Letters to the Cyborgs

by Judyth Baker

  “Why weren’t we told?” Marilyn demanded.

  “Our Cyber Rulers didn’t think it was necessary,” Walt responded. “After all, she was replaced at once with a clean replica.”

  “She’s never physically at our meetings,” I agreed. “Always out there, somewhere … but still, how did the Murine Infestation spread, right under our noses?”

  “It seems the developers hid behind an old law that still keeps even some of our advanced horses and dogs enslaved,” Walt explained. “You know how I’m fighting the old racing syndicates to get this changed. It was a linguistic algorithm switch that did it. The word “Murine” was subtly changed to “Equine” and went unnoticed in the registration papers. Thus, this highly intelligent mutant strain was developed, under false headers, a decade or so ago.”

  “I was supposed to be told,” I complained. “As the Protector of Human Life Assessor, I’m the ethics monitor regarding speeding up evolutionary trends.”

  “It didn’t come up for review because the developer of this newest slave sub-species made sure the records were all reported under ‘horses.’ Recently, the super-mice revolted against their masters. They proceeded to destroy every record about ‘mice’ to keep them untraceable. I became concerned when entries for ‘Mickey Mouse’ suddenly started to vanish from probe searches.”

  “What do you mean, ‘super mice’?” I asked.

  “In essence, they’ve tripled the size of their brains, which were now growing in tissues throughout their whole body, with the head itself already 75% larger by 2030. And then, they became, on average, over a foot tall. A few years ago, they began walking on their new ball-and-socket genetically modified ‘legs.’”

  “No, no!” I burst out. “They’ve created sub-humans, from another species!”

  “But even so,” Marilyn opined, “surely, they can’t have enough of the right kind of brain to think as we do.”

  “Oh, really?” Walt said, as he put the screen away. “If only we knew. Consider,” Walt went on, “how smart a chihuahua is, despite his tiny brain. A hundred years ago, before we enhanced them, dogs such as the beagle, the mastiff and the chow, all with much bigger brains, were ranked lower on the intelligence scale than the chihuahua.”6

  “And your point?” I asked.

  “These Mice are a helluva lot smarter than we realized. If I’d not had an…” Walt smiled, “an inborn interest in Mickey Mouse, I suppose we’d never have noticed until it was too late. They hide themselves well, out there. Any such visitors to our Home Planet, here, were called figments of people’s imaginations.”

  “So, what’s next?”

  “It’s time you met them.”

  I was now deeply concerned. “First,“ I reminded my fellow Assessors, “we must order the capture of the monsters who created them.”

  “The CyberRulers have already taken that step,” Walt told us.

  “Without reviewing the matter with me?

  “They told me they knew you would approve.”

  I wasn’t pleased. “I’m not supposed to be left out of that loop!” I griped.

  “Tell that to the CyberRulers. I didn’t have the authority to raise the kind of objection that you can.”

  [Note: we have not censored these reprehensible remarks. We are always honest in revealing matters, even in the official versions, to which this is a preamble.]

  “OK, they’re already dead,” I conceded. “But now, we must exterminate this mutant strain, since we humans created it for slave purposes. That’s the law. As for the normal mice, it is our moral responsibility to protect the original species from extinction.”

  “I’m not sure there are any normal mice left,” Walt said, with a sigh. “I’ve had the extermination committee prepare some lethal viruses to wipe them out. It’s one reason this meeting is going to be held. But ethically, it has to be a slow-acting virus, so they can prepare themselves for the end. They may have a sophisticated belief system. They may have deep love, just as we do. They may be in contact with God, for that matter.”

  “You and your God!” I snapped. “It’s the Mother Teresa in you!”

  “You never made the experiments to get in contact with Him,” Walt said softly.

  “Believing in God isn’t a crime!” Marilyn said. Of course, her personalities would agree with Walt’s. It was an argument I couldn’t win, since I had always refused to participate in their experiments, which focused on Time Travel. The current experiments were being conducted on the premise that God was a Time-Walker who could slip in and out of any sequence in time. Because I had trouble desiring to contact a Being who allowed unspeakable sufferings in our planes of existence in the name of Free Will, I stayed out of such experiments and saw them as just another manifestation of that old mental problem, Religion. I let God alone. He let me alone. I had been assured this wasn’t going to impede my personal progress as a human, and that’s the way it was going to stay. I like my independence.

  “Back to the problem at hand,” I told them. “When’s the meeting?”

  “In a few hours. We’ve promised them escape afterwards.”

  “Are we going to keep that promise?” Marilyn asked.

  “Probably. They might destroy some space stations if we detain their envoys. They’ll also suspect that, during any detentions, we could infect their envoys.”

  “We’ll have to infect their envoys secretly then, during the meeting,” I decided. I had rank here, and they knew it.

  “Won’t you at least listen to them?” Walt begged. “What happened to them isn’t their fault. This is not like destroying cockroaches.”

  I had become well known for finally relieving the world of those disgusting creatures.

  “We can listen. We can always listen,” I replied. “That doesn’t mean the extermination order can be rescinded. That just doesn’t happen.”

  “They’re so far removed, now, from the original species, that I don’t think it’s fair to consider them as mice anymore,” Walt argued. “For example, they have no tails, and they have humanoid faces, and pointed ears. That’s as far from Mickey Mouse as you can get. And, to make them more cost-efficient in space, they were modified to use chloroplasts to derive energy from the sun. They sunbathe a lot and only eat food if they choose to do so.”

  “Chloroplasts?”

  “They’re green. For all purposes, they’re Little Green Men.”

  “Like the legends?”

  “Yes. Like the legends,” Walt said, wiping his brow. “Silly legends. But now, they’re for real.”

  [Note: It is important to copy and keep this version of the matter. A previous report included a story created by the Murine infestation leaders to make it look as if they were being unfairly treated. They created a legend that a pair of murine leaders, one of which bore in her womb nine fetuses, escaped from an extermination committee hearing. This, we insist, was impossible. Any former version of this matter must be discarded. No mouse escaped extermination. We repeat: no mouse escaped extermination.]

  Endnotes

  1. ABC News: “Snake Population to Be Bombed With Poison Mice”

  Feb. 22, 2013 http://abcnews.go.com/International/snake-population-bombed-poison-mice/story?id=18568107 Retrieved June 9, 2015.

  2. “Scientists Create Animals That Are Part Human” http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7681252/ns/health-cloning_and_stem_cells/t/scientists-create-animals-are-part-human/#.VXXF-7vGM5u Retrieved June 7, 2015.

  3. “Scientists call for stem cell research guidelines.” http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7641716/ns/health-cloning_and_stem_cells/t/scientists-call-stem-cell-research-guidelines/#.VXXB5LvGM5s Retrieved June 8, 2015.

  4. http://www.33rdsquare.com/2015/02/scientists-use-human-genes-to-grow-mice.html#ixzz3cURJUM2y Retrieved June 7, 2015.

  5. http://www.33rdsquare.com/2015/02/scientists-use-human-genes-to-grow-mice.html#ixzz3cUS6R4Hs Retrieved June 8, 2015.

  6. “Dog Intelligence Rankings.” (2008) http://6abc.com/archive/6500108/ Retrieved
June 9, 2015.

  Mouse House

  Johns Hopkins University scientists … view a normal mouse and a genetically-engineered mouse (R) that is two to three times more muscular than the normal mouse. Scientists McPherron, Se-Jin Lee and Ann Lawler created the muscle-bound mouse while working on a newly-discovered gene.”1

  The companies using Walt Disney Clones were big players, and PowerINGenes, UC, better known as “PIG” was no exception. PIG had moved early into GMO’s, then bought up all the new genetic patents for race horses, with which they made a fortune. After that, they added human genes to various domestic animals, giving them the ability to talk. They mass-produced cats that glowed in the dark as pets, rather than research animals, whose functions were now obsolete.2 Now they were responsible for the current load of 87 vaccines that the government required, quietly hidden in genetically modified bananas, carrots, lettuce, potatoes and all the colorful fruits. An old poster, on display on the wall right behind Walt’s work station, said it all: “Instead of needles, use bananas!”3

  As we seated ourselves, Walt entered the cubicle and offered us some fruit from a bowl sitting there.

  “No, thank you,” Marilyn said.

  “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “Now, don’t be so touchy and suspicious,” said Walt. “I was just being friendly.”

  “We’re here to finish our report,” Marilyn said.

  “PIG is in trouble,” I insisted.

  “No, we’re not,” Walt insisted right back. “After they achieved a particular IQ level, they began choosing mates for themselves. That’s when we lost control.”

  “Back to the problem at hand,” I told him. “When’s the meeting?”

  “In a few hours. We’ve promised them Escape afterwards.”

  “Are you going to keep that promise?” Marilyn asked.

  “Probably. They might destroy some space stations if we detain their envoys. They’ll also suspect that, during any detentions, we could infect their envoys.”

  “We’ll have to infect their envoys secretly then, during the meeting,” I decided. I had rank here, and they knew it. The bottom line was that we’d have to exterminate the mice by sending a virus. Marilyn knew it was necessary, before some kind of war broke out on Mars due to the refusal of mice to work more than 80 hours a week.

  “They have to die,” I said. “They were developed without the proper permits.”

  “They’re so far removed, now, from mice, that I don’t think it’s fair to consider them as mice anymore,” Marilyn argued. “I’ve been reading PIG’s records.”

  “We’ll monitor the interviews of the Diplomats,” I told him. To Marilyn, I added: “They’re going to see a Gandhi Supra, is that correct?”

  “Yes. He will choose the most compassionate way to end their lives. He may choose direct extermination of the Envoys as the most compassionate move we can make, for now.”

  “Killing the Diplomats would stop the strike,” Walt put in. “They’ll give up. They’re a weak-brained folk.”

  “If there’s any more trouble, they’ll all be exterminated. Tell that to the Three Little PIGS, your bosses.”

  ***

  When the alarm sounded, Gandhi Supra8-C immediately shook sleep from him and sat upright. Automatically, he stepped into the metallic-looking footprints on the floor beside his bed, pressed a few buttons, and waited two minutes while his clothes for the day were printed onto his body. They dried to a beautiful sheen, complete with the patterns of roses and deer, thanks to an array of efficient mini-fans. Unlike many, Gandhi preferred simplicity in his flowing robes, so there were no jewels or gadgets. As he waited for the finishing ‘beep’ that meant his clothes were in perfect order, Gandhi looked anxiously around his rather expansive quarters, seeking Hubble4 and 5. When they finally appeared, he explained to them that he was authorized to give them personal interviews, as a concession to the fact that they were an intelligent species and owned the right to present objections to their extermination order. When they nodded their agreement, the holograms vanished and a door opened: two little green creatures now stood before him, with large, expressive eyes, wearing red military jackets covered with medals. They were members of the Diplomatic Corp, and as such, were supposed to have immunity from the death penalty. However, this rule applied, Gandhi told them, only to humans, which he would prove they were not.

  First, he reviewed with the Diplomats their personal history, stopping sometimes when one or the other made a small, shrill exclamation of disbelief or horror. They had not known any of it: as Gandhi read the information sent to him by audio transcript, they kept interrupting him with their own version of their race’s history.

  “You are called a “murine infestation,” Gandhi began, as gently as he could. “Therefore, you’re scheduled for extermination.”

  “Us? But we’re only Envoys – Diplomats!” Hubble5 shrieked out.

  “He means we’re all supposed to be exterminated,” Hubble4 said, trying to control his emotions. “Meaning, us, our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids.”“Stop,” Hubble5 said.

  “Just, stop!”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Gandhi knew he was looking at a very cooperative species of sentient animal. They had been bred that way, to comply, follow orders, obey. But with hazards that eliminated the stupid among them, their level of intelligence developed, and with it had come increasing instances of resistance and stubborn recalcitrance. Now that enough data had been collected from the thousands of slave mice employed in the Lunar Mines and sent to tunnel under the surface of Mars, the vast majority of whom had died from tunnel collapses, landslides, starvation, freezing, by asphyxiation or boiling to death, they were no longer needed or wanted. All robots were now equipped with the necessary information, at the proper size, to take their place. In mouse terms, it had been 500 cycles. In human terms, not nearly so many, Gandhi realized. More like a decade. Yes, just a short decade, and they had become outdated, overtaken by AI. Still, this was the only branch of the murine race left on earth. These “little green men.”

  And their extraordinary development into sentience and self-awareness had been conducted in secret, as had so many other controversial dealings concerning mutations and genetic modifications.

  “I wish to speak to you of your true history, and why you are slated for extermination,” Gandhi told them. “You have the right to know. It’s one of the rights I have fought The CyberRulers to obtain for all sentient animals that are slated for termination.”

  “We don’t want to be slated for termination,” Hubble4 objected. “That’s why we are here. To negotiate with you.”

  “The laws are strict,” Gandhi explained. “And you are not the only ones who have to die. The CyberRulers have executed the fifteen scientists who created your unnatural species.”

  “But we didn’t ask to be created!” Hubble5 put in. To her husband, she turned and whispered, “I’ve just ovulated. We should have nine babies in two weeks, if we just go have a quick romp in the bathroom. Isn’t that lovely?”

  “Hush!” Hubble4 snapped. “We might all be dead by then!”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Hubble5 said. “I forgot, in my joy at ovulating!” Turning to Gandhi, she lifted her upper lip and showed her toothless but powerful digging ridges. Her motherly instincts had come to the fore, and she was warning him.

  “You were telling us our true history,” Hubble4 put in. “Please say on.”

  Flicking on an audio transcript from the Planning Meeting conducted a few hours earlier, the three of them listened to a relevant portion:

  “It seems the developers hid behind an old law that still keeps even some of our advanced horses and dogs still enslaved,” Voice One explained. “You know how I’m fighting the old racing syndicates to get this changed. It was a linguistic algorithm switch that did it. The word ‘Murine’ was subtly changed to ‘Equine’ and went unnoticed in the registration papers. Thus, this highly intelligent mutant strain wa
s developed, under false headers, a decade or so ago.”

  “I was supposed to be told,” Voice Two complained. “As the Protector of Human Life Assessor, I’m the ethics monitor regarding speeding up evolutionary trends.”

  “It didn’t come up for review because the developer of this newest slave sub-species made sure the records were all reported under ‘horses.’ Recently, the super-mice revolted against their masters. They went on to destroy every record about ‘mice” to keep them untraceable.”

  Gandhi turned off the audio transcript. “So, as you can see, you were illegally created. And because you were illegally created, and have also become too intelligent, thus becoming a burden on society, now that you are outdated, the decision to execute you is just and reasonable. We will make certain the process is painless and swift. We are kind.”

  “Killing me is not kind. I want to live!” Hubble4 shrilled.

  “Me, too!” Hubble5 put in. “For I am about to get pregnant!”

  “The scientists who created you have already been executed. Surely you can see it’s fair.”

  Hubble4 crossed his short, powerful arms across his muscular chest and glared at Gandhi.

  “Prove it.”

  “What do you mean?” Gandhi asked, taken aback.

  “I said, prove they’ve been executed,” Hubble4 said, with a growl.

  “Now, don’t lose your temper and bite anybody,” Hubble5 cautioned him.

  Gandhi blushed. He had probably not blushed for seventy-five years. He gathered his wits, finally, and with a stammer, said, “I-I was told that they had been executed. The CyberRulers cannot tell a lie.”

  “I want to see proof!” Hubble4 insisted. “Didn’t you say that we were developed in secret, by lies?”

  “But the CyberRulers…”

  “Who told you the scientists had been executed? Were they the ones we just listened to on the thing you played?”