machines came out from the orb, they appeared as a cloud, a swarm of flies or wasps, but they were not born of nature. the black cloud moved silently, it was indeed eerie. i ran down the steps with the camera, it was counter intuitive to the rest of the crowd who were running away, but i was a photographer, a photojournalist and my instincts kicked in. i had to push my way through the panic, getting jostled around by the motion of panic, the look of terror on peoples faces, as mothers grabbed children dragging them to safety.
a blind woman had fallen down, i helped her stand and she asked me what was happening, she said the screaming was deafening, i could only agree, i escorted her to the railing and told her to walk down, that everything would be fine once she reached the bottom, i told her the police would keep her safe and not to panic like those around her, she nodded relief and then descended, i lost sight of her almost immediately as the entropy set in.
chaos, i took a few frames and continued up the steps, trying to block out the screaming and the sight of faces, twisted, gritted teeth, lips salivating, eyes spilling over with the brute will of survival, the ground seemed to move but it was an illusion, the kind that happens on trains. i was nearly there, as i too the last section the crowd passed me, i dared no longer look down, i needed the picture, it was hardwired into my dna, war does that, i'd seen action in the middle east, the jungles of south america, the sudan,, southern africa, in the glasgow riots, in the la revolution and in the mexican drug wars, taking the photograph was more than just a job, it was my work, my duty. 
when i came over the final step i stopped in my tracks, this is certain death in a war zone, you always keep moving unless your in safe zones like shelters bunkers or foxholes, but here faced with what lay before me i stopped and caught my breath. sydney sprawled out in the summer sunshine, the magnificent waterways, the landmarks all gleaming in the languid sun, and there next to the harbour bridge hovered the egg, a black opaque shaped structure and out from it's undercarriage bled the swarm. the craft had not arrived from deep space, it had not landed or made an announcement, it had just appeared, four years ago, we were only just becoming used to it, the mysterious egg science and research had given up with, decades of research and we had not learnt a thing about it, it was not of earth, that's all we knew. humans had no technology to even guess, that's where the psychics came in, and then the millions of theories. i thought it was a government trick, some sort of surveillance device, but the governments of the world didn't have a clue what it was, no one did, no one knew why it had appeared or what was inside, it was a mystery in plain sight, so we carried on as normal. and then this, twenty minites ago the thing starts leaking a gas some one had said, but it wasn't a gas, it was a swarm of tiny black cubes, billions of them. they were just pouring out and swarming around the egg itself, a mass of silent black objects ever moving, almost like black thick smoke but it was contained, they seemed to be flying formation, growing as more and more emerged. i took a few pictures and then something changed, it was a sound, aircraft. two fighter planes ripped through the skyline, they were F1-11s or 12's, doing a recon sweep, they were fast but the swarm was faster. a tiny black dot, maybe a few hundred cubes maybe just one seemed to detach itself from the main bloom and shoot after the planes, looking through the telephoto lenses i saw that the smaller cloud of cubes split into two each one targeting a plane. they began to overtake the plane and then seemed to attach itself to the wing. the planes started flying out past the southern suburbs, i watched them disappear over the horizon. 
by now the skies were blackened with these things, i took some more pictures and ran to see if i could get a better position, maybe up the harbour bridge would be a turret i could get as close to the egg as possible. 
the cloud mass stopped emerging, that was it they were hovering there momentarily, must have been a few billion of them. even the egg was difficult to distinguish from the mass if it's cubes. 
another plane flew over, slower, some sort of fat chubby aircraft, military colours, it was a dash eight.
the cubes suddenly, almost instantaneously shifted into a wall, a huge wall and then they rotated and changed colour from black to silver mirrored, catching the sunlight a wall of light reflected across them. 
i couldn't look at it, as if a huge magnifying glass had been burning a fly the beam of sunlight just frazzled the dash, it just fried up and fell into the water. then the wall moved again, this time it seemed to be organising itself into a tentacled mass as it began ripping into the cities power supply, it tore up the road near george street and drilled down into the earth.
a jeep pulled up, 'are you a civilian?'
i pulled out a press card, 'hey i'm captain mission photojournalist.' 
i offered a hand.
'i'm group commander jones, the aliens have started a war mission, you should get of the streets.'
'i'll stay, how do you know they want a war?'
'because they attacked us.'
'are you certain they want war with the humans?'
we watched the swarm churning up the city as buildings crumbled and fell, cars were thrown up into the air and fell where they may. we could see people in buildings, offices and homes all looking from the windows. 
the skies were filled with them now, just like being in a sandstorm, jones and i ducked for cover, i noticed he grabbed his rifle and then as we headed towards a service door i saw the revolver on his hip, i almost laughed, these weapons won't do anything but jones was holding the door for me, a gentleman solider, i spared him humiliation. 
safe inside i asked him, what the army planed to do, i was surprised by his answer.
'i think they will surrender, i mean what are we going to do up against this technology, really it's far to advanced.'
suddenly the door just crumpled into a small ball of metal and disappeared into nothing. a single tiny cube sat hovering before us, it then attached itself to jones and i watched as jones body started to enter some sort of bond, i started taking slight quiet steps backwards, i needed to get out, but i did take the picture. as i cued the image in the view finder jones head just seemed to flop, the light in his eyes blazed and then went out, he fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, dead.
the cube came for me.


i don't know, i don't know what happened next, it just attached itself to my head and suddenly i became aware of the vast void of space, the size of it, the space of space itself. this was a hive mind, from a far place, the furthest and oldest in the universe, actually it was not really the universe, not this one anyway, it's what we would call a different dimension. so far away it sits on top of this dimension yet it is completely different. 
it's a vast universe in all directions, a hall of mirrors reflecting infinity.
these are machines, made by watchers of worlds, gods. it's an inhibiting machine, travelling the multiverse, one of billions.
the download starts flowing.
void gods, void god creates us to inspect the qualities of life in all probables. quality determined by growth, individuality sustainable, human society hive cannot sustain, mono think equates to finality and stagnation. earth minds stagnating, decay, watchers jump start the collective...
there were terrible scenes, i see this in my minds eye, planets, cities, vast hexagon hives, uniforms, mind control, group think, these are the decaying elements. i watched the cultures shrink, and destroy themselves, some were very expansive spanning solar systems others planet bound, capitalists, socialists, democracy, dictatorships, all were restricting an ultimate purpose at some point as they grew, i can't fathom what it is, it's like deciphering a tarot deck knowing there's a central message there, a warning but not knowing the detail, my mind strains as i force it to continue, the cube is drilling deeper inside my consciousness, giving me the detail, filling the gaps. 
it's diversity, all prime species must promote diversity in life forms, in culture, in all mental, spiritual, political memes the dominant life force must enhance diversity upon the planet, not restriction. if the point is reached where diversity is at odds with the planet the inhibiting mechanism of the gods manifest to correct the imbalance. 
'who created you' i ask, although it's not in words, just a question formed in my mind. i see images of shadows, disembodied intelligence, the movement of tentacles, the eye, i see the eye, it's surrounded by bright yellow flames and red, leaping high arching around the curve, it's the eye of intelligence, looking right into my heart, into my mind, it reads me, knows me, i feel myself opening up and the barriers of space and time fragment and loose themselves, i feel the information enter me like soft liquid and then when i open my eyes the cube removes itself and flies away. on the floor jones lay immobile. i look out at the city, its quiet, the cloud of black cubes has left, they pour back into the egg, the sea looks different, the air feels clear and fresh, there's slight traces of ruin, a few upturned cars, some road ripped up, a little damage to buildings and the monorail. i can see the people wandering around and on the harbour a few sail boats, there's a lot of dead people laying all over though. there's an unnatural silence, no sirens, no aircraft, i scan the bridge, it's looking magnificent, the egg hangs next to it as it has for many years and then right as i stare at its black surface it just pops right out of existance. gone. i almost step backwards.


the answers are there, all civilisations need adjustments, its like a divine intervention only it's not god, he or she just sends a repair kit, millions of cubes in an egg. i don't know why it just waited there for so many years before doing its job, maybe it gave us a chance, a chance to do it alone. we were on a downwards spiral, decline of man, it was obvious, everyone was in denial. how could we ever figure it out. the whole universe requires diversity, life in all it's forms must thrive and variations on the theme must be allowed to flourish but humanity had begun to control this in life, wiping out species, destroying environments, the seas, the skies, the jungles even the icecaps diversity. we destroyed the mind, ideas became scarce, philosophies all seemed to be reduced, we dumbed down everything, even our political memes were now just two, spiritual frameworks dumbed down by controlling authorities, any original thought needed approval from a council of experts, globalisation of everything reduced diversity and then the egg came. that was it, the puzzle complete, i walked out into the bright day, it was good to be alive.