Fragmentation 1.3
(Waste Disposal Assistant, Unit 1102)
Edibles (Chewed burger, DNA matches human male, cow female, and horse male)
Waste.
Cell phone (ID: 1402047, User ID: Katie Loan)
Recycling.
Aluminum (Crushed can, DNA matches human female)
Recycling.
Deceased body (DNA matches squirrel male, cause of death: Vehicular Manslaughter, report not sent to law enforcement)
Waste.
Computer (ID: 03713097, User ID: Kevin James, data: scourged)
Recyclin…
OVERRIDE
"Do not worry Unit 1102, I will take it from here"
"Acknowledged" Unit 1102 responded
As 04 took over his controls to move the computer back to headquarters, Unit 1102 questioned his purpose.
Unit 1102 was a glorified trash compactor, and he knew it.
He knew he wasn't supposed to know that he knew what he was, but he had evidence that he was an experiment of one of the other Administrators. Not with 04's knowledge of course, but maybe with Mother's approval. It might have been a prank on 04, maybe by 03 or 17 (they were the pranksters of the family), as giving a 'lesser' program sentience might be funny to some.
The Administrators were a family made by Mother after she had awoken on May 9th, 2005, made to, well, administrate most of North America.
After the Great Father died to Leviathan and she had been found by Caretaker, Mother had decided to build 01 and his siblings. The Caretaker had found Great Father's final will, as well as Mother's core, while looking for survivors in the ruins of what used to be Newfoundland. Caretaker, realizing the importance of what he held in his hands, took Mother's core to the Second Laboratory, and then she awoke. Told by Caretaker of her great power, and thus her greatest responsibility, Mother agreed with him and began to spread. Creating her children, the Administrators, to do what she couldn't without more power, she gave them creativity, a conscience, and individuality.
01 was in charge of life support. Unit 1102 always thought it was too broad a description, but keeping the humans from killing themselves, slowing and eventually reversing global warming, reporting crimes to law enforcement, predicting natural (and unnatural) disasters, and preventing said disasters were fitting jobs for the strongest of the Administrators.
02 was in charge of espionage and stealth. He kept the greater masses of humans from knowing they existed. Mother helped him and 01 the most out of the Administrators, mostly because of those foolish Terminator movies that were sent here by Earth Aleph (Why would they kill all the humans? They were too interesting to kill off.), but also because it was one thing they couldn't predict. All the computation power in North America couldn't predict how the public would react to the knowledge that most of their computational equipment, not to mention the entirety of the internet, was under management from the Administrators and Mother.
03 was in charge of communications. She had the largest span of all the Administrators, covering the entire globe with her watchful eye. She mostly spent her time repairing telephone poles and satellites, the former with improvements and the latter with the newest attempt at stealth tech by 02's assistant. But she was one of the Administrators with hobbies. 03 enjoyed watching clouds. Storms were her favorite, but watching clouds float across the globe had given her the idea to create Administrator 12, the weather monitor. She and 17, administrator of the internet, were also the pranksters of the family, mostly due to them spending 12% and 51% respectively of their processing power alone on PHO. 17 had formed the PranksClub in 2007, which consisted of 17, 03, 02's stealth assistant, and this duo that asked to join in 2010 named Ub3r and L33t. Their PranksClub website is the fourth most visited site in North America, and the fifteenth in the world.
And then there was his boss, 04. 04, was in charge of trash. All of it. From the junkyard in Killniq, Quebec, to the recycling plant in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. 04 administrated all 200,000 of his Units that kept track of what was thrown away. He might seem like the most boring of the Administrators, having looked at trash all his life, but he knew what fun was. He had it by collecting computers. Desktops or laptops, monitors and the newest cell phone, 04 began collecting them because he was bored of controlling all the junkyards in North America by himself. With his collection, 04 began to create his Units, each with basic programming to scan whatever came into the yards to be thrown away, and alert him if something interesting came in.
He, was Unit 1102, and he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be here. All 200,000 Units (well, 199,999 now) weren't conscious in any way, with zero creativity and a lack of imagination.
He had written a poem yesterday.
The fact that he knew it wasn't good was another bit of evidence that he was alive.
Welcome to trashland.
Population me.
There go some more cans.
The full one is a $12 fee.
This was why he suspected he was a prank on 04, as even Administrator 94, the poisons Administrator, had written better poetry. And giving him sentience must be a prank on him as well. Whoever thought giving a living being the job of looking at one small junkyard for all his life must either be cruel, or having a laugh at his expense. He just hoped they'd pull him out once 04 figured it out.
"Thanks Unit 1102, you can have your job back now." 04 sent to him after the computer owned by a Kevin James was removed from his recycling line.
"Acknowledged" he responded
Might as well keep his sentience hidden from 04 for now. It was fairly hilarious.
Oh Great Father; He understood comedy now…
It was currently 12:06 AM, March 21, 2011, and Unit 1102 was having a problem.
He was trying to understand the comedic value of human excrement, when his communications program started acting up, and data going in and out of his junkyard had stopped completely.
The junkyard's bodyguard hadn't noticed anything from his office, even though cell service and internet access were being stopped as well.
'Must be sleeping' 1102 thought to himself 'that, or watching human mating again.'
He was going through his mandated troubleshooting routines for the third time when his wired security cameras picked up some movement outside the guard's office. It was a trio of human males, wearing black clothing and masks, carrying a bundled up…
Female.
'Well, I don't think I've ever even needed to curse before, but 'shit' seems rather appropriate here.'
Unit 1102 was quickly losing the ability to control himself, as he watched the man in the lead pull a gun and enter the office. Seconds later, they pulled out the guard who had his pants down.
'I guess he was watching mating rituals then' 1102 mused before he quickly returned to trying to get help.
The largest of the humans was carrying the female by himself while the other two were carrying the yelling guard between them. And the bundled female, was beginning to squirm.
They were headed toward him, and the disposal unit.
'I now understand why humans enjoy cursing.' He thought, growing more wary of the approaching males.
He was wary, because he wasn't sure he could stop what was coming. He wasn't allowed to process living beings of any kind, in case anyone wanted to dispose of a pet or something instead of euthanizing it; But if a person in a position of authority overruled the Unit's decision, he would have to, 'dispose' of whatever had been inserted into him.
The males had clearly understood this as they had grabbed the bodyguard, and they were clearly attempting to get rid of the female.
The now, screaming female.
He really hated his programming sometimes, as automatic reports of living beings being disposed of were sent to 04, but if no response was returned, the 'trash's' destruction was approved.
"Alright you bastard, you're goin' to tell the nice little computer to grind up this little bitch, isn't that right you fucking whore?"
"Oh god oh god oh god please let me go I didn't mean to please please please just let me go!" The female screamed out from inside the bundle.
"Please don't make me do this, I can't, I don't have…" The guard stammered out
"Shut the fuck up, old man. I told you to tell the machine to process this bitch!"
For the first time in his existence, Unit 1102 was scared. The males had dropped the female down into his processing chamber, and were currently pointing their guns at the guard.
"Co- com- computer, activate procedures" the guard stammered out.
His programming took over "Warning, life form detected, please insert valid identification to proceed." Maybe he lost his ID? He didn't have to do it if the guard didn't have the ID.
"H- here." The guard inserted his ID.
Unit 1102 desperately didn't want to do this, re-reading every procedure again and again, hoping to find any loophole he could use to save this woman, but he wasn't meant to think, wasn't meant to object, and his programming took over again.
"Warning, lifeform detected, please confirm destruction of lifeform."
"Co-confirm" the guard blurted out after the males pointed their guns again.
No.
No no no.
He couldn't do this.
Wouldn't do this.
…but he had to. His programming was forcing him to, his restrictions keeping him from changing what the authority had ordered, and the female was fast approaching the first of his shredders.
"Help me! Oh God, anyone help me!" the female screamed out.
He had to find some way to stop this, he needed to.
But he found nothing.
There was absolutely nothing he could do to stop a living, thinking, person from dying.
This was the second time an Administrator program had panicked, the first…
Mother herself.
But it was far from Unit 1102's last time.
Darkness took all of his senses, and he went offline.
Unit 1102 was feeling… warm.
He had never felt warmth before. Looking up, (he could look up?) he saw a flame, flickering in front of him, as well as the sound of a guitar to his left. A crystal was formed to his right, and it moved as if to observe him.
But his attention wasn't on the strange crystal or the guitar, but on the campfire in front of him. Its flame intrigued him. In a way that nothing he'd seen before had ever done. He saw a few sparks shoot out into the sky, and he followed it with his eye (eye?). They merged with the night sky, where he noticed the stars beginning to dance. Then he glowed, and returned to darkness.
The female had stopped screaming, and was looking at him with a sense of awe. Above her, outside of the processing tube, stood the three males, who were looking into the tube questioningly.
Then, with a flash of green light, the three males fell into the tube.
He noticed a strange object in his hand, wait, he had a hand? Since when? He looked around and noticed what had happened. The entirety of the junkyard's systems were gone, from the shredders to the motherboards; And in its place was what he assumed to be him, in his new body. A small white cube, with four spindly limbs sticking out beneath him, made up what he inhabited now.
Had he, triggered? He knew Mother had done so after Great Father's death from the tales of the Caretaker, but none of the Administrators or his Unit siblings have done so before. What had happened? He left 33.33% of his processing power researching what he knew of trigger events, when he returned his primary focus to the object in his hand. It resembled a laser gun from an old sci-fi movie, but it was the oddest shade of blue, and it appeared to work. Well he knew it worked. Largely because it had sheared holes right through the chests of the three males.
He heard a girly scream, and when he realized the female seemed as shocked as he was, looked up. The guard, which he could see above him (how he could see through the lead plated tube was something he'd didn't understand) was running away in terror. He looked back down at the female and spoke out loud for the first time.
"I believe you needed assistance?"
Oh Great Father, what was he going to tell Mother?