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IN THE FUTURE, THE MACHINES
by
Adam-Mills
Kidd
May, 1996
At 07:30 hours on the dot the Soothsayer v29.1 software in the Sector Kicked in as usual for Copy of Marcus [14]. the voice was chipper and it seemed like that of a young flight attendant that once Daringly flew in the ancient skies of our Earth which are now thousands of feet below the richer members of socitey.
"Good Morrow Copy of Marcus [14], it is a lovely day today, the date is thursday the twenty Fourth of Antony, Twnety Million, Nintey Seven Thousand, Six hundred and Eight, The temperature is Seventy Four degrees celcius, Do you wish to edit?"
If you were to listen to Copy of Marcus [14]'s reply, it would probaly sound like this . . . . . "Chhhhhhhhhhhhbeepboopchhhhhhhwawawawawawawachhhhhhhhhhhhhhh", but to any household computer unit would understand it as "Yes, Edit temperature to Eighty One celcius". Upon that command the Soothsayer software changed the temperature in his sector from Seventy Four to Eighty One and soon enough the water in the hydroponic plants began to mildly steam, leaving beads of water on the leaves of the last few ferns left on the planet.
Copy of Marcus [14] then beeped his next command. "Replay today's Schedule", Soothsayer replied "Fourteen Hundred Hours a seminar to the mensa socitey on the ancient art of botany for their data log of earth history", "Oh yes" beeped Copy of Marcus [14], "I almost forgot about the famous socitey that has been working on the same log for eighteen generations". Copy of Marcus [14] continued his schedule talk as the computer lifted his round body out of his bed and proceeded to clean his hide and dress him as the cathider released his urine. "Soothsayer, Read prepared in reference to Mensa meeting" Copy of Marcus [14] requested. "Filename please . . . ." the Soothsayer prompted, the reply beeped from Copy of Marcus [14]'s Neural Implant "Omega directory, slash, meetings, slash botany, slash, mensaone dot text" the information instantly loaded and the recitation began "Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears, the bulk of todays speech is the explination of the ancient art of botany and how Plant species were a neccesity in ancient roman times circa, 1980."
The speech was still being diictated as the sleek machines in Copy of Marcus [14]'s living quartes injected the morning nutrition requirments into a vein in his neck and a small shock to his brain prompted the sensation of the taste of fresh orange juice, Bacon and eggs into his mind, it seemed odd to Copy of Marcus [14] that the newest software to the human mind would prompt him to sense Orange Juice since the last orange producing hardwar wenr offline about a million years ago, and the odd taste of bacon was odd since the ancient swine was terminated after their purose of law enforcment became less cost effective to the development of the planet ( that was during the administration of the last president of the united states, once the people of earth lost interest in politics due to the comfort of "Rocket Chairs" and VR television). The only taste that seemed appropriate was the sense of eggs since even though foul evolved into Dinosaurs five hundred thousand years ago, their eggs tasted the same.
The speech concluded just as the cobbler V3.0 prepared Copy of Marcus [14] to leave his sector to visit his brother David to deliver nourishment capsules to feed to his livestock. David was a different individual, he was not shaped like a bag of skin the same way the rest of the planet was, he was the only person on earth who could stand tall by himself. he stood at a towering three foot seven and at the age of four hacked his neural computer to change his name from "Copy of Brutis [213]" to "David".
David worried from the age of two that the human race would perish if they constantly relied on the technology that was there to clone us, care for us, keep us occupied disposed of our dead carcasses and most importantley, Convenienced us. at his young age he excercised to ensure that atrophy did not destroyed his muscles the same way it affected everyone else who did not move all their life.
He lived in a large area on the top layer of the planets atmosphere with the wealthy where he raised helix cattle, ugly and lazy beasts that are a good source of protein. He lifted weights and spoke of the end of the machine era and the "Human" era, he also had the resistance to not say things programmed into his neural net like "hail", "You Blocks, you stones" and starting a Public speech with "Friends, Romans and Countrymen" he refered to Romans as Humans, Copy of Marcus [14] liked to argue with him because David had the best reactions.
"Good Morrow Brother" Copy of marcus Transmitted through the speakers in his helmat as he arrived at David's sector, "How is the lo-tek life brother?". David turned from his task of waxing his home made Jet scooter and looked as his tiny brother and sploke in a low and uninterested voice, "Good morning Marcus, Happy Birthday". once David said that, the Soothsayer software addressed him through the speaker Copy of Marcus [14] speaks through "Correction, The event question is not untill tomorrow, as per the pronnounciation of this units filename, it is COPY OF MARCUS SEVENTEEN", David shot back at the Soothsayer with extreme anger "I didn't friggin' ask you, now shut up and let me talk to my brother, Dammit Marcus why do you bring that god damn software with you?", Copy of Marcus awnsered " I would be lost without the Soothsayer, and that phrase lost its meaning a long time ago." David looked puzzled and questioned his Blobbish brother "What Phrase?"
"That god damn Phrase!"
"What?"
"You know, Ever since the religions of the world dissolved and people decided it is not worth the effort to determine wether or not God exsists." David replied "I know, so they decided that God doesn't exist, I think that is a big mistake!"
"Explain Brother?" questioned Copy of Marcus [14].
David did so, "Suppose brother, that God does exist, on the day of your judgment when you die-"
"You mean my Life functions terminate et tu?"
"Whatever, when you reach the end, what would you do when the suprene being looks as your crippled body and damnes you to hell?"
"What would you do?"
"How did I start Talking to you about this?" David said sarcastically.
"I do not recall." Copy of Marcus [14] replied.
David laughed for a moment and then gathered his thoughts so he could speak. "Oh yeah, I remember, I got you a present for your birthday". David pulled a small wrapped package from his pocket. the package was wrapped with green paper with pictures of tin soldiers with rifles and trumpets and it was bound together with a green ribbon. "I made this for you out of silver ore, I know how you like old things", he lay the packsge in Copy of Marcus [14]'s lap "try to open the package with your fingers" David said with a smile on his face. A pair of metal hands rose from the chair and tore the paper. "These," Copy of Marcus [14] projected "are my hands". after the paper was removed, a small silver spoon sat in Copy of Marcus [14]'s lap (or his middle section, it was hard to tell, after all, he was just a blob), the metal hands attempted to lift the spoon but it was too thin and slipped through the metal fingers.
"It's called a spoon" David said "Humans used to use them to helm the intake their nutrition."
"I know what a spoon is" Copy of Marcus [14] beeped "you use one when you waste time boiling your nutrition when your soothsayer could just inject it in you, Start saving time brother, your strain will kill you soon."
"On the contrary Marcus" David said as he began to lift with his left arm a small peice of computer equipment modified to have the weight and dimensions of a small dumbell, "You see, though my body is not perfect, I can improve it, did you know that the last time I measured myself I had grown a half a centimeter?"
"So, what validity does that have to improvment?" Copy of Marcus [14] questioned,
"Good question Marcus " David Awnsered, "Lets compare the Machine Versus the Body, if I break my leg, I can mend it over time with rest, but if my neural net or my computer was to break it would have to be fixed by another machine, it can't repair itself and it's mistakes cannot be corrected." He switched the makeshift dumbell to his right arm "You see, thanks to a computer error, the human race-"
"Roman Empire!" interrupted Copy of Marcus [14].
"Would you let me finish" David lashed back. "you see you just prooved a point I was just about to make, you see when the first comfort software was programmed many years ago, the programmers were installing a library of classic literature into the construct, but a wrongly placed zero and decimal caused the William Shakespeare play "Julius Caesar" to be guidelines for human life."
"I don't Compute" beeped Copy of Marcus [14].
David Awnsered "When you start a speech in front of a large group of people, you start with the phrase 'Friends, Romans and countryman, Lend me your ears', well you see that is just a quote from the play, Act Three Scene Two."
"Really?" Copy of Marcus [14] asked with a rising amount of interest.
"Yes, and they couldn't have used a better selection, there is a cast of characters at the begining with names like Marcus, Portia, Julis and Brutis, and these are the only names that the computers name us, and the lower members of socitey in the play, The public Servants and slaves are names for our software, Cobbler, Soothsayer, think about it".
By this time Copy of Marcus [14] was stuperfied "so the computer messed up, big deal, so it happens, what is so bad about it?".
"Computers", David spoke as he lay down the dumbell and took a sip of water "are not living, and unfortunatley, Living things are the only ones who can afford to make a mistake."
Copy of Marcus [14] began to see things differently, "I see now Brother, but even you use technology in a way, you use a computer to heat your food, you use your Jet Scooter and even your mint, the 'machine' that makes your stuff is technology."
David responded, "yes, I use technology Marcus, but only a little bit, If my computers broke, I could live without them, you however are dependent on your machines, If they broke, you would die!,"
"Really?, I never thought about that". said Copy of Marcus [14].
"Well," David continued "I remember an old quote from the twentieth century 'A Little brown sugar on your cereal is okay but a full bowl every day will kill you."
The Soothsayer clicked back on, "The Time is Fourteen Hundred Hours copy of Marcus Fourteen, your Speech is in Thirty Minutes with the Mensa Socitey".
Copy of Marcus [14] rolled to his brother and let his thoughts be transmitted "Gotta go brother, I will see you later". David put down his bottle of water and stood up from his weightbench, "See you Later Marcus, Enjoy the spoon, Maybe you can use it to scoop some of the brown sugar out of your system".
Copy of Marcus [14] flew away. David finished his excercising and fed the Tablets his brothers computer gave to him to his helix cattle, but not before having a drink of water, however as he tipped his head back he lost his footing and fell off his sector of land, after all, he being a free moving human in a world of machine run humans, the habitat not built fot him, it was bound to happen. It would take four minutes for him to hit the ground, in which time he would freeze into a large block of ice that would cause the large supercomputer below David's sector to explode when the speeding ice bomb hit it.
Copy of Marcus [14] Made it to his appointment and was just about to deliver his speech when his software went haywire, not just his though, everybody on earth.
And that thursday, the twenty Fourth of Antony, Twnety Million, Nintey Seven Thousand, Six hundred and Eight, with a temperature of Eighty One degrees celcius (fitting Copy of Marcus [14]'s Comfort) a world of blobs were thrown from their chairs and they just lay on the ground waiting to starve to death.
Copy of Marcus [14] lay on the ground with his left ear(?) stuck in a broken hologram machine that once projected a world of plants, he could see a few feet from him a silver spoon lying beside him and it made him think about his brother, would he save him?, No Copy of Marcus was Warned.
The last few minutes of his life, marcus remembered a fading memory file from the past, he remembered the computers decision to change the month of March to the Month of Antony, and it made him laugh to himself. . . . . . ."Beware The Ides of March".