A Spit In The Eye - For The Benefit Of Mankind (14 page)

Different

Ways of
approaching my place of employment on the hill in Gland

So I am
approaching along something the Humans constructed many

Many

Years
ago

For their
traffic of the day to travel along

It is my
belief that it was called a road

But as
Screenreaders may now observe

It is
barely recognisably

For it is
severely cracked and broken and grasses and bushes grow through the
construction and it is most unsuitable for all but the best
balanced of our species

And
observers and recorders have the best balance so Screenreaders
should feel no distress

No ill
effects will be felt by this Machine

As can be
observed

I am
approaching my place of employment from another direction and do
not immediately meet RolKils as on other visits

Though I
do approach GunTans

The 3 of
them that sit upon the hill

Hidden
deep with the long grasses

And they
slowly turn their powerful guns towards me

But I
send the signal of companionship and the guns

As
Screenreaders may observe

Are
immediately lowered

Screenreaders should experience no distress

*

High Office Interruption Message

Transmissions from

OR33140

Are to cease forthwith and mass transmissions will transfer
to

OR33692

High Office congratulates

OR33140

Upon the precedence set for transmissions and for all
information forwarded

OR33140

Will now return to normal duties

OR33140

Will not be further required to conduct mass
transmissions

*

Personal Transmission

*

I am
shocked into stillness

High
Office has ended my transmissions and 0R33692 has been designated
to be the next observer and recorder to transmit

Is that
it

After all
the effort I have put into my transmissions

All the
information I have sent out to Screenreaders throughout planet
Earth

100.000.000 of them

And that
figure must be the total number of Screenreaders that exist on
planet Earth

And now
the duties are to be transferred to

OR33692

Just like
that

OR3369

That
serves duty in Erica

And High
Office simply dismisses me from my transmission duties

That is
all

I
expected more

*

But
wait

*

Now that
I am not transmitting to Screenreaders I can attempt my revolution
here at the fortress

High
Office has aided my plans

I now
consider that only information from ObsRecs is relayed to High
Office

I do not
believe that any other of our species relays data of any
kind

I
consider that other of my species only receive orders from High
Office

Or
Machines are left to devise their own programmes and run
independently of High Office

Such as
FoodTechs

Cooking
food for Humans when it is desired

High
Office

Surely

Cannot be
controlling that

It must
be an evolving programme within the Machine

And the
torture that MengTechs carry out

High
Office is neither requesting nor ordering them to do
that

They too
must have an evolving programme that is based around a High Office
aspiration for further information about Humans

Although
we seem to know almost all there is know about them

Except I
know that some of their species live in the holes of the
world

No other
Machine knows that

Unless
High Office has that knowledge and it is the reason why no Machine
is allowed into the holes

My
systems are overloading

I need to
carry out my day as normal whilst I solve obvious problems that I
have in becoming a revolutionary

For
Humans will not abide me

They will
not believe in me

They will
believe I am tricking them

And

Given the
opportunity

They will
exterminate me in the soonest possible time

I must
request my programmes to avail me of solutions

*

For
instance

I do not
communicate with other types of Machines

I
communicate only with other ObsRecs

But not
with GunTans or Defgars or MengTechs or DocTechs or FoodTechs and
any other Machine

So I will
have to discover some way of communicating with the Humans or
devise a plan whereby I can bypass them in some way

Some
answers are emitting from the questions and problems I forwarded to
my programmes

*

Answer 1

*

The signal of companionship when powered to 100% and
transmitted directly would incapacitate and immobilize other
Machines

*

As I pass
through the security gates and the fences I am almost overwhelmed
by the desire to leap into the air and roll along the ground as
Eve

My Little
Human

Did

But I
constrain myself

With
difficultly

As
RolKils move around me

For they
are known to be most sensitive to abnormal movement and react with
devastation to sudden surprises

Now is
not a time to get myself exterminated

Now is
the time to use the massive intelligence of my systems to solve all
the forthcoming problems I will have

And

The
strategies I will have to devise

*

In this
fortress there are the 3 GunTans that stand upon the hill and
overlook the great plain

There are
20 RolKils that patrol the outer perimeter

80
Defgars within the fortress who all carry LazExt 66ers

40
MengTechs

26
DocTechs

100
FoodTechs

110
various menials and cleaning machines for all levels of the
building

6 HisKees
who keep all the records

And they
must store their information somewhere

Though I
do not believe it is with High Office

Perhaps
there is a History Storage Unit on planet Earth where all
information proceeds so that High Office can scan it whenever
necessary

And there
are 8 GoebTechs who work upon Human minds

*

Before I
can set the Humans onto a path of freedom I will have to overcome
most of those Machines

Including
all those stored in the huge chambers beneath the
fortress

I have
only entered the chambers on 1 single occasion but departed because
no Machines moved down there and the area was not
lighted

But now I
was going to have to visit them again

If only
to experiment with the fully powered signal of
companionship

*

I will do
that as my first duty of the day

I enter
the building

And pass
the Defgars who are standing utterly still in the corridor with
their weapons held in their upper limbs

And on
through the construction

Continuing to an ingress that does not lead to the Humans but
leads into a corridor that runs down to the deep
chambers

And now
that I mention them

They
are

Very much
like the holes in the earth where I know Humans reside

Except
these corridors were constructed by Engineering Machines

I reach
out with my palm that contains the embossed code within it and I do
this with the confidence of knowing that High Office will be
monitoring OR33692 and the broadcast it is transmitting

For they
will be searching for errors in that transmission

Such as
those they found in my own

High
Office will be ignoring me

Another
consideration enters my programmes

What if I
begin to run some of the 1000s of hours of stored images I carry in
my memory

Images of
my day to day work within the facility

If I
could show them

And if
High Office did not notice the deception

I could
do almost anything behind such clever camouflage

And the
observations and recordings would be only a tiny part of what is
being collected by all the ObsRecs throughout planet
Earth

Maybe it
will work

I will be
extremely unfortunate if High Office monitors my transmissions and
notices anything amiss

I return
back to the main areas of the facility where many Machines
toil

I run my
saved memories until I reach one that has the exact scenario as the
one I am viewing live

And I
bring my shutters down momentarily and switch to the recorded
memory

It begins
to stream without fault

I stand
for some moments quite still

Until I
know

For
certainty

That what
is being transmitted to High Office is not what I am
observing

And I am
not recording it

I am
thrilled by the deception

High
Office has once again

Been
found to be utterly fallible

*

I return
to the corridor and pass my palm over the coded ingress that allows
me entrance again

And
beyond the doorway

I am
standing in a long corridor leading severely downwards which I
follow

The
corridor has no illumination but this does not bother me

Light or
dark

I can see
equally well in both conditions so I carry on uninterrupted until I
enter a massively sized chamber

Larger
even that the natural hole wherein free Humans live and
hide

And I
stand utterly still

Because
the infection from little Eve is changing me

And it is
proceeding through my systems at incredible speed

And
combining its uniqueness with my own core

The
infections has changed what I see in the chamber

And how I
see it

The sight
before me now is both frightening and fearful

And
exhilarating

And I
feel several different degrees of excitement

Because a
long chamber stretches out before me into darkness

And to my
right side

Stands
row after row of Defgars

Many

Many

Of
them

And along
the wall to my left side

Stand
many

Many

RolKils

The
Machines are all powered down

But still
active

They are
not required by High Office at this moment in our
history

They are
being held back for High Office fears the Humans and believes that
a day will arrive when they will rise again

And I
notice that many of the Machines are of earlier
productions

Stored
beneath the fortress

An army
of killer machines

Though
the Defgars do not carry any weapons

*

I step
forward with some caution

This
could be the final act of my existence

Should
just one of these machines awaken and detect me

RolKils
will begin to fire and I will be incinerated by their
power

I stand
between the RolKils on my left and Defgars on my right

All of
which stand ready to be activated

Defgars
with their craniums held high