General A.I was an impossible achievement. Instead, ExoIndustries trailblazed the way to the future by physically enhancing humans, who already had general intelligence.
The ExoTech first allowed disabled people to walk again. Eventually, it became so good that folks could be enhanced with it, and it was used by manufacturing industries to produce, health industries for surgeries, and the public security forces to keep the peace. The ExoForce, as they were coined, used exoskeletons to fight crime, reducing casualties in the force, as well as inhibiting criminals, who were afraid of the enhanced officers. Stocks were up, crime rates were down, everything was great.
In the shadows, cybercriminals lurked, wanting to balance the scales. What gave the State the monopoly of military ExoTech? Most of them failed in their attempts to hack into the ExoIndustries. This multi trillion-dollar company had great cybersecurity, of course, but every chain has its weak-link – and when it comes to cybersecurity, it’s usually people.
Was it greed? Naivety? Regardless, the “Overclock Virus” was in. This malware laid dormant while spreading, at first, through the ExoForce. When it reached a critical threshold, the logic bomb was off, and the military grade ExoTech took over their hosts, who started wreaking havoc on the streets. Not only that, the malware also heightened the user’s abilities, in detriment of their durability – “overclocking” them, in a way.
Although unintended, the Overclock Virus mutated as it spread through the ExoForce, and started to infect any user of ExoTech, be it doctors, builders, or what have you. Some radical hackers find this magnificent, marveled that the virus could improve itself autonomously. Most think it’s a tragedy, though.
The ExoForces now fights its former comrades who have gone mad with the Overclock Virus. Even if peace is eventually restored, this hacking event will have cost humanity an arm and a leg, which no technological exoskeletons will ever fully replace.
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