by Rabia Rahou
We went out to the bus stop. There, I asked him if he is still okay with the exit plan. He seemed a little bit confused. I don’t blame him as it’s a big decision to leave everything behind and start over somewhere else. But, we had one last job to do before vanishing. I kept that for me as he wasn’t aware of the last, hard push we were about to do.
“Do you want to go on a short trip with me?” I asked
“I know your short trips, Konu. They are campaigns, and by the way, you are not the chief of the armies anymore. I don’t have to do anything for you,” he replied,
“You are my friend now, or at least I hope so.”
He smiled finally and said, “Yeah, I will consider that.”
“We still have something important to do.”
“Really? I thought we were done!”
“No, not yet. One thing is left. Someone in unimaginable pain is out there, someone that shouldn’t exist in nature as he almost destroyed it.”
Dismar looked at me, put his hands into his leather jacket, and asked, “Who is this guy?”
“You will see when we get there,” I replied.
We took the bus after that. I like to be with normal people, everyday people. They are my distress bath, as I was extremely stressed about the last task. I have never done anything like this before.
After a couple of hours, we arrived at his castle. It looked empty and had no guards. We entered and went to his office and found him drinking naked, looking almost dead. Wonfuse looked at us slowly and said, “Konu, please sit. You can talk freely here. Kadar came himself…”
“Yes, he came by himself and secured the area. He is such a great and a humble guy,” I replied sarcastically.
“You are here to finish me, I know. I saw that in the machine,” Wonfuse said.
“I bet the scene wasn’t completed as there wasn’t enough data,” I replied.
“Yes, there was no data to see beyond now, just our meeting…” Then he started laughing like crazy, “Who are you? Please tell me before you kill me.”
“I'm not here for you. You are already dead, Wonfuse.”
“Not for me?”
“No, I’m here for your son.”
Suddenly, a small silhouette appeared next to the door. He was there watching us with his sad and tired eyes. He was breathing heavily as his brain needed double the oxygen to function and sweating as his two hearts needed to pump twice the blood for his body.
He was there just watching us – mindful of his misery but not of his existence, dragging his shameful body that can’t be classified as human, begging for forgiveness as his existence itself was a crime. All that I had done was nothing compare to this abomination.
Dismar started screaming at me, “No! Are you fucking with me? Konu, no! This is crazy! The boy has nothing to do with all of this.”
“Wonfuse, tell him who wrote the core algorithm of the machine,” I asked quietly. Then I turned to him and put the gun at his head and shouted. “Tell him, Wonfuse!”
“It was my son…”
Dismar sat down on a chair, choking and with shaking hands trying to reach for his cigarettes. He couldn’t find them. I took one of the rolls I had out of my shirt pocket and handed it to him. I asked him to leave when he finished it.
He finished it fast, sucked the whole thing down in a couple of breaths. Then he stopped, looked at me, and then while staring at Wonfuse, left the room. I screamed at Wonfuse many times to leave the room too. Finally, he left like a ghost without looking at his son. He had lost his mind.
I was standing there, shaking, but after a moment, the kid moved slowly towards me. And for the first time, he looked up at me and smiled like an angel
I closed my eyes and shot him multiple times in the head. I delivered his soul from his miserable body; from this nightmare that he had to go through all his life; from his own tragic existence; from all the agony that he had to endure just to be alive; from his bizarre reality that is such an obscene mismatch to ours.
I delivered him the peace he had been looking for, finally. Holding him in my arms, I gave him a hug, like the ones my father had given me.
Dismar and I left the castle and walked for a couple of miles. We found a small, fast food restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Dismar didn’t say a word throughout the whole walk, and neither did I. After a while, he asked me for another roll. I gave him one. Lucky he was from the Black Unit. Mentally, he was very tough.
Dismar lit the roll, took a long drag, and then asked, “How did you know?”
“His doctors were from the League. Oina found out.”
“He was just playing, probably, to impress his father as all kids do,” he suggested.
“Just playing… That was his playing level, that was his small puzzle. His father conceived him then used him,” I replied
“A true criminal,” said Dismar.
“The League is responsible, too. They shouldn’t allow psychopaths to play around with dark science, no matter what the threat is.”
“I hope this will never happen again,” Dismar finally replied.
“I really hope not either.”
After a while, Dismar finished his coffee. There was a nice waitress that gave him back his appetite. She was the daughter of the owner, who was calling the customer support of Consoft desperately to restart the robots. Everything shut down due to the destruction of the databases.
Dismar ordered bacon, eggs, and a toast. I was finishing my third coffee, then I paused as I watched him eating with a smile on his face as the waitress took care of him very well.
Against all odds, we are alive. The nightmare is heading to an end. I gave a nice tip to the waitress and asked to use her phone to call Oina. But then, I hesitated to make the call and gave her back her phone.
I thought, She will find me when she wants.
Chapter 23
The Telegraphs
“I always misjudge people.”
~ Konu
W e sailed in Dismar’s boat manually without using any electronic devices. Our target was an archipelago of islands donated to ManFirst by a super-rich businessman. He had been living there, as well, with the early tribes, until he died recently. A nice way to check out, in my opinion. Life should end with simplicity, just as it starts.
Dismar left me on the main island. He told me that he would be back to check on me, but for now, he would be living on another one not far away. He said he needed to regroup and have some time for himself. We didn’t speak much about what we thought. It was just a “see you later” sort of situation.
ManFirst… Who would have thought that I would end up here?
First, I had to strip down until I was completely naked and then stand next to the gate for a couple of hours. Someone finally opened the door for me and took me to a small wooden house where the chief started conducting an interview, naked.
“Who are you, and why you want to join us?”
“Can I get something to wear? I’m not feeling comfortable; sorry for the trouble.” After a moment, they gave me some rustic, handmade clothes. I put them on, but they felt very itchy.
“Call me ‘Co.’ I'm not a criminal; I’m an army engineer, and you can make good use of me,” I said
“We already have someone named ‘Co’”
“Then, ‘Con.’”
“Why did you give up the nice life you had?”
“It wasn’t nice. I have brain seizures that are aggravated when I’m next to electronics, especially electric cables. It’s damage from all the years that I was exposed to military devices. I got my retirement early, and I can sustain myself here with it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It is the truth.”
“We have some veterans here. I can call one of them to check you out, or you can start telling me the truth by yourself,” he said
“You are a veteran, aren’t you? Weren’t you in the Black Unit?” He was in shock; he didn’t say anything after that.
&nb
sp; I asked him if he could manage letting in another brother. He went to another island around here with his boat. He told me that he would send a telegraph to that island, to facilitate Dismar’s admission without a problem. Then he officially welcomed me.”
The chief took me personally to a place where I could be picked up by singles like me to share a house. I said that I may need a house by myself and that I could pay for it. He said that is impossible, and money here doesn’t exist as everything is traded, and singles got rooms only. I said that I was waiting for a woman. He asked why she didn’t come with me now. I didn’t answer. He went and told me to look for a woman here, as probably she is not coming. He is right. How can a queen agree to devalorize herself?
A group of old veterans came and asked me to join them. I refused and told them that I preferred to die than to be in another military base. They laughed, wished me luck, and left. I had to wait until sunset when a group of artists came looking for a roommate. I accepted as they were the kind of kids that are looking for a mentor. However, I also accepted because of the drugs they were probably stockpiling. I could tell they were high on weed as we spoke.
We arrived at their house, which was a little bit far from the center of the compound. It was not bad at all, as I was expecting to live in a middle-aged-ruins kind of décor. But this was not that at all. There were musical instruments, books, paintings, and so on. I underestimated them. They are well organized. The group consisted of a painter, a poet, a musician, and an actor. Suddenly, I felt that I’m a kind of a wrong note between them. I asked them about that, and they told me that they had enough of each other and needed an outsider, and military man was perfect to balance the house. I said that was not bad at all and asked for a roll. They delivered a pure one from the garden. I thought, this is heaven!
Not really…They woke me up at 5 a.m. to cut wood, make a fire in the fireplace, and prepare the breakfast in the very basic cuisine. My tasks were to keep the house clean and to serve them until I find what I want to do in my new life. After that, I could work and trade my goods. Then, I could become a real ManFirst citizen. That wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t heaven either.
A week passed, and Dismar didn’t show up. I can’t contact anyone from here as we are, by definition, here to self-isolate. On top of that, I was forced to join the weekly gathering for prayers. I was amused as it was in the Church of the Talking Child.
Damn you, Oina! What have you done?
Two weeks later, I started to feel that life is harsh when we limit ourselves. Everything was cured by herbal tisanes that didn’t cure anything. I could catch the flu and die here easily. Everything is hard, and it’s for sure that the words “hard,” “harsh,” and “difficult” came from places like this. Cutting wood, making a fire, and preparing a meal required a tremendous effort. Working in the fields without sophisticated tools required a Herculean kind of motivation. People here are emulating the first humans, but those people could make it as they didn’t have any other choice. Most importantly, they didn’t see what they could have. That was the only way of existence, so faith and acceptance were instinctive.
Lucky me, the nights were full of entertainment at our place. The artists presented their work to each other and now, to me too. I thought, even as mediocre as it is, in these circumstances, it was genius.
The actor wasn’t an actor anymore, but an imitation of an actor. The musician forgot to read the solfeggio and was just improvising with his flute. The poet was reading his poetry, or let’s say he essays, as they sounded like an easy-going small report in the weekly local magazine. The painter was a tragedy. I did see his first paintings when he arrived here, and his current paintings are a shameful mirror of his decay. What a waste of talents, I thought. Nevertheless, with good weed, they are all great.
I was thinking that I need to stop calculating and comparing everything, as probably this habit will go away if I would stay longer. My mind will give up sooner or later because, in the end, one must show some empathy to these guys. They’ve been replaced by AI-performers that have the knowledge of every living artist. It is impossible to compete with them as they outperform them in every aspect. The roles got inverted. The AI-artist is the perfection, and the real one became the imitation.
I sat back comfortably with a roll in my hand, scratching my head as this needs a little bit of analysis because it can’t possibly be correct. The creation can’t surpass the creator. Banume summarized that in one of his memorable sayings, “A lower consciousness can’t create a higher one. That is paradoxical.” If he is right, that means an AI can create a better quality of the existing art but not art itself, as that is simply out of its reach. Computers can astronomically calculate every pixel of an image, create a graphic actor and direct him to play a movie. They can assemble all the best scenes that we loved throughout the history of cinema to create the best scene ever, one that has all the best ingredients that could touch us deeply, mixed to perfection. They can assemble the best virtual, philharmonic orchestra, based on the best artists who played through all the music history. They can play an infinite number of amazing compositions that will indeed touch our inner feelings to the point of believing that the AI is a living being that is conscious, smart and a god-like creation. It could write the best poetry, sculpt the most precise sculptures with a unique style and subject depiction. They could paint the most amazing paintings, create the most iconic movies, and so on. But is it art? Or is it just an amazing art performance?
Will we see any AI creating art for the sake of it? And if yes, that means it needs to be alive and aware of the very basic meaning of being here, now. Doing this for the sake of it. Were basic survival needs placed second to creating something not needed for anything? Thinking about it now, it’s an odd human phenomenon. The most fundamental question of why we do this when basic needs are not even fulfilled is still unanswered.
Another problem with an AI creating art is originality. It is true that every artist gets inspired by something or someone, then performs his art based on that inspiration. But an AI is not inspired, as inspiration requires the same process of creation, the awareness of a being, a watcher aware of his own existence who can interpret and transform the witnessed experience into a totally different one. This means an AI can never create a summer song based on a photo of summer. Still not convinced?
How about making the analogy between the taste of a fruit and a poem. Unfortunately, an AI can only make a poem based on other poems, a summer song based on every best summer song. The poem will sound fantastic, and the summer song will be the best hit of all time, but only for an average person. These would be like the one that spent all his life enjoying only fast foods, even if they never came up with an original recipe, basically because they are limited to the same ingredients. These ingredients must be flipped and mixed in infinite combinations to fool you. Still, in reality, all their products are the same.
But a different taste could be found at a small restaurant, where its chef does his cooking for the sake of it. Therefore, if one is not sophisticated, curious, and open-minded, they could easily be impressed by a generic burger or a generic art. As the poor guy at the burger chain restaurant said, “This is the best day of my life.” Therefore, I take back what I said earlier. It’s not the weed that makes this amazing. It’s them doing it for the sake of it.
I’m impossibly blessed to be here, sitting with them, enjoying their original creations. Even if their performance is mediocre, their art is stunning. I wish the little guy could see me analyzing this without him and how far I went down looking for the truth without getting too complex. That complexity made me create an imaginary person to separate my curiosity from me, as I tended to mock myself about my essays and finally shame and bully myself into stopping writing.
But, not anymore, and it feels liberating. As much I miss him, I’m just as much happy he is not around anymore.
A month passed and I started to get used to my routine, suddenly I didn�
��t care much about the quality of the food as long as it is healthy, of my clothes too as long as they are clean. The chief came to check on me that morning “Con how are you?”
“Not bad at all chief, how about you?”
“Very good” with a smile “There is an empty house if you are still interested, the family that was renting it, went back to the civilization”
“Do I still need a woman to be there?”
“Or a man, but Yes you do” then was silence and he continued “she didn’t come isn’t”
“No she didn’t”
“Did she promise you”
“She did but there were different circumstances” I replied
“There are many women here that would like to be with someone, think about it” he said that with a smile then left. What a good man I thought, came all this way to give me some advice.
After three months, I started to trade wood for all sorts of things. People knew me as I was expanding my circle outside my neighborhood. My earlier life seemed to me like a memory as I thought that I am in a rebirth state now. I started to enjoy it somehow, the simplicity of the everyday routine.
I did go positively about my own existence. My mind avoided thinking about sad things or over-calculating the future. Automatically, the space around me was owned, and I no longer felt like an intruder. Spending some nights outside watching the stars, and in the early morning, hiding to spot rare birds before cutting the trees, I felt positive about everything, including about Dismar. I hoped he was doing well. I thought about my childhood friend, Jazir, and how much I was proud of him and hoped that he made it out alive, but I missed her badly.
A year and a half passed. The chief was very sick and probably knew that he wouldn’t make it much longer. Most everyone voted for me as he suggested that I will be the one to replace him. I didn’t mind. We buried him in the cemetery next to the river. I really liked that guy. I wish I had more time to have known him better.
