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The following story uses the term post-organic, which was taken from Alan Moore�s "Top Ten." The quotes from the Beatles� "A Day in the Life" appear without license are intended to be used for the sole purpose of starting off a story with a cool quote. The following is also intellectual property of Anthony Kinney. Any misinterpretations of the story will be forgiven, as all literature is simply misinterpretation of other literature. A Day in the Life Woke up, got out of bed, ran a comb across my head. Then I went down stairs and drank a cup, and looking up, I noticed I was late - The Beatles Isosceles Mark MVI stood silently in his vertical coffin until his internal clock clicked over to 06:00. With a static snap an electrical surge ran through Isosceles; his Duk N' Cover fusion battery rapidly distributing power to all of his metallic extremities. In a few seconds the post-organic being's brain rebooted, allowing Isosceles Mark MVI, Iso Mark to his friends, to visually perceive the six foot, stainless-steel door of his coffin. Iso could not take in the door's height, as his faceplate was three inches from the door. When his system had finished its morning startup Iso took notice of the rhythmic vibrations pulsing through the walls. The pounding shaking his circuits; nearly disrupting his power regulators. Someone in the building had managed to afford a stereo system and was sharing their new toy with all their less-fortunate neighbors. Whether it was heavy metal, Beethoven or hip-hop was indiscernible. At a certain decibel everything becomes noise. Iso wondered why someone would spend their earnings on a luxury, rather than move out of their cube. Iso had lived in cubes since his activation date; seeing the same four walls every day. Each cube was just like the last. His current cube of living space had been graciously provided by the city's Post-Organic Housing Initiative. How anything could consider his metal cell "housing" was beyond Iso's cognitive computations. He was just a slave-wage worker at the Vertical Take-off and Landing Vehicle (VTLV) assembly line. If he spent another millisecond thinking about Beethoven, the government or his housing accommodations, he would be late for work. The post-organic being unplugged himself from the coffin's wall-mounted recharger. Checking his battery, Iso found he had just enough Juice to get to work, survive another 18-hour shift and make it home. "Another paycheck down the socket," Iso thought as he closed his power port. With the rising cost of Juice and recharger fees Iso was lucky if a few bucks from his paycheck made it into his bank account. Any funds he managed to collect usually ended up being put towards upgrades and repair jobs his Repair-Care wouldn't cover. The majority of his day was spent either recharging or working, so Iso didn't have time to spend his wages on anything but Juice or repairs. He still couldn't afford to get his optics fixed, which he knew was becoming a problem. Iso remembered to grab his baseball cap as he left his coffin; it was supposed to be sunny today. As Iso entered the hallway he shifted his optics to low-light, which magnified the small amount of light filtering through the windows either end of the hallway. With his vision enhanced Iso could notice the dusty metal flooring. The dirt particles swirling around his foot pads with each step. Iso wondered if the air filters in this building had ever been scrubbed? The dust was constantly seeping through his plastic casing and shorting out his circuits or disrupting computations. It had damaged his optics beyond repair. Eventually he would need a total sensor overhaul, which Iso could never afford. Pretty soon he would become "outdated;" a term that frightened Iso to his core. He had often found "outdated" units wandering the hallways. Their sensors were usually destroyed and their interface software incompatible or obsolete. So even if the unit knew where it was going, it couldn't tell you to save its circuits. Some mornings the hallways would be filled with them. They would wander about helplessly and bump into each other for hours if no one found them. Many times Iso found units walking into a wall, as they were completely oblivious to the obstruction. All he could do was turn them away from the wall. At least that way they might find someone who knew them. After several years of these hallway encounters Iso would never forget the first outdated post-organic he met. It was Iso's second cube; after he had been transferred when his plant closed. While coming home from work he heard something moving at the end of the hall. It looked like a worker unit, but it wasn't moving towards or away from him. Iso called out to it, "Hey there, friend!" The unit continued to make an unintelligible noise and kept moving. It took no notice of Iso's salutary greeting. After making several more attempts at verbal contact, Iso decided that the unit had active noise-dampeners. Those were common enough in city, with all the white noise of machines. As he moved closer Iso took in the entirety of the situation, which filled his silicon mind with horror. The worker unit Iso had attempted to hail was indeed not moving down the hall. Rather it was walking, faceplate first, into the wall, which caused the sharp scraping noise Iso had heard earlier. Looking down its torso, Iso nearly turned in pain as he scanned all the graffiti and dents which marred the poor unit's hull. The most distinct mark was a white circle with a dash in the center, located on the unit's chest. Iso had been programmed to identify a few symbols, this one being the most important. The symbol meant the unit was "Zero Signal;" it could no longer connect to the outside world. All its sensors were dead. All its software was either corrupted or obsolete. It was dead to the world and dead to itself. It neither gave nor received any signals, hence the term and minus sign denoting the unit's status. Rather than leave in disgust or apathy, Iso opened a secured panel on the unit's forearm; revealing its name and activation date. The name on the opened panel said "Veritas XII." "'Truth', eh?" Iso said to the senseless unit, "It looks like you're about ten years my senior." In response the battered post-organic continued to push into the wall; creating an loud grating noise that made Iso wish he had noise-dampeners. "I wonder where you belong, old friend," Iso said for his own benefit. A quick data scan of the complex showed no register for a Veritas XII. "Well Truth, I cant let you stay here and scrape your faceplate off," said Iso. The younger bot looked around for assistance, but the hallway was empty except for Truth and himself. Iso did not want to bother any of his neighbors, as he had only just read their data files this morning. He did not feel ready to call upon any of these strangers for assistance with an outdated robot. After running through his options, from most feasible to least, Iso opted for the easiest solution. Grabbing Truth by both shoulder joints, one of which was broken and sparking, Iso pulled the venerable robot away from the wall. Truth pushed against him, trying to force its way back to the wall. "You cant go that way," Iso pleaded, "Let me help you." He shifted Truth's shoulder joints and legs so it faced the length of the hallway. Iso then let go and moved aside, letting the Zero Signal that was Truth pass by. "May you find your way home," Iso said; leaving Truth to wander, blind and deaf, through the empty halls. Iso pushed open the front door of the housing complex, making sure his cap was affixed before he stepped out the door. Before he was aware of his condition Iso had been blinded one morning and fell down the half-dozen stairs to the building. After Iso got repaired he bought a cap, as it was the cheapest solution to his new handicap. Now he walked with his head down; the cap of his hat pushed far enough to block the morning sun, but leaving enough room to see anything coming towards him. From Iso's perspective the outside world was pavement, legs and concrete. He knew there were buildings that reached up and touched the skies, but he could only see them at night, when they stood dark and silent. When there was a spare moment Iso would open the image of a sunset or a building from his memory banks. One image he kept separate was something he had seen while passing a television in a department store window. The television was showing a nature documentary on birds; in particular on sea gulls and their lifecycle. Iso was captivated by the repeated footage of a gull's flight pattern over the water. The animal's extreme efforts to take flight and remain aloft impressed Iso, while also filling him with a deep sense of melancholy. He watched the gull's flight over the water's surface tensely; fearing the wonderful bird would be swallowed by the waters if it came to close. Iso relaxed with every upward push the gull made; he wished he could soar through the sky and touch the water's dark surface. Realizing that could never be, Iso made sure to record the episode in his short-term memory; later cutting the documentary into several images he kept in his mind. His most favorite was a shot of the gull rising above the water; it's wings frozen in an attempt to gain altitude. He could look back at that bright image and see both hope and truth in it. Iso could never be as free as the gull, but he kept it to remind him that such a freedom did exist; even if it was not for him. So Iso viewed the gull's image as he walked to work; ignoring the accidental pushing and nudging that occurs with alarming irregularity when robots travel alone down the street. This particular morning Iso was not lucky enough to simply be jostled by passer-bys. As he was walking with his head down, Iso noticed several pairs of human legs standing in his way. After approaching within several feet the central pair of legs announced, "Would you look at this shit, fellas! Fuckin' bots think they own the streets now." Iso stopped moving; continuing to look at the same space of cracked concrete. While he silently awaited further verbal abuses, Iso calculated the odds that this encounter would degrade into violence. Iso knew that the law was not in his favor, as the court ruling of Bingham vs. Vortice XVI had made it illegal for post-organics to act in self-defense against humans. This ruling was based on the simple fact that human flesh and bone were easier to damage than most of the metallic components of post-organics. The subtext of this ruling was plain to both humans and robots: a human life was valued more than the life of a robot. Taking this data into account, Iso stood his ground; hoping the human wouldn't do anything irrational; for instance, break his hand on Iso's stainless-steel casing. Many an unfortunate post-organic had been deactivated for less. After a few seconds the leader came within inches of Iso, sizing up the worker-unit. He circled Iso several times before making any further comments, "Well guys," he said looking back at his friends, "It looks like we've got a drone here. Nothing special." The leader remained in front of Iso; searching him out for any weaknesses he could employ. "Off to work, drone?" he sarcastically asked; baiting Iso with an question he could never properly answer. "I am," Iso mechanically croaked. "I am," one of the lackeys repeated in a stereotypical robot-voice. "Shut the hell up, Pete!" the leader roared; turning back to his friends, "I'm trying to have a polite conversation here, and you're fuckin' it up. Now if you're gonna stand here and insult my new tin-can pal here, then I'm going to take you back home and stomp your face in, got it?" Pete mumbled an apology and shrunk back a few steps; leaving the leader to take continue his conversation with Iso. The leader took a second to collect his thoughts; finding the most prominent weak-spot on Iso: his hat. "What's with the cap, bot?" the bully asked, "Trying to pass for human?" "It's not that," Iso quietly responded "My optics are damaged and the sun-" "You bots, really make me sick," the leader interjected. He took notice of Iso's downward gaze and placed his hand around the robot's neck. "Look at me, bot!" he yelled as he pulled Iso's head up; overloading the robot's optics with an abundance of sunlight. "As you can see, I take very little shit from my associates here, let alone lies from a fuckin' toaster! "I've seen how you bots walk around trying to emulate humans. You, you things. You wear our clothes, copy our actions, steal our voices and some of you even look like us!" the young leader spat the words at Iso's unflinching face. "Those skins really piss me off, you know?" Iso nodded helplessly, to which the bully then placed his arm around the robot's shoulders; assuming a friendly position. "But you really don't bother me that much. You can try and pass for human all you want. Go ahead! Put on a t-shirt, hat, shorts and shoes. Your metal shell is going to stick out no matter how many human clothes you put on. But those skin-jobs, oh-man. They look just like us humans. It's just . . . unnatural for a robot to pass itself off as a human. The synthetic flesh, artificial hair, nails and everything else. Couple that with a copied voice and you get a walking lie. A photocopy of natural perfection. When are you things going to wise-up, huh? When are you going to realize your place in the world? Humans made you, circuit-head, and humans will not hesitate to pull your battery the second you step out of line. Remember that, bot." With that the bully moved behind Iso and kicked him forward; sending the robot past the nervous followers. As the conversation had cost him several minutes, Iso pulled his hat down and picked up his speed. With any luck he might reach work ten minutes late. As predicted, Iso reached work several minutes late, which would be coming out of his paycheck this time. He had been lucky in the past; his manager allowed him to get by with several verbal warnings. While he seemed compassionate to the plight of Iso and the other workers, Iso knew that when the day came his manager would have him reassigned immediately. Iso felt that day was coming soon, as his performance had been steadily declining along with his optics. He wasn't sure how poor a job he was doing; he only knew that it wouldn't be long before he could not fill his role in the assembly line. Then he would get the Speech, a half-hearted apology and a kick down to a lower paying job. Whatever the job might be, Iso knew the hours and wages would only cover his daily Juice, along with even less repair coverage. Any job within the system would only keep him powered and undamaged enough to get by, which for a bot with limited optics would be very little of both. The option of freelancing was also closed to Iso, since few humans would be interested in hiring a robot; let alone a worker unit with damaged sensors. A year ago he could have struck out on his own; back when Isosceles Mark-units were in fashion for house servants, but Iso had lacked the initiative to leave his comfortable assembly line job. Back then Iso could have made something of himself, but now he would do worse on his own than if he remained in the system. Before Iso could clock in to work his human manager appeared out from a nearby door at an alarming pace. "Hold on there, Iso Mark MVI" the large man exclaimed; placing a sweaty hand on Iso's shoulder joint "What happened today, Iso Mark?" Trying his best, Iso limited his recollection of the encounter to three main points; knowing well that humans often became bored and frustrated by the full-recall capability of even the most simple of worker units. He summed up his harassment in several choice words, "I was accosted by a gang. The leader harassed and verbally threatened me several times before letting me leave. That is why I was seven minutes late. I apologize." "Well shit, Iso Mark. That isn't anything you need to apologize for. If anything I should be asking your forgiveness for the lousy shit humans put you post-organics through. Some people say it's human nature, but I think . . ." As his manager rambled Iso looked around began to calculate how much longer his manager would talk to him. Then he clicked upon the fact that he still was not punched in. "I'm being reassigned today," Iso said; his words punching heavily through the manager�s "Post-Organic Sympathy" speech. His speech abruptly interrupted, the manager pulled his hand away and assumed an authoritative stance. "You are correct, Iso Mark MVI. Today you're going to be re-assigned to work detail more fitting with your. . . condition," the manager coughed, hoping Iso would just let him finish. "My sensors are damaged," Iso responded "but I can still see well enough on the line." "If you honestly think you can see well enough, than you've got more damaged hardware than just your sensors. Your accuracy on the line has steadily dropped four percent over the last few months, along with a six percent drop in overall performance. If I didn't step in now, my managers would probably sell you for scrap and fire my ass tomorrow. This is beyond us; neither of us have a choice," the now profusely sweating manager pleaded. "That is where you are wrong, sir," Iso calmly interjected. "I have the choice of being placed in a new job. One in which I will receive less pay, thereby less battery-juice and less repair insurance. Eventually my parts and system will degrade to the point that I am marked as obsolete and given a minimal amount of daily battery-juice; just enough to blindly wander the halls of wherever the state chooses to relocate me to. I can choose to remain on that path, or I can choose to be free." "Iso Mark, you're not seriously considering freelancing, are you?" the manager incredulously asked. "No, I realize the services of a half-blind Isosceles worker unit are currently worth less than a handful of bolts. I'm speaking of freedom in the greater sense of the word. Free of the Juice-draining work. Free of harassment from humans. Free, free to fly. . ." The robot looked up toward the empty rafters of the factory; his head held high for the first time in years. Iso's manager was transfixed by his words, which was visible in the wide-eyed stare he held on the robot. Feeling the debate at an end, Iso turned and exited the building. His manager called after him, "Iso Mark, where are you going?" "I'm going to my cube," Iso retorted as he moved out into the daylight; affixing his cap on his head. "Well they wont let you stay there without a job!" the manager yelled; making at a last attempt to reign in the wayward robot. "I know," Iso said quietly to himself," I know." Iso Mark stood in the doorway of his cube; watching the last rays of sunlight slide across the hallway floor. Soon the hallway was enveloped in darkness; forcing Iso to rely on his low-light optical sensors. The entire structure was filled with the low hum of white noise. Thousands of post-organic units were recharging themselves as they waited for their next work shift. A part of Iso was jealous that so many were able to accept their fate so readily. They would not turn down re-assignments, question their ever-shrinking personal space or complain about the rise in Juice prices. Each one knew their fate: a gradual decay of their hardware, which would lead to worse jobs and less pay. Eventually they would be labeled obsolete and placed out of sight. Ignored and isolated, their system would decay beyond hope; at which point they would be sold for scrap and their cube would be filled with another invalid robot. While a part of Iso was jealous, another section of his CPU felt proud, yet somber, that he had found an escape from the tortured fate of his neighbors. On the floor of the cube was a baseball cap, a spraypaint can and a small plastic box, which were Iso's first and last material possessions. The cap was off the spraypaint can; specks of paint lay drying on the can�s nozzle. Before the sun�s final rays had fled Iso had marked his chestplate with a circle and a minus sign; signifying to himself and the world his status as an obsolete unit. By labeling himself a "Zero Signal," Iso knew no one would consider his actions outside "the norm" of robot behavior. With that in mind, he loaded the image of the seagull into his mind. It appeared as sharp and beautiful as when Iso had first recorded it. Too him it was not an image on the television screen; it was real. He focused on the image as he slotted a small data chip with a skull and cross bones stamped on it. It was called "Jolly Roger" and the instant Iso uploaded the virus his CPU began to collapse. The image of the seagull began to flicker as Jolly Roger exponentially replicated itself on Iso�s hardware. With seconds the image became pixelated; forming into larger and larger blocks of abstract colors. After a minute the image had faded; Iso�s internal and external sensors were corrupted. Iso knew that Jolly Roger would corrupt his hard drive first; disabling his mind before his body. This fact comforted Iso, as he did not feel any pain while the virus devoured his remaining memory and programming. Within a few minutes Iso was an empty husk of parts, but Jolly Roger did not only corrupt a machine�s hardware. The virus spread through every circuit and wire in Iso�s shell; it reached from the top of his head to the ends of his foot-pads. Once it had spread throughout the post-organic unit�s hardwiring, the virus unleashed an electrical surge that instantly fried all the mechanical components that composed Isosceles Mark MVI. The virus made sure to burn the data port it was lodged in as well; removing all traces of its existence. After the power surge hit the smoking metal shell fell into the cube; causing the door to automatically close upon the vertical coffin. Back |