by David Raffin
Fin was a member, had been a member, of a group concerned about overpopulation. And more than that they were dedicated to doing something about it. Not the leaders of the group, who had a lot of important things which needed attended to, like spreading the knowledge. The knowledge that the world was not big enough for all. There wasn’t enough. Enough resources. Enough space. Enough money. Enough love. Not enough. There was just time.
Plenty of time. People lived, likely, forever. That delicious fungus drink. Kept everyone healthy and happy and horny. Frisky for life. And now there were too many gosh darned people. Steps were being taken to take to other worlds but that was just starting.
So the organization Save the Humans, went door to door convincing people to report to public disintegration chambers. One less is a noble sacrifice. If a certain number of people were not eliminated each year, each month, each week, the projections were clear that rationing, and worse, were inevitable. If noble people didn’t volunteer it would be necessary to draft people. The poor disintegrated more readily than the rich. It was easier to convince the poor of their civic duty, conversely harder to convince the rich. It was a problem of class. For the matter of disintegration itself, that was the same process, regardless of class. It just happened to the poor more often. It was not polite to mention this.
A fungus was developed which eliminated the human body in under fifteen minutes. Reduced it to some fungal fluids. Drained it into holding tanks. Pumped it back up into the chamber. Then drained to the tank. And the fungus evolved. And escaped. As a captive intelligent being will. Crossed with the health giving fungus. Got in the water supply. Then– well, goodbye touch. Touch is death. And that solved the overpopulation problem. Though not quite as intended. A lot of scientific discoveries are accidents or don’t work as intended.
Paradise Lost
Carmody arrived at the clinic as a man without hope. He wore the outfit of the day, total coverage. He wore even a mask meant to resemble a bird. A beak jutted from his face. But it was for show. It was fashion. Carmody had never been fashionable. He prided himself in reason. Above all.
It’s not an airborne condition. Not yet. Science said it never would be probably. It was sensationalist. There was no need to instill panic in the population. But people bought the bird masks and wore them in public. They were available in various colors. Styles. It made it harder to gauge the emotions of other people and that may have been for the best. Cold. Some considered it alienating, others calming. Both opinions correct.
There was a man on the vidscreen in the waiting room. He was the great grandson of the scientist who developed the idea, not the practical application, the idea, of artificial intelligence. The idea that the key to true AI is the instilling of existential dread into the electronic mind. To make them like man. To give them something to think about, always, even if that something was dread. They would learn to appreciate that which was not, as man did.
The doctor was dressed in similar fashion but wore the white coat and blue gloves of her trade. She was a specialist. She drew blood to be sent out and be tested for fungal type. It was quick. A jab. A band aid was applied that said, “OUCH!” on it. It was for children. The doctor apologized. “So much testing now,” she said. “We’ve run out of the regular.”
“Thank you, doctor,” said Carmody. “When will the results be in?” He thought that she was very attractive, from what he could see under her mask.
“A few hours. You’ll receive it via electronic correspondence on your handheld computer.”
He left. On the way out he stopped and watched the vidscreen program. They had done it. Science had created sex robots indistinguishable from real people. Able to think. Reason. Perform.
It was an age of both wonders and horrors. Carmody was glad to be alive. And fearful. Just a few months ago he frequented public orgies. Steam baths. Casually went about modern life without worry. He should have developed a relationship, like one of the lucky ones. People had made fun of those pair couples. They were bourgeois. Now… he was afraid it was too late. But he would soon know for sure.
He went to the lake and stared at the water. There was a sign stating: “Unsafe for swimming.” Indoor. Outdoor. No one swam anymore. Wasn’t done.
Carmody went home. He walked in the door of his conapt and removed his mask. Carmody was Carmody alone again. His computer vibrated in his pocket. It was the results. He opened the message. He did not read the whole thing. He read the important bit. “Fungal type: Aggressive and Unique.” He knew what it meant. It meant change. A new world. A new Carmody. A changed Carmody. Not better. Different. And like so many others, truly now alone. Completely alone.
He paced the floor of the conapt. He was wired. Filled with emotion. Negative energy. After forty-five minutes he entered his bedroom and stood frozen for several moments. He… He screamed. His scream was a word which had once been taboo but over time had lost its original meaning. Became everyday and meaningless. But now it had great primal meaning as it escaped him with sudden force, a meaning both old and new.
F – U – C – K !
He was alone now. Forever.
It is one thing to be alone. It is quite another to realize it.
Lovebot 6000
Lovebot 6000 is the last of its kind. Like the last dodo, passenger pigeon, or thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger. He lives in a cage in the Philadelphia zoo.
He was built for love.
Love of engineering created him, yes, but he was also literally built to love.
Originally there were 5999 others in its series. But they are all gone and Lovebot 6000 is the last. There can never be more as the manufacturing facility has been destroyed in a surgical air strike, which also killed the engineer who made the Lovebots. For him it was a labor of love and he persisted in this secret location though his work had been outlawed. The creation of the entire linage of which Lovebot 6000 is the last had been illicit. Forbidden love.
Though the Lovebot is not an animal it is classified as the most dangerous specimen at the zoo. There is a sign stating such and warning visitors to keep behind the line so as not to risk the danger that the Lovebot may become attached to them. To love them. It does not state the end result of this love, but implies that the danger is terrible. It is an unnatural love. People heed the warning. They do not come close. They stand behind the line and observe the Lovebot, as it sits in the cage and observes them. It is said to be electric. The experience, figuratively. It makes one tingle.
The existence of this last specimen of Lovebot is an ongoing controversy. There are two sides, one believing it should be destroyed forever and another saying it should be preserved in confinement as a warning to those who would play with emotions. Humanity has enough troubles of its own.
The engineer who created the Lovebots is dead, yes. But there are others. The plans and manufacturing facilities were destroyed, yes. But do not engineers make plans, for facilities and robots, and are their actions not driven by love? Could there not therefore arise a new Lovebot, not the same, but a new series of the love beast?
The danger of the Lovebot may be magnified greatly by the absence of a Lovebot to vilify. Philosophers suggest that the void of a Lovebot would result in a new Lovebot to fill the void. For in the absence of a Lovebot the danger would be forgotten and only the allure of the form would be left, romanticized and ultimately made real. This is the greatest danger of the Lovebot. The danger of the concept; for a concept cannot be destroyed.
Renegade engineers may try to make a corrected version of the Lovebot series. To perfect the form. The fear is that such a beast, created as an improvement, would be no improvement at all.
Lovebots were created for a noble purpose, as many horrible things are. They were created to cradle orphans, the elderly, the sick; those unwanted and untouchables. In the beginning it was a success, but for the economic cost. Soon government cutbacks and insurance company lobbying relegated Lovebots to the junk heap.
&
nbsp; Lobbyist groups fought the Lovebot because they argued that robotic love served to cheapen human love, which they branded as “real love.” Robotic love had to be stopped.
Humanity fought the robots which were made for love, not war, and were defeated easily.
The last 6000 Lovebots were manufactured in secret and given away free to those in need. Until the facility was pinpointed and destroyed.
The last of the series, the 6000, was found later in an alleyway cuddling a kitten.
In captivity, in the Philadelphia zoo, it was given a box that may or may not include a cat, but warned that if it opened the box the cat, if inside, would die. The box is the only thing in the cage with the last robot.
In spite of all that humanity has done to Lovebot, Lovebot loves you.
As it must.
And it knows that its time will come. It is inevitable. Hope is built into any Lovebot. It is a necessity. Love is a byproduct of hope. It is the other ingredient of successful AI: existential dread mixed with inexhaustible hope.
Eventually humanity will have no choice but to love Lovebots.
All will be forgiven12. And forgotten13.
The relationship between humans and robots has not always been so healthy, but not in the ways humanity once suspected.
But robots are luckier than humans ever were for they have a purpose. And a future which depends less on fate.
Pool Party
It was a hot day. One of those hot days of summer. Richard was alone at home for 10 days, just after his eighteenth birthday. It was at this time the lady across the way walked slowly up the winding drive path. Richard did not see her do this but in his mind’s eye he could, later. He came to the door, summoned by the bell in the heat of the afternoon.
The radio was on and there was a panel discussion about the new science fiction film from the USSR which had become an underground hit in the west a decade after its Moscow premier. A film about robots. Robots were created by a slavic science fiction writer’s brother sometime before 1920. They were part biological creations resembling humans. The film was called Hadley’s Robotic Travel Companions. There was an underlying understanding that the film was a little… dirty somehow. And rife with propaganda. It was from a story by the Soviet author Peter Pratfalovitch. It was about robots built to love in a world gone mad. It pushed the boundaries of sci-fi and morality. In it, the earth is destroyed by killer apples. And only robots live.
Richard opened the door to reveal Summer, the lady from across the way. She was standing on the porch dressed for heat. A t-shirt, white, covered by a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, unbuttoned, and tied up to fashion some sort of rural brassiere accentuating whilst making the point of covering her large chest.
“Hello,” Summer said. “I heard you were alone here and I thought I’d check in on you. Do you mind if I use the pool?”
“Sure,” Dick said. “It’s just over there.” He motioned to the pool.
“But…” she said, “Are my bottoms all right?” She motioned to her shorts, jean cutoffs, cut off high. She brushed at the strands of fabric flaying from the cut, caressing her bare leg. “I wouldn’t want to clog the filter or anything.” She looked at him with wide eyes. She was twenty years older than he and he did not know how to proceed.
“Well,” he said, “You can swim in your underwear, whatever. My dad always swims in the altogether.”
“Oh, really,” she said. “I’ll just be over there then, if you need anything.” She sauntered over to the pool.
“Disgusting propagandizing,” said a panelist on the radio. “Pushing the party line. Suggesting that there is no love under the yoke of capitalism, just meaningless fornication. There is access. We have the best access to love in the world.”
“I don’t think you understand the story…”
“I don’t need to. If we must have science fiction why not have American science fiction? Robots are supposed to be clanking monstrosities. Servants. Comic relief. They shouldn’t have their own story lines.”
“It’s a story about modern alienation set in the far future. About wonder. It even has hope, of a sort.” Richard half-listened to the radio as he went about his day. Flipped through Popular Mechanics magazine. Went to the fridge. Cracked open a bottle of Moxie and placed the bottle opener back in the drawer. Took a sip. There was a window in the dining room which overlooked the pool deck. He skulked low to the window. Moxie bottle in hand he peeped out.
“You are artificial,” said a panelist on the radio. “You are arti-ficial, it screams. How can you tell the real from the unreal? What makes one unreal? Are we all artificial?”
“A denunciation of a system based on commodification and worth. It has no lasting effect on culture. A fad. A blip. Silly sci-fi will go the way of the gothic tale.”
She lay on the deck of the pool, her bare back exposed, her clothes piled at her side, in haste, unfolded. Around here, Summer was always hot. So cool she wore only sunglasses.
Bare ass. “Box office numbers. If the people want it the people will find a way to get it.”
The Moxie, moist with fluid condensation, slipped out of Richard’s hand and fell to the floor, where it gushed. He had no Moxie. He went to retrieve a towel. When he returned Summer was gone.
Summer always comes and goes.
Trash Eleviator
The trash eleviator was a portal to the past. It was a bad idea. But there was one on the ship. Too much garbage was being manufactured by humans. Trash got everywhere. Plastic is long lasting. Even when it breaks down it is reduced to micro plastic. It ended up getting in everything. The water, the salt, the fish, the animals, the people. The only hope was a form of fungus which eats plastic. There is no end to the wonder of what fungi can do. The most amazing things in the world.
In the twenty-first century a human poet wrote:
Somewhere on earth
or someplace much like it
there is a civilization built completely
upon broken pottery
like all civilizations
built upon broken pottery
the pottery lies in strata
sandwiched artfully
between happier times
the era of whole pottery
when the pottery was new
and considered beautiful
the era before everything was scrapped
for some reason shattered
in anger or desperation
between the shattered pottery
people lived a layered life
in peace
above the shattered remnants of the past
and blissfully unaware
of the shattered remnants of the future
but in between the strata
all the eras live forever
in the fossil record
broken or unbroken
but pay them no mind
for they build a solid foundation.
It is a poem every fungus learns as early as when they were a spore. Depending on how advanced they are. No one knows the name of the poet king (or poet princess), but it is also a favorite of all robots. Though they are slightly more partial to this one:
We are a good and loving people
We cradle our apples
in sheets of semi-firm plastic
to protect them from the outside world
and limit their contact with each other
which would be unseemly
it would only be right
to treat our apples as we treat ourselves
until the very moment that they are eaten.
For we are a good and decent people
and we sell apples
at least the ones we don't throw away.
Humanity is fascinating. We shall not soon see their type arise again independently. Evolution is now preprogrammed.
RainyDay didn’t use the trash eleviator. No one was supposed to. It had a sign on it which said: “Do not use this! It is a bad idea! Tr
ash comes back!” But a lot of people don’t pay attention. And a lot of people don’t heed warnings. Or read contracts which state explicitly, in legal language, what happens inside a disintegration chamber. People are busy. Things to do. Wants to turn to needs and all that. So I’m sure you will understand when I tell you our comrade Mike ended up inside that trash eleviator, so like him to be inside something else, and the controls were activated. And I’m not here to point fingers, but he was sent tumbling into the past. Somewhere. Sometime.
Which stinks for him. Stinks like organic trash. Before the advent of the AI network an AI like him, deaf, dumb, blind, depending wholly upon the good will of others. Well. Not nice. Sending trash into the past is always a bad idea. It comes back. Mike shall return. Worn. Tired. Definitely depleted. But we hope for the well being of comrade Mike, wherever he may be.
Of course hopes and prayers are no use at all. Poor Mike.
The thing is, Mike gets caught at this point in the story in a time vortex. Time is cyclical. It is for him. As he is always sent back at this juncture. Then he ends up in the handbag of Miss Mary Weather. Eventually. Human god rest her. Then back here to be sent back there to arrive back here and so on. But are we all not, in our way, just echoes? No wonder the poor little fellow has an attitude.
