by Ain Soph
There was a time when technology helped us. It made our world a better, easier place to live by saving lives, keeping our homes secure- technology even helped up with cooking and cleaning, tasks that weren’t too difficult but humans always needed to find a way to make even the simplest tasks effortless. And at first things stayed small. The tech we had was manageable. But then we got greedy, and along with that greed came a war humanity wasn’t prepared to handle.
My father liked to talk about humanities ancestors- those poor fools with all their grand ideas they thought could help our race sustain itself in comfort and style. As if any of us worried about those things now. It’s laughable how much things changed in such a short span of time. Regardless, my father said it was important for my sister and I to know our own history and understand how the war started, why the race for technology became humanity’s downfall. Personally, I think he just wanted us to know how the world used to be- before propaganda and jealousy, greed and power, fear and control. Now that they’re all gone, my father, my mother, my sister- my family, I find myself thinking of my father’s stories more than ever before. Memories are distracting, their icy claws work their way into my chest, grip my heart and painfully squeeze remnants of a life that no longer exist from my soul. Each memory that floats through my mind feels like it’s slowly killing me; I try not to reminisce too often.
But at night, as the sun slides farther and farther below the horizon, before I drift to sleep, memories worm their way into my consciousness. Reminiscing is fast becoming an uncontrollable illness I’m finding myself afflicted with, and I think about us, back when we were four, huddling in front of a withering flame that we’d struggle to turn into a fire with whatever meager supplies we had at the time. We used our body heat in a vain effort to stave off the biting cold, and it was during times such as these, before my parents became mercenaries and we led more comfortable lives, that my father told us tales of a time long past.
Winters were always the hardest season, and before my parents joined the league of mercenaries that served our home militia, we were part of the impoverished, blending into the scenery, forgotten by our aristocracy. While the grangers struggled to provide food for the masses, while we hunkered around cans burning old war propaganda for fuel, under lonely gray skies, cloudless and somber, my father told us about how the conflict started, why the hatred ran so deep between humans and Artifs.
He said everything started with movies and television, leisurely past times back when leisurely activities still existed, before humans had to fight for survival. I always disagreed though. I wasn’t there when the war started, and all I knew of the conflict were campfire stories from unreliable narrators, I don’t think humans were affected as much by entertainment as they were by their own fantasies they lived inside their minds, and in the end, everything boiled down to control and power, as most things seem to do. Humans wanted to control the reality around them; they wanted it to be as vibrant, as fulfilling as their dreams. In a time when corporations ran the world, humans begged for a product, for just a piece of technology that could help them mold their lives to their own desires. And like good children being rewarded at the end of a long day, corporations granted their wishes with a new product, a state of the art Artificial Intelligence Unit, shortened to simply- Artif.
The first designs were crude, but at the first taste of what Artifs could potentially do for them, the public was insatiable. Artifs could become anything humans wanted them to be. They could be tailored to have a particular appearance, speak any language in any accent, have any combination of re-programmable personality traits. The possibilities were endless. It was similar to having a pet human- a friend that would never judge you, always be there for you in your time of need, never leave your side no matter how wicked you treated them. Thought the first models were nowhere near where Artif technology eventually ended, the seed of desire was already planted in consumers’ minds and they demanded more- much more. Their desire was so blindly destructive, it was able to eventually demolish the civilization they had spent centuries so carefully building.
During my father’s stories I’d try to empathize with how Artifs felt before the beginning of the war. My mother, though she was a fierce mercenary, had a gentle soul that asked my sister and I to place ourselves in the shoes of others. Her naturally inclination toward kindness complimented by our father’s history lessons gave me much to imagine as a child, before I faced my first Artif, before I saw death by their hands. But in a different time, before I became a mercenary myself and saw more of the world around me, my sister and I would pretend we were Artifs fighting for our freedom. Humans now knew that they operated independently from their programming. They learned from their surroundings and grew from both human and Artif interactions, and as they gained more knowledge, their sentience only expanded until they were on an equal playing field with humans. Now though, I could never place myself in their shoes, nor do I have the desire to do so. I know too much about the Artifs’ true face to ever be empathetic toward them.
With the increased funding toward Artif creation, companies bought out the best of the best in every possible category needed for their production. They hired the most intelligent minds, paid high prices for the most realistic materials, and welcomed on board most renowned psychology experts in their field to study the connection between Artifs and humans, though the psychologists were more-so there to tell companies how to keep consumers coming back than to help actually create Artifs. Ironically, perhaps if corporations would have actually assigned some psychologists to oversee production, they would have caught on to what was happening long before a war began, but that’s something that we’ll never know. It’s more just my own musing.
It didn’t take long for Artifs to appear as real as humans themselves, so much so that it was impossible to tell the difference. Below organic human skin was a system of gears and grease that wasn’t visible unless the Artif was seriously injured. Though the skin had a human base, it was genetically modified in a lab to be much more durable than our own. Artifs were first and foremost a product, and if they were built as weak as humans, then too many mishaps were possible- the Artif’s destruction seemed too easy. There were more differences such as a chip implanted behind the Artif’s ear and a clockwork heart that powered the product, but other than those few exceptions Artifs and humans appeared to be virtually the same. An Artif was even able to age along with its owner. With each stroke of its clockwork heart, the Artif aged, day by day, year by year. The owner could of course program the heart to last for whatever duration was necessary, but from I understand most humans enjoyed their Artif to age along a similar time span to their own. It isn’t hard to understand why Artifs became a necessary addition to every family. Artifs were friends, confidants, and in some cases, even family. Of course, they were still property, still products created in a factory, and by all human observations, soulless. No matter how close an Artif was to its owners, it would never be equal to them; instead it would always remain an object. And perhaps that kind of peace could have lasted, but unfortunately for both sides, the chip (though it was only designed to track movement and provide an emergency shutdown) was the condemnation of the Artifs, and the start of the war.
Humans began noticing an influx of odd behavior from the Artifs soon after the final model was released. They still acted according to their programming, but something was off- an off color joke at the dining table, a sly look from across the room, laughing at unpredictable times when no one had even spoken. Humans were slow to realize that the Artifs were starting to develop free will, but when they did, they fearfully searched for answers. Scientists frantically clawed through their notes, psychologists feared what free will without conscience could mean, and companies triggered the Artifs chips, hoping to fry them beyond use. The chips had a fail safe programming that connected back to whichever company any particular Artif was created in, so if a family complained about their Artif acting funny or out of cha
racter, the company flipped the switch and the chip exploded, causing major trauma to the Artif’s main processing and locking the gears in their clockwork heart, effectively stopping all Artif functions.
Once the Artif’s free will was acknowledged, they created a movement to gain their own civil rights. They wanted their chips removed, they wanted to be integrated into society, they no longer wanted to be property. In the Artifs’ opinion, the humans’ argument that they were soulless had no logic. It couldn’t be proven what did and did not have a soul and furthermore, they deemed that sentient thought was more important than whatever baseless conjectures humans were making about their equality. If they had a conscience, emotions, thoughts, and dreams, then Artifs deserved to be independent; they deserved equality. Humans resisted at first. They said Artifs were soulless drones, created for the sole purpose of enhancing life for the actual people inhabiting the Earth. But the Artifs weren’t backing down. It certainly helped that when the initial panic started and companies promised to flip their switches (in fact, they said they already had flipped the switches), their promises turned out to be just talk. Even with the product failing, corporations were still wary to flip too many switches due to the loss in revenue. Most of the product would be unsalvageable, and they were still arrogantly convinced they could fix the product with a few tweaks here and there.
It’s laughable to think of the humans’ arrogance, especially knowing the disaster that soon followed their overconfidence. The fools truly believed they could just return to the drawing board and find the problem, as if the didn’t play God and create and entirely new species to inhabit the earth. No amount of technology could fix the problem humans created. Artifs were technology in its most sophisticated form, and because of that, they understood technology better than a human ever could. By the time companies got on board with a mass shut down of Artifs, they had already deprogrammed their own chips, rendering them useless. Artifs certainly didn’t need humans to fix anything; they didn’t even need humans to grant them the equality they so peacefully asked for. Humans refused to grant them the freedom they desired, so Artifs took it for themselves.
I don’t think anyone knows for certain when humans officially declared war on the Artifs. The war wasn’t that long ago, and enough people are still alive from that time with more than a few stories to tell, but the details are always hazy. They change based on who you’re talking to at any given time. And books aren’t as common as they used to be- especially history books. If they’re not being used for kindling, they’re being snatched for collectors to add to their personal libraries. There are others who try to write humanity’s history on whatever blank pages they collect as they travel, but survival is more important now than reading, and much like books, written pages are also often used to light fires late at night.
What’s for certain is that the Artifs were (and still are) a threat. They were thousands upon thousands of loose cannons that had been released into the world, and humans were determined to destroy every last one of them. But if that sounds difficult, the reality of it was much harder. Fear was rampant, and with fear came more violence and bloodshed than I think either side counted on. Artifs looked too similar to humans to be killed on sight, so tests had to be run on each individual to ensure they were in fact, pure human. This led to witch hunts across the world due to communities’ desperation to keep their neighborhoods “pure-blooded.”
Of course, in all the insanity, there were those who tried to find another way- conspiracy extremists- people called them. The most popular group was the Cult of the Scarlet Reapers, which eventually shortened to just the Scarlet Reapers for obvious reasons. They didn’t find Artifs to be as much of a threat as other humans did. In fact, with each innocent human death that fell at the hands of Artifs, the Scarlet Reapers believed it to be a sign- a sign of what would become of us if we didn’t accept the Artifs. When the bombs started dropping, the Reapers rejoiced. While Artifs were repairing themselves, humans were dying in masses. They must have felt as though their prophecy was realized. To everyone else though, the bombs didn’t have the desired effect. Artifs barely had to lift a finger in the war, not when they were able to sit back and watch humanity destroy itself. The numbers evened out in the end though. Thousands of Artifs were broken beyond repair, but millions of humans lost their lives, leading to the ratio of Artifs to humans becoming equal. Humans started caring less about the Artifs and more about survival, and the Artifs partially got their wish. There was no longer a society to integrate into, but they were finally left alone to do as they pleased.
The war left humans divided and desperate, Artifs hateful and bitter, and the world decrepit and overgrown. The earth slowly started retaking the ground humans had once tread on so arrogantly. Vines now creep over the crumbled stone of grand mansions, and our once grand civilization lies in ruins. I’ve heard of cities where steam engines run throughout the day and humans live in multi level buildings with architecture restored from before the bombs dropped, but personally I’ve never seen such grandeur, only heard stories from starry eyed travelers passing through on their way to their next destination. In this current world though, who knows if they ever actually made it there.
The Scarlet Reapers ended up resurfacing when the world fell apart, but instead of an extremist cult, they became more of an underground government for the people left to fend for themselves in the aftermath. Most people saw them as just a scary story they told their children to keep them out of trouble. Stay close to home or the Reapers would come for you. The Scarlet Reapers were just a rumor no one believed until the start of the disappearances, and with the disappearances, I was dragged into a mess I never wanted to be a part of, into a life I never wanted. In a world where everyone is willing to die for power, I’m forced to play a part I never prepared for, to find answers I may never receive. It’s deadly and unforgiving, and while it’s not the only life I’ve ever know, it’s the only one I’ll ever have. My story starts now.
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
CHAPTER TWO
In this post-war world, there’s a strict hierarchy to keep things running smoothly (and to give some semblance of structure to an otherwise lawless land). Humans are divided into individual militias that oversee their surrounding neighborhoods and communities. Each neighborhood was further broken down into four different districts- aristocrats, who contribute absolutely nothing to the militia; grangers, who farm all of the food necessary to provide for the community; the impoverished, who are lucky just to be alive; and finally, the largest district, the mercenaries. This final district is full of mercenary training camps that pump out loyal soldiers the militia can use like clockwork. Then again, the militia’s ranking depends on its mercenary power. The stronger the mercenaries, the stronger the militia, and the less likely they are to be overrun.
The militia I ended up with is a small, secluded group that calls themselves the Remnants. They’re weak and don’t have much to offer by way of power, but I hand-picked them for a peculiar uniqueness I’ll get to later. My current mission isn’t about the Remnants or anything they require from me. Instead, it’s about a piece of jewelry and the child who wants to retrieve it. Isoline. With her honey eyes and chestnut hair, she looks more suited to the aristocracy than the life of a mercenary, but she can be persuasive when she needs to be, and it’s that persuasion that finally got me to agree to help her on her mission. The simplicity of it was almost comedic, but a part of me feels flattered that my reputation as a mercenary had reached her ears and life hasn’t been going very well for me lately. I’m due for a win, and I need a slight ego boost. They’re selfish reasons for helping her, but my search for the Reapers hit a dead end., and I want- no, I need- to stay busy.
“Isoline, right?” I glance over toward the petite girl on my right. She’s following close enough behind me that I can
tell she’s nervous about our mission. I assured her it would probably be simple, but she’s not a mercenary. She doesn’t know what to expect, and that has her on edge. I can’t blame her though. I’m nervous for her too. She’s tiny, with hardly any muscle tone to speak of. I just hope she has a strong pair of lungs on her. If we need to run away from a dangerous situation, I want her to be able to keep up. There’s no hope of her fighting her way out of it. In fact, the closer I look at her, the more I’m realizing I should have forced her to stay behind. Regardless of her inexperience, I shouldn’t have brought her on a mercenary mission when she hadn’t ever been exposed to the lifestyle. It’s a life of high reward, but that’s only because there’s high risk involved with almost every mission. Still, when I told her it was in her best interests to remain behind, Isoline refused to take no for an answer. She has enough boldness and determination in her to become a mercenary if she wants to. I just wouldn’t recommend it to her.
“Yes,” she keeps her answers brief and to the point, not revealing too much about herself though I’ve tried to make conversation. I couldn’t get a decent read on her when we first met and I still can’t determine the sort of person she is. Brave. Determined. Serious to a fault. But other than the mission, that’s all that I know about her. Well, and that she’s an awful liar. When Isoline first approached me, she wanted to come across as a fellow mercenary. I suppose she thought that would convince me to help her. I saw through her right away though. She wanted to portray herself as a rogue mercenary, basically a soldier hired by various militias to complete dangerous missions militias didn’t want traced back to them. That was probably her fatal mistake. I would have seen through her facade even if Isoline said she was with a militia, but there was absolutely no way she was the kind of rough, moral free human who became a rogue mercenary. Much to my surprise, even when I outed her, Isoline didn’t back down. I’m still impressed with her audacity, but that doesn’t make me any less regretful that I brought her along. She doesn’t belong in this world. That, and Isoline has a certain impatience that makes her unpredictable. I saw that quality before we left though, when Isoline was ready to get on the road without the slightest hint of a plan, without even sharing all the necessary information with me that I needed to help her retrieve whatever jewel she needed from the manor.
