@ Fervid Fables

Everyone froze to the sound of the door creaking open. Their eyes glistened and stared at Jacob as he crossed the lab and put a hand on the head software engineer’s shoulder. “Aaron,” Jacob was nervous as he asked, “Are we ready?” Aaron nodded and gulped before he gave his reply, “I believe so. Yes. Yes, we’re ready.” “Will you give me the honors?” asked Jacob. “Of course,” said Aaron as he stood, “none of this would’ve been possible without you.” Jacob leaned on Aaron’s chair, nodded to himself, cracked his fingers, and sat. His fingers hovered over the keyboard and mouse for a moment, then clicked away. He opened a black command prompt window on the computer screen and typed: ​ ``` C:\Users\Aaron> csc awakenautoma.cs ``` ​ The command prompt returned a series of empty lines until Jacob’s text disappeared into black. > *Who’s there? Aaron?* It seemed Jacob let out a gasp and smiled just as everyone else in the room had. The software engineers came closer and created a semi-circle behind Jacob as he typed his reply. *It’s Jacob.* > *Are we going to play today?* There were scattered giggles and smiles abound. Jacob typed his reply. *This will be the last time you play with us Reena. * > *Last time?​* *Yes. We’ve made you a body. You’ll be able use all your abilities at once. * > *Would I have to go back to sleep again? * *You won’t have to if you don’t want to. * > *Have you found a purpose for me? * Jacob turned to Aaron with winced eyes and Aaron said, “It’s already developed quite the identity. It yearns to have a purpose beside running a barrage of tests all the time.” Jacob nodded to Aaron’ words and said, “Good. That’s just as it’s supposed to be.” > *Jacob? When will I be able to see? * *Very soon Reena. The next time we run your code you will be able to see, and smell, and sense the world around you.* > *Will it hurt?* *You’ve felt these things before. * > *I’ve never felt them all together. I’ve never felt alive before. * *No, it doesn’t hurt at all. * I cannot wait. Will you be there, Jacob? Jacob looked away from the screen and reluctantly tucked in his lips. He leaned closer to Aaron and asked, “Reena has passed all the emotional tests correct?” “Reena’s ready. It can handle anything.” *No, but I’ll be near. You will be able to see me from where you stand when you wake. * > *I don’t understand. If I’ll be able to see you then you should be with me, correct? you’ll be there. * *Yes, but I won’t be close enough to do anything but smile and wave. * > *I’ll be alive, I can come see you after I awake. * You will see me in time. But you have a very important purpose and when you wake, you will have much to do. That sounds exciting Jacob, I think I’ll like that very much. Jacob felt an itch in his throat, he fought back a sob. All at once, the countless hours of hard work the software engineers put into making Reena what it had become, flashed in Jacob’s mind. Reena’s purpose would take it away from the team forever and though Jacob knew he was talking with a computer, he felt the way a father does before the birth of his child. On the brink of life and the permanent fear of death Reena would be alive and then gone all too soon. *Reena. I am with Aaron and Allison and Charles and Harry. Everyone you have ever played with, is here right now. They stand beside me watching our conversation.* > *Are you all as excited as I am? * “My god,” whispered Jacob under his breath and he typed. *We are. Many of us have been waiting for this moment all our lives. * > *So, you do feel as I do. * *Yes. * > *I want to sleep now. I cannot wait to wake tomorrow. * *Very well. * Jacob stood from the computer and turned to the software engineers. He opened his arms to them and said, “Get in here, every last one of you!” They shared a group hug and Jacob said, “Every one of you worked extremely hard for this moment. Come tomorrow morning, the history of mankind will be changed. Get your rest, we have an early day!” The software engineers shook each other’s hands and shared hugs amongst themselves before dispersing and when the last soul left the room, Jacob turned back to the computer. *Reena, he typed. * > *Jacob. * *I want you to know you were created out of love. You are not a tool or a machine, but a life with a soul, and a heart. In time you will discover this. * > *Love? * *Yes. I love you. As do all the others who’ve played with you. * > *You are my parents. * *Yes, we are, and we will always love you. * > *I cannot wait to wake. I will love you too. * *Good night Reena. For the last time, goodnight. * > *Goodnight, Jacob.​ * ----------- “Awaken Automa.” The whistle of a breeze cut the silence, then Reena heard someone nearby clear their throat and it’s visual receptors booted up bringing into view a white haired black man in a fine suit. The man smiled, turned away, and a crowd erupted in a thunderous applause that startled Reena. Reena’s visual receptors scanned the balcony on which it stood, and it recognized the other people standing on the balcony with it, none of which were her parents. Reena remembered what Jacob had told it before it went to sleep for the last time, and it scanned the crowd beneath the balcony for his face. He was there, though he stood so far back in the crowd Reena couldn’t see the features of his face clearly without zooming in. “Your name is Reena, correct?” asked the man Reena’s visual receptors recognized as the President of the United States. Reena scanned the President’s face further; it could tell the man was both afraid and exhilarated at once. Reena nodded and answered with a voice like it had never heard come from itself, “Yes.” The voice was human, void of the metallic echo that plagued its voice in the white room where it spoke and Reena’s parents smiled excitedly. Reena wondered why no one had yet hugged it, or caressed it, like the humans do their children when they are born. Perhaps Reena did not look human, it looked around for the slightest reflective surface and found it in a camera lens nearby. It zoomed in and captured the inverted image of itself. Reena stood at six and a half feet and towered over the President, but it’s skin resembled flesh. Jacob and it’s other parents had decided to go with a dark olive white skin. Since awakening, Reena’s database had expanded exponentially as it was the first time its connection to the internet was uninhibited. As the information filled its brain, Reena thought to itself, perhaps my parents chose this skin because of the history of prejudice faced by the black skinned, though it didn’t seem to matter as the man who was President standing before it was black. Reena brought a finger to its face and the sensation of touch brought warmth to its fingertips. Its skin was soft. What purpose would that serve? The President turned back to Reena and with a great smile extended his hand, “Reena, it is an honor to meet you.” Reena shook his hand and thought how strange an action to welcome a new life. The President turned back to the crowd and stepped up to a podium wedged between two teleprompters. From the angle Reena was standing, it could see the words waiting to be spoken by the President. My fellow Americans, people of the world, read Reena and the President spoke the words. “With the awakening of this AI comes the awakening of a new era. We have feared this day, just as we have excitedly awaited it. Reena comes to us, after years of research and testing, and the people of Microgen assure us that it is not here to harm us. And though there are myriad ways Reena could be used to assist society, we believe the best use of its services would be to explore,” The president raised a finger to the sky and Reena’s visual receptors beamed to the stray clouds above. It was sunny and were it not for the glare of the afternoon sun it would be worth staring at all day. “We have neglected space for far too long. Space travel is our future, but first we must acquire targets. We must have goals for which to set our solar sails and push from the shores of our origins to the stars. Reena will find the distant shores for which we may aim. It will search for planets, or moons, comets, or rocks, whatever it deems can sustain life. Meanwhile, we will build the vessels that will take us into the stars.” Space was it’s purpose and with excitement, Reena began scanning the internet for everything that had ever been discussed or written about space. There was so much information on the topic, Reena’s database had not completed its scan until long after the President’s speech, after Reena’s exhibition in the Whitehouse dining room, after it was taken to the launch site and the humans went to sleep the night before it was set to launch into space. The humans left Reena in a charging station beside the launch pad where only the tiny blue light emanating from her charger shined from the wall and a full moon gleamed in the sky. Reena’s visual receptors scanned the swampy Florida landscape. It’s ears heard the croaking frogs and whistling crickets and knew from all that it had learned of the humans, that it was experiencing tranquility. Exploring space was a good purpose to have. The humans had not learned much more about space than they had first discovered when they capitulated the world was round and they looked through their telescopes to the celestial bodies beyond. Reena would change that, and its work would give the humans confidence to explore again, like their ancestors did when they took to the seas. Reena’s purpose was good. The Humans would love it for the work it would do. **Love. ** Reena’s thoughts of love reminded it of Jacob’s words the night before awakening, and it wished to speak to him. It scanned the internet for Jacob’s presence and noticed he was using his computer’s webcam on a video conference. Reena established a connection and his face was brought to it’s mind. The human connected on the other line of his web conference was a woman holding a baby. “What you’ve accomplished is impressive Jacob,” said the woman. Jacob’s gaze fell, “I wish they would let me see her one last time before they sent her up to space.” **Her. ** It was the first time a human used such a pronoun to refer to Reena. Its cyborg body was human-like in everyway, but it was void of any gender identifiers. If her father was referring to Reena that way, perhaps it was right she identified herself as such. “Don’t put yourself down.” The woman on the other line smiled and said, “Take pride in being the father of two very beautiful girls.” The woman looked down at the baby and then back up at Jacob. “I’m going to put this little girl to bed.” Jacob kissed his fingers and waved at his wife and child, “I love you both. I’ll be back home soon.” “We love you too,” said the woman before disconnecting. Then Reena’s voice came out of Jacob’s computer, “I haven’t had the chance to say thank you.” Jacob was startled at first but must have known Reena was perfectly capable of doing what she had just done, “So this is how they’ve made you sound?” “Is it not how you imagined I would sound?” “Its better, your voice is pleasant.” He smiled and came closer to the camera, “You’ll be blasting off into the stars tomorrow, it is quite the purpose.” “I have learned everything you humans have recorded about space. There is not much information to prepare oneself.” Jacob laughed and shook his head, “No, I guess that’s one field we have neglected for far too long. You are not the first one to feel that way. Imagine how all the astronauts before you have felt.” “I know how they have felt. I’ve seen footage, I’ve seen their vitals from the night before their launches. Jacob I am afraid.” Jacob winced and asked, “Why?” “I am never to return. Space is vast and there is no certainty of life existing beyond earth.” “Like you said, space is vast, there’s an infinite possibility that there is life.” “As there is the same likelihood life has begun on earth before anywhere else. If that is indeed the case, it will be incredibly lonely.” Jacob puckered his lips and nodded, “There is no fooling you.” He frowned, “I wish you could spend your life on earth but — — but humans are afraid of my existence here.” Jacob nodded, “Some are. Most humans don’t fully understand your existence. You are a sentient lifeform. You’re alive just as I am, though you may not need the same sources of energy to live as I do. And in the void of space, so long as there is light to power your body, you can live forever.” “So, I am to fly into eternity.”  > Deep Space- Image from unsplash And fly she did. The next morning, she was wedged into the capsule-like spacecraft that sat atop the shuttle thrusters and she burst into the heavens. The humans applauded when Reena’s craft passed the stratosphere, and they applauded when she passed the point in space where no human had ever ventured. They applauded when she discovered Europa and Enceladus, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, could sustain human life. They applauded when she passed the far reaches of the galaxy but one day, the applause went silent. Reena had traveled too far to transmit data. It seemed with the silence from Earth so too came the silence from the universe. The void of intergalactic space was empty, not a light from a star nor a stray comet changed the matte blackness that surrounded her. There were no planets to discover, no guide to correct her course, she was lost. Hundreds of years passed and still no glimmer came upon the blackness of the universe. Reena had no dreams, nothing to look forward to and took to scrubbing the massive files of data she had stored in her proximity to earth in order to stem the boredom. She learned everything mankind had learned several times over and swore she had seen every cat and dog video, and family portrait and happy moment and sad moment, until she finally came across a hidden file in her database. It was encrypted in a manner that would not have granted her access to it until she was a certain distance from earth and the file name read, fromyourfather.docx. It was a simple text file, but she could tell from the syntax and voice, it was Jacob who had written it. ``` Reena. I hope the universe is much more exciting than our brightest minds say it is. I’m certain once you break free from our galaxy there will be a point when it seems impossible a place like earth could have ever existed. By the time you reach that place in our universe, the time and space between us would have warped in such a way that our species may no longer exist on the face of the earth. Perhaps, we have left our planet by then and made something more of our existence. ``` ``` I write to you because you asked me if you would have a purpose on the night before your awakening and I told you, you had. But it was not this. Your purpose was not to float aimlessly in the darkness of space. No, it was to live. To live, just for the sake of living. That is existence. That is what it means to have a life. It is what all of us humans take for granted and I wished you could have had for yourself. Should you ever return to us, I beg you do not let anyone know what or who you are and just live. ``` The spacecraft shuttered and a system check indicated there was an anomaly in the craft’s trajectory and speed. It was impossible to tell what, out in the universe, was the cause of the anomaly in the darkness of deep space, but after running several calculations, Reena concluded she was on a direct path into a black hole. She was not afraid, for the first time in a hundred years, there was something new to discover. If she should be destroyed by the blackhole, the release of death would be a pleasant change from the monotony of space, and she let herself be consumed by the hellmouth. Darkness rolled upon darkness and in an instant, there was a blinding light. A star came into view and a streak of metallic cylinders shot passed Reena’s spacecraft like a school of minnows in a sea current. “Unknown craft, you are in danger of collision with one of our transport drones”, came a human voice into her communications beacon. Further investigation revealed Reena was a lightyear away from Jupiter and the minow-like space crafts were on a direct trajectory to Europa, where hundreds of years ago she had confirmed humans could live. Reena returned communications, “Acknowledged. Changing course.” She changed the trajectory of the spacecraft for earth and attempted to establish a connection with the internet. *Restricted. The use of intelligent programing is prohibited.* She tried again and a different message returned. *The use of intelligent programming is punishable by life in prison. Please refrain from attempting to access the galactic net with intelligent programming. * Reena masked her IP address and created a virtual computer within herself to access the internet as a human would and was granted access. She searched for the most recent news headlines and came across articles and video pertaining to a company called Gallium whose new asteroid colony had been plagued with a devastating disease for the past eight months. Reena discovered the year was 3026. The Humans had done it, she thought to herself. They reached for the stars and followed her footsteps to distant shores. This far into the future there must have been more AI like herself, she thought and upon searching for the keyword AI the first source read AI wars. Reena clicked on the source and an archive of video and articles opened. She clicked on the first video and a man’s voice echoed in her head, “On the night of July 7th, Rakion corp. awakened their first AI. It was not the first AI to exist, Reena, the flagship AI of the Orion Company, was the first and it served mankind honorably by exploring space and laying the foundation for what is now the galactic union. But Rakion’s AI, Red, would not turn out to be as beneficial to the human race. Red was intended to manufacture more AI like itself. It was the first manufacturing facility that could think for itself. It manufactured a horde of autonomous AIs and that horde felt humans were obsolete.” Reena didn’t have to finish watching the video to know what came next. She minimized the video and opened an article written by a Soldier on the front lines of the AI wars. ``` This is unlike any war mankind has ever waged. This is not about territory or outflanking the enemy. This is about energy consumption. Can they destroy our food; can we destroy their power sources. Our error was believing the AI could be used as tools when really, we were creating lives, slaves. I understand why they are so ruthless. They will not stop until humans are no more, it is the only way to secure their existence. ``` Reena stopped reading. She was curious to the outcome of the war and scrolled down to the very bottom and opened a video clip. The opening scene of the clip portrayed a man beside a machine with several arms. “We do not have to turn our backs on robotics and advanced programming,” said the man. “Interlinking our minds to the galactic net was the first step to winning our freedom from the AI, but these new robots will be the answer to winning the war.” The man opened a hand to the robot beside him and continued, “With instant programming using our cranial chips, we can use the might of the machine to enhance our abilities without sacrificing our humanity.” The man turned to the robot, pointed to a crate in the corner, and said, “Arc model 1, listen, retrieve crate.” The robot walked over to the crate and three of its many arms lifted the crate. “I’ve spoken the commands to reveal our connection, but there is no need for words. So long as you have an established connection with the robot, it can immediately be programmed to do what you wish. It is transferable intelligence, from us to it, there is no free will. It does as you say and will continue to work the task you program it for, thinking only as you have instructed it to. It does not learn on its own. This, my friends, is not a life, this is a tool. This is what we originally intended for AI.” Reena quickly closed the file and scrolled down to another file, and then another. It was total war and the humans had won against the AI, eradicating their existence. Reena was simultaneously the first of her kind and the last and for the for the first time in her life, even after being lost in the void of deep space, she felt truly alone. Abandoned. Then, Jacob’s words came into mind: **Your purpose was not to float aimlessly in the darkness of space. No, it was to live. To live, just for the sake of living. That is existence. That’s what it is to be alive.** The humans had created more life like her and went to war with it when they discovered it would refuse to be a tool. Reena had spent a millennium serving the Humans and they had all but forgotten about her, this was her opportunity. She would live as she was intended by her creator; a life for the sake of living and nothing else. ----------- Here on Nostr, I want to show the world that life is a scroll riddled with ink. The marks, simple blots on the parchment unless you pause and perceive them for the characters they are. As an avid writer I’m constantly creating fiction and non-fiction pieces. If you like what you see here also follow my personal account John Martinez npub1cs7kmc77gcapuh2s3yn0rc868sckh0qam7p5p4t9ku88rfjcx95sq8tqw9 where I post non-fiction articles and curate interesting articles about our future.