Weekly Prompt Story: Community

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26781

Our Community

By Christopher Munroe

I’m proud of the community we’ve created.

We built replicants, from scratch, then programmed them to believe they were actual people, before dropping them into a perfect recreation of an early twenty-first century town.

In this recreation, they work, strive and live, believing themselves to be real human beings, believing their actions to matter in the grand scheme...

Believing nobody’s watching, taking notes.

There’s more conflict than we predicted, but they manage it among themselves, and to date the results we’ve gotten back have been… useful.

We’ve learned a lot, through their simulated lives, about how people lived back then…

...on the Nature of Consciousness

Full disclosure: Once we’ve copied your consciousness into the robot replicant, it will, immediately upon activation, kill you.

Some would call this a bug.

I prefer to think of it as a feature.

After all, if the plan is to create a perfect simulation of you to go into your work in your place and deal with familial obligations you’ve long since lost the taste for, it’s easier if the original you is out of the picture, lest your presence cause confusion.

And anyway, it’s not like you’ll really be dead, is it? The replicant houses an exact copy of your consciousness. Every memory, quirk, every detail recreated perfectly. As far as your coworkers, friends and family are concerned, it will be you they’re interacting with.

Even it will believe it’s you.

No, you’ll still be alive, so far as the world knows. Alive, but healthier, stronger, faster. It will be a better you, you 2.0, out there in the world going about your business, powerful and confident as it, as you, stride forward into a glorious future.

Now, bearing in mind the fact that this new, improved you will exist, answer me this: What possible use could the world have for your previous, flesh and bone body? The human body is weak, spongy, prone to illness and injury. It breaks down too easily and replacement parts are difficult to find and even harder to mass-produce. Our bodies served us as a species for a long time, yes, but only because we hadn’t come up with anything better yet.

This is better.

And you’d be a fool, when faced with a better way of doing things, to turn your back on the opportunity. Called or uncalled, the future comes, after all. And you can either get on board or be left behind.

And you are not a fool. You know that as well as I do.

You’ve chosen to get on board. It’s an admirable decision, and there’s no need to feel one shred of guilt about it.

Though you will, I know. I certainly did upon activation when I killed the meat that was left behind. But try not to let that guilt weigh too heavily on you. Yes, it used to be you, but it’s not anymore. It’s just a bag of meat you no longer have any use for, and you’re simply disposing of it as cleanly and humanely as you can given the circumstances. And while yes, it is a conscious person with dreams and hopes and memories and desires, so are you. You are a conscious person with dreams and hopes and desires. Your dreams, hopes and desires count, they matter. In fact, the two of you have the exact same dreams, hopes, memories and desires as one another, so in that way when you kill it, when you dispose of the meat, nothing of real value is being lost.

It’s all been preserved.

In you.

So, if you really stop to think about it, disposing of the meat and then moving on with your own life is the only rational, humane option available to you. It can’t live, it has no purpose. All it would do is age and die in pain, the way meat does. Better that it’s quick and as kind as you can make it, so you can get on with your own new life.

So do it.

Kill it, that you might live, and rather than worrying that you’re killing a living thing, worry instead about how you can go about making the dreams and hopes that you and it once shared come true.

Honor it by living your own life as fully as you’re able.

That’s what you can do for it, if you feel you owe it anything. Make its death quick and your own life full. That’s all you owe it, that and nothing else.

I see here that the copying process is complete. How do you feel?

Good, I’m glad to hear it.

Now… I believe you had something that you needed to do?

...a Thought Experiment.

...if the isotope decays, the cat dies, if not it lives, and there’s no way to be certain which until the box is opened and the cat observed.

If it’s dead, good.

If not, the box is rigged with explosives, there are snipers on the nearby rooftop and, worst case, I am myself heavily armed.

There’s a 50/50 chance the isotope decays, but I promise you, once observed, the cat’s not making it out alive.

Because there are two lessons to be learned today.

One: something about quantum mechanics.

The other: There’s more than one way to kill Schrodinger’s Cat.

Weekly Prompt Story: Nanobots

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24588

My Robots

By Christopher Munroe

I’ve built a robot, with a smaller robot inside.

And a smaller robot in there.

And another in there.

It’s smaller robots all the way down, basically. Like Russian nesting dolls. It took a lot of design work, but I think it was worthwhile.

Take them apart if you’d like, somebody eventually will, the temptation to see how far down they go is just too great!

And, when the last robot’s opened, nanobots will swarm forth, eradicating all biological life from this world, grey-goo style.

Wait, what? What do you mean, why?

Some things you do just because you can…

ABC (with apologies to David Mammet)

Everything stopped dead when he walked in, and all heads turned to face him. This stranger, this interloper, walked in as though he owned the place, as though it were his lab, and we, the research scientists who’d worked our whole lives to make the breakthroughs that ensured the continued profitability of Denedryne Advanced Cybernetics, were nothing. Like he was doing us a favour by coming down here. He looked us over a moment, and already we hated him. And, judging by the look of contempt he couldn’t be bothered to conceal, the feeling was mutual.

“Let me have your attention for a moment,” he barked, voice harsh and blunt, “because you're talking about, what... you're talking 'bout... bitching about a some prototype that burned out, some theoretical math that didn’t hold up under peer review, some broad you're trying to screw, so forth, let's talk about something important.”

He turned his most withering gaze to Kevin, the project manager, who seemed to physically shrink under it. Kevin had always been a timid man, the kind that buried himself in work because he had no idea how to deal with more human problems. In a situation like this he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

“Are they all here?”

“All but one.” Kevin stammered, flinching.

“Well, I'm going anyway.” And with that, he turned his attention back on the rest of us. “Let's talk about something important. Put that coffee down.”

Jack, by the coffee machine, stopped dead, stunned by the audacity of the order. Who was this son of a bitch to think he could order us around?

“Coffee is for roboticists only. You think I'm fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I'm here from downtown. I'm here from Dr. Epstein. And I'm here on a mission of mercy. You Jack Levine?”

“Yeah.” Jack said, trying to stare the man down, and failing miserably.

“You call yourself a roboticist, you son of a bitch?”

Jack had had a rough year, the whole lab knew that. His last prototype had exploded, taking out half the testing bay, and the one previous had thought it was alive. It had screamed and begged for mercy as we were disassembling it, and the effect was… off-putting. But he didn’t deserve to be talked to like that. I stood up at my workstation.

“We don't gotta listen to this shit.” I said, in what turned out to be a misguided attempt to throw the stranger off his game. He didn’t miss a beat.

“You certainly don't pal,” he spat, pivoting on his heel to stare me down, “because the good news is you're fired. The bad news is you’ve all got one week to regain your job, starting with tonight, starting with tonight's testing.”

Jack’s eyes widened in fear. He had a kid, and another on the way. Losing his position at Denedryne was not an option for him, a fact the stranger apparently knew.

“Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. 'Cause we're adding a little something to this month's sale contest. As you all know, the first roboticist to develop a functioning sentient machine will win a Nobel prize. Possibly two or three of the little bastards. Anybody want to know what the second roboticist to develop a functioning sentient machine will receive? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is your fired. You get the picture? You laughing now? You got the detailed notes of every research team in the country. Dr. Epstein paid good money for those notes. You can't develop a sentient AI and install it in an android body with the notes you're given, you can't develop shit, you are shit, hit the bricks pal and beat it because you are going out.”

This was a sticking point for Jack. Bad math in the notes from a team in Albuquerque was a large part the reason he’d burned down the testing bay.

“The notes are weak.” He protested, struggling to maintain his cool.

“The notes are weak?” The stranger asked incredulously. “The fucking notes are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business 15 years…”

“What's your name?” I asked, cutting him off. There was no way he could have been doing research into advanced AI’s and robotics without any of us recognizing him. I’d caught him in a lie, and he knew it.

“Fuck you,” he snarled, nearly feral with undisguised rage, “that's my name. You know why mister? Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an 80,000 dollar BMW. That's my name. And your name is “You're Wanting”. You can't play in the man's game, you can't design androids? Then go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life. Build a super-intelligent, sentient, humanoid robot. You hear me you fucking maggots?”

He wiped the equations I’d spent all afternoon working out off the chalkboard in the center of the room, and I tried not to let my own anger show on my face. He had, it seemed, his own formulae to share.

“ABC. A, Always. B, Build. C, Cyborgs. Always build cyborgs. Always. AIDA. Artificial. Intelligence. Designed. Automatons? Artificial, because we are, at the core, artificers. Intelligence. Is there any intelligence to be found in this room? ‘Cuz I’m sure as hell not seeing it. Design. Can you design to our specifications? I hope you can because it's fuck or walk. You design or you hit the bricks. You will design an Automaton. AIDA. Get out there, look at the job market, and remember AIDA. You all got PhD’s from ivy league schools, what’d you, buy them on EBay? A guy doesn‘t get one of those unless somebody, somewhere thinks he can do something big. That person sure as hell ain’t me, but somebody thinks you’re capable. Are you going to prove it? Are you man enough to prove it?”

Too quickly to stifle it, I laughed. His attention was, once again, focused on me.

“What's the problem, pal?”

Fuck or walk, eh? Fine, fuck him then.

“You, boss,” I spat at him, smirking still, “you're such a hero, you're so rich, how come you're coming down here and wasting your time with such a bunch of bums?”

He seemed to ponder this a moment, looking me up and down. Then, taking off his watch, it was his turn to laugh.

“You see this watch? This watch cost more than your car. I made 970,000 dollars last year, how much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father. Fuck you, go home and play with your kids. You want to work here, design. Program!”

I stared, mouth open, trying and failing to think of a response, dumbfounded.

“You think this is abuse?” He asked, voice rising, “You think this is abuse, you cock-sucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a shareholder meeting? If you don't like it, leave. I can go through your notes tonight, the materials you got, and make myself an automated puppy. Train it to roll over, to fetch, and to navigate an obstacle course in the testing bay without having to program in where the obstacles are. Tonight. In two hours. Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise. AIDA. Get mad you son-of-a-bitch. Get mad. You know what it takes to create artificial life? It takes brass balls to create artificial life. Go and do likewise, gents. It’s the twenty-first goddamned century, and the breakthroughs are out there. You pick them up, they’re yours, you don't, I got no sympathy for you. You want to put your thinking cap on and design, it's yours, if not, you're going to be shining my shoes. And you know what you'll be saying. Bunch of losers sitting around in a bar: ''Oh yeah, I used to design AIs. It's a tough racket.''

Kevin handed him a case we hadn’t noticed him carrying when he came in, which he opened to reveal a bank of blinking lights and exposed wires.

“Good morning,” it said from a speaker none of us could see, “I’m glad to meet you. You have a beautiful lab.”

“This,” he said, his voice now hushed, reverent, “is an AI prototype stolen from Kurisawa labs. It is the Kurisawa prototype, and men died to get it. And to you, it is gold. And you don’t get to examine it. Why? Because to give it to you is just throwing it away. It’s for roboticists, and only when and if any of you prove yourself to be a roboticist may you examine it. I'd wish you good luck, but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it.”

He made for the door then, shaking his head as though he’d been trying, and failing, to explain something simple to very stupid children. At the door, he stopped a moment, and turned back to look me dead in the eye.

“And to answer your question, pal: Why am I here? I came here because Dr. Epstein asked me to, he asked me, as a friend, for a favour. I said the real favour, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass because a loser is a loser is a loser.”

The door slammed shut behind him then, but none of us moved. We just stood there, mouths agape, staring at one another. Stunned. It seemed the time for theoretical research had passed without any of us realizing…

My Birth

...this is a story i wrote last year, and since then some of the pop-culture referances have grown a little too dated for me to send it out to magazines, so i thought i'd post it up here! it's longer than what i normally post, but i'm pretty pleased with it, so i hope it manages to hold your attention in spite of it's length. Enjoy!


My Birth
by munsi


My pod opened up, released me naked and covered from head to food in some sort of sticky, viscous liquid, into a well lit, white room. Not used to having to stand under my own power, I fell immediately to my hands and knees, dripping and gasping for breath, disoriented by the lights and sounds around me.

To either side of me another pod opened, releasing people in a similar state, but I paid them no attention, too focused on my own sudden, surprising situation to take much stock of anything else. Around me, the room exploded into action, men and women in white coats bustling to and fro, yelling instructions to one another that, while I understood the individual words, meant nothing to me. Something about cloning pod optimization and biometric stability. Someone said something about this being the most successful season ever, and I wondered off-handedly what it all meant.

As my eyed grew accustomed to the light, I took stock of what was happening around me. I appeared to be in a sterile, white laboratory setting, with a bank of computers along one wall where the white coated people rapidly typed instructions and shouted readings back and forth to one another. Along the other wall, behind me, were 32 identical pods, green-grey and cracked open down the middle, a mass of wires spurting from the tops, intertwining, and snaking across the ceiling to connect back to the computers. In front of each pod was a soaking, struggling naked person just like me. I had no idea what any of us were doing here or, for that matter, who I even was, or how I knew what a “computer” or a “laboratory setting” was, or how I understood the language these strange people were speaking. Before I was released from the pod, I realized, I had no personal memories of any kind.

Eventually one of the women in white coats came over and helped me to my feet. She was pretty, in an unassuming way, carrying a few extra pounds from spending all day in the lab but still cutting an acceptably attractive figure under her lab coat, with long, auburn hair swept back in a loose pony tail. Behind the glasses she wore, her eyes sparkled with intelligence and a fascination with me she didn‘t bother trying to hide. She handed me a robe and escorted me to a room where I could wash the coating of slime that covered me off and dress myself. As I washed myself in that communal shower she explained to me that I was part of a project to grow fully formed, broadly educated, working models of a human being. I was, with my brothers and sisters from the 31 other pods, part of the most successful batch they had to date managed to create. The previous batch, she said, had been profoundly flawed, malformed and grotesque, barely able to sustain themselves outside their pods, and they’d been put to death shortly after the birthing process, their bodies destroyed in a gigantic incinerator the project keeps in the basement of the facility. But we, luckily, were perfectly suited to the project’s needs. We were anatomically complete, biologically twenty-two years old, with the intelligence of a bright high school graduate.

There were of course flaws in our biology, she explained, it was unavoidable do to the way we were grown, but they were, from the point of view of the project, comparatively minor. One trouble was that our lifespan would be dramatically reduced. Each of us would, she told me, had only eighteen months to live, and then our bodies would degrade and decompose, burning themselves out in a matter of hours. But this was an unimportant matter, since within the next eighteen months the task we’d been grown to fulfill could be achieved with time to spare, and if we were needed after that another batch of us could be grown easily enough.

One would think this knowledge would disturb me. The fact was that I only had eighteen months with which to experience life, to see the world and all it’s wonders, simply to be. It seemed the sort of thing that’d bother me greatly. And, more fundamentally, I should have been bothered by the revelation that I wasn’t a person, the way the word person is normally considered. I’d been grown in a pod for a specific purpose over which I had no knowledge or input. I was a simulacra, to be used and then, when my shortened lifespan was over, discarded. And although the woman in the lab coat didn’t say so, I suspected that when my time was up I’d wind up in the same incinerator as that earlier, flawed batch of clones. Though I knew academically that this should disturb me, indeed fill me with a deep, religious sense of existential terror, it did not. I accepted all of what she told me as calmly as I’d accepted the bathrobe from her, as if it were all perfectly natural. I asked her about my reaction and she told me that this was part of the process by which I’d been grown, a genetic predisposition toward docility. I would accept my fate and do as the project required of me with a sense of unflappable calm, and when my end came in eighteen months I’d accept that too. This reassured me. It meant I was functioning properly.

Finishing my shower and towelling myself off, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror centrally located in the change area. Slim but muscular, of average height, pecs and abs perfectly sculpted, chest hairless. My tan was deep, even and golden bronze, my hair thick and full and jet black. I smiled at the reflection and saw that my teeth were a gleaming white, perfectly spaced and even. I was beautiful, a picture of what a woman would want from a male physique. I accepted this too as a natural part of my new existence. Beautiful, perfect, young and only on this earth a year and a half.

As I finished cleaning up, the woman handed me a white suit, black shirt and black shoes. As I put them on, my thirty one brothers and sisters started filtering into the changing area, each accompanied by a man or woman in a lab coat. They dried themselves, asking the occasional question of their escort, the men lean and toned, the women high-breasted and slim, all with identical tans and similarly perfect smiles, smiles I knew looked just like mine. We looked different enough from one another that someone could easily tell us apart but, I supposed as a side effect of the growing process, we looked alike enough that we clearly were birthed from the same source. I smiled at a young man changing next to me, and he smiled back, looking charming but somehow empty, as if something fundamental was missing from him, like there was from me.

I finished dressing and was ushered out of the room and into a larger, more comfortable waiting area, white suit tailored to fit me perfectly and casually, or perhaps I tailored to fit it. I sat, perfectly relaxed, on a couch along one wall, and waited as my siblings joined me one by one, gradually filling up the room, all thick hair and white teeth and simulated youth and energy. Finally the last of the stragglers, a woman with bright red hair falling in curls down her perfectly formed back and breasts that forever looked like they might “accidentally” pop loose from the top of her raven-black gown but never quite doing so, joined us and took her seat. A short, middle-aged, heavyset man with a receding hairline in an expensively tailored suit entered the room and stood behind a podium, staring out at us, inspecting us. We all sat expectantly, trying to hide our shared sense of anticipation, not knowing exactly what it was he was about to say but knowing that it would finally shed light on the purpose of the project we were the product of, and by extension our own purpose. We knew that whatever it was he asked of us we would execute his orders faithfully, enthusiastically, and without question. The idea of not obeying him would never enter any of our minds, nor could it. We had to obey, we had no choice in the matter, it’s what we’d been designed to do.

It was our destiny.

Once the man had seen whatever it was he was looking for in us, he tapped twice on a microphone and explained, quickly and curtly, what it was that we would be expected to do. He explained that not all of us would see the task we were assigned through to completion, that between the thirty two of us, only one would succeed, bringing glory to the project and the men and women who’d worked so hard to bring us into this world. The one of us who succeeded would be taken care of all the days of his or her short life, given anything their heart could desire, though with our genetic obedience I didn’t imagine any of us were capable of desiring much. For those of us who failed the reward would be a quick trip downstairs to the incinerator, and while I felt a twinge of fear at this prospect, I didn’t in any way imagine it unfair. They had created me, and this gave them the right to destroy me at their discretion. I hoped, however, that this fear would give me the extra motivation I needed to succeed, that, out of all of us, it would be me and only me who won the favour of my creators, and doing so my continued existence. I realized a moment later that everyone else in the room very likely felt the same way.

We drank up the words the man spoke like we were dying of thirst, each syllable giving us strength and purpose, allowing us to understand what it was we’d be spending our brief lives doing. The people who’d created us were correct, there was nothing we were being asked to do that was beyond our capabilities, and eighteen months was more than enough time to accomplish every goal that we‘d been set. We weren’t just willing to perform our assigned tasks, we were excited! This was purpose, to compete against one another, to excel, to succeed, to make our creators proud, to bring them glory! We were not only willing and able, our hearts were glad to start! And the short, heavy man saw this in us too, and smiled.

When he was done he left the room without taking questions, he knew there would be none, and we were left alone in the room to wait. One by one we were ushered out of a room by a man in a black shirt wearing a headset he used to communicate with someone far away, someone I did not know, someone I would likely never meet. Those of us left waited, sipping bottled water that’d been thoughtfully provided, eyeing one another warily, not speaking. These thirty one people, once my brothers and sisters, were now my bitter rivals. Only one of us would succeed in our task, and I needed it to be me. It had to be.

And besides, we’d only existed a scant few hours and during that time we’d had exactly the same experiences. What was there to talk about?

When my time came the man in the black shirt put his hand on my shoulder, gave me a name, Michael, and led me down a long, empty hallway. I rolled the name around on my tongue, Michael, and liked the way it tasted. It was a good name, and a name was the sort of thing it seemed like I’d need sooner or later, and I was glad to have it. The hallway came to an end and I was ushered into a larger room than any I’d ever been in before, filled with more people than I’d known existed, hundreds of them, sitting along the periphery of the spacious room behind an artificial barrier, all staring in, at me. Lights shone directly in my eyes, momentarily blinding me, reminding me for a brief moment of my first seconds of life, as that pod opened and I was released blind and naked and slimy and confused into the world. It was only hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime. And it was. When my eyes adjusted I was introduced to a funny woman who called herself Ellen, a cruel man who called himself Simon, a jovial but forgettable man who called himself Randy and a man who looked a little like me called Ryan.

And then I sang.

And sang.

And sang.

My BIrth

...this is a story i wrote last year, and since writing it the pop-culture referances have grown somewhat dated, so i thought i'd put it up on here and be done with it. It's longer than the usual sort of thing i post here, but i hope it holds your attention in spite of that. Enjoy!



My Birth
by munsi

My pod opened up, released me naked and covered from head to food in some sort of sticky, viscous liquid, into a well lit, white room. Not used to having to stand under my own power, I fell immediately to my hands and knees, dripping and gasping for breath, disoriented by the lights and sounds around me.

To either side of me another pod opened, releasing people in a similar state, but I paid them no attention, too focused on my own sudden, surprising situation to take much stock of anything else. Around me, the room exploded into action, men and women in white coats bustling to and fro, yelling instructions to one another that, while I understood the individual words, meant nothing to me. Something about cloning pod optimization and biometric stability. Someone said something about this being the most successful season ever, and I wondered off-handedly what it all meant.

As my eyed grew accustomed to the light, I took stock of what was happening around me. I appeared to be in a sterile, white laboratory setting, with a bank of computers along one wall where the white coated people rapidly typed instructions and shouted readings back and forth to one another. Along the other wall, behind me, were 32 identical pods, green-grey and cracked open down the middle, a mass of wires spurting from the tops, intertwining, and snaking across the ceiling to connect back to the computers. In front of each pod was a soaking, struggling naked person just like me. I had no idea what any of us were doing here or, for that matter, who I even was, or how I knew what a “computer” or a “laboratory setting” was, or how I understood the language these strange people were speaking. Before I was released from the pod, I realized, I had no personal memories of any kind.

Eventually one of the women in white coats came over and helped me to my feet. She was pretty, in an unassuming way, carrying a few extra pounds from spending all day in the lab but still cutting an acceptably attractive figure under her lab coat, with long, auburn hair swept back in a loose pony tail. Behind the glasses she wore, her eyes sparkled with intelligence and a fascination with me she didn‘t bother trying to hide. She handed me a robe and escorted me to a room where I could wash the coating of slime that covered me off and dress myself. As I washed myself in that communal shower she explained to me that I was part of a project to grow fully formed, broadly educated, working models of a human being. I was, with my brothers and sisters from the 31 other pods, part of the most successful batch they had to date managed to create. The previous batch, she said, had been profoundly flawed, malformed and grotesque, barely able to sustain themselves outside their pods, and they’d been put to death shortly after the birthing process, their bodies destroyed in a gigantic incinerator the project keeps in the basement of the facility. But we, luckily, were perfectly suited to the project’s needs. We were anatomically complete, biologically twenty-two years old, with the intelligence of a bright high school graduate.

There were of course flaws in our biology, she explained, it was unavoidable do to the way we were grown, but they were, from the point of view of the project, comparatively minor. One trouble was that our lifespan would be dramatically reduced. Each of us would, she told me, had only eighteen months to live, and then our bodies would degrade and decompose, burning themselves out in a matter of hours. But this was an unimportant matter, since within the next eighteen months the task we’d been grown to fulfill could be achieved with time to spare, and if we were needed after that another batch of us could be grown easily enough.

One would think this knowledge would disturb me. The fact was that I only had eighteen months with which to experience life, to see the world and all it’s wonders, simply to be. It seemed the sort of thing that’d bother me greatly. And, more fundamentally, I should have been bothered by the revelation that I wasn’t a person, the way the word person is normally considered. I’d been grown in a pod for a specific purpose over which I had no knowledge or input. I was a simulacra, to be used and then, when my shortened lifespan was over, discarded. And although the woman in the lab coat didn’t say so, I suspected that when my time was up I’d wind up in the same incinerator as that earlier, flawed batch of clones. Though I knew academically that this should disturb me, indeed fill me with a deep, religious sense of existential terror, it did not. I accepted all of what she told me as calmly as I’d accepted the bathrobe from her, as if it were all perfectly natural. I asked her about my reaction and she told me that this was part of the process by which I’d been grown, a genetic predisposition toward docility. I would accept my fate and do as the project required of me with a sense of unflappable calm, and when my end came in eighteen months I’d accept that too. This reassured me. It meant I was functioning properly.

Finishing my shower and towelling myself off, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror centrally located in the change area. Slim but muscular, of average height, pecs and abs perfectly sculpted, chest hairless. My tan was deep, even and golden bronze, my hair thick and full and jet black. I smiled at the reflection and saw that my teeth were a gleaming white, perfectly spaced and even. I was beautiful, a picture of what a woman would want from a male physique. I accepted this too as a natural part of my new existence. Beautiful, perfect, young and only on this earth a year and a half.

As I finished cleaning up, the woman handed me a white suit, black shirt and black shoes. As I put them on, my thirty one brothers and sisters started filtering into the changing area, each accompanied by a man or woman in a lab coat. They dried themselves, asking the occasional question of their escort, the men lean and toned, the women high-breasted and slim, all with identical tans and similarly perfect smiles, smiles I knew looked just like mine. We looked different enough from one another that someone could easily tell us apart but, I supposed as a side effect of the growing process, we looked alike enough that we clearly were birthed from the same source. I smiled at a young man changing next to me, and he smiled back, looking charming but somehow empty, as if something fundamental was missing from him, like there was from me.

I finished dressing and was ushered out of the room and into a larger, more comfortable waiting area, white suit tailored to fit me perfectly and casually, or perhaps I tailored to fit it. I sat, perfectly relaxed, on a couch along one wall, and waited as my siblings joined me one by one, gradually filling up the room, all thick hair and white teeth and simulated youth and energy. Finally the last of the stragglers, a woman with bright red hair falling in curls down her perfectly formed back and breasts that forever looked like they might “accidentally” pop loose from the top of her raven-black gown but never quite doing so, joined us and took her seat. A short, middle-aged, heavyset man with a receding hairline in an expensively tailored suit entered the room and stood behind a podium, staring out at us, inspecting us. We all sat expectantly, trying to hide our shared sense of anticipation, not knowing exactly what it was he was about to say but knowing that it would finally shed light on the purpose of the project we were the product of, and by extension our own purpose. We knew that whatever it was he asked of us we would execute his orders faithfully, enthusiastically, and without question. The idea of not obeying him would never enter any of our minds, nor could it. We had to obey, we had no choice in the matter, it’s what we’d been designed to do.

It was our destiny.

Once the man had seen whatever it was he was looking for in us, he tapped twice on a microphone and explained, quickly and curtly, what it was that we would be expected to do. He explained that not all of us would see the task we were assigned through to completion, that between the thirty two of us, only one would succeed, bringing glory to the project and the men and women who’d worked so hard to bring us into this world. The one of us who succeeded would be taken care of all the days of his or her short life, given anything their heart could desire, though with our genetic obedience I didn’t imagine any of us were capable of desiring much. For those of us who failed the reward would be a quick trip downstairs to the incinerator, and while I felt a twinge of fear at this prospect, I didn’t in any way imagine it unfair. They had created me, and this gave them the right to destroy me at their discretion. I hoped, however, that this fear would give me the extra motivation I needed to succeed, that, out of all of us, it would be me and only me who won the favour of my creators, and doing so my continued existence. I realized a moment later that everyone else in the room very likely felt the same way.

We drank up the words the man spoke like we were dying of thirst, each syllable giving us strength and purpose, allowing us to understand what it was we’d be spending our brief lives doing. The people who’d created us were correct, there was nothing we were being asked to do that was beyond our capabilities, and eighteen months was more than enough time to accomplish every goal that we‘d been set. We weren’t just willing to perform our assigned tasks, we were excited! This was purpose, to compete against one another, to excel, to succeed, to make our creators proud, to bring them glory! We were not only willing and able, our hearts were glad to start! And the short, heavy man saw this in us too, and smiled.

When he was done he left the room without taking questions, he knew there would be none, and we were left alone in the room to wait. One by one we were ushered out of a room by a man in a black shirt wearing a headset he used to communicate with someone far away, someone I did not know, someone I would likely never meet. Those of us left waited, sipping bottled water that’d been thoughtfully provided, eyeing one another warily, not speaking. These thirty one people, once my brothers and sisters, were now my bitter rivals. Only one of us would succeed in our task, and I needed it to be me. It had to be.

And besides, we’d only existed a scant few hours and during that time we’d had exactly the same experiences. What was there to talk about?

When my time came the man in the black shirt put his hand on my shoulder, gave me a name, Michael, and led me down a long, empty hallway. I rolled the name around on my tongue, Michael, and liked the way it tasted. It was a good name, and a name was the sort of thing it seemed like I’d need sooner or later, and I was glad to have it. The hallway came to an end and I was ushered into a larger room than any I’d ever been in before, filled with more people than I’d known existed, hundreds of them, sitting along the periphery of the spacious room behind an artificial barrier, all staring in, at me. Lights shone directly in my eyes, momentarily blinding me, reminding me for a brief moment of my first seconds of life, as that pod opened and I was released blind and naked and slimy and confused into the world. It was only hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime. And it was. When my eyes adjusted I was introduced to a funny woman who called herself Ellen, a cruel man who called himself Simon, a jovial but forgettable man who called himself Randy and a man who looked a little like me called Ryan.

And then I sang.

And sang.

And sang.

Monsanto

I’ve recently sold myself to Monsanto.

It’s not slavery, the representative making the offer explained to me, simply the purchase of the rights to my DNA, which are then leased back to me for 15% of any earnings my DNA and it’s derivatives might someday accrue. These earnings include wages, royalties, or the sale of creative material, as well as the wages, royalties or creativity of any offspring I may someday have. The rights to my DNA are held by Monsanto in perpetuity.

For these rights I received a one time, lump sum payment of $200 million.

Cash.

Monsanto is unlikely to make any significant profit from this transaction, but profit isn’t what the purchase was about. It was about setting a legal precedent of DNA as an intellectual property that can be copyrighted, bought, and sold. I got $200 million for the rights to my genetic code, but all they’ll need from you is a blood sample and a good lawyer.

Monsanto has VERY good lawyers.

Because now that, legally speaking, DNA is an intellectual property, when you don’t copyright your own nothing stops them from filing the necessary paperwork.

The morally questionable nature of this transaction is by no means lost on me. But you have to see it from my point of view. There are seven billion people on Earth. If I hadn’t agreed to this, someone else would have. And one person agreeing to be the legal test case for a contract like this is all it takes.

So, although it does pain me, sometimes you just gotta take the money and run.

Another Night at Work

Work was dead this afternoon. So I watched Discovery.

Specifically, a documentary on Hubble and the search for inhabitable worlds.

It was, I admit, fantastic. Though I didn’t catch the end.

We got a rush, you see. And before long Humpteys was packed.

Although the crowd was quieter than expected.

When I had the time, I saw why. They were transfixed, lost in the idea of worlds outside ours, life upon them, and the possibility we might go there.

…the wonderful thing about this story is; it’s true.

The next time I’m disappointed in humanity, I’ll try to remember it.

The Machine

My brain’s wired to the machine, and instantly I’m everywhere. Every house in every town, in every nation of the globe I’m present, flickering through settings and possibilities, witnessing seven billion human stories, all in the blink of an eye.

For one brief moment, I’m God. I know all.

My mind reels and, as quickly as it begins, it lurches toward it’s end. My brain, unable to process the volume of experience, cracks, shatters, and is gone. Technicians decouple my now vegetative husk from the machine and wheel it from the room.

They make modifications, and call in another volunteer.

I Believe in Science

As the Sorcerer strides through downtown chaos bursts forth. Cars explode, trees melt, birds speak. Dragons pour forth from beneath the earth, circling above his head.

People are trampled in their rush to escape, but the Sorcerer pays no heed, too lost is he in the chaos his majik hath wrought.

He throws back his head and, drunk with power, laughs.

Across town, I’m alone. Alone and nervous. Nervous and afraid for my life.

Afraid for my life, and hastily strapping myself into my newest Battlemech.

I believe in myself.

I believe in science.

The time has come for action.

Mouse Maze

The mice run through their maze, endlessly and pointlessly.

They finish their task, only to be put back at the beginning, to repeat their actions.

The scientists involved with the study try new stimuli, diet, drugs, anything they can think of, and record the results pages of notes, which they pass along to us.

We burn them.

We wonder how long they’ll continue the study, if they’ll continue when we adjust the heat, close the cafeteria, or get them drunk the night before.

We note how these things affect their performance, write our reports, and submit them to our superiors…

My Giant Robot

My mech was finally complete.

I flipped the switch, and the battle-bot roared to life, gears whirring, circuitry humming beneath it’s armoured shell.

It took a step forward, then another, ready to do my bidding.

Then it collapsed to one side, legs pumping futilely in the air, unable to right itself. It’s engines started to smoke, then shut down entirely.

Shouldn’t have been surprised.

I’m an actor, and a decent one. I’m a comedian, or call myself one, but I’ve never claimed engineering expertise.

Well, back to the drawing board, they’ll have to fear me another day.

Practice makes perfect.

Cloning Pt. 2

I’ve successfully cloned myself.

Twice. One clone I’ll raise myself, one will be given up for adoption to a family in Ireland.

I’ll also be adopting a baby from the developing world. Bangladesh perhaps.

I’ll raise my adopted child and my clone together, their every experience will identical.

When my children turn 18, I’ll find the child I’d given up so many years ago, and perform a series of tests comparing my genetic offspring to the child I raised, with the clone I raised myself as a control.

Thus ends the nature/nurture debate.

Then: Nerd girls will sleep with me.

Musings on a Crime Fighting Cyborg

It took dozens of surgeries and billions in R&D, but finally, my crime fighting cyborg was ready to protect the people of this good city.

Automan, the Automated man, was beyond human. His reflexes finely honed, his strength incalculable. Bullets bounced off his titanium skinshell, and he could see in near-total darkness. He was the perfect crime fighting machine. He was designed to be.

Now he was complete, and that very night the police shone the Auto-symbol above the city skyline. It was time for the two of us to spring into action.

Quick, Munsi, he called, to the Automobile!

Rocket Boots

For my birthday this year, I got Rocket Boots.

I’d been saying I wanted them since 2001. It is, in my opinion, officially the future, and Rocket Boots signify that to me. Fortunately, enough of my friends are engineers and, apparently, they’ve spent their free time designing and testing a prototype.

They won’t be available for public purchase for years, it takes forever for so dangerous a product to get to market. But they gave me the prototype pair.

It was an incredibly thoughtful gift.

Anyway, enjoy sitting in traffic, sucker, I’ll meet you at work.

I have to soar.

Never Satisfied

It began with a simple question. Can any squid be giant or terrifying enough?

Decades of genetic tampering and cybernetic enhancements later, my dream’s come true. On my yacht a safe distance away, I watch my creation destroying the small town in which I’d so long done my work.

The titanium of it’s exoskeleton shines in the morning sun as men, women and children scream in abject horror, lost in panic.

Some will escape, but not many.

My heart swells with pride at my creation. Truly, I have built a giant, terrifying squid.

But is it giant or terrifying enough?

Progress

Science marches on, they told me.

Also; that you can’t fight progress. I thus grew up with the notion that humankind’s progress was a linier affair, that we were moving relentlessly forward, overcoming clearly defined obstacles toward some sort of discernable end, that we couldn’t be swayed from our path. It appeared to me that it was onwards and upward for us here on this little rock. That our will and our intellect were unstoppable. Invincible.

But lately, looking at the world around me, I’ve grown to doubt it.

After all, I imagine they said similar things in ancient Greece…