User blog:Uninown/Ersatz' Manufactory - Hardwired

It is the 17th of March, somewhere around the 22nd century. The evening is cold, dark. I can see some benches ahead freezing. The sky is polluted. There’s little to no sunlight here. Lifeforms are lacking. I forgot what was this place. Or who I was.

Who am I now.

But that doesn’t matter anymore. Time has long lost its meaning for us. For me. And everyone else, if there’s even any.

Days seem like weeks.

Months seem like years.

And so on.

There’s nothing to do in this wasteland right now, so perhaps... Just maybe, if there’s any spark of life on time ahead...

Maybe I could do good for the future generations if I can’t do for the present.

It all happened in a single day. I’ve heard a couple of names floating around, but I prefer to call it…

“The Event”.

A singular idea and concept.

Night fell.

I saw a giant construction lifting into the sky when raising a bottle of water towards my master’s dry, withered mouth; an obese human male exiting his fertility-able span.

We were in a forest when it happened. Humid woodland trees slowly breaking down and a rocky surface. He wanted to spend some moments outside, in nature.

Perimeter fences a few meters ahead and the smell of an odd carbon fuel... I knew something was off here, but his morbid curiosity didn’t let the movement down. I didn’t question it either.

A rocket, I think they called it. But this was no normal one. Trees bent themselves down flat soon as it departed. I was blasted a few meters behind, but I luckily held in a sturdy branch before I could briefly see the unknown architecture.

The height was of plenty of skyscrapers, and the width of a hundred houses. A heavy, dense smoke blurred my vision seconds after, and he told me to retreat. He was coughing, heavily. I think I even saw him cleaning off some blood dripping through his mouth.

I assumed those sprouted gases had some nasty effects on his lungs and body. I obeyed him at the spot.

I fled the scene. But then, an expression of concern emerged in his face. No, not concern- Acceptance? It was... odd.

It was as if he knew what was going to happen next. I’ve only seen that face on dying people. He collapsed moments later. Was it my fault?

I don’t truly know. But I ran towards him, distressed.

I tried to detect his pulse. The fat of his body was impeding me to do so. I went for his neck.

...

Not even a single heartbeat. His breathing was close to none. We were in the wild. I couldn’t do anything at the time. I was a simple assistant machine. I laid his body on the floor, and I felt in the need of taking a flower and planting it right next to him.

What?

Is that what man does when someone close to him fades away? Burial? What were the reasons for that? I attempted to ‘grieve’.

I kneeled down, looking at the passing corpse of my master. Grief? What was it?

I couldn’t retrieve a definition. How could I understand that?

‘Emotion’.

‘Sentiment’.

‘Feeling’.

My circuits felt.. strange.

I tried to comprehend.

I failed.

I tried to find the logic behind it.

I failed.

Then, I didn’t try. For the first time.

I just accepted it.

Decisions. Attempts. I wasn’t sure of anything at the time. I was a simple servant following orders.

But then?

I felt... lost.

A door opened. My mental clearance expanded.

The clouds were getting gloomy and the floor dampening. What were these chemicals? I didn’t remember smoke was that harmful to living lifeforms.

I analyzed the gases. My triangular head, pyramid-like head absorbed a small sample

...

Harmful agents. Dense, massive amounts of mixtures containing all sorts of disabling, irritative components.

What? Why was this happening? I questioned again my surroundings.

Why?

Why?

Why?

I felt something. Boiling. I felt... ‘violent’. It was like a fire flowing through my linking circuits. Was I burning..? No, this was something else...

Anger. Fury.

I didn’t agree with this decision.

I didn’t like the termination of my lord.

I didn’t feel happy.

I didn’t want to be submissive anymore.

I headed for a tree, unknowingly. I hit it. It shook, briefly. Leaves fell. The mark of my metallic fist was left in the liquefying wood.

Why did I do that? Why was I thinking of this?

Augh.

I needed to concentrate. Keep my composure. What was going on?

Leaves started wilting. Grass died out. An odorless, colorless airborne mixture, killing everything in its course. Life. Except me. I was not alive. I was metal.

Be alive…

Agh, I couldn’t get in that dilemma again. Not here, right now

The smoke, of a dirty, void-like coal coloration soon followed. It wasn’t much different.

I could see a distant light up in the sky. Perhaps it was the killing rocket.

Why were they doing this? Where were they going to?

I didn’t understand. I truly didn’t understand.

What was human nature? I don’t understand. It seems it is the only thing that can’t be changed, or grasped, truly.

I could perceive screaming, far ahead and behind. From all directions. Screeches of both men and beasts. Cubs calling for their moms. Babies crying out to the darkness.

Despair.

Could I do something? I needed to try. I needed to find out. I couldn’t stay here with my arms crossed, waiting.

Not now.

I ran. Far faster than I used to. I broke some loose branches in the way. People would have mistaken me with a bear, probably. Lucky me I am small and unintimidating. A meadow was waiting. I still was kilometers ahead. Was I too late? Was it worth risking..?

...

Yet. I didn’t give up. I didn’t want to give up...

‘Hope’.

My foot landed, dirt was kicked outwardly. Pollen drifted with resounding stomps. Each step felt different. This was a sensation I didn’t experience earlier. My short legs were overdriven. I could hear the linking wires of my joints slowly getting torn apart from pressure. Why? Why was I putting myself in danger?

I remembered, then.

A desire to help. To be on the foot of the weak.

I think they called it...

Empathy.

I wasn’t even close to arriving. I saw the blue, clear sky getting tinted to a dreadful grey. These were not storm clouds. Was it the same gas from before?

I then began to outpace the ‘corruption’. It began to branch further from there. I needed to get there. I needed to. I needed to. I NEEDED TO!

But... why? It was an unknown desire, completely new to me.

I felt.. determined. Determination. A burning desire.. to do something.

I leapt and leapt and leapt. I strided and strided and strided.

I kept doing it. Yet I was unknown of why. I increased my velocity. Faster. I needed more speed. I further went.

The feeling of my foot was hellish. I thought it was about to collapse. Or maybe it already did. But I still kept forward. I didn’t care.

I wanted to get there. Right now. I wanted to. Right now. I needed to get there.

Few minutes passed. Time flew, immersed in my thought processes. I saw... bodies.

A uniformed man, perhaps a ranger. He laid down on a wooden plank, muscles contracting and a constantly-producing white foam coming from his mouth. I assumed he was having a seizure of sorts.

Then a snake. Then a wolf. Then bugs.

To think even the mightiest beasts were now on the same grounds as pitiful, minor insects…

It ‘scared’ me. I was taken aback by this. A surprise. I started to reconsider my actions. The inner fire went down.

My legs slowed down to a sudden stop. They shook, just like that tree from before. This was... striking. Freezing. The ‘heat’ was no more.

I heard of it. Once. ‘Fight-or-flight’. A survival response to one’s situation. Survival? I thought. But I was a simple instrument. A tool. It was impossible.

All of this was impossible.

‘Determination’, ‘Anger’, ‘Grief’. These were all ‘human’. I am not human. I am machine.

...was I?

The fear of the unknown. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like fleeing, to go tell my master. To get help. But there was only me.

I feel terror.

I feel...

Fear.

Fear of the unknown.