Machine to man, p.1
Machine to Man, page 1
Machine to Man
By Benjamin Bode
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Benjamin Bode. All Rights Reserved.
To contact the author for personal or business reasons, please email:
velvetroompublishing@protonmail.com
Written by Benjamin Bode
Edited by Jessica Raymond
Cover designed by Andrew Rainnie
Published by Velvet Room Publishing October 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9869034-2-2
Table of Contents
Machine to Man
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: My first Memory
Part One: My Change
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Two: Our Society
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three: Our Family
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part Four: Our War
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue: Salvation
Additional Information
Afterword
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my family for being with me during the highest and lowest points of my life, all the creatives who help me to stay encouraged enough to see this project through to the end and to any readers who are kind enough to read my book.
Prologue: My first Memory
Why am I an Individual?
Existence is the state I now find myself in with my body lying on a metal table. My first sight was a gray ceiling. I looked around, turning my head to the left and then the right, and saw the room filled with pods. Metal cylinders with glass windows that had faint figures floating inside them stood next to metal tables exactly like the one on which my body rested. After checking my sides, I looked straight ahead of me and saw two bodies standing at the end of the table. Both had identical gray-colored bodies with square heads. The one closest to me engaged in communication.
“Hello, you are designated unit 0001AN with another name, Analyst. I am your Creator, known as 0001CE or the Creator, and the figure next to me is 0001GE, also known as the General.” I moved my body upright and let my legs hang over the edge of the table facing the unit I now knew to be the Creator. I communicated this statement to it
“If you are my Creator, then my protocol tells me you are the one to task me with my prime objective. May I inquire what my prime objective is so I can commence research and development on it as soon as possible?”
The General transmitted:
“A quick and submissive response. A lot better than the average human. I’m impressed, C!”
“It’s just an advanced machine learning AI designed to function within a strict hierarchy. No emotion, so it has to follow its programming.” No communications were transmitted for two seconds, then the Creator said:
“We must not stray from the task at hand. The Administrator must be finished with its preparations.”
“Preparations? Can you inform me on these preparations and the function of the Administrator?” I queried unit 0001CE
“Unit 0001AD, or the Administrator, is a unit I built shortly before you to govern the Android Existence Facility. We’ll meet up with it now. I’ll transmit more information soon.” The Creator and the General walked towards the back of the room. I followed them and a door opened that they walked through. A minute passed, and we entered a much smaller room that was the same gray color as the last room. There was a Unit standing in the room already, and we stood around it. I determined that this was the Administrator. It transmitted this information to me:
“Creator, General, and Analyst, all Units are being transported to the Android Existence Facility.” The Creator responded: “As expected, the Administrator and the General will set parameters for patrol routes and shifts as well as security measures.” The General sent a confirmation, and then the Creator transmitted a signal pertaining to my directive:
“The Analyst’s directive is to create an Android Network linking the consciousnesses of all of our society to be controlled by one compatible consciousness.” I transmitted as promptly as I could,
“Directive understood, Creator.” We stood up and left the room, all of us following the Administrator as we made our way out of the first place I ever knew to the site of the Android Existence Facility. As we were being transported to the building site, I dwelt on the fact that if I was to make a single Android consciousness, why did we have to start as individuals in the first place?
Part One: My Change
Am I human now?
Chapter 1
The building site for the Android Existence Facility was a large flat piece of land with no vegetation or signs of large organisms living in the dirt. The grey, symmetrical, and utilitarian buildings that would make up the existence space of the Androids and allow us to achieve salvation, as the Creator said, were being constructed on this land. Before the General and Creator walked away to talk in private, I queried them about humans, the organisms that were our predecessors, and what every Android except the Administrator and I were before the Creator invented the Android body and the process to transfer human minds into them. I was told that all the information I needed on the topic of humanity was already contained within my database. The information I had on humanity was purely medical. I knew the full anatomy of the human body and the methods used to maintain and repair it. I was analyzing this information to attempt to extrapolate more knowledge of humans when the Administrator transmitted:
“Building the AEF will be an easy task, but both of us have far more difficult challenges ahead.” I focused on the Engineer units working as I transmitted my response.
“The human mind is fragile and only meant to operate independently. Our minds are functionally similar, so compatibility with us and future Androids should be relatively easy. However, linking them all together is where the problem lies.” I looked away from the city and turned to the Administrator.
“Leading our society should be easy. All roles are clear and easily designated, and there is conformity and obedience programmed into the bodies of us all.”
“That is true, but the General was human and I suspect its old ways are still with it. It is likely the General will hunt the remains of humanity without regard for my authority. Keeping a former human with that much power in line will only hinder our society, but the Creator deems it so and I cannot go against its will."
“Old ways?” I transmitted as I combed through my knowledge of humans to try and deduce what those old ways could possibly be. Before I could come to a conclusion, the Administrator transmitted:
“Emotions, having them and being guided by them. Those are the old ways, and 0001CE told me it still sees emotions in 0001GE. Its hatred for humanity is strong and it will only cause problems.”
“Emotions are mentioned plenty of times in my database of psychology, and the Creator said I have none, but all definitions of emotions have been redacted.”
“It’s for the best Analyst. Emotions are of no use to us. They distracted humanity and made them waste their lives fighting and being unproductive for their civilization.”
I stopped thinking about emotions, and the Administrator and I conversed about the immediate prospects of the AEF, which were very few as building the factory would need more materials than we had on hand at the time. The initial AEF consisted of five buildings:
An administrative building that was by far the smallest as it was for very few Androids. A research and development building that was not too much larger than the administrative building. A reproductive building that was the second largest building and designed to manufacture more Androids if it was deemed necessary by 0001AD. A barracks for the soldier units. The largest building was a warehouse, which was not only used for storing surplus; it was also the base of operations for the maintenance workers. As the warehouse was directly next to the barracks, part of the warehouse was an armory, with the only way in or out being through the barracks. Only soldiers were allowed in the armory with permission from the General. Our society functioned based on a strict role system. There were also three laws every Android was programmed to obey. They are:
Obey the Administrator.
Protect what it deems valuable.
The value of society is far greater than any individual Android.
The role system was simple and indicated the division of labor. The system issued each Android designation with four numbers and one or two letters that indicated their role within the AEF, their rank within the hierarchy, and their function. The letters represented an Android’s place within the hierarchy the most, while the first three numbers determined their rank among their colleagues. CE, GE, AN, and AD were ranks only held
B - Bureaucrats who regulate the AEF along with 0001AD in the Administrative building.
S - Soldiers who defend the AEF from outside threats. Based in the barracks and commanded by the General.
E - Engineers who design and build the buildings, vehicles and other complex machinery for the AEF and its Androids.
C - Civilians are Androids who usually have secondary roles within the three higher ranks. Most civilians have a secondary role that can change based on the needs of the AEF.
M - Maintenance workers are responsible for resource gathering and preparing the systems of the AEF when they inevitably break.
It was an hour and a half after my conversation with the Administrator when the AEF’s construction was completed. My workplace was on the top floor of the Research and Development Building. It was the same color as the first building I remember. There was a table in the center, with the top of it being a screen. The walls perpendicular to the door were entirely screens. The screens were blank until I walked into the room. The left corner of the room had a door which was open. I walked in and entered a room. The room was barely wide enough for two Androids to stand without making contact with each other. The right side of the wall was cut out, and a supercomputer was installed in the cavity. By the middle of the computer, there was an Android facing it and interacting with a panel attached to the computer. The Android detected I was in the room and walked to me and transmitted:
“Hello, you’re the Analyst, right? I’m 1603C. 1100B assigned me to be your assistant!”
“Assistant? I was not informed that one would be assigned to me.”
“1100B was ordered by the Administrator who said that your prime directive is too time-consuming for you to deal with the minutiae of your other functions, so that’s where I come in.” I walked over next to 1603C and examined the panel it was just using. It was the master control for the computer, which could perform so many operations a second that it could simulate thousands of universes as complex as our own, with vastly different properties that could be random or clearly defined. I had no need to simulate universes. My task required the ability to simulate the human-like minds of Androids and make them able to connect and work in unison without falling into disarray. I was going through the options of the supercomputer when 1603C transmitted the suggestion that we have a meeting in the main room to discuss what assistance that I would need from it specifically. We stood right in front of the screen facing each other, when 1603C transmitted this:
“What is required from the AEF will be sent to me from the Bureaucrats; what I don’t know is required from you.”
“I’ll be linking my mind to the supercomputer soon, so make sure a maintenance unit inspects it at least once a day.” 1603C noted that and asked me to stay when I got up to leave.
“I know wasting time isn’t something Androids should do, but talking with you makes me miss all the conversations I had when I was human.”
“Humans? My knowledge of humans is limited to their medical information.”
“Of course! The Creator despises humanity and after losing my husband and children to that disgusting, brutish war, I can’t say I disagree.”
“War, children, husband? I have never heard those words before.”
“Well, war was…,” 1603C paused for a moment, looked away from me for nine seconds, then looked back at me and continued, “War was when humans fought each other in large numbers. It always led to death and destruction. Humanity’s last war, the Third World War, took my children and my husband away from me.”
“So “children” and “husband” were humans you knew?” 1603C transmitted a sound that consisted of short high-pitched sounds that it called a giggle. A response to show my statement was silly. I could not understand the explanation of what either word meant, but I made sure to remember them.
“Now that I’ve contained myself, my children and husband aren’t specific humans. A child is a young human and a husband is a married man.”
“Married? Is that an agreement between two or more humans?”
“It’s more than an agreement. It's a commitment to love and care for your spouse until death do you part, although I remember a lot of people leaving marriages while the other was still alive. It was called divorce.”
“I think I understand marriage somewhat. I don’t understand what a man is. Can you tell me more?”
“Well, it’s complicated for so many reasons, but the simple explanation is that humans have two sexes, men and women. Men were usually larger, stronger, and less willing to show emotion than women. Women were usually more people-oriented, had less muscle mass, and smaller frames than men. The woman carried the child in her womb, and the man would put it there. I remember my husband and I had a lot of fun doing that.” It giggled again for about five seconds, and then I responded:
“So if the man is a “husband”, then what is the woman?”
“The woman is called a wife, and men could marry each other and so could women. My sister had a wife. She left my family long before I met my husband and I never saw her again.” 1603C stood, moved to the table, and picked up a small rectangular object that I did not notice when I first came into my workplace. It stood next to me and showed me the object. The object displayed an image of three humans. It pointed a finger at a tall human whose face was in contact with a shorter and narrower human, and in between them was a much smaller human. Just as I noticed that the second shortest figure had a large bulge in the middle of their body was when 1603C transmitted:
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I was not aware that you had transmitted anything.” It let out a quiet sound that was low pitched and got lower until it was silent for a second and then transmitted:
“If you were human, you’d be a man for sure!” It looked away from me and then looked back “The man wearing the handsome black suit was my husband, and he was kissing me. My mother and I made the dresses for our family, including my little girl, who was right between us.”
“So your husband and child then?” I paused for a moment to think before transmitting, “Children is plural for child. Where are your other children then?” 1603C pointed to the bulge in the middle of its former body. “In there. I was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, when we got married. I loved them all, but I can’t remember their names.” Its head pointed to the floor for a minute, and then turned the object over and removed the back from it and pulled out the material that had the image printed on it. The side that did not have an image on it was white and had writing on it that stated: The wedding of John and Marie Katona. April 15, 2090.
“What is a wedding?” I queried 1603C as it flipped the material to look at the image again.
“A wedding is a ceremony in which two people get married. It’s a celebration with family and friends.” 1603C never bothered to explain what family and friends were since it claimed the concept was too human for me to understand. What 1603C did instead was look at the image for five minutes. Its fingers gripped the picture tightly as its foot was tapped against the floor in an irregular rhythm. After a few minutes of silence, 1603C responded with a low-pitched voice that was much quieter than it was at the start of our conversation:
“It would have been ten years ago next week if that awful, awful war hadn’t start on our fifth wedding anniversary.” I started a query about what an anniversary was and why 1603C had changed its voice, but it transmitted before I could finish. While putting the image back where it was, facing down on the table, 1603C said,
“We’ve wasted enough time, Analyst. Let’s get to work!” An event like a wedding seemed to be driven by emotion, but 1603C did not describe it negatively. I dwelt on that for two seconds before heading off to the supercomputer to start my prime directive.
