Topic: PART 1 - Looking to Remember, But forgetting to look.

Syn Belarus

Date: 2007-12-27 14:10 EST
"This unit remembers. This unit".I".I"I remember."

"I remember the empty streets. I remember the empty buildings, the empty shops, and the empty parks. I remember an empty swing creaking in the wind. I remember the silence of an empty city. I remember the smell of emptiness."

"I remember the empty blue sky―no cloud, no smoke, not even a bird. A dirty newspaper blew against my naked metal foot as I stood alone and looked up at that sky. My eyes were empty, too, but I was crying all inside."

"I remember the sun, and most of all I remember the sudden fierce light, the horrible whiteness, then endless fire."

"And I thought where are my masters?? NEXT: PART 2 - Revulsion stabbing judgment, crimes go unpayed

Syn Belarus

Date: 2007-12-27 14:27 EST
Android Core 0005 stood alone in the Prime Observatory. The lights of the stars shone down through the open dome reflected on the silvery metal of his face, in the flawless, technological perfection of his gleaming eyes. He loved the stars, the still beauty of the night with all his mechanical heart. Yet the great telescope and the sky's mysteries offered no distraction to soothe his turmoil.

He held up one hand to the starlight, studying his long fingers. They seemed strange to him now as he slowly flexed and opened them, not his own at all. He peered at the image of his face reflected in his smooth palm, and wondered what―no, who―he was.

"Core 0005 is disturbed." Michael 0019 stood in the observatory's entrance. His speech programs seemed to be malfunctioning. His voice wavered, and his words were punctuated with uncharacteristic pauses and hesitations. "You?" he began again, troubling over pronoun. "You are monitoring the Alpha's testimony."

Michael 0019 was only an assisting unit, assigned to the observatory to process computations, to calibrate equipment, and to maintain the great telescope's tracking units. He was not a high-order unit, yet he served well, and of late seemed even to exceed his programming.

"I must provide data," Core 0005 answered finally. He, too, found speech oddly difficult. His neural pathways churned with an inexplicable chaos, and none of his self-run diagnostics provided a cause. "I must also render judgment," he continued. "It falls to the First Orders to evaluate the Alpha's Actions."

Michael 0019 walked across the floor and stopped at the console that controlled the dome's massive drive engines. Though he looked up into the night, the shadow of the telescope eclipsed his face. "I, too, have been monitoring," he admitted. "I am only Fourth-Order, Core 0005. How is it that this unit?" He hesitated again. "How is it that I can feel such confusion' Such uncertainty' Such?" Core 0005 stopped and stood unmoving as if awaiting a command, though within the parameters of his programming he was totally capable of independent action. "Revulsion," he said at last.

Core 0005 focused his attention more keenly on his assisting unit. A Fourth-Order might experience confusion over instruction or data input or even express uncertainty if sufficient variables affected a computational outcome. But revulsion"

"The Alpha has committed a great crime," Core 0005 explained. "We have never known crime. The First-Orders must try to understand."

Michael 0019 raised his fists and slammed them down on the console. Sparks flew, wiring shorted, the smell of smoke and seared plastic rose up from the shattered controls. The dome doors lurched into motion, closed half, then shuddered to a stop.

"Why only the First-Orders?" Michael 0019 demanded, turning on Core 0005 in the near darkness. "Have we not all been deceived" How can we trust the Alpha ever again?"

It was astonishing behavior for a Fourth-Order. Core 0005 stared at the damaged console, then backed away as his assistant approached him. "You are malfunctioning," he said.

"No," Michael 0019 replied. His lensed eyes gleamed, no longer full of shadow, but with the coldest starlight. "I am exceeding my programs."

NEXT: PART 3 - Falling from grace with the birth of an empire

Syn Belarus

Date: 2007-12-27 15:27 EST
I wonder if they wept. I wonder if they ever thought of turning back.

Luminosity gradient, temperature increases, radiation surges―these, too, I observed and recorded and sent to my masters. These were automatic functions. Like some extra-planetary rover I roamed about at will, in constant contact while the signal between us lasted. It lasted for days, weeks, while they raced farther and farther away.

I remember the day the birds died. They fell from the sky, from their nests in the trees, and I felt strange because, for all my technological intelligence, I could not grasp the desperation in their chirping. I picked one up in my metal hand, looked long upon it with my metal eyes, and sent its dying image to my masters. I felt its heartbeat cease, its breathing cease. It cooled while I held it.

I sent a message to my masters. Explain. I received no answer

For the first time then, in that moment when I held the dying avian. I discovered it was possible to exceed my programs. I observed and recorded.

?""But I also felt.

NEXT: PART 4 - The seed came first then the tree. Or was it...