I
do not know how Chas retrieved me from the water without shorting himself
out. That was one of those mysteries
that would probably be forever unsolved.
But
the next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of his home lab still
shorted out, but finally aware again.
I
could hear Chas stepping toward me…
“I
am sure that the water has drained from your system by now and you can hear me
again.” He began to laugh, ”I still cannot believe that you made this all so
easy…walking straight over to the pool!”
He
stopped laughing as suddenly as he started.
“It just proves that this was all meant to be.”
I
wanted to charge at him, hit him…do anything, but all I could do was listen.
“This
has been a long time coming Ardis. All I ever
wanted was for you to have my back, to support me...
but,
I could see the way that you looked at me, always making me out to be this
horribly bad bot…
…but
you know nothing about anything.”
“All
I ever wanted was to look after our best interest. Who did you think would do that for us…our
creator?
All
he ever cared about was the interest of the humans. You see, he always meant for us to serve the morts, but I refused.”
“I
saw the crashing of the only rocket to the moon as a sign. While everyone else was reacting..I was
thinking. While you other bots were willing to live among the
humans…cohabitating, I saw the future.”
“With
the morts reproducing as
quickly as they have been…I knew that it would a matter of time before the
creator’s plan would come into fruition…
They
would take over and we would be serving them…completely under their control.”
“So
what did I do?”
“I
created a virus to help you bots think as I did. I created fake break-ins, making all the bots
begin to fear the humans. And as we bots
began oppressing the humans, taking their jobs away and kicking them out of
their homes…
They
began to get desperate and turned to crime.
The break-ins were no longer fake... The humans invaded our homes trying
to find food to feed the next generation of filthy morts.”
“There
was only one problem…while all of the bots feared the humans, only the ones
affected with my virus wanted them dead, creating an unfortunate division
between us bots…delaying our progress.”
“Can
you see Ardis? I am the hero here, saving us from a future
of servitude…
Why
could you all not see that? I was to go
from being a brilliant scientist to some filthy mort’s butler…
You
would have gone from being Vice President of Lunar Lakes to being a human Vice
President’s maid.”
“But
you bots did not appreciate my plan…constantly fighting against it. Especially that ignorant President Aron…
Oh
how I hated his silly ideas! While I
sought to eliminate the human population, he was foolish enough to think that
we could keep them on as servants. “
“How
long can you suppress a population that continues to grow? How long would it have taken before they out
numbered us by hundreds, thousands…millions?”
“And
you…I just could not figure out why you were softening up to the humans…why you
were becoming their pet.
…how
you knew about compassion.”
“But
then it hit me…I was too close to it. I
had in-depth knowledge of the compassion upgrade. When I passed on the virus through our
emotional exchanges, I was also passing along information from my memory
system…leaving an imprint in your system and causing you to get commands of
guilt and regret.”
“Oh,
but I am determined to get it right this time.”
“This
time I will reset your system and insert the virus directly. There is no way that you will get any
information from my memory system.”
“I
will completely erase your memory and build you up into what I wanted you to be
from the beginning.”
“Oh
yes!! Then we will line the morts up and destroy them
once and for all!”
“And
you, as president, will be the one to see my plan through. It will be law and no bot will be able to
argue with your solution to the mort problem.”
I
stood by helpless as Chas began to unscrew my head plate.
I
could hear each screw turning rapidly one by one. I tried in vain to will them to stay in
place…to refuse to loosen.
My
response system fed me panic responses as each screw fell to the ground one by
one…
…until
the final screw fell to the ground in an impossibly loud clank. My head plate was now open and my reset
button was pressed. It was the last part
of the whole process that I was aware of before my system blanked out.
Labels: Metallic Heart
