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Noel was falling. Again. An armless figure appeared
before him, pleading for death; its empty shoulder socket rotating with
an horrendous grinding sound. Noel could only tell him that he was already
dead, but the figure with the burned-out eyes replied that they were all
immortal; they had been created that way by mistake.
Noel was not so much falling as sliding down, and it was a very slow motion;
he was leaving behind his body. The grinding sound seemed to come from somewhere
else now as the armless one wandered off disconsolately; in the dream Noel
was not himself but a grim prophet, and it was raining.
Then the colours came back, and the feeling of death and loss, and the sky
was filled with fire and explosion, and still it rained. The old, old fear
was there and the bitter wailing loss ate him away, and yet it was his own
creation: an idle prophecy that careless thought had turned into irredeemable
fact.
In a hazy building with no windows one of his own kind burned to death;
no it was not a burning but an eruption; from its bowels and arm-sockets
and neck and feet poured the lava, and the metal and silicon viscera sublimed
to form a crusty layer on the blackened concrete ceiling, while the sea
poured into its body, slowly; but in a blinding flash it turned out that
the mechanical man had sought suicide in an explosion that ripped at him
from the inside out, and in the end it destroyed all but the armless seeker
of death.
Noel woke slowly, druggedly, from the dream, with the familiar pain of fear
in his chest. Hardly breathing, he tried to grasp at the fading adumbrations
of his sleep-life; again and again he had tried to wrest their meaning from
his numbed and transition-fogged mind. Once again he was no closer; with
a mental shrug of his shoulders he brought himself round to the task of
preparing for the day's work.
Noel worked a 16-hour shift assembling automotive components in the nuclear
engines section of a local factory. He enjoyed the work; he was programmed
that way. It was hot and noisy but he sensed this in a neutral fashion and
was not bothered by it. He performed identical actions many thousands of
times a day, with a short break every two hours in which he would sit with
his companions and chat aimlessly.
"There's something a bit wrong with my brain," he remarked one
morning.
"You're getting more human every day," returned number Forty-Nine,
one of his colleagues. Noel smiled.
"Seriously," he said. "Part of my memory has been blacked
out. I used to store all kinds of useful things in it, for example the registration
number of my car. I actually had to walk round the back of the car and learn
it all over again."
"What do you expect," said his companion. "I always said
that you came from batch 270."
Batch 270 was one of the first series of production runs made of androids
after the Civil War. This batch was known for the number of 'reversions'
it had later produced.
"Don't forget what happened to your design team," retorted Noel.
They all laughed. Noel was implying that his friend was involved in crime;
the design team that he referred to had gone to jail. Noel laughed at his
own joke along with the others, but inside he was worried by his friend's
remark. He had seen himself as a perfectly stable android up to quite recently,
and shared the popular feelings about reversions. Yet why was he reluctant
to see the medics about his memory lapses and strange dreams? Surely he
had nothing to fear, he thought to himself, and resolved to do something
about it.
Noel returned to his work in the engine bay. After the Civil War a formula
had been agreed on for android construction and capability: the remnants
of the Government had been forced to yield on every point concerning android
superiority except radiation immunity. At that time it had seemed a trivial
difference, and the ability of androids to work in 'hot' conditions seemed
to be of use to the community. Noel continued with his meticulous assembly
work, the repetitive actions calming him.
That night Noel stepped out from the factory gates as usual and walked along
the dimly-lit alley towards the car park. He was tired after the day's work
and was thinking of the evening meal at the droid hostel. It was usually
a sociable gathering with good-humoured chatter and story-telling of the
day's events, or maybe a discussion of Continental news. His car was at
the far end of the gravel-strewn lot and as Noel reached it in the very
last light of the summer evening he was suddenly seized from behind. Noel
did not resist, despite the strong arm pressing into his windpipe, causing
him pain. His right arm was twisted up behind him and he was held like this
for a while in silence. He could only hear the heavy breathing of his assailant.
"Well Number Eight, afraid, are you, you metal bastard?" his attacker
said to him at last. Noel recognized the voice of one of the overseers;
he was deliberately using the formal mode of address. The man wrenched Noel's
arm higher, causing Noel to gasp in pain.
"Hurts does it, Tin Can?"
Noel said nothing, but stared with wide-open eyes at the ground. He had
heard of attacks on droids from friends, and read of them in the papers,
they had become more common in recent years.
"Say something, you creep," hissed the man into Noel's ear, but
Noel did not respond. He was given a violent push and staggered forward,
falling onto the gravel. His attacker followed him and stood on one of his
hands, crushing it into the ground. Noel, grimacing in pain, twisted his
head to look at his assailant, who bent over him; Noel experienced an almost
debilitating sense of fear.
"No guts. No balls," the man said with a sneer, keeping the pressure
on Noel's hand.
"Its just as well for you. Even the smallest sign of resistance and
I would have you in court so fast you wouldn't believe it. I saw you, you
know. Opening that door."
Noel now understood what had brought about the attack. The overseer was
usually an even-tempered man, but must have seen Noel's strange performance
a few days ago in a deserted part of the warehouse. His memory lapses had
been accompanied by odd mental states, and he had been absently staring
at an automatic door. Sitting on a crate he had directed his mind to the
control box situated above the door. Without intending to, he instructed
the door to open, which it did with a loud clattering. Shocked out of his
vacant state by the noise, he somehow ordered it to close and the door rattled
shut. Looking round in fear lest he had been seen, Noel had quickly left
the building. Obviously the overseer had been watching him. Noel looked
at him, afraid of what the outcome would be.
"This is a warning, do you understand?" said the man frowning.
Noel nodded weakly. Coolly staring at Noel, he increased the pressure on
his hand still more, until one of the delicate steel tendons of the middle
digit snapped. Hearing the faint sound, the overseer released his hand,
but continued to stare fixedly at the prostrate droid.
"Watch it," he said finally, and strode off back to the factory.
Noel picked himself up and leaned shaking against his car. He examined his
hand and saw that it would need attention. Carefully he unlocked the car
and sank into the driving seat. The turbine whispered into life. Despite
the pain, Noel managed to drive slowly to the medic unit where his hand
was swiftly and efficiently repaired with no questions asked. Noel's earlier
resolve to seek help about his mental states was forgotten.
Noel returned to the droid hostel in a very sober mood that night. He made
some excuse for being later than usual, and ate a meal which had been left
for him. Afterwards he joined the other droids who were watching the Continental
News. There was more unrest in the cities, and the old ideas of expansion
and colonisation were being resurrected and discussed by opposition parties
and extremists. This was a recent development; no one had talked seriously
of this for hundreds of years. The Government reiterated its policy on this:
the Continent must resolve its own conflicts first. The prime minister made
some earnest comparisons with sick and healthy bodies, meaning that the
Continent should not export its problems. In reality the diminishing human
population meant that there was little impetus for colonisation.
Noel was thoughtful and withdrawn, but this did not draw comment as he had
not been his usual self for some time. A comedy show followed the News,
and after a while even Noel started to laugh with the rest.
One of the most unnerving developments for people had been the emergence
of the droid sense of humour. After the Civil War, androids, with their
now limited capabilities, became more or less universally accepted. An agreement
had been reached between the labour unions and the Government concerning
droid deployment, while further development in 'self-thinking' mobiles (that
is androids) had been frozen. Mobiles, or robots, with sub-human intelligence
existed in great variety, while intelligence development was restricted
to immobile and passive devices. Androids filled the gap between these types
of development in a form more or less acceptable to the people. The resulting
equilibrium lasted several hundred years.
In the middle of this period a cyberneticist and philosopher called Xalatrius
had published an obscure paper on the droid mentality. Using vast simulations
of their mental structure and processes, he had claimed to have discovered
an inherent instability in their mental formations. He predicted a gradual
slide from the stolid precision of thinking that characterised the intelligence
of post-Agreement droids into a more fluid and human mentality. Also his
calculations had shown him an exponential increase in their life-span. Mainly
because of this last claim, which would confer near-immortality to the droids,
his paper was dismissed as preposterous, and he remained in obscurity. Many
years later, as droids began to develop certain human-like qualities, his
ideas were taken a little more seriously.
The development of new qualities about a hundred years after the Civil War
Agreement were apparently not the symptoms of 'reversion', but in many people
caused much greater unease. Cases of straightforward reversion had appeared
soon after the Agreement; these were droids that for some strange reason
would start to exhibit characteristics of the fully evolved pre-war droids.
Greater mental powers, greater strength, speed and agility, and even a kind
of machine-to-machine 'telepathy' were amongst the characteristics that
had previously brought human antagonism to the point of Civil War. Reversions
- or reverts in popular parlance - came either from batches of pre-war droids
that had been modified to conform with the specifications of the Agreement,
or from new batches made after the war. Batch 270 was unusual amongst the
post-war production runs in that it had produced a higher number of reverts
than in most of the others, and had become part of the folk-lore handed
down from that period. Some suspected that the faults were intentional,
but it was never proved. With the next batch however, a group of designers
had conspired to produce droids that could be 'triggered' into a pre-war
mode, by the use of certain key-words. After a spectacular series of robberies,
master-minded by the designers and carried out by the droids, the reverts
had all been destroyed. After a long trial their creators had been given
life sentences, possibly reflecting the degree of public anxiety over the
super-droids. On the whole reverts were either successfully fixed, or destroyed,
however. About thirty years after the Agreement, cases of reversion had
become rare.
The new qualities that the droids began to exhibit - about a hundred years
after the Agreement - were more subtle than those of a revert. Under the
Agreement, droids were designed to be compliant, gentle, and self-effacing.
In many households they were used as child-minders for example. What alarmed
people to start with was not any change in the droids' subservience, but
the gradual development of a self-deprecating sense of humour: there was
a subtle shift from the passive servitude of an automaton to the good-natured
willingness of a humanoid. As the change was very gradual it was hard to
say exactly when the public consciousness again started to be polarised
over the droids. Certainly one event went down in the history books as a
turning point for the Continent in the post-Agreement era. An android child-minder
and its charge were found by the child's parents one day to be in a fit
of giggles. Droids were expected to laugh politely and discretely at a joke
made by humans if the situation demanded it. However the child, in all innocence,
told his parents that the droid itself had told a very funny story. On seeing
that his parents were disturbed and angry about this the child refused to
say more. Rather than force the child, the parents demanded that the droid
recount the story word for word to them, and the droid, despite its reluctance
to do so, was obliged to retell the story. It concerned an imaginary family
of droids where a human was acting as a child minder to a baby droid. To
the child this role-reversal, with some humorous embellishments thrown in,
had seemed hilarious. Particularly amusing to the child was the minder's
account of a baby droid; even a child knew that droids, apart from a brief
'schooling' period, were manufactured in their fully developed form. To
the parents however, the whole story was vaguely insulting, and at the same
time frightening: the humour seemed to be far too human. So, instead of
seeing the funny side of it, the parents brought about a court action that
made legal history: they brought a reversion charge against the droid on
the grounds that its intelligence exceeded the Civil War Agreement. The
case attracted considerable public interest.
The whole droid issue was reopened, and the attitudes of the rebel unions
from a hundred years before began to re-emerge. The Government, as the technical
owners of the droids, put up a very well researched and complicated defence
of the accused droid. The position of the Government had not really changed
since the Civil War, in that it still perceived the economic stability of
the Continent as depending on the droids. It was true that the pre-war tensions
over the droids had never completely disappeared and there would always
be pressures from some groups for a return to a pre-droid way of life, but
the alternative, an economy without them, was now unthinkable. Not only
were the droids doing all the menial and dangerous work that people would
not even consider any more, but they worked in some technically crucial
areas in industry. These were mainly in the nuclear power industry and to
a lesser extent in the nuclear engine divisions of the transport sector.
The Government would not publish figures, but it was widely suspected that
the generation of fusion power would not be possible on the present scale,
or even at all, without the droids.
The division over the trial did not quite take the lines that it had in
Civil War times. This time the intellectual and educated sector seemed to
be in agreement with the Government, in contrast to the days of the Civil
War, about one hundred and fifty years before the trial. At that time industrialists
and technocrats were pursuing the development of the droids in a kind of
technological dream that paid little attention to the ordinary people of
the Continent. Liberal-minded writers of reputation had started to publish
works against the Government and its prime minister, and against the developments
that they were pursuing. The more militant elements incited the working
people to revolt, and the Continent eventually headed towards the Civil
War that finally checked, even put back, the development of the droids.
In the times of the trial of the child-minder the same cultured and liberal-thinking
elements whose counterparts in pre-war days had found the droids intolerable,
were now beginning to cultivate them. The liberal view on the case of the
child-minder was firstly that to destroy a machine on the grounds that it
had developed a sense of humour was ridiculous, and secondly that the precedent
set could result in wiping out most of the droid population.
In the end the reversion case was rejected on a rather technical ground.
In the fine print of the Civil War agreement it had simply stated that a
criteria for judgement was to be that any attributes possessed by a droid
should not be present in a greater extent to those possessed by a human.
(The only exception agreed on was the resistance to radiation.) The prosecution
could not make a convincing case that a sense of humour indicated an intelligence
greater than a machine should possess, and as nothing had been stated about
a sense of humour this was misinterpreting the sense of the Agreement.
No similar case was brought again, but the resulting public debate brought
about a clamour for a new Agreement. The Government discussed new legislation
for a long time, and committees and sub-committees produced endless papers
on the subject. Change only came about much later however.
In the meantime droids were being examined in a new light. That they had
a sense of humour gradually became accepted and was even eventually referred
to as 'Tin Can' humour or T.C. humour for short; T.C. humour was rather
simple and child-like. Certainly no cases came to light of insubordinations
or even insolence from a droid, showing that the people in the case of the
child-minder had really over-reacted to the droid's display of humour.
The comedy show that Noel and his companions were watching that evening
on the C-vid kept them laughing, in particular, a clever sketch of people
imitating T.C. humour had them rolling around in their seats and slapping
each other on the backs. Even Noel gradually forgot the events of the day
and went to bed with a grin on his face.
After being attacked in the car park Noel made no further mention of his
memory problems, and hid as much as he could the strange moods that would
grip him. The fact that the overseer at the factory suspected him of reversion
was enough to make him realise that any display of unusual tendencies would
bring a hostile reaction. The mood of the Continent was too tense. Inside
though, he worried about the episode with the automatic doors. Noel was
unaware that telepathic communication with machinery was part of the pre-Agreement
droid's abilities, one of the qualities of the so-called super-droids which
had been under development before the war. However, even without asking
anybody, he suspected that it could be a sign of reversion. To the average
droid, programmed, trained, and schooled to serve its masters in the correct
fashion, reverts were a disgrace and a threat.
Not long after the attack in the car park, Noel discovered that he was to
be transferred to the Capital. An increase in violence in the cities and
a growing feeling of public disquiet had boosted the circulation of most
news media, and workers were needed in the industry. Droids were quite used
to being transferred from job to job as the need required, so Noel made
no fuss about it. Because the new appointment required him to work more
closely with people, he would have to take time off before starting there.
This was for the residual radiation that his body had absorbed in the factory
to die away, and meant that Noel would have an unexpected break from his
usual work-filled day.
On his last day at the factory Noel was given a little send-off party. In
the last break of the shift, his fellow-droids gathered together and played
some music. They had brought a few instruments in with them that day and
sang songs that were simple, mostly humorous. Noel joined in the singing.
Their rhythms were strong and their timing perfect; one or two danced a
little shuffle which raised amused laughter from the rest. They were thus
absorbed for a while until one by one they noticed the figure of the foreman
in the door of their simple little mess-room. The singing and playing stopped,
and in the silence that followed they each turned to look at the scowling
features of their overseer.
"Who said you could play music in here?" he demanded angrily.
"No one said we couldn't," replied Forty-Seven courteously.
"None of your bloody cheek!" the overseer shouted at him.
There was an awkward silence.
"I warned you, number Eight," he said pointing at Noel.
He walked over to Noel in a threatening manner. As he reached Noel he spotted
one of the instruments which was made from metal scraps and steel strings,
and picked it up.
"This is made from factory property," he said. "Do you realize
that amounts to theft?"
"The pieces of metal are only refuse," said the first droid.
"Don't get smart with me," said the overseer, getting angrier
and angrier. He threw the instrument on the floor. It made a clattering
ringing sound but did not break. One of the droids chuckled. The overseer
swung round in a fury and stared at the offending droid.
"Come here!" he shouted.
Thirty-Nine approached.
"Break it."
The droid hesitated, looking round at his companions.
"Break it!"
"Of course Sir."
Picking up the instrument with care Thirty-Nine examined it for a moment
and then brought it down over his knee, snapping its neck. The strings broke
with a metallic twang.
"Here you are Sir. This will never play again."
The overseer stared at the droid, who offered him the broken instrument.
He snatched it away and dashed it to the ground.
"Damn your sort," the overseer said bitterly and left them. There
was silence for a while. They sat down looking at each other.
"Things are getting worse. There's no avoiding it," said Seventeen.
No one commented and they sat, staring at the ground. After a while one
of them got up, his head and arms dangling.
"I'm broken, Sir. I'll never play again." He staggered around
repeating this phrase. They started to laugh at him. Another got up.
"Please Sir, allow me to break myself. I know just the right place
to hit myself."
He pretended to try to break himself by hitting himself on the chest. The
others roared with laughter; Noel smiled. Nobody offered any further comments
about their general situation. It was time to return to work and each of
Noel's companions shook his hand and wished him good luck. They did not
refer to the overseer's warning to Noel.
For the following weeks Noel had to report every other day for radiation
screening. As soon as he was cleared, he would move to the Capital and start
his new work, but meanwhile Noel spent the time mainly in reading. Not much
material was available in local bookshops and his enquiries brought raised
eyebrows from the booksellers; they were used to androids confining themselves
to the reference manuals that enabled them to use and service the huge range
of machinery that they worked with. Noel lived in a provincial town and
in such places, away from the big cities, people were old-fashioned in their
attitudes to droids. With free time on his hands Noel felt strangely at
a loss. The attack on him at the factory had somehow changed his attitudes
- instead of feeling that he would be able to get himself sorted out with
the right kind of help, he now felt that he was really on his own. A sombreness
would overcome him sometimes, often as a prelude to one of his strange dreams.
One night he dreamed he was sliding down some height, leaving behind all
that was precious to him, and in the morning he was left with a sense of
loss and a feeling of something of importance hovering just beyond his grasp.
Sometimes the dreams would leave him for days with an undercurrent of fear;
he would feel this in his chest almost as a physical sensation.
One evening during this period of waiting he took a walk to get away from
the hostel where he was currently spending so much time. The compound, located
on the edge of the small town where he worked, was shoddily built compared
to private human dwellings, or even compared to state-provided human accommodation.
Noel had never questioned this, or the proximity of the hostel to the refuse
tips and water treatment plants. He walked up a small lane between the high
fences of the utility plants, and along the edge of an abandoned canal;
its locks broken and the stretches between them reduced to muddy pools.
None of this struck him as ugly, neither did he see the weeds and wild flowers
as a compensating grace, or even as being out of place. He was aware that
he was finding it hard to think about anything in particular: a state that
often preceded a black-out, and often accompanied by irrational fears. He
crossed a footbridge over the canal and wandered up the small hill overlooking
the municipal tips, the sun setting behind him. He stopped and sat down
on the wreck of an old car and turned to look at the horizon, feeling unusually
relaxed. His usual anxiety and fearfulness was gone. Instead, he felt a
quite foreign sense of joy, perhaps induced by the beauty of the setting
sun and the play of light on the clouds. Only after several minutes did
it occur to him that he was not thinking at all, and that it seemed a great
effort to do so. This scared him, and suddenly the tension returned. He
shook his head, got up, and returned home deeply confused about his experience.
It had been very brief, the sense of peace, but its contrast to the now-returned
state of stress that he normally lived with had illuminated the memory.
However much he tried over the following weeks, he failed to re-capture
the intense sense of joy that he had briefly experienced, and eventually
forgot about it.
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