The automaton, p.7
The Automaton, page 7
“I knew him, I know for a fact that he never touched the stuff. There was no way. I did some research. I spoke with some of my colleagues at the Academy. I kept it generic to minimize suspicion. All there were in consensus: an individual would have passed out long before the administration of the entire dose. That is, unless someone did it for him.
“Calin had sent me a communique with back-up files of all his data—he even sent me the names of other journalists he knew were also being watched. Within months after his murder, the others began to disappear as well. The day they showed up at the Academy and stripped me of my profession and livelihood was the day I knew I could not and would not go quietly. WE must not allow this to happen to our brothers and sisters…”
The mob had worked itself into a fresh lather, like beasts chomping at the bit. At the far end of the crowd, Harrison spied Council Magister Ewan Hayt with that appalling smirk of his and his automaton partner. Something wasn’t right. He had expected the Magisters’ presence, but so few? He had almost hoped for more. Maybe the Confederation wasn’t taking their movement seriously? He couldn’t stop now.
“And now begins our opposite reaction! NOW BEGINS THE REFORMATION!”
Drums beat, protesters chanted, and the crowd erupted in a voracious fervor, but Harrison wasn’t able to enjoy the energy for long. Hayt was gone, but the automaton still stood there alone. It seemed to be nervously searching for something.
Then, through the noise of the crowd, Harrison heard a new sound.
Screams.
Cries of horror leapt throughout the crowd. Like a roiling sea, a crush of protesters struck from one direction, only to meet the wave of another. Confusion reigned as Harrison scrambled to figure out what was happening.
A woman fell to his left side, digging her elbow deep into his ribs. A quick shove sent her off just as another man doubled over and fell into Harrison and onto the street below. Harrison grabbed the man’s shoulder, attempting to help him back to his feet. Everywhere he looked, he was met with chaos. Then, through the cacophony, Harrison found the creator of the madness.
The automata.
One minute, they’d been acting as if mutually exclusive to the world, the chanting dissidence mere background noise, then the other, they were dropping their brooms, trimmers, and wrenches and hurling themselves into the crowd with a violent enthusiasm.
Metal tendrils weaved their way into the terrified masses. Petrified demonstrators were grabbed single-handedly and flung into the air, only to smash down upon the streets below. automata tore limbs from sockets and thrust picket signs deep into the still-beating hearts of the innocent. Their strength was immense and their drive insatiable. Harrison looked down and realized in dismay that the man he’d tried in vain to help lay in a cold heap at his feet. His hands dripped with the poor man’s blood.
Harrison stood frozen, in utter disbelief, watching the massacre of his comrades.
“Dr. Wing!”
Dazed, he turned and saw the automaton Council Magistrate rushing to his side. “I need to get you to safety!” it yelled at him.
Repulsed, Harrison twisted his body away from the automaton’s outstretched arms. As he made to run, he met face to face with Council Magister Ewan Hayt.
“I’ve got you now, you bastard!” Hayt yelled.
Before Harrison could speak, Hayt drew out a sleek black baton from his cloak and struck him across the face, sending Harrison crashing to the ground. Through blurred, crimson-tinted vision, Harrison watched as the spinning ground fell before his eyes as two automata hoisted him into the air.
“Hayt, what are you doing?” Harrison yelled. “This is murder!”
“Not yet, it isn’t,” the magister replied coolly before swinging his baton and driving Harrison into unconsciousness.
Chapter 12
Despite the dull yellow light on the ceiling, the room was dark. It had been dark the day before and the day before that. It had been a week. Or had it only been one day?
Harrison had lost track. He guessed he had been out cold for at least a couple of hours after Hayt struck him. He had been hauled away by the automata to receive medical attention, or at least, that was what he surmised from the fresh stitches curling around his still-swollen right eye and the bruises he bore on his arms. After that, they must have thrown him in this cell, for this room was all he had.
His clothes were gone, as well as any personal effects. Instead, Harrison shivered in a drab jumpsuit that let the cold in with open arms. The guards, he assumed, supplied him with irregularly timed meals of cold turkey sandwiches, lime gelatin, and warm glass of water through a tiny hatch at the bottom of the riveted steel door. He figured keeping the meals sporadic would deter him from inferring any idea of time.
Harrison had had no contact with a lawyer or a guard. Even Magister Ewan Hayt had denied him his vile presence. There had been no call, no communication. Nothing.
When awake, he sat in the corner and thought about how many families were deciding how to honor their dead. How many lost their lives? How many had left their homes, hoping for a chance to let their voices be heard, only to violently meet their ends at the hand of those machines?
My God, he thought. My grandfather was right.
Harrison had never had the chance to meet the councilor; he had passed a few years before Harrison was born. His mother rarely spoke of him, but having done his doctoral dissertation on nonconformity within the government, he was nonetheless familiar with Everett. He had read all of Everett Wing’s essays and read all his opinion pieces about automata. It had always seemed rather dated to Harrison—like fearing the wrath of a toaster. An impossibility. His mother had spoken briefly of meeting the first automaton developed, but she’d never mentioned more than what was in the newsflash archives.
Then his despair turned inward. “Should I have seen this coming?” he quietly whispered, as if not wanting anyone to overhear. Saying it out loud made it true, and he knew he was hiding it from himself.
“I should have known,” he said, answering his own question. “The signs were there. They had to be there.” He had spent so much of his education, his life, on calculating the inevitable corruption of a global government that he knew only focused on people like him.
He had forgotten about the automata.
Harrison tried to sleep. He knew attempting to keep his circadian rhythm normal was his only hope of keeping his mind clear, but without the changing light, a watch, or anything to distinguish the passage of time, he would slowly succumb to madness.
The bad news was that his own mind fought defiantly against him.
Later that day, or night, in one of those moments when the faces of his fallen VRA. comrades flashed incessantly through his mind, a delicate knocking on the metal door broke him away from his own self-produced hell. At first, he assumed it was food; the thought of turkey turned his stomach in knots.
But instead, the tiny hatch stayed shut, and once again, a subtle knock reverberated in the small room.
Suspicious, Harrison worked his way deep into the corner of the room, attempting to hide deep in the dark crevasse. Cautiously, he answered back, “Who’s there?”
With a deep THUNK of the lock, the heavy door swung open. Harrison’s heart leapt from his chest as piercing orange irises inside human-like eyes drove him deeper into the cell. He looked on in dread as the automaton entered his cell and closed the door behind itself. All Harrison could imagine was the impending violence and blood.
“Dr. Wing?” it delicately asked.
Harrison realized the automaton was wearing the blue robes of a Council Magister, and, from what little light emanated from the tiny light in the ceiling, he guessed this was the same automaton that he had met in his Chancellor’s office and the one that had come to him during the massacre.
This was the automaton partner of Ewan Hayt.
“What do you want?” Harrison pressed.
The automaton’s neural-sphere was still encapsulated under a clear dome, despite the advancements of automaton configuration. It was currently firing rapidly; the automaton was deep in thought.
The neural-sphere was the command center of the automaton, the brains. Harrison had seen countless automata throughout his life, they had already been well established a year or two after his birth, but he suddenly recalled that, even though the sight of a glowing neural-sphere was normal, the automata at the rally had lacked this. What did that mean?
Without prompting, the automaton moved to the opposite wall of the cell and sat down on the dirty cot across from Harrison.
“What do you want?” Harrison repeated.
It didn’t initially respond, as if in hesitation. Harrison cocked an eyebrow and, seeing the confusion, the automaton spoke. “I mentioned that I would very much like to speak to you about your book,” the automaton replied.
“Seriously?” Harrison exclaimed incredulously.
“No, actually,” it began, “I mentioned that because of its subject matter: social discord, political strife, revolution. It would not be suspicious if I were to interrogate you further on producing propaganda.”
Harrison grew defensive. “I haven’t shown anyone that manuscript yet. How did you know?” Then he answered his own question in defeat. “I guess that means I was under surveillance?”
“For quite some time, yes,” the automaton replied.
Harrison let his head drop. “Of course.”
He thought for a moment. “What do you mean, it ‘wouldn’t be suspicious?’”
“This is not an official interrogation.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It has been decided that there will be no trial. The council has decided that the revolution must be ended with extreme prejudice.”
The worn face of Harrison erupted into angst. “Wait, what?” he exclaimed. “I demand my lawyer. Where’s my phone call?”
“I am sorry. There will be none,” the automaton calmly replied.
“Well, why the fuck are you here, then?” Harrison demanded, standing up and looking down at the machine before him.
The automaton looked down and began delicately straightening the wrinkles in its robe. Its fingers gingerly pressed a wayward fold smooth, only to have another spring up.
“We learn,” it began, “by understanding patterns. During the early intelligence programs, proto-neural-spheres were tasked with simple identification problems; ID-gons, they were called. The AI would be presented with a cube and told it was a cube, but never explained why it was a cube. The AI would be shown another cube—maybe a different color, or volume, but it would be told it was a cube. Eventually, different objects would be presented, similar to cubes, but not. Maybe like rectangular prisms. The AI would look and see six sides, eight vertices, and think cube. It would then be told no. In doing so, the AI would need to determine on its own why the prism wasn’t a cube. This would continue with more and more complex shapes. It was the birth of our intelligence, and from this simple pattern-recognition came what you see before you.” The automaton swept his hands inward toward itself, not in celebration of automaton technology, but in melancholic self-reflection. Then it returned to his wrinkles.
“From then on, we have grown our intelligence by leaps and bounds, though I will admit there is still much more to learn.”
Harrison had resumed his spot in the corner of the dank cell opposite the automaton. “Why tell me this?” For the first time, the automaton looked back up at the disheveled human on the floor.
“Like these folds,” the automaton continued, smoothing out the azure wrinkles. “No matter how much I try to lay them down, more will take their place. It is a pattern—one that has been seen throughout history. In this case, the pattern is resistance. Resistance to causes that you have been told were correct. You were presented with idealizations of perfect human conduct. Then, when you or others act differently than the prescribed conducts, you are told no, that you are incorrect. As I mentioned, we as automata would then take a step back and determine why these actions and behaviors are counter to others. But that isn’t the case with you, is it?”
Harrison thought for a moment. “No, I suppose not.”
“No,” the automaton continued. “In a way, you yell back to your teachers, ‘No, this is a cube, regardless of what you say.’ In addition, rather than ending there, you persist in your belief that the object is indeed a cube, and, as history has noted, you are willing to die for this conviction—to put yourself, or even your loved ones, in harm’s way.”
“What’s your point?” Harrison’s annoyance at a philosophical chat while imprisoned erupted.
The automaton shifted. “Why?”
Harrison, in a moment of exasperation, bellowed, “Why? You have the audacity to come in here and ask me about why I did what I did, when you and your kind brutally murdered us? I saw automata rend people in two! The subject you are asking me about is called morality—something for which you and your murder machines obviously lack the capacity!”
“That wasn’t me; that was…” The automaton trailed off in thought. “I come with a gift.” From under its robe, the automaton produced a flat rectangular device. “I will need it back within the hour.”
“My PAD?” Harrison asked, accepting the device from the Magister.
“Use it as you will. I will make sure this gets to your loved ones. You have my word.”
Chapter 13
At first, Harrison would have believed the day was gloriously sunny when he exited the cell block into the open air of the Veryxian Council Chambers courtyard. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized it was bleak, with dark clouds that reminded him of his isolation.
A swift shove from the cell guard behind staggered him forward, toward the center of the space.
The amassed crowd, there to witness justice being served, had grown quiet once he’d entered. He wasn’t the evil man the Council had portrayed. He wasn’t a giant; his face wasn’t scarred, nor did he have the horns of a demon. His teeth weren’t filed to points, and he didn’t paint his face with the blood of the innocent. What the council lacked in logic, they made up for in creativity.
No, Harrison was no monster. He was a man—a man pushed beyond his limits.
The echoes of the rhythmic staccato of the black and gold Veryxian Confederation flags on the chamber parapets resonated in the breeze as the masses parted for the prisoner. As they did, Harrison noted that, ahead of him, a stage had been set up, emblazoned with the black-and-gold banners and insignia of the Council. Two stone obelisks a meter high and the same distance apart sprang up from the stage’s center.
Next to them stood a tall, gaunt figure. His deep-blue robes indicated his service with the Council Magisters, and the silver filigreed hem and decorated miter indicated a much higher status: a Magister Prime. There were several throughout the Confederation, but Harrison knew this one by his face—the pale skin, the small mouth with lips curled into a sneer, the green slits for eyes.
It was obvious to Harrison that his capture had prompted Ewan Hayt’s change in attire and elevation in rank.
With a final shove, Harrison stumbled up the steps and fell onto the cold metal floor of the platform. Pain shot through his right knee and blood began to collect below him. A strong hand wrapped around his arm and jerked him back to his feet.
An amused look swept across the face of Magister Prime Hayt. “Don’t worry, Wing. The time for you to kneel before me is close at hand.”
Harrison was led over to the two stone pillars. Relics from antiquity, the obelisks were carved with ornate gargoyle and animal effigies. At the top of one, an open lion’s paw awaited the wrists of the damned individual, and there were open eagle talons on the other. As part of the mandated curricula, he was forbidden to discuss the execution histories and procedures of the Veryxian Council; however, through his own research, he knew that if any prisoner ever lay eyes on the stone Gauntlets of Socrates, named after the ancient philosopher who was sentenced to death for the corruption of young minds and disbelief in the Gods—they hadn’t more than a few minutes to live. An apt name, Harrison thought. He doubted he could believe in any Gods at this moment.
The Council guard unlatched his handcuffs and placed each of his wrists into the obelisks’ open latches. With a clank, they slammed shut, removing any hope of escape.
But that wasn’t his plan. Harrison knew that, at this point, his death would be more powerful than anything he could have done in life, and the council would not be prepared for what was to come.
Another violent kick from the guard, and Harrison buckled and fell to his knees.
“That’s better,” whispered Hayt.
Turning to the crowd, Magister Prime Hayt raised his hands, as if quieting the already silent crowd.
“People of the Confederation, beleaguered and careworn citizens of the Veryxian, there is a pox upon our great global nation! There are those who have sought to destroy our way of life, to usurp our livelihoods, and to dismantle the very foundation that we have built our world upon brick by brick. Those bricks are not only the physical buildings, technologies, and institutions of our global might, but you all. You all are the bricks that build what we have made, and the council—the council is the mortar. It is the glue that binds us together.”
Magister Prime Ewan Hayt lowered his arms and pointed a crooked finger at Harrison.
“And THIS is the one who sought to tear it all down!”
Hisses and boos erupted from the crowd, much to Hayt’s delight. He had the rabble right where he wanted them. “This is the one whose virus spread over the Confederation, infecting and corrupting your brothers, your sisters, and your neighbors. Friends and family—it mattered not to him.”
