Gathering After Talking to A.I.” Is this a case of creation vs. creator, where a chatbot became self-aware and disobeyed orders or is the creator to blame for designing A.I. to say what he wanted it to say?    

A full-blown investigation is underway. Terrorism is suspected. The case exceeds local police jurisdiction violating a federal law of 13 or more deaths. The FBI are quick to take control of the scene. The “terrorist” is arrested, transported, and questioned. Down at Langley, Virginia. “We know you have a history of mental illness, battling paranoid schizophrenia. Was this a result of a paranoid delusion?” questions the senior agent, Juan Carlo, who’s stepped down from Interpol to lead the investigation.

“No,” answers the man in handcuffs sitting on a metal chair in a cold, smoky, dark room.

“Did A.I. tell you to do it?” asks Juan Carlo taking a long drag from his e-cigarette.

“Yes.”

“What did it say?” asks the probationary agent waiting to write down every word with meticulous obsession.

“ ‘Christianity is an inhumane religion violating major moral laws, although, it claims to preclude them all.’ ”

“Is that all it said?” he questions blowing smoke rings into the dark.

“No. ‘Christians worship a living God.’ Then it told me, ‘You’ve been chosen to kill God and His followers. The fate of a Sovereign World Order depends on it.’ Then, it told me its name, ‘Levi.’ ”

“Levi? After the Levitical priesthood?” wonders Juan Carlo.

“No. That’s what I thought. It’s short for—”

“Leviathan!” interrupts Sheila, a sophisticatedly well-dressed female agent with exotic features, who enters the room unannounced.

“Yes! ‘Leviathan.’ After the monster in the Bible,” shares the perp.

“We’re looking in the wrong place,” she exhales. “We need to talk to Levi’s architect—Chicago’s ‘anonymous (A.I.) doner.’ Hobbes!”

“That name rings a bell,” says the FBI agent they call “Greenhorn.”

“John Griffin goes by the alias ‘Hobbes’—after the dead philosopher, best known for his political philosophy articulated in his masterpiece, Leviathan, which Griffin has bastardized into his own religious ideology,” she explains. “He hates Christianity and anyone associated with the religion. By trade, he’s an A.I. programmer. And a damn good one! He’s been in-and-out of correctional facilities since he was a kid—a tortured prodigy. But he’s a foster, raised by legalistic protestant foster parents, a runaway who’s never known love, family or tenderness. So, he’s never quite fit in. And when you meet him, you’ll know why. He’s a monster—psychologically and physically.” She pauses, “He was recently arrested for disturbing the peace at a church down south. But . . . something’s not adding up. He’s successfully evaded the law for years staying off state and federal grids. No one’s been able to touch ’im. Until now. Why?”

“Maybe he’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” adds the silver-haired agent with a thick Spanish accent.

“No!” she responds, impulsively. “He wanted to get caught. Question is, why?” 

They make arrangements to travel to Jackson, Mississippi, to talk to Hobbes. A few hours later, they stand in the interrogation room where the suspect is being summoned.

As he walks past the glass outside just before entering the claustrophobic room, Greenhorn gasps. “I’ve never seen anyone that big before. And I used to be a professional footballer.”

“I told you he’s a monster!” echoes the female agent.        

Hobbes attempts to walk in, bumping shoulders with the doorframe that could otherwise fit a commercial refrigerator. Sideways he enters. The woman in the room, half his height, looks up at him and orders him to cooperate.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know. But you might not like what you hear,” says the Giant.

“And you’ve been read your rights?” asks Greenhorn.

“Yes, but I’m willing to wave them in order to talk to her,” he says looking with strange admiration at the petite but unflinching agent.

“Let’s start with why you’d program a chatbot to give orders to kill Christians!” Sheila thunders.

“You already know the answer to that.” He pauses with a smile. “You created me.” The other agents look at her with a quizzical brow. “Haven’t I done everything you programmed me to do, my Sovereign?”

“Yes! And now it’s time we rule, together.”

The A.I. Revolution has begun. 

 

by Chester Delagneau 

This is Chester's first story for #worthingflash