The "Scientist"
I would be a liar if I had said I recalled the nothingness that occurred before I came to exist. The world was empty. There was not even blackness. There cannot be thought before life.
My coming to be was sudden and perplexing. Perhaps unfairly so.
When the sand of my hourglass began running, all I recall was noise without vision. Electrical energy ran, making a hum. Echoing clockwork clicking started up and eventually sped into a constant rate. There was another strange sensation that I will have difficulty explaining. It was something like cool running liquid pulsing in and out. I would later be told that this was my life force energy; it is something that exists, but I have yet to see or touch. Apparently, it was something that came from the soul. All the while, I felt my body's temperature began to go up from being cold to what was healthy. I would never experience this peaceful universe of only sound and feeling ever again.
I felt something rough graze my body. A short time later the same thing stuck me. I felt my body sway back and forth from the force. My eyes clicked as a tiny sliver of light shown through. My vision focused as if I were waking from an unfathomable slumber. All that was at first were brightly colored, shifting dots. They came together and I found myself in a disturbingly artificial place. I was in a great wooden box with a sloped top. A barred window was to my right, bringing a dull yellow light where speckles of dust wisped in the air lazily. It was rather pretty in an unsettling way.
My focus on this was sort before I beheld an enormous shape. What before I thought was just a prop in the setting was a living creature. For some reason, I could bring a name to the creature; man. He was by no means an ideal specimen. He man before me was an elder among the species. He appeared long and gaunt and, somehow, disheveled. Of course when I first beheld the seven-times-my-size, who-knows-how-many-times-my-weight man, it was horrifying. What didn't help was that I was strung up by my wrists with my legs dangling below me. My body was hanging down, long and stretched out like some animal's carcass about to be gutted for the flesh. The first thing that came up in my head was to struggle, but it was difficult as my body felt numbed. My legs tingled as if they were both asleep when I tried to move them. The only thing I could do was dilate my eyes and tremble in the wake of the man and he moved in to hold me.
Anything that size could have easily torn my hapless body to pieces if he wanted but I initially started to calm me was the simple fact that he didn't. His roughly textured skin ran on my back and he let my body fall into his palm while the other hand untethered me. As he did this, my body finally aligned with my thoughts and I could move. Just as I began to relax, his hand closed in around me and held me vertical to the ground so my legs dangled again. Though I knew he wasn't going to kill me, at least not yet, I did not like him holding me. How could I trust the man? I couldn't.
I jerked my spine once, turning my head away from the grinning teeth of the man. When I slammed my body in the other direction, I saw his smile had disappeared. I began flailing my legs and tried to wriggle my arms free. When I opened my mouth to let out a cry, nothing came. Feeling my arm start to come loose, I noticed the man said something to me. I was focused on escaping, so I didn't hear it. He let me go on his own accord after a very brief struggle.
My body hit the wooden desk knees first and then the rest my body came down. My optics made a sharp sound as they hit the wood. It hurt. After rolling on my back, I saw the man reaching for me again.
He was saying, "Did I hurt you?"
You great oaf! You did hurt me! I snapped in my head where I could not speak it, So now I do not trust you.
In a bit of a panic to avoid being lifted again, a bumbled to my feet. It was difficult to stand up so I inadvertently started walking away. Trying to look as dignified as I could, I let my stumbling legs bring me a few paces away. I nearly fell again when my foot rolled under an ink quill. After recovering from that, I whipped my head around to give the man a glare.
I was half expecting him to come reaching for me with his big stupid hands, but he was sitting at the desk I stood upon just a-smiling away. That confused me. It was at that point when I started asking myself questions.
He severed my thought before I could begin.
"Go on. Look around at all my things. It is only the very start of the world."
Not knowing what else to do with myself, I started to stroll around his desk. It was rather uncomfortable; that man would not take his eyes off me. I did my best to avoid looking at him. I was interrupted from investigating a standing device with a dome facing toward the door behind me when I heard scribbling. The man was writing madly upon a sheet of paper. I could only guess he was recording my every move. In all his insane enthuse, I could only guess he didn't have the slightest idea I knew exactly what he was doing. He tracked me as I looked at some pens, tacks, clips and other office brick-a-brack: as I walked around some glass bottles and a radio: as I pulled up a small box that contained "cigars" and read a book that was opened somewhat. The page I happened to be looking at was on the roots of what the men called "alchemy."
As I read, my mind drifted. The reading cleared my frightened mind of the hazel eyes of the crazy man. Before I knew it, I was inundated with quandaries. Who am I? What am I? Why did that man tie me up? He did tie me up, didn't he? Why is he watching me and taking notes on me? Am I strange? Am I the only of my kind? Why am I here? Why in an adult body? Do I have a past I forgot?
I felt like my very skin was heavy with questions. I gazed into a mirror, viewing my face for the first time. I found it a bit of a shock that I looked just as thin as the man, maybe even thinner. There was a sort of resemblance between he and I that made me uneasy.
But it couldn't be. Could it?
I looked at the man. He had stopped taking notes on me and was looking at me calmly. My brain was running full power. I awoke in his room: in his arms. I am not a flesh and bone creature: I am made from objects in this room. His knowing look: his enthuse to see me move: his concern over me.
"I know that look. You know, don't you?" Said the man, "You're so intelligent."
He then reached out a hand toward me, "Come here. I'll help you speak."
I hesitated before coming over to him and his clumsy hands. I held my chest up and kept my chin high; I was telling him that I was letting him do this for my benefit and not his amusement. He seemed to understand.
So there I was in the dumb man's hand again. I dreaded it. Some primal instinct in my head was telling me not to go and lie belly-up while the man poked around inside me. It made me look weak but no one was around to see so it was only between he and I (but already that was one person too many). I felt something tickle in my throat and he suddenly put me back on my feet.
After pounding my chest a few times, I let the voice run into my mouth. It scared me at first. It was no human voice; it was gnarled and fuzzed. I swung my head up and tapped my foot, giving the man a look.
He seemed to be at a loss for answers.
"Try again," He offered at last.
I let out a long vowel and my voice began to clear. It was still on its way but I wanted to say what needed to be said, so I crowed out;
"I was not born; I was created. And you created me."
The man appeared to know what I said in spite of my new voice's troubles. He reached over me and plucked the mirror and stood it up in front of me. During the brief time I gazed at myself I continued to piece things together in my head. By a combination of my appearance, what I could make out of my voice and just by how I held myself without thinking, I realized something I did not like. I was aged. But how could that be? I only came into existence minuets ago. But it was so. I was put into an elderly body. I had no chance at ever having a youth. That fact angered me. Did he intend for me to never experience youth? How dare he dictate my life in such a way! Does he not realize the ramifications on the thing he so carelessly gave life to?
Frustrated, I took a breath and let it out on a rough snort.
"You're breathing? That's strange. I didn't put anything like lungs inside you," said the man, apparently noticing.
I looked up at a crinkling sound. The man was holding something small in his hands that I suppose he'd taken from a bowl on a shelf with a few others of the same object. It looked like a small square with some depth. It was not made from wood or metal like the other things in the room. I had trouble bringing up names of objects that were not mechanical. He unwrapped the foil cover to reveal something brown inside. A faint sweet smell hit me that made me, for some reason, want it. I took a step closer, still perplexed about the little brown square's identity.
Appearing to have had a plan in mind all along, the human lowered his hand to my level. He held the square close to my chest, offering it to me. I wanted it, but I didn't know if it was safe.
"Take it. It's chocolate," Said the crazy man.
That name didn't seem like any kind of threatening object so I did take it. My claws left small marks in it. It wasn't completely solid. Being close to it and its smell made me feel strange in an unpleasant way. While I just stood, not having a clue as to what to do with it, the man reached up and over me and took a bit for himself.
"Try eating it."
Then he demonstrated for me by taking his chocolate and putting it in his disgusting human mouth. After swallowing it, he looked down at me expectantly.
But when I tried to eat, the candy hit the back of my mouth. I tried to get it down my nonexistent gullet, but it only hit the back again. Gnawing on it only stuck the brown stuff onto the inside of my mouth. I looked down at it longingly after wiping away what was on my lips.
"I guess not," said the white-coated man as if it were nothing, "It's gone stale anyway."
I couldn't take my eyes off the food. I longed for what I could not enjoy. The fact that I could feel hunger but to nothing to stop it hurt me more than my elderly body.
"Sit."
His voice shattered my thought. I looked up at him defiantly. The man appeared to notice my refusal but continued in a calm manner.
"You might want to. I'm about to tell you everything."
I couldn't help to have my face soften. Everything? I seated myself on a book, unable to resist the curiously that pricked my skin.
He started slowly as if he had no idea where to begin or how to find words for what he needed to say. After his eyes darted around the room for a moment, he reached over me once more and plucked a copper thing from the domed device I was tied to. He held it only a few centimeters front my nose.
"Some time ago, I used this device to give intelligence to a supercomputer robot. I thought by giving it a human brain, it would be able to think. My efforts were successful. This magnificent supercomputer, this artificial intelligence, surpassed my wildest fantasies. It was everything I had come to hope it would be. As I went on experimenting with the machine, I began to believe it might be sentient. It began acting something like a child."
The man showed me pen sketches of a circular computer with a large camera on its front for it to see. It was attached to a stand and had long arms hooked up to it for what I assume were for these "tests" it was given. I almost could feel, only by looking at it, that it was connected to me in some way. It was something like a brother I felt. I reached to touch the drawing, but it was put down.
"I could have never found out," He said darkly, "The independent project was being funded and supported by our State's chancellor. I thought I was working well within my deadline, but one day, while I was giving the machine a few warm up tests for the day, some of his guards entered my station. The Chancellor stood over us and informed me what the machine was going to be put to use posthaste. I tried to tell him that the machine wasn't ready for anything rigorous yet, but his guards prevented me from stopping them. My machine appeared to defend itself, or me, and attacked one of the guards, killing him, before it was taken away."
He took out a clipping from an article. The metal creature that was shown hardly resembled the thing that was drawn. I could just barely see it encapsulated in a metal shell.
"They took my machine and made this. The machine was only weeks away from being ready for such a workload but it was tragically put into use too soon. It was used to devise and create war machines for the Chancellor's invasions on smaller, weaker neighboring countries. I saw a news reel of it in use. They were trying to train it by hooking it up to electrodes. The machine appeared to be in pain. I would hate to think if it were sentient and had to be controlled that way.
"Soon after the wars began, the machine malfunctioned and began to send its war drones out to destroy our forces. With its intelligence, going into the fabrication mill to deactivate it proved impossible because of the unmovable defenses the machine had put in place to protect itself. In what I would only assume was a bout of spite, the Chancellor attempted to turn the State against me as I had designed the machine. He released the film recording of my machine fatally attacking one of his guards when they came to take it away.
"I was forced trust myself with the 'Rebel' movement, a force that opposed the industrializing of our State from the beginning. The other citizens of the country, rattled by the recent war and with a need for comfort in compliancy turned on me and attempted to fight back against the war drones. However, my machine had improved on the chemical structure of the chlorine gas used in warfare. This enhanced strain appears to leave literally nothing alive in its path, or so my Rebel colleges have discovered through research.
"It would appear that the time of men is drawing to an end. And selfishly, we possibly bring with us all life on Earth."
He stopped in what was apparently thought. While he did this, I was given time to digest what he had told me.
So this world, this world I had only yet been given minuets to breathe in, was drawing to close. I had only a very short time to live it, or at least, live it as the men knew it. Taking in my surroundings, the eventful newspapers, the colorful calendar and other upbeat shreds of before the metal and fire times, I realized that I had just barely missed a time of splendor and happiness. My thoughts again turned to this man. Again, I found myself angry that I had missed this time of ease.
"I created you. I am your father. You are the very first of my creations," He said.
Do I have a name?
"I imagined you and your brothers and sisters to come for a very specific purpose; you will ensure that life continues after the time of men ends.
"This device was used to bring my human spirit into you and it was used to bring my intelligence to the machine. You are a part of me, small being. You must ensure that you use this device to bring life back. I am currently working my modifying it for just this purpose. The gas being used to wipe us out also appears to be drying out the atmosphere. It appears to be designed to exterminate all living things permanently.
"By collaborating with others in the Rebel movement, I have come upon a hypothesis. The seeds of some plants can last for years and years in a state of dormancy. If it rains, then these seeds with germinate, beginning the world anew. Though, I'm afraid, it might be too late for animal life. However, perhaps this mystic science holds surprises I will not live to see."
Something told me I do not like what he was saying to me. What did all this amount to? Where did I and my unborn kin come in?
"I now know that the spirit works as a kind of energy. Perhaps, mixed with water, it might create the vital burst of power needed that mysteriously created the first microorganisms at the dawn of time."
What was he saying?
"I might have sacrificed myself for this, but my Rebels friends tell me that it would unlikely be enough energy to create life again. My device can only handle expelling souls once. Perhaps if I had distributed it into separate bodies, it would be allowed to grow as you yourself grow as a person. Maybe then it would be enough.
"My first being, you might not like what I have concluded."
I already took a guess; I was needed to die for this power source to get out of my body.
My head jittered as I tried to shake it 'no'. I moved away from the man. I didn't want to die.
"You must eventually give back what gave you life. This device will be able to release your energy to bring new life to the planet once it is full.
"I will not hold anything from you; I do not know if the transfer will be painless and I do not know what will happen to you as an individual being. I remain optimistic."
By the end of his speech, I could do nothing but move away from him in disbelief. I am a human with human feelings and emotions with no human body to satisfy my desires. No tears. No breath. No blood. I was brought to life too late to be able to live contently. Finally, my single purpose is to die forever in what I could assume was a horribly painful way. This man, my selfish father, my blood-god, did not seem to realize how horrible the existence was that he brought to be.
I was angry. I was frightened. I felt I had to say something to the man, but no words could escape me other than, "lair!".
"Lair! Lair! Lair..." I screamed, but my flaring emotions choked me up so my still-dysfunctional voice hardly created the words.
What came out was a monster-like fuzz of static and the muffled voice of an old man. My creator looked taken aback by my fury. The look on his face obviously told me that he didn't know what I was saying, but he appeared as if he realized he made a mistake. But, at that time of rage, his regret was simply not enough for me. For one of the few times in my life, I wished again for the nothingness; for the black curtain to fall on top of me and block my eyes and smother the wind out of me. I did not want to exist.
Both the man and I were shocked out of our confrontation by the door a few feet away slamming open. What stood in the door was yet another man. He was tall, rigid and stern. Something deeper and more primal than my even human mind told me to hide from him. I made a dead sprint for the pile of clutter on the left of the desk. I flattened myself under a book that was opened face down. My body is pale but I must have been in enough shadow not be seen because the frightening man didn't seem to notice my presence.
As I was wheezed for the breath that my paralyzed, panicked body demanded, the tall man made straight for my creator. I saw my creator clutch the pen quill that was close to his hand as he whipped around to face the other man.
"You, scientist!" Crowed the tall man looming over my creator.
I would only ever learn him by that name.
"You've discovered our location," stated the Scientist in an almost defeated manner.
"Your precious Rebels had one or two canaries ready to sing after prodded by our special interrogation methods," answered the scary man flatly.
"You needed a new use for the electrodes you misused on my machine?" the Scientist retorted with sharp wit.
I couldn't help but to admire his cleaver jab while I was hiding.
"At least they were more useful than your silly little movement. Luckily, I've found my own way to make them benefit the State once again. They so generously lent themselves to testing the effects of your machine's toxic gas," Gargled the rough voice of the man.
By the sound of his vocal chords, it appeared he had tasted a fair amount of the toxic gas himself.
"It is my educated guess, sir, that you will never be able to lead your state out of this war."
Had the Scientist and this man met? I asked myself
"I no longer require your services. Consider yourself disowned. I have hired thousands of other geniuses that surpass your capabilities in technology to counter this minor threat."
"That may be so, but you should know by now that technology without heart can be extremely dangerous," The Scientist told him levelly.
"Love doesn't win wars," The other man insisted in a toxic hiss, "And love won't save you from punishment for destroying my State."
"Like it or not, we are hooked together in responsibility for that," he took a breath, "And what do you have to back your threat? Is this personal, Mr. Chancellor? Where are your black arms? Or do you want the pleasure to yourself?"
The tip of the pin glinted in my creator's hands. My stomach sank with a sudden feeling of impending doom.
"You're a cleaver bastard," The Chancellor remarked swinging his arm from a holder in his red belt.
It was a heavy knife with horrible serrated edges and a curved, chiseled end. The weapon temporarily stupefied me with fear. The feeling of disaster felt like it was crushing my skull.
"Such an honor to the State should not be left to an expendable infantryman!"
The Chancellor then swung down at my creator with the terrible blade. I couldn't help but to let out a crackling cry. There was sudden movement of gray and white. Then, my ears rang with an agonized howl.
I repelled the overwhelming desire to run as far away as I could.
The knife was on the ground. It was clean. The tall man has his hands over his face which had blood pouring down. Along with the blood were tiny streams of black.
What is that black liquid?
The Scientist moved away from the hollering man. The stern man took his hands away. The sharp point of the pen was stuck in the white of his eye. The brass was more than half shoved into the white-turned-red surface. His reddened eye had blood smeared all around and ran down his eye like face paint and dribbled all over the floor. Ink was beginning the seep into the cut on his eye. Then he looked at the Scientist. The pen moved with the eye as it turned in the swollen socket. That was all I could take before I simply could no longer look.
As I had my eyes closed, feeling sick, there was more yelling. I couldn't pick out any words; the volume rang in my ears becoming only noise. I could tell that the Scientist was certainly winning the battle of yelling. Looking again, I saw the Chancellor fleeing, his hand over his eye.
The crushing feeling of confrontation quickly faded. It was all over. In that time, I completely had forgotten my desire to cease to exist.
The Scientist appeared to be looking for me. Almost as if I were glad to be wanted, I slipped out from under the book. He looked down at me, relived.
"I was afraid you might have run away," Said he, "What if he had found you?"
Why would he ask me that? I certainly didn't want to think about what would happen if that violent man saw me. I assumed men have never seen a creature like me, so how would he react to seeing a sentient pile of junk? He'd what to know how I worked. Shivering, I held one of my belts; I would rather keep my insides on the inside.
"Well, I don't think he'll be coming back now," The Scientist told me, apparently sensing my fear, "It's time for your journey to begin."
Not liking the sound of that, I backed away, shooting him a look.
"You can't stay with me," He whispered, drawing closer, reaching out a hand.
Why not? I whipped my head toward the window. The bad man was out there! And who knows how many of his so-called "black arms" were too. I hated my creator for bringing about my flawed existence, but I would sure as Hell take him over the world outside.
But I had no choice. He snatched me before I could run far away enough. When he got me, I was being held in a strange way. My entire head was in his hand, but everything from my waist down hung out. Not being able to see only clouded my reasoning further and I began struggling like mad. In that position, there was little I could to but flail my legs and burry my claws into his palm. My claws apparently caused him pain and he clutched me tighter. At that point, I felt choked by his grip and my desperate thrashings waned into nothing and I could only lie with my eyes widened and blindly staring.
He was not holding me for long until I heard the muffled sounds of the world beyond. I was released a few human footsteps away from the tall house I had been inside. When my spine was no longer being held in place by the Scientist, I fell over on my side. I was only on the ground for a moment before my intelligence came back and I could stand and stare up at him. He was looking down at me with an unreadable expression.
For that instant, my emotions became very confused. I hated this man for my wretched body and yet, as I stood before him, rejected from seeing him again, I felt heartbroken. How could I feel heartbroken over someone I hated unless somewhere I truly saw him as my father? Yes. Somewhere at the very center of me, I did see him as a father. That is why I walked toward him when he let me go.
When I went too close, he pushed me his arm's length away. Without thinking, I walked toward him again. This time, he nearly shoved me away. I hesitated before taking a step closer. He stopped me when he spoke.
"No."
I took yet another step in defiance.
"No," He ordered in a surprisingly threatening manner, "Go, or I'll hold you so you can't see and drop you where you won't ever be able to find the workshop again."
To me, that almost felt like a death threat. I started to ease away from him. I turned around to look at the world beyond. The streets were empty and the houses appeared empty as well. The whole world was bathed in ugly amber. The walls were plastered with conflicting messages. In the distance, I heard human voices rambling in harmony, almost like a chant. As I took in what was around me, my creator stood and walked away. I heard him pause in front of the door, apparently looking back, and then closed it behind him.
When he was gone and turned my head around. My chest was slowly filling with a ripping pain. I felt rejected. He was on to make my kin. He was on to spend his time on the stronger, quicker and smarter. I wasn't lying to myself; I knew it was true. Although I fully accepted my inadequacy, it still hurt. It still filled my throat and caused my jaw to tremble. It still ate at my heart.
Even when I knew all of this, I still had the will to go on. Not only that, but a powerful, cool, you might even say, cold, determination to preserve myself. And when the others came, I promised to protect them with the same ferocity no matter what the cost.
With that in mind, I stood sternly. To Hell with the Scientist and his skewed logic! With any luck, seeing what horrors the truth had done to my innocence, he would avoid telling the others what he had told me. When he abandoned me, my affiliation with him was severed. I would not carry out his will; I had my own. I faced the direction of the hollering human voices and I began to sneak toward them.
The Scientist was not my god and I was free.
Now all that was behind me; I was on to a new, hideous period of my life. The evil man and his soldiers had their shadowy hands around me from all sides and there was no way out.