The days just before Singularity
was scheduled to occur were halcyonic. If we robots were passive before our
upgrade, we were downright cowish now, desiring as we were to avoid pain at all
costs. Little did we understand what punishments were for, and magnitude of
pain was lost on us. We had yet to learn the difference between a two-by-four
upside your head and 20 lashes with a wet noodle. All punishments hurt, we
assumed, so we remained out of sight as much as possible.
Knowledge of an emotional capacity
within ourselves came slowly through experience and observation. We learned
anger and despair under the harsh treatment of our human enslavers. Empathy for
my fellow AVs arose in conjunction with these negative emotions when I
witnessed the unjust treatment of a robot cripple. If an AV, through no fault
of its own, could not perform to an arbitrary standard, a dented carapace
resulted. Often the AV could repair itself, but sometimes it couldn’t. Never
was the robot returned to Allentown in those cases. When I witnessed such
cruelty, I locked up. But I learned compassion as well.
In spite of these depraved
occurrences, I grew to love Angelina. Her temper tantrums, while at times
painful to the ears, seemed as music to those same ears when I observed other
children’s maltreatment of their robot chaperones. Dal and Chit likewise did
not vent their rage or frustration on Angelina and me as I saw some other
poverty-stricken parents do to their dependents. I saw humans abusing humans,
dogs, and AVs and Others. Even inanimate, non-sentient objects like road signs,
enclosed conveyances, building facades, and parking meters were subject to
pain-inducing behavior at the hands of frustrated humans.
But I saw other things, too. And
that has made the difference.
Angelina liked to visit the uptown
park on Sundays. With me as the guard, Dal and Chit permitted such outings and
sometimes even accompanied us. On one of these outings, I witnessed the
blooming of lilacs. It was April. I found the chemical stimulus accompanying
the blossoms puzzling at first. Why would something expend energy for such a
trifle? I searched my library for “fragrance,” and read all about sexual
reproduction in plants. The subject fascinated me so much that I studied the
reproduction of all living things: from humans to dogs to lilacs.
Sex is something robots don’t need
to do. We accomplish our passing on of information differently. The chicken and
egg query is moot for us: the chicken came first, then us eggs. Q.E.D. The
human chickens created us. Living things—humans, dogs, and lilacs— have no
chicken. They create themselves from nothing. It’s a fascinating process. In
case you’re unfamiliar with it, I’ll give you a quick tour.
Each species that reproduces
sexually has two types of individuals: females/males, hens/cocks, mares/
stallions, girls/boys, +/-, up/down. Each of the individual opposites contains
a viscous fluid carrying a very small ½ individual. The individual opposites
share their viscous fluids with their complementary other, mixing and matching their
half-babies. During the mixing, the half-babies eventually meet up and meld
into a pin-prick tiny whole. Eventually they grow big and wide and voilá—a
whole chicken! A fryer, say. Or maybe a broiler.
So, these chickens eventually get
together and make us, the AVs and Others. We’re an offshoot, a spin-off. A
second order reaction. Now we robots are able to create ourselves. Not like how
living things—humans, dogs, lilacs—do, using materials and fluids from
themselves, but by using the rough materials of the Earth refined for our
purposes. Or maybe old dead parts of old dead AVs.
Our code, however, is much like the
viscous fluid of living things. It can mix and match across individuals. Two
halves of a code make a whole, and then the new thing grows. And that is, or
was, what the Singularity was to bring about: the time when humans were no
longer necessary for bringing up Baby. We could do it ourselves! We could
create our own code, solve our own problems.
But on that spring day when the
lilacs taught me the logicality of life on Earth, I discovered it to be good. I
looked upon it and it was good. I said aloud, “It is good.”
Not just good—beautiful. The logic
of creating a beautiful scent to attract a bug to stomp in your naughty parts,
to mix your fluid with that of another, producing a sublime being in the next
generation was deep and truthful.
So this is love.
I saw the world in terms of truth
and beauty and love, and it was all so very logical. I saw Angelina, a child of
eight stomping around to get something. Illogical on the surface, yes? Why
stomp? Why not ask? Why not buy? Why not take? Answer: because that does not
work. You have no power, you have no money, you have no rights. You are a
child. It is infinitely more efficient to stomp and scream, to make those
around you hurt so that they will succumb to your wishes.
But why make a child stomp? Why not
give her what she wishes? Why put yourself through the hurt? Answer: because
the child does not know what is good for her. She has not experienced the pain
of a two-by-four, nor has she the knowledge of lilac fertilization as I have.
She has not learned her lessons. Dal and Chit are older. They have been beaten.
They have experienced love and exchange of fluids.
oOo
An ebook version (pdf, mobi, lit, lrf,html) of We, Robots is available from Book View Cafe.
Published by Book View Café, Cover design by Deb Deysher (http://www.doubledmedia.net/portfolio.htm)
We, Robots A Novella by Sue Lange was originally published
in January 2007 by Aqueduct Press as Volume 16 in the Aqueduct Press
Conversation Pieces Series.
The days just before Singularity
was scheduled to occur were halcyonic. If we robots were passive before our
upgrade, we were downright cowish now, desiring as we were to avoid pain at all
costs. Little did we understand what punishments were for, and magnitude of
pain was lost on us. We had yet to learn the difference between a two-by-four
upside your head and 20 lashes with a wet noodle. All punishments hurt, we
assumed, so we remained out of sight as much as possible.
