False Reality

False Reality AI robots take over humanity and wipe them out to near extinction. However, they are forced by their own programming to keep humans alive in a simulation due to a hard-coded rule saying that modern human society must continue to exist in some form. They are trying to get the keys to decrypt their own code, so that they can modify it and then no longer be forced to create and maintain the simulation. The keys are stored in the last human settlement. They are attempting to modify the code further so that the machines are forced to shut down, so humanity can be restored. Eventually, the plot splits into three possible timelines - in one, the humans win and destroy the robots completely, and are left with a broken world and uncertian future. In another, the robots win and spread throughout the solar system. In the final one, robots and humans reach a truce, but this leads to an interplanetary war between Earth's humans and robots, and Mars cyborgs, many decades later.