A Spit In The Eye - For The Benefit Of Mankind (17 page)

I stood
looking out at Humans and believed I could never do it

I could
never free them

Not
without their aid and assistance

Maybe I
could use them to kill some Machines

Maybe
bring some Defgars down

But
considering that many of them would be killed it would be a waste
of them

When the
programme was to free them

Not to
get them killed them off

I would
give the results of the programme some thought

Because I
still wanted to make the attempt

**

**

Section 11

**

Internal Transmission

*

I have
wandered through the fortress and have visited the Human rest
places as a plan has formed in my programmes

I am as
excited by the plan as little Eve would be

At least
I anticipate what her excitement would have been

Something
has come to my attention

Defgars
inside the fortress remain in the same corridors day after
day

They do
not move

They
stand perfectly still

Their
only duty is to protect the facility against attacks or attempted
escape by Humans and if there are no attacks or attempted escapes
they will not move

No other
Machine has the engine of an ObsRec and over the 100 years I have
been in existence I have learned reason

And this
is to greatly to my advantage

I can
ruminate with myself and come to conclusions

And the
first piece of important information I have discovered is that
Defgars stand in the same corridors month after month

Probably
year after year

I have
been noting them each passing of dark and light and they are the
same Machines in the same corridors

In the
same positions each and every time I use my optical devices to
examine them

Now is
the fourth passing of dark and light and I am going to test my
theory of their inactivity and their ability to communicate with
each other

Because I
consider that Defgars are not in communication with each
other

They are
simply programmed to react to in the event of an attack or
attempted escape

I return
from my darkness hours of pondering and wandering the great plain
and I return into the facility and make my way towards the corridor
where the Humans are separated only by the fence

A single
Defgar stands in it just as it always has

Standing
in the same unmoving position

I do not
recognize my inability to notice this information earlier in my
existence

I move
down the corridor in my usual method until I am only one upper
limbs length from the machine

I bring
my shutters down momentarily

ObsRecs
are supposed to do this often to keep lenses in our optical devices
clear

And I
begin to transmit a recording of my movements around the
facility

I lift my
shutters

And I
pulse the boom of the full power of the signal of
companionship

The
Defgars head drops immediately

But so
too does the LazExt 66 it is holding in its upper limbs

I have to
react extremely quickly to stop it crashing to the floor

I do
react extremely quickly

It is
what I was manufactured to do

And I
hold the weapon in my upper limbs and it feels quite
strange

I am now
armed and as dangerous as any machine on planet Earth though I
cannot consider that I am

I hide
the weapon behind the totally immobilised Defgar

#26555346

I turn my
cranium and observe that the Humans are continuing with their
activities and routines and have not perceived my action

That is a
fine thing

For I am
not yet ready to be uncovered as an agent for Humans

I walk
away from the dead machine

*

I take
the elevator up to the overlook area where two other Defgars
stand

One at
each end of the open corridor that runs the length of the Humans
gathering area

I turn to
my left and proceed along the corridor and kill the Defgar at that
end

Catching
the weapon and leaving it hidden behind the lump of
metal

And I
proceed towards the other

That is
standing totally still

Unmoving

Waiting
for an attack

Though it
does not see one coming

It has no
concern for its already dead fellow Defgar

I kill
that one too

No that
is wrong

I cannot
kill that which is not alive

Like a
Human is alive

With a
heart that beats and a brain that thinks

I cannot
kill something that does not do those things

I
permanently immobilise them

That’s
what I do

I deduce
that these Defgar machines are useless without the capacity for
communication and without the ability to deduce and
reason

High
Office made a huge error in their manufacture

The
Defgar stands in exactly the same position with its head down and I
relieve it of its weapon and place it behind

Out of
sight

So far
the daylight hours had gone well

And
throughout the rest of it

I move
through the facility

Permanently immobilising Defgars without
interruption

In a
single span of daylight I immobilise 20

And I
return to live transmissions

I will
attempt to immobilise another 20 after my wanderings of the dark
hours

*

During
the dark hours I travel down to the mouth of the hole in the
earth

Where I
know Humans reside

And I try
to make decisions on how to introduce those from the
surface

Those who
reside within the fortress

With the
free ones living in the hole

If

As
improbably as it might seem

If I free
the Humans from the fortress

I cannot
suddenly inflict 10.000 Humans on the sub-earth population for they
may not to be able to cope with such an influx

There may
not be enough food for example

Not
enough space

Somehow I
must introduce them gradually to give the sub earth Humans a chance
to adapt

Another
conclusion to the problem settles in my system

What if I
travel

Initially

With only
one Human from the fortress and that Human explains to the sub
earth Humans

Who it
is

Where it
is from

How it is
there in the hole

And ask
for me not to be exterminated

Explain
that I am a friend

I could
use Eves papa for this purpose if I communicated with him and if he
didn’t try to exterminate me

As I move
over the land through the dark hours a plan rises up in my systems
that seems as good as any I have so far configured

The very
chance that I could free any Humans was only 0.01% so any plans
that rose up were far from reality

Still

I had
permanently disabled 20 Defgars and it was a start

Over the
following three turns of light and darkness I hunted ever static
Defgar down

60 of
them

And I
shut them all down using a new method I should have used from the
very beginning

I moved
past Defgars and switched from my front optical devices to the 1 in
the rear of my cranium and I boomed the signal at them as I
passed

Machines
were not capable of understanding what was shutting them down and
as their heads slumped down I turned and caught the
weapons

Focussing
my optical devices on walls

Ceilings

And
suchlike

It meant
I didn’t have to keep closing my shutters or transmitting
recordings

I would
continue focusing on other views while I hid the weapon

And

Nothing
was heard from High Office

No orders
were received

No
instructions given

I was not
immediately exterminated

High
Office knew nothing of what was happening

Defgars
did not defend themselves and High Office would only activate them
in the event of an uprising or an attack from inside or outside the
facility

Neither
of which was happening

High
Office had never considered that a revolution may begin from inside
the fortress by one of its own productions

In
retrospect

They
probably should never have produced ObsRecs

They gave
us too much freedom to roam

Too much
time to form opinions and when they

Experimentally

Programmed two emotions into us

That
was

Probably

The
beginning of the end of the whole Machine world

How many
other ObsRecs were reacting to those emotions just as I
was

I thought
the number may not be small

But as I
immobilised the final Defgar a new emotion grew inside
me

One I had
never experienced before and it made me feel quite odd

I
searched for an explanation and I discovered an emotion that suited
the way I felt

The
emotion was called

*

Guilt

*

And I was
humbled by it when I immobilised the final Defgar

First of
all I leapt into the air and spun and somersaulted as I had seen
little Eve do on many occasions and I did it for some considerable
time

Feeling
most excited and exhilarated

But once
my initial emotion of excitement was over I stood in front of the
final totally immobilised and never to be resurrected
Defgar

And the
other emotion surged through me

Guilt

If I
succeeded in freeing the Humans these Defgars

Who have
remained at their places of duty for over 100 years would never be
used again

They
would remain in this massive building and they would slowly
rot

And I
felt momentary guilt until I remembered the horrific demise of
Little Eve and that I had made a promise to that Human

And had
set a course of duty that had to be seen through until completion
or until my own demise

I turned
my attention to the MengTechs

And once
I thought of them all guilt faded as mist does in the heat of the
morning solar orb and I could not wait to complete my task against
them

I moved
along to the passageway where I could perceive happenings in the
cages

And I ran
a recording of earlier movements for the benefit of High
Office

Three
Humans were strapped to the tables but no MengTechs had yet
appeared to experiment upon them

The
Humans

One of
middle age with an appendage between his legs

One
middle years without an appendage

And an
ancient one without

All had
expressions of total fear on their craniums and all turned their
optical devices towards me as I passed on the other side of the
glass wall

And they
must have been astounded to see that I was armed

I
hesitated for only 1 moment

For the
time was now

I lifted
the LazExt66 into my upper limbs from behind the Defgar that stood
in that corridor and I held it as the Defgar had

I
searched every contour of the weapon for I was going to use it
without training and if I got it wrong the MengTechs would pull me
limb from limb and I would be exterminated

I made a
decision to test the weapon

It had
certain settings on the barrel of it and I set this to 1 and turned
and fired it along the corridor behind me