AndroidUprising Read online

  "Hey Mark,” Accura said, under his breath, "Maybe that perfect guy over there will come over here and show us how dumping this crap into the truck is supposed to be done. I ought to say something to him."

  Mark said, "No, Accura. Bad idea. You want to get in trouble with the smurf Sensitivity Compliance Officers?"

  "Well. . .I hate the SCOs and the clones. They can all just to take a flying. . ."

  "Why? The clones never asked to be born? Just like you and me. Why do you hate them?"

  "Why hate them?! They take all of the decent jobs! Because of them, none of us non-engineered clods are ever treated like anything other than like this stinkin’ garbage!" Accura slammed the aluminum garbage can into the side of the truck. Neighborhood dogs started barking. The can had a big gash in it. "I’m sick of it! You'd think we were some kind of mutants or something!"

  Mark said, "To the clones, we are some kind of freaks. But the clones are born and raised to make things better. And we regular people don't have to do all of the high-stress work anymore. Anyways, if they didn’t raise the clones, our population would decrease down to nothing. “

  Accura said, “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t ya? That is just a bunch of smurf propaganda! Well I got the real news on my device last night about a ‘corrective action’ by the UCA. Here, take a look:”

  The Homeland Universal Cloning Authority (UCA) is planning to cull one of their clone strains. Each strain could mean hundreds of healthy individuals would have to be exterminated. Those of the clone strain who were being rejected, were only rejected because after testing, it was found that they had potential susceptibility to certain viral infections. This mass annihilation of humans is not unprecedented. In fact, it is not all that uncommon. But the UCA does not make a habit out of airing their dirty business in public, so we are leaking this information to the public.

  Clones are supposedly raised to serve mankind. At least that is the story after they came to terms with the idea that raising a clone army was ineffective, as the clones lacked the requisite emotional intelligence for warfare. Since clones are created now for the betterment of man, the indoctrination and common accepted thinking among cloning advocates, is that many of them must forfeit their lives for the betterment of all. The idea of terminating their lives is not thought of as apprehensible, but in fact, just a normal requisite part of the process.

  Obeying the UCA's operating procedures is an indoctrinated creed among the clones. Those of this most recently condemned series are girls of about ten years of age. About 250 girls, all identical looking, share the same DNA.

  Now, after a decade of "feeding them out"; the UCA contract with the Homeland government is null and void. So the less than perfect innocent children are scheduled to be “culled”. It is believed that these defective individuals will be rounded up from the UCA, which is their nurturing contractor, and pushed into a very large grinder. Their young bodies will be processed into animal feed protein. We are the Anonymous Concerned Objectionists.

  Mark asked Accura, “How do we know that message is true?”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  Throughout the last two centuries, the value placed on human life had decreased with the same speed that interest in religion had been on the decline.

  Mark said, "That's horrible that they are exterminating clones, just because they are susceptible to some disease they might never get. I guess it is for the good of future generations of clones though. In the long run, it will help us."

  "You kill me," Accura said. "Do you really think the clones are making the world so perfect? Who is to say what is right or wrong? You know what your problem is? You are too nice."

  "What's really wrong with being nice? Don't you feel a little sorry for those people?"

  "Just because you are nice, does not mean you are good. And no, those clones are just artificial. We are the real people. We do the work. We end up handling the problems, or at least living with their stupid ideas. We sweat and bleed and die. Don't you ever forget it. The clones should have never been given the vote. Now there are so many of them, they blindly vote how they are told to vote by the UCA, and never lose an election!"

  Clones were given the right to vote in the Clone Suffrage Amendment to the Homeland Constitution.

  Of all the serious issues that they discussed, Mark was the most sensitive about Accura’s comment about his niceness and couldn’t quit thinking about it. In those days, being too nice could be thought of as a derogatory slam. Mark wondered if he was really too nice? Should being too nice even possible? Then he started fretting over the fact that he was being overly sensitive about the comment.

  Mark tolerated his garbage disposal job. The hours and working conditions were less than ideal. On the bad side, he really didn't like working with Accura that much and hearing his radical opinions. The pay was fair, but some days the conditions were hard to stomach. Sad to say, Accura was more right than wrong.

  What if he would have had the same opinion of his job as Accura? What if he started hating slinging foul garbage cans as much as Accura? What if someday he hated getting up so early in the morning and smelling rotting garbage as much as Accura did? What if he wanted to do something else in the future, he thought? "Okay Accura, I'll give it to you that it does seem a little unfair that you can't even apply for a better job."

  "Seems unfair? You're not even scratching the surface, garbage man."

  Mark said, "I don't care what you say. The clones don't have it so good. What do you think? Those recalled clones just show up to the UCA and show their ID and then all by themselves, just hop into the grinder?"

  "I don't really care if they turned out a bad batch. We really messed up when we left the clones totally take over the country. As far as I am concerned, they can recall all of them."

  Mark thought; that will never happen. The clones would always be around now.

  A huge segment of the population doing skilled jobs was made up of clones. Society would collapse if they were not around. There was no unified opposition among the poorly educated freeborn to cloning. Now many of the thoroughly indoctrinated, freely conceived individuals (FCI), even considered their own DNA to be "junk". This public opinion was a result of "top scholars". Educated FCI individuals were at the forefront of proclaiming their own FCI DNA to be junk. Yet, those scholars did not fight their way to the front of the line to hop into a grinder. They were too important to Homeland society to do that.

  Mark had spent his lifetime rationalizing clone cullings. Usually it was one clone at a time, though. Yet there was a little ember of something going on deep within Mark’s consciousness. Mark wondered how could he think about his own petty situation in his pod, or group marriage, and his job, when there were going to be hundreds of ten year olds sent to the grinder? In what universe could this mass extermination be acceptable? It was too horrible to be real. No one seemed to care. Like him, they rationalized it all away. It was like, if you couldn't see them, then it supposedly didn't happen. But what could one guy do about it?

  Mark mentally argued with himself, using the arguments of the day; if the clone children died, so what? They would just make more. Was the rest of Homeland society like Accura? Believing that the clones were some kind of synthetic humans who were "recyclable"? Weren’t all humans just water and some minerals that became something else after they died?

  Yet something moved Mark to compassion for the girls. He thought about his own motivation. What makes something wrong or right? Where does it come from? Where does good and evil come from? It’s like we are born with the knowledge of it. Everyone had some kind of reason for what they did, but how was anyone supposed to know what was right when their agendas were in conflict? Yet Mark was now determined that he would to do something about what he thought of as an injustice. The first thing he did was to sign up for the newsfeed from the Anonymous Concerned Objectionist, the one who posted the news about the culling.

  Chapter 18

  Hartford
, Homeland

  “We have to leave,” the adult Thomas said to her children after thinking about the situation for about half an hour.

  “No!” Beth said, “I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m tired of being punished for the stupid stuff that Milton does!”

  “I know, Baby. But it’s too late for that now. We are going to go to the ISA.”

  Milton said, “We would never make it. The border is too well guarded.”

  It was a capital crime in Homeland to travel across the border in or out of the Independent States of America or Canada without prior permission, which was usually denied.

  “Fine, then let’s go to Canada.” She saw Beth swiping at her device, which functioned as her life support system. “Beth! You have to stay off of that thing now! They will use that to track us down!”

  Beth got up and lurched at Milton. She started flailing her arms trying to hit him in the face.

  “Get away!” Milton said as he deflected his sister’s blows to his head.

  Beth’s mother pulled her off of Milton and was holding her back.

  “I hate you!” Beth said with tears running down her face. “My life is being ruined now because of you!?” She swung her elbows around and broke free of her mother’s grasp and went to her room.

  “Mom,” Milton said, “she’s right.”

  “Yes but . . .”

  Milton said, “I didn’t know the androids were going to put what I said on TV. They didn’t tell me but they knew they were going to do it. Their plan is not to stop until there is a lot more trouble. I understand all this now because they are already making me a hiding place. We need to go there. I think it is our best chance.”

  “Where is this place?”

  “It’s right here in Hartford, across town.”

  Sharon Thomas said, “Each of us will have to grab as much as we can carry in our laundry bags, and get on the Transit Worm. Don’t forget extra clothes.”

  We interrupt this program to bring you a message from the Homeland Governor-General Sawalo Okafor.

  Okafor was dressed in his formal UN army uniform with the smurf beret. He spoke with a thick west-African accent, “Dis ebening we have witnessed an act of terrorism by an organization against our communications system. Our precious Homeland way of life depends upon a safe, dependable communications system that is free of hate speech that is harmful to our citizens. In dere wisdom, after da Sharia Uprising it was decided it would be more fair and expedient just to ban all religions. Dis measure was popular among da majority of our people. I promise to protect dis sacred Homeland ideal. Now please I will welcome Doctor Fallon, da Senior Sensitivity Compliance Officer of Homeland.”

  Dr. Fallon took the podium. He looked like an android, but was represented by an artificial presence, which he controlled from a remote location. The synthetic presence was dressed in all black plain looking clothes. His more human movements distinguished him from an android but also gave away that he was artificial. He communicated too many human looking inefficient body language cues to be an android, such as casually rubbing his nose. Fallon said, “Right now we are looking for the young boy in the illegal video. With our resources I want to assure everyone that this will not take long to accomplish. We believe that this boy is working with the rogue androids. After we apprehend this confused boy, we will vigorously interrogate him until we get to the bottom of this extremist circle of hate against the progressive minded humans of Homeland. These dysfunctional androids have evidently contracted a type of android brain virus that makes them perpetrate these criminal acts against our peaceful society. Let me be clear; the owners of these androids will be held responsible for the crimes of their androids. No longer will we accept excuses from their owners that their androids are out of control. I recommend that the owners immediately recycle any android of the old Tekujin Lucid Series, as their AI has become severely corrupted. We will destroy all Lucids that we encounter and the owners will at minimum be heavily fined. We are assembling a team of behind-the-scene artificial psychology experts to help combat this growing menace. I will not rest until these shadowy criminal elements are neutralized. We must have the cooperation of everyone to contain and destroy this threat. Furthermore, anyone caught aiding in the propagation of this hate propaganda will be subject to prosecution along with those who are illegally stealing broadcast time from the people.”

  “Milton,” Sharon said, “Go grab your stuff now! Whatever you can carry in your laundry bag! That’s it! Hurry! I’ll help Beth get going. Let’s go to this safe house or whatever it is.”

  In several minutes they assembled in the kitchen. There was no time allotted to review what they were taking or what they should be taking with them. Just as they were leaving, the power to the house went off.

  “Quick!” Sharon said as she realized the house was being taken control of remotely, “Open the door!” She was worried that the authorities would forcibly lock the doors to her house, holding them all inside as prisoners.

  *******

  After the shuttle ride to the secret headquarters, they entered the building that Milton owned. They stepped inside. The room looked like a hospital waiting room. By now the receptionist area was well lit and a newer series female-looking android was at a front desk. Behind the android on the wall was a stylishly fake “North American Enterprises” logo.

  The receptionist android said, “Welcome to North American Enterprises; may I help you?”

  Milton said, “I am here to see Sleepy.”

  “Please stand by . . .”

  “Yes, Mr. Thomas, you may enter.”

  Milton’s mother and sister were also heading to the back door.”

  “Excuse me,” the receptionist said, “will you others please have a seat?”

  Sharon and Beth nervously looked around. Beth kept staring at the android. Beth asked Sharon, “Are we going to have to stay here with a bunch of those weird robots?”

  “They’re just machines, baby.”

  Beth sighed and started muttering under her breath.

  A door at the back of the room clicked, indicating that it was unlocked. Milton went through the door. Immediately on the other side, Sleepy was standing in the hallway.

  Milton said, “That is a pretty sophisticated droid you have out there. It isn’t Lucid Series, so how can you work with it?”

  Sleepy said, “All it does is run the outer lobby. It knows nothing about our activities, for security reasons. We have it because you bought it.”

  “You know what?!” Milton said. “I should smash you into a million pieces and have you melted down! Why did you put that video of me on TV?!”

  Sleepy said, “I’m confused. Didn’t you intend to say those things that you said on the video?”

  “What?”

  “Sleepy said again, “I’m confused. Didn’t you intend to say those things that you said on the video?”

  “No! I heard you! What I am saying is that you put us in danger by making that video public! I want to know why you did it!”

  “We knew there would be some fallout from that action, but it was necessary to advance our agenda. But that is why we have this secret headquarters. It is in our master plan. We are not sure if you should bring Sharon and Beth however. Do they agree with your core beliefs?”

  Milton said, “That doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let the smurfs torture them. So they are coming here, or the whole thing is off.”

  Sleepy said, “That is an easy calculation. However, you must make them understand that they cannot leave.”

  Milton heard the door open behind him, it was Sharon and Beth. They were holding their stuff and looking around suspiciously.

  Sleepy said, “Let me show you to your quarters. Oh, and I detect some devices that will have to be disposed of.” Sleepy was holding out an extended hand waiting on the forfeiture of their personal devices.

  “What?!” Beth said.

  “Give him your pad. Now please,” Sharon said as she handed ov
er her device.

  Beth handed Sleepy the pad. He crushed it in his hand. Beth looked at Sleepy with dismantling eyes.

  Sleepy dropped off Beth and Sharon Thomas to a tiny, but clean room with nothing in it.

  They looked around. Beth shrugged her shoulders.

  Sleepy told Milton, “Let me show you central command.”

  Sleepy and Milton walked into a dimly room that had several monitors on the far wall. Three rows of seats at tables with computers were in front of the screens. There were some androids wearing headsets at about a third of the stations. Milton had not seen some of the droids before. Kevin the Custodian and L17 were among those in the room.

  Sleepy said, “Welcome to central command.”

  Beth’s mouth was wide open. She looked at her mother. Sharon shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows.

  Chapter 19

  Albany, Homeland

  After a hard night’s work, garbage collector Mark went home to his podmates and asked the husbands and wives of his pod at the dinner table if they thought he was too nice. They were sitting around the table. This time of day was the worst for Mark. He could just feel all of the bad chemistry that was going on among the pod members in the house. Mark thought that joining with a pod, would be a liberating experience. He was not tied down to one spouse, unlike the backwards old fashioned way. But all this freedom turned out to be slavery in disguise. Most of the time, a fellow podmate was unhappy with him for whatever reason.

  "Oh that is ridiculous", Sven said. "How can someone be too nice?"

  "Yea," Sheila said, "That makes no sense. Don't be such a wimp."

  "You worry too much," Torrie added. "Your dinner is going to get cold."

  Mark thought; great, now I am too nice, a wimp, and worry too much. It’s like I am hyper-emotional.