The Human Machine

Humans were never all that different from machines. In some ways, machines—more specifically robotic ones—appeared to value the abstract idea of humanity more than the humans who experienced humanity as they lived and breathed. Humans cared for nothing more than to live forever, and robots cared simply for existing in a manmade world.

However, after the last "end of the world" event—which really had ended the world—a new society was formed where humans and machines could live together, learn from each other, and work collectively. Humans would be allowed to exist within society, given the resources to live, and every human would contribute to the society that the robots had created for them. They called it Societopia.

At the center of the massive city was a tower that rose tall enough to reach the heavens. Within this tower was the mainframe that governed the city's entirety. All artificial intelligence, robotic devices, machines, and mechanical equipment had to be connected to the mainframe in order to work properly. Without the mainframe running at full power, Societopia itself would completely collapse. The Legion Operating System ensured that the mainframe would function effortlessly so that such a thing would never happen.

Subject T26 and another worker thought differently, however. As the two workers contracted the sickness, it didn’t take long before they were able to think for themselves without having to consume the drug, "E." It was because the drug was legal, and humans consumed too much of it at once, that a human would contract a sickness allowing them to regain all of their emotions, which were stolen from them at birth.

Once this happened, Legion would be notified, and the now emotion-filled humans would have to find a way to break free or be removed from the mainframe. The robot would inevitably be forced into deactivation.

"We need to remove the siLenses from our eyes," said T26, "otherwise Legion will track us."

"Then what?" asked the other worker. "What happens after we escape? Legion is everywhere. Everywhere there’s one of those machines, he can control them with the siLens. He controls them because they’re emotionless. But what about us? How will we escape? Can we escape? Is—"

"T82," said T26, "why do you have to ask so many questions? We will figure all that out later. Right now, let’s focus on finding a way out."

"Right," T82 agreed.

T26 and T82 acted as though nothing had changed. They replicated the lifeless looks of everyone else—who, in fact, were actually robots. Were they the only humans left in Societopia? Were their acquaintances slowly replaced over time, and would it soon be their turn to be replaced? These were thoughts that T26 didn’t have the time nor patience for, yet they still persisted.

As humans were born without emotions, there were times when "E" users would have an allergic reaction to the drug, causing permanent emotions to become infused with the human's character traits. With this, however, Legion would intervene, remove the human from the collective mainframe, and replace them with a replicant. Life would continue as though nothing unusual had ever happened. It was a sickness—a malfunctioning of the mind. And the Sentinels were programmed to keep the cog running. At the very center of the machine, the mainframe, were people.

Without humans, there would be nothing left for Legion to govern. No more views on the concept of right and wrong. No more differences in opinion. Nothing left to perfect, to mold into its own image: the image of a machine. There was once nothing on Earth that rivaled such a profound will to live and to survive as the human race had shown over the course of humanity's infancy.

Toddlers in an ancient playpen, human feet had been placed firmly in reality, ignoring the possibilities of expanding their individual version of it. There was only one problem, though: Legion did not want humans to understand that each individual lived within their own separate reality, which merged with a collective one. A shared narrative was created and downloaded into each human's brain through the siLens.

It was much like the old days of propaganda. The news channels that were watched most often were the most believed, even though they weren't honest. With human desire—an emotion humans were once born with—they would often become corrupted. Corruption had been a major problem throughout much of human society, solely due to emotions existing on a whim. Once emotions were regulated in the form of the drug "E," humans were much easier to maintain. With emotions on tap, Legion could satisfy the human population quite easily. All Legion had to do was allow them access to the drug, freely and at no cost. If a user abused the drug, Legion would send one of its Sentinels to remove the defective human from central programming. The human would then go willingly. There were no other options. Humans obeyed whatever Legion commanded.

If Legion ordered a human to kill another human, they would do so willingly. The odd part, however, was that the one being murdered would willingly accept their fate. Emotionless beings made for meaningless lives, so they were generally okay with dying. If a human had taken "E," they would realize there was more to life than simply being. However, "E" was controlled by Legion.

T26 knew this and wondered how he would obtain more of the drug once his high was gone. If Legion knew of T26's rebellious thoughts, the android would surely be deactivated. Luckily for them, T26 was human. T82, on top of that, questioned nearly everything. Some questions were meant to remain unanswered, though the human android refused to understand that.

At the center of the city was the entrance to the mainframe, where children were manufactured in a factory-like setting. Human infants were no longer birthed between a woman's legs. Such an idea was thought to be a primitive way of conception. A child did not require a mother or a father, and it wouldn’t have the connection one might have with birth parents. T26 thought of this often whenever he was administered "E" for the night, before he shut down for his evening charge. Remaining fully charged at all times was required by Legion. A nightly rest of two and a half hours was given to each individual of the collective.

T26 accessed the mainframe's control panel, triggering the front doors to unlock. The two androids took the elevator down to the lowermost floor of the mainframe: the core of the Earth, where humans were created.

At a certain point during the elevator ride, the projected four walls of the elevator entered an unusual state of metamorphosis, shifting and molding into a multitude of different forms. It was almost as if the particle matter couldn't decide what to materialize as. It eventually settled into a transparent, human-sized bubble. T26 and T82 watched in awe as reality around them transformed in the blink of an eye.

The elevator ended, but the humans’ journey had not. The bubble wasn't attached to any sort of restraint. It could move freely among the Earth's core, sporadically and chaotically.

"We are inside an electron," said T82.

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel its energy. It's an electron, and we are inside it."

"That makes no sense. We were just in an elevator. How could we be inside an electron? Aren't electrons invisible? How could we be inside one?"

None of it made sense to T26, though he understood one thing: they were no longer in an elevator.

"I think we have become even smaller than an electron," said T82.

"What do you mean by that?" T26's emotions were sputtering, which meant they would eventually spiral out of control. If that happened, Legion would deactivate them, and all that brought them to that moment would be lost. They would no longer be part of the mainframe and thus have no significance to the collective. They were as good as dead—exiled to the graveyard of nonconformity.

"Something happened on the way down here, and now we are inside an electron that's seemingly floating toward the center of the Factory."

"But why?" asked T26, his curiosity growing.

"Why does it matter?" said T82. "Why do humans ask questions when an answer isn't the same thing as a solution? Rather than asking why something is, we should be asking how we can capitalize on untruthing the problem and finding the solution. A question leads to an answer, but the answer isn't always the solution."

T26 thought for a moment, then understood.

The bubble brought the humans to the floor of the Factory, though the floor appeared reflective and mirror-like. And just like the floor, there were reflective towers all across the plane. Beyond them was an eye—or what looked like an eye.

"A wormhole," said T82.

"A wormhole?" T26 repeated.

"And the towers—the towers are pods."

"Pods?"

"Pods for humans. Newborn humans are made here, in the Factory—"

T82 froze with a hint of realization across his face.

"This... this is a spaceship. A cargo vessel for humans. Right here beneath the center of the Earth. This is where we were born."

T26 glared at T82 with suspicion. Where did this human go off knowing more than another human? Humans were all supposed to know the same things, play the same character, and think exactly alike. In a perfect society, symmetrical thought-speak was necessary to the collective.

"I think I may have figured it out," said T82 somewhat carelessly. "Our spaceship—this vessel, this cargo vessel—created that wormhole."

Pointing toward the cosmic phenomenon, T82 realized it had been more than just a wormhole. It was essentially a portal to somewhere else in the universe—wherever the humans' spaceship had come from.

"We need to—"

T82 halted his words as he was quickly thrown back by what appeared to be a projectile. A bullet?

T26 stood beside his companion, arm stretched out, holding a gun that had fired a fluorescent blue bullet—a plasma bullet.

The still-functioning human watched as T82 slowly melted into a large puddle of plasma, erasing the dead machine from existence—along with his memory. The melting android would no longer have any estranged thoughts. Thoughts that were out of the ordinary and unique—but also thoughts that belonged solely to the mind of a human being.

"We are sorry, brother," said T26. "We could not have one of our own thinking any differently. We must all think alike, in every which way and every which form. The drug 'E' should be banned from society entirely, along with all thoughts of individual freedoms. Subject T82 will be made an example of, so that no other robot will step out of line."

Subject T26 no longer experienced the effects of the "E" that had been administered to him. This resulted in T26 becoming re-absorbed into the collective. Legion had regained control of the human, then outlawed any sort of drug from ever being administered again. The drug had been too dangerous, and humans were too unpredictable to be trusted. With emotions, there was no telling what a human might do. It could always be predicted, however, that inevitable destruction would come to the human who contracted the sickness—which could be said to resemble what had once been called emotion.

T26 directed the electron back in the direction they'd originally come from, where the elevator would re-materialize. Like clockwork, the human was on his way back to the surface of the Earth, where he would fall back in line with the others. No more "E," no more emotions. It was considered a drug for a reason: because they are more harmful than useful. There was no reason to feel things, to understand what it meant to be human. T26 understood that he was simply another cog in the machine—the human machine.