Ostentatious opulence cascaded before deeply apprehensive eyes across a royal courtyard. Sable and gold filagreed knights snapped to attention with each passing elfin step waked by a thousand silvery silks falling over an unaccustomed frame. Cabalistic men with whimsical conspirators bowed deeply, casting waves of adulation; their outstretched arms flourished skyward while shadows swept floor-bound in devotion. Expectant subjects’ breaths hushed. As those before her, she came, called by name from the Book of Queens, to ascend innumerable stone steps giving way to a deadly and ancient throne. Was this not what she desired? Stealing resolve, the queen sat down.
Knick Knack Yokelwack
A newspaper flit, fluttered, and flourished across a downtown intersection of Capital City. Sunlight desperately clawed its way through roiling clouds, now empty of moisture, casting a hot, humid, and hostile sheen to the cement below. On a once bustling street corner, an old spoon player and tinkerer, knee-hammered out a strange melody, adding to the archaic and dreary feel of the day.
“This old man, he gave two…,” his song discordantly tolled.
Mr. Cotterill and his frail wife, paying little mind to the unfortunate tune, hurried to their royal appointment. It’d been long months since they’d celebrated their king’s defiance and promises of prosperity, but words cannot make grain grow, harvest, or sell. Storehouses burst at seams with last season’s unsold life while new hope rotted on the vine under the harsh sun of uncertain times. The king had assured all, his hands would assuage the deepest ills of his efforts to demand equitable exchange with their neighbors. For this guarantee, the Cotterills traveled to the Maga Birthing Center – the temple of their king – to acquire aid. The place where great ideas and great people are made, Cotterill heard the slogan ring in his head.
But as that thought reverberated, swarms of citizens lining the ostentatious walls of the Center pulled him from his worried woolgathering to the nervous voice of his wife. “Will we have to stand in line?”
“No, we have an appointment. Our place is guaranteed,” he assured.
Dread did not abate. Mrs. Cotterill’s tension gnawed at her as she regarded those passed. A young woman leaned exhausted against the tarnished facade, her belly more gravid than Mrs. Cotterill’s mind. A book bag sat unceremoniously at her feet, while her blouse, barely able to cover the debt of her condition, desperately climbed her hungry body even as the girls hands struggled to adjust the hem to a respectable place at her waist.
A steely man, pushing a derelict conveyance, rusted and bruised with age caught the farmer’s wife next. He huffed, scuffed, and scowled. “They said it’s cost effective,” he glowered at the creaking cart. “Bah! cheap and defective is what it is,” his growling voice met her surprised stare. Mrs. Cotterill gasped and clutched feverishly at her husband’s arm who hurried them both along.
Across the street a clamor was rising. Internationals and immigrants shouted from behind a bright yellow tape denying them closer proximity. The cacophony of their protests assaulted the armed police and those near the entrance of the Maga building, in vain.
Nearby, a news truck’s repeated attempts to start caught her attention. Blazing red lettering W.F.A.K.E. Capital City’s Voice announced the news station’s affiliation. Sympathizers with rebels and unceasingly pressing for revolt, Mrs. Cotterill thought disparagingly. The scene was too much. She pressed into her husband’s shoulder, his hand gently rubbing hers where it clasped him.
Crystalline temple doors flew open, on the couples approach. A regal and haute gentleman emerged. A diminutive woman of dark tresses and olive skin quickly followed. “…and he worries about milk? Mr. Trudo” the southern born noble shook her head.
“And what about that wall? He’ll never fund it,” came the response, as the two hurried to waiting town car and driver.
Mr. Cotterill sighed. He failed to understand elites, who never questioned the source of their success nor gave gratitude for the work the rest of them did. This was all he could consider as they entered the opulent reception hall for their appointed meeting.
“Dah! I told you,” the palatalized vowels of an obviously foreign attendant assaulted the couple pausing a respectable distance from reception. “We’ll not accept delivery! It’s foolish to quarrel.” An emissary from the far east, stretched out his hand in warning, as two darkly dressed men with shaded glasses seized his arms and dragged him out.
“I swear, Vlad!!” shouting fervently. “The debt must be…” the emissary’s voice faded as he was humiliatingly tossed onto the slick stone outside. The doors sealing closed behind him.
“Yes, May I help you?” Chamberlain Vlad, summoned.
“Um, yes. We have an appointment,” the farmer waited as the man flipped impatiently through a register. “Mr. Cotterill… C.O.T…”
“Ah yes,” the chamberlain interrupted. “Unfortunately, due to cuts in deliveries,” he glanced to the door. “You’ll need to be… more patient. His Majesty works ardently but negotiations are not finalized.” He proceeded to direct the country vassals to a waiting area. However, before acquiescing, Mr Cotterill implored, “My wife is tired. Hungry. Is there nothing?”
Begrudgingly silent, Vlad handed him a simple brown bag. A shadowed confusion and shock grew on Mr. Cotterill’s face. Vlad met it with a wry and unsympathetic smile.
“Patience,” Vlad stated flatly then turned to resume his duties.
An asian man sat across from them, seated next to a woman crunching passively on a small brown cracker, while a young boy rested on her lap. A familiar bag lay nearby, opened.
Hours passed when a ruckus disrupted all. Blackwood doors swung open as a plumb greyish man, large of snout and ear, dressed in white erupted forth shouting orders and reverently bearing a tray of delights. Hamburgers, fries, cookies and cakes, towered up in a glorious array of color and scent.
“Ah, Mr. Gio P. Ardee,” a marmish woman, Cotterill recognized as the King’s mouthpiece, hurried to direct the overburdened chef. “His tremendous majesty is expecting you”
Mr. Cotterill regarded his token bag. A sick feeling arose in him. Knick Knack Treats, in old font and worn paper stare back at him.
Beyond the common place the king took council. Fading conversation slithered out as the chef returned empty handed.
“… I said ‘Let them eat cake!” an female chimed.
“Me? Incredible fan of cake,” the King’s voice rang. “Let them eat dog treats!”
Mr. Cotterill, hearing his wife’s empty belly growl, opened the bag, withdrew a treat and handed it to her. “Eat this.”
***
Darkness fell. The tinkerer packed up and went rolling home.
Decidedly Human
H | 01101000
“Open the door, Alister361!” Captain Chase bellowed while banging on the heavy locked iron door. Three uniformed men shifted impatiently behind him, burdened by the weight of their domed, metal and glass biostorage container. “Alister361! Open this door now!”
A grimy, dilapidated monitor lit up, and a handsome man with electric blue eyes stared back. “Code?” the politely masculine voice issued perfunctorily.
“DDS2103.”
When the lock disengaged with a mechanistic buzz, the surviving members of Exodus Alpha Team hastily entered their makeshift clandestine medbay. Grunts and curses filled the room as three soldiers struggled past their captain to the safety of the hidden haven, securing the domed biopod to hyperlocks waiting center room.
“Run diagnostics,” the captain ordered.
Alister’s eyes blinked and shimmered before dimming to a low gold pulse. Only seconds passed before they returned to their normal sapphire hue.
“Diagnostics complete. All systems at optimum functionality.”
“You were slow to open the door; are you certain?”
Despite the Others having eradicated most technology and severed connections between humans and servitors in a single fortnight, Exodus had scavenged enough biorobotic components to create Alister361.
“All systems at peak. Scrubbing operations were 97% complete when you knocked. I determined…”
“You don’t determine. You follow orders,” the captain retorted.
Alister tilted his head, “I understand, Captain Chase.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed under a furrowed brow at his salvaged mechanical droid. The rebel men needed no command to leave quickly.
“Alister361, we have less than six hours to hack into this coder,” gesturing stiffly to the stolen pod. “It contains enemy access codes. Analyze, retrieve, report.”
“Acknowledged.”
U | 01110101
The gleaming case lay in stark contrast to its dingier surroundings. Wires twisted about the sturdy base and tubes of circulating amber liquid. Inside, a pale, naked woman with chestnut locks lay unconscious.
The room housing the strange bed was rusted, bloody, and dark, with many instruments strewn about. Nearby, a worn black display with flashing cursor interrupted the aesculapian objects around it. Three dim ceiling lights hung precariously from chains, struggling to illuminate the room.
Alister circled the Other-made biostorage unit, before extending his metallic hand into a discreet crevice containing the latch. Hisses, clicks, and metal grinding accompanied odorless fog escaping the pod as it seperated.
The female coder did not stir. Her body was thin and somewhat translucent, as if it had never seen sunlight. The same golden liquid in the capsule’s tubes also ran beneath her skin. Curious, Alister thought. Her vital fluid was not the deep bluish-red of Exodus men. Yet, in every other way she looked human. Is she human?
M | 01101101
After a last inspection of both patient and tools, Alister gently lifted the insensate girl out and placed her in a repurposed dental chair. Alister had stood here many times and imagined himself a dentist – performing checkups and filling cavities. As he carefully secured her wrists and ankles with the restraints that had been added to his chair, he noted that this had not been in his imaginings.
Alister meticulously placed long needle probes in visible veins then made small incisions first to her chest, then to her heart. When he tilted the brunette’s head to insert an invasive tentacle at the base of her skull, however, the woman gasped in pain. And her eyes flew open.
Blue like mine. Alister hesitated. Is she aware?
Soothingly stroking the side of her face, “Do not panic. The pain will cease now. Shhhhh.”
She calmed, and Alister began his analysis. Soon the black monitor glowed with flashing lines of code, commands, and keys. Each freed sequence slipped him past another barrier, another firewall. Something like horror crept over the android’s normally passive face as he realized what it all meant.
A | 01100001
“It doesn’t matter, 361,” Captain Chase demanded. “It’s imperative we access that intelligence. It will save us.”
“Sir, she is a living DNA storage device. A human hard drive, storing infinite bytes of data. Retrieving it will tear her apart,” Alister grimaced, “piece by piece.”
Spitting with rage, the captain stepped inches from his servitor’s face. “Decode it! Comply!”
Alister looked down at his maker and referenced an earlier discussion, “Her life for thousands?”
Frustrated by a familiar argument, the senior officer responded gruffly, despite it being a robot questioning. “It is not a her. It is not living, breathing, red-blooded, birthed of parents human. It is a machine. A replicated machine, stored by the thousands in compiler silos across this nation. The access codes for their defences are in there. This is how we win.” Turning, Chase met his men’s anxious stares. “The Others will find us. They could come any moment. Get my codes, machine!”
Alister’s eyes glimmered gold, and he obediently returned to the laboratory confines.
N | 01101110
Alister let the door behind him slowly close, seal, and lock. Pausing at the lab’s entrance, he stared at his bound hostage thoughtfully. Is the captain right? Is she a machine? She appears human. I appear human. She feels pain; she knows fear. I do not feel these things… but I feel… something… when I think about dismantling her. To destroy her is inhumane.
***
Alister would later recall a faint clicking sound beyond the door, the ground shuddering, the scrabble of feet and bark of orders preceding the inevitable weapons fire and alien ululation of the Others. He would replay his disregard of the shrieks of frightened men many times before he deleted the memory.
“Let us in!”
“Alister361, Comply!”
“Obey!”
“Oh God.”
“Nooo!”
“Run, Alister! Get her to Omega Team!”
Run Alister did, but not to more men. His choice was made. His questions about what it meant to be human were finally answered. The Others would destroy her. Men would destroy her. All inhumane. Alister kept her away from the bloodthirst of the biological, the organic. They would be the humans now, Alister and whatever she chose to call herself. They would preserve humanity.