The Human Farm (The Human Farm Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

4

Red66 pulled the plug from the power station. She was now fully charged and would have enough power to sustain her for several months. She had limited use of one leg and only one functioning arm. She was able to pull herself back to the pile of rejected androids, most of which were newer models that had broken down for various reasons. Her first priority was to find an arm that would be compatible with her body so she could have full use of two hands to complete all the necessary repairs to other body parts, including the damaged leg.

              It took her nearly twenty minutes of digging through the pile until she was able to find a model that would be compatible with her systems
.
There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the arm she had found as far as Red66 could see.

              She stumbled her way over to a work bench that had a meager supply of tools, with some difficulty and after about an hour, using both her hand and mouth, she was finally able to get the arm attached. She finally felt, for the first time, what humans called frustration at taking so long getting one arm in place. Once she got the arm in place she was able to access the A.I. link and get the proper software patches that were needed in order for the arm to work with her systems.

              She moved her new hand and was happy with the results but soon realized why it was tossed into the scrap pile
.
There was a glitch in the programing that caused the hand to spasm from time to time. No modern, or you could say, newer model A.I. could function with an improper appendage, so it had been scrapped for a replacement part. This suited Red66 just fine, she was finding she didn’t need to be perfect in order to function.  

The next thing she needed to focus on was getting her bad leg to work properly. She ran a systems check and her analysis found the wiring in her legs was frayed and would need to be replaced in several places. Wiring was one of the easier components of an A.I. to gather as it was pretty much universal and could be found in just about any part. She managed to grab several junk parts from the pile and started ripping out the wiring, grabbing enough to ensure she would be able to repair other faulty wiring should something short out or become defective later.   

Now that she had two arms and hands in which she could work with, she made the necessary repairs in under ten minutes. Due to the length in which she was out of commission, Red66 would need multiple system upgrades. Accessing a direct link through a communication device, she connected and the upgrades were completed smoothly. She was in better working condition than she had been in a long time. She felt happy she was finally in good working condition. This feeling of happiness was a new emotion and as she moved her functioning arms and legs, she wanted to find a new direction to her existence.   

She decided one of the first things she wanted to do was to visit one of the farms. She knew what they looked like and how they operated, however she had never actually seen a working farm. Once she had regained full power, her link to the other A.I. was now complete. All of their memory cells transferred to her. Red66 had to be very careful to avoid direct contact with the humans. The A.I. held information back from them. The humans knew nothing of the world above. She knew she would have to take things slow and try to integrate herself amongst the humans. Red66 would have to make contact with one of them and become friends, this was a risk she would have to take. First she would need a new name, a more human name. She decided to call herself Dawn.   

She nodded her head in the affirmative and smiled as she walked to a mirror that was placed over a long abandoned work station in the corner of the junk heap. She looked into the grime crusted mirror at her own visage
.
It was the first time she had ever seen
her own reflection. She had bright red shoulder length hair and the brightest red eyes. Her facial features were humanoid with the exception of the color of her eyes
.
She knew that no human had eyes as red as hers. Most of her bodily
features were humanoid with the exception of her joints. Those points on her body were metallic and the sensitive areas of any A.I. unit
.
This was where lubrication and wire maintenance was done if any was needed.

Dawn stepped out of the maintenance center into fresh air for the first time in several months. She felt she had missed out on all the months she sat decommissioned in the scrap yard. She was determined to have a new life, fearing her link to the mainframe would draw attention to her now functioning unit, she severed her connection. She wouldn’t go back to being a useless pile of parts. Feeling a sense of excitement, which was another new emotion, she was determined to make herself useful.   

Dawn needed to set off to visit the farms and talk to the humans that lived there. She needed to understand not only why she suddenly felt these emotions, but also how to live with them. Walking through the city, Dawn watched several AI units go about their daily tasks. It was a beautiful morning. The sky was clear and the sun shone brightly. Each AI unit was programmed with a specific task to perform and all units worked harmoniously. Earth’s natural resources were fully cleansed now that the humans were living underground. Pollution did not exist. Waste products were recycled and turned into fertilizer for the farms. Earth had now become a utopia, totally maintained by artificial intelligence. The human population had no clue what lay above them.

Dawn couldn’t comprehend why the human race still lived underground. Part of the problem was the ingrained programing of the AI. Their sole purpose was to keep the Earth free of pollution, and to them, the human population was considered a pollutant.  

Dawn made her way to the caverns and passed several food storage units before she reached the farms. Her sensors detected she was several miles underground. After many centuries of living underground, the humans had an odd skin color and their eyes looked dull. The AI altered Earth’s history and the humans no longer knew anything about their ancestors, or the fact that the Earth flourished with fresh water, plant life and animals grazing on lush farmland.

As Dawn neared the farm, she heard an unfamiliar sound. Turning around, she followed the sound which led her to a waterfall at the entrance to another cavern. She peeked out of the entrance and spotted two humans standing at the edge of the waterfall. She observed a woman with blond hair and a man standing next to her. They talked for several minutes and then they continued working on their assigned tasks.

She waited until the humans left the area before she left the cavern. The waterfall was beautiful and mesmerized her. She’d never seen it before and resisted the urge to touch it. Looking to her left, it surprised her to see a beautiful tan beach that stretched for several miles. There were a few boat docs dotted along the shoreline. There were also several pipelines that ran from the water into the caverns. Her hearing picked up the sounds of the filtration systems which allowed the humans to have fresh drinking water. The other pipeline led directly to the irrigation system.   Dawn looked up at the artificial sky, there were no clouds, no sun or birds and all you could see were lamps that gave off the proper light for the crops to grow. There was no beauty to be seen on the Farms at all, no color, no true nature, no animals milling about, just humans and their food. It saddened Dawn to see the way the humans were forced to live and it saddened her even more to know they didn’t even know there was a better way of life waiting for them in the world up above them.   

5

It was a two hour trip from their home to the lake, a journey that Lili and Kev took once a week. It took most of the day to check the various sections along the pipeline and the filtration system. They needed to climb into the cramped tunnels in each section to be sure that the filtration systems were cleaned and that the pipes themselves were undamaged.

Their assigned tasks were easy enough to perform, especially if there were no leaks in the line, the time consuming part of their day was the travel back and forth. Lili especially enjoyed her days outside of the caverns and she enjoyed the time spent alone with Kev.  

              They would always take the time to stop and talk to some of their friends that were tending to the weeding of the fields nearby. On this day there was no one tending to the nearby fields, most of them were farther off in the distance, there was always someone doing something in the fields somewhere.
 

              Lili and Kev stopped walking for a few moments to stretch and take a break from pushing the cart. Lili looked around the area, she could not shake the feeling someone had been following them. “Kev, is someone watching us? I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye, but every time I look it’s gone. It’s like a quick flash of red.”

              “I’m sure you’re just imagining it Lili. Your imagination is getting the best of you again.” he said with a chuckle. “Come on let’s get going so we can get back home and enjoy the extra free time.”  

              They finished the rest of the walk back home in quiet contemplation at the thought of what they might do during their free time. There were not a lot of things for the humans on the farm to do for free time, they had the swimming hole where the community enjoyed a few hours of relaxation each week and where they taught the younger children to swim. There were also a few games that could be played, like horseshoes or there was an old worn out basket attached to one of the barns where they could play basketball

Some of the older adults spent their free time reading the limited selection of books available to them. The AI destroyed all literature that in any way chronicled Earth’s history. Life on the farms was, to the farmers, a peaceful life. They knew of no other way to exist.

              By the time they made it back to the farm they still had 4 hours of free time left with which they could relax and enjoy. Lili wanted to spend their time swimming, she loved the water and always wanted to be in it every chance she could get. She ran to the water stripping off her clothes and jumped in. “Come on Kev hurry up.”

              Being naked in front of others was of no concern for the humans on the farm, sexuality was not something they concerned themselves with, it was not something they really thought of much. There were specific people selected for breeding purposes and all others knew nothing of sex and sexuality.

6

Dawn watched the humans as they faded off into the horizon, she needed to learn more about them but she dared not get close too soon. She knew the humans had very little contact with her kind and she didn’t want to frighten them. So she decided her best bet was to keep her distance for a time and see if she could learn about them from their actions.  

              She stayed as far back as she could so they would not notice her but there were times when she would find herself closing in on them. She often had to duck behind fruit trees or into drainage ditches anytime one of them turned their head so she wouldn’t be detected.  

              She inched her way along the path until they got to the settlement where they lived. Getting around this area would be a little bit harder because there were a lot more people here and she knew her red hair and eyes would stand out. Dawn peeked into the first building she came to and saw it was empty, it looked as if it was a storage building. She went inside and looked around to see if she could find anything to help her hide her identifying features.   

              After searching for several minutes she found some dusty sheets that had been tossed into a corner, she shook out as much of the dust as she was able and draped them over her body, doing the best she could to cover her hair and the joints that were showing through the clothing she wore. There wasn’t much she could do about her eyes, she’d just have to hope no one would be paying close enough attention to them.   

              She walked out into the dim light of the settlement and made her way over to where the two people she’d been following went. She saw them off in the distance, swimming in a pool of water. She didn’t dare approach them just yet, she sat down on a patch of grass several yards away just watching them as they swam.  

              She could tell by the looks on their faces they were sharing some form of emotions but she was still unsure of what emotions they were feeling, she was new to these feelings and was having a hard time telling the difference between the many types of feelings that humans had, let alone the ones that were now running though her own systems at any one time.

              She sat and watched as they laughed and splashed and swam. She watched as they played various water games, oblivious to the fact a stranger was watching everything they did. No matter how much she tried she could not understand why the humans were so trusting of everything and everyone around them.

              Dawn decided it was about time to approach the human girl but she needed to wait until she was alone, she didn’t want to frighten her but she also didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention to herself. She couldn’t risk the other humans seeing her and alerting the other A.I. she was down here. She had severed her mainframe link so that none of the others could locate her. She would wait and bide her time until the human female was alone and then she would make her move.