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21/10/14: The Infernal Machine

It's gonna be the future soon,
And I won't always be this way,
When the things that make me weak and strange
Get engineered away…

The laughter was the worst part.

It was everywhere, omnipresent throughout my daily life. I could handle the insults – 'nerd', 'dork', 'geek' and all those insipid little insults – but the laughter cut. It cut right into my very being, tearing at my ego, my self-esteem, my pride. And the only advice you ever got for dealing with it was 'just ignore it.'

'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me' may as well be a maxim for the sheer pigheaded ignorance of mankind.

I reached my breaking point at age thirteen. I was in the hallway, talking with my good friends Carl and Sheen – pillars of support in an increasingly harsh world. We were discussing (and by discussing, I must honestly say I was talking at them) my ongoing development of a cyber-suit for use in my…extracurricular activities (just a touch of world saving, nothing too unusual). I had, rather stupidly, brought in a thruster from the suit's jetpack to demonstrate to them.

I activated it, and it promptly detonated. I believe I was blown into the opposing locker, but my memory of the incident is blurred, presumably something to do with the fact that I slammed headfirst into a hard metal object.

I remember regaining lucidness to the sound of a strange cacophony. As Carl and Sheen helped me to my feet, I began to realise what it was.

It was laughter. Here I was, literally bleeding from the forehead and covered in burns and bruising, and these dullards had the sheer gall to think it was funny.

That was it. That was the last straw. I walked out of school and never returned.

For a long time, I mulled over what had happened - what had driven these imbeciles to mock someone who was clearly their better. When I was fifteen, I came to a conclusion – humans were irrational. They lacked order. They lacked logic.

And I could fix that. I just needed volunteers.

When Timmy was fifteen, he began to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that Jimmy was going insane.

It was subtle at first – Jimmy would spend long periods in his lab, emerging with dark rimmed eyes and wild hair, another books of notes under his arm. But then he started questioning everyone and everything he met about what made them 'tick' – what they loved, what they hated, why they laughed, why they cried.

When Timmy brought this up one evening while hanging out with some of his friends in his backyard, he met with a decidedly mixed response.

"Genius is the flip side of insanity," shrugged Dani, "He's always been a bit crazy."

"Yeah," admitted Timmy, "But this is a new kind of crazy. This is creepy crazy."

"He's just trying to work out how the brain works," said AJ, "It's just harmless neuroscience."

"I dunno, I think I'm with Timmy on this," said Dib, scratching his chin, "Jimmy's always been a mostly mechanical scientist. All this biology stuff sounds kinda freaky coming from him."

"So he has a new interest," shrugged Dipper, "Nothing wrong with that."

Timmy had made to retort, but at that point, Mark Chang had arrived and Dib had begun on one of his many attempts to work out what made his 'freaky alien brain' tick. Jimmy's possible insanity was quickly forgotten.

On my sixteenth birthday, I did what nobody else had managed before – I mapped the human brain. This, you'll understand, beat the heck out of everybody else's 'sweet sixteen'.

Now came the moment of truth – I had the brain, now how could I increase rationality? Biologically it seemed impossible – every time I tried to increase the parts of the brain that dictated logic, the less-rational parts expanded to compensate. All I ended up with was a holographic representation of what looked like a cancerous blob.

Then, one day in the late summer, it hit me. I was trying to deal with the organic, when I should have been working on the synthetic.

My first task, of course, was to ensure that the human consciousness could survive unaltered in an electronic form. I was originally just going to ask Carl if he wanted to be scanned into a robot, but then fate intervened…

It was in a hospital in Portland that Timmy came to the sudden, undeniable conclusion that Jimmy had long lost his mind.

The day had started out well – Timmy had slept in and then spent the morning in the company of his god family; today's agenda being 'moon-carting', a sport Cosmo had invented by combining go-karting and Luna Rovers. Stupidity could often be genius in its own right.

He had returned at one to a stream of missed messages. While he had been gone, his friends had had a little visit from one Vlad Masters.

Vlad had never quite gotten over his fall from grace after the Disasteroid incident – some said that his Plasmius side had taken full control of him, and perhaps they were right. In one final, desperate rage against the world, Vlad had gotten it into his head that making a deal with Bill Cipher was a good idea.

It was not.

To cut a very long story short, Danny was going to be in an infirmary for quite some time, Dani was in an only slightly better state, four thousand acres of Oregon wilderness had been burnt down (and central Amity wasn't much better), and basically all of Timmy's friends had injuries of varying severity.

Timmy, naturally, felt utterly horrible.

He arrived in the hospital where his friends had congregated as soon as he could, running into Jimmy, Tucker and Mabel in the Emergency waiting room.

"I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, "We forgot to take the Recaller – god, I am so stupid…"

"Timmy, get a hold of yourself," snapped Jimmy, "Regret isn't going to help anybody."

Timmy got the distinct impression that the genius was most put out by his absence.

"There's nothing you could've done," reassured Tucker, "Vlad's bad enough on his own, but Vlad and Bill – most of us just got brushed aside."

"But nobody's hurt too bad, right?" exclaimed Timmy.

Mabel looked away from him, and Timmy got the impression that he'd just said the worst thing possible.

"Jimmy, please tell me nobody…"

"Only Vlad," replied Jimmy, far too coldly for Timmy's comfort, "That's what happens when you play with fire. Danny's going to pull through. That just leaves Dipper and Wendy…"

"What happened?" demanded Timmy.

"Bill took control of Vlad," replied Tucker, "So naturally, he went for Dipper first. Blew up the Mystery Shack gift shop to get him. Trouble was, Dipper wasn't alone…heck, Soos was pretty lucky to get out unscathed."

Timmy buried his head in his hands.

"You're literally telling me that all this happened while my back was turned?" he groaned.

"It's not your fault, Timmy," reassured Tucker.

"It feels like it," muttered Timmy.

Jimmy clenched his fists.

"Alright, that does it," he snapped, "No more moping. I'm going to fix this."

He stormed further into the hospital.

"What exactly is he hoping to prove?" demanded Tucker.

"No idea," shrugged Timmy.

He turned to Mabel.

"Mabel, I am so, so sorry about this…"

Vlad was an idiot, and it got him killed. Why was he an idiot? Simple. He didn't test his theory – he didn't study Bill before he made a deal with him, and that was his downfall. I, on the other hand, had thoroughly tested my device before using it on human test subjects. Sure, the tests were done on rodents, but still.

Close study of Dr. Nora Wakeman's blueprints for Jenny revealed the most advanced humanoid android (gynoid? I'd never been good at the terminology for this sort of thing) yet constructed. I improved the plans.

I added a synthetic skin covering, for a start. What good is a human-robot if it can't blend in?

With a combination of these blueprints and x-ray data released to me by the hospital in Portland, I designed the first two examples of what I now call homo mechanicus – the first humans to be converted to entirely synthetic life forms. For this first outing, I left the brain structure exactly as it was – increasing the logic centres would come in later marks.

I remember being asked if what I was doing was a little bit 'ghoulish'. I have no idea who exactly asked, but I disregarded it.

It was hard to convince people that Jimmy needed help after he almost literally raised the dead.

Timmy watched in the corner of his lab as Jimmy explained what he had done – he had transferred the minds of Dipper Pines and Wendy Corduroy to synthetic forms, totally identical in function and appearance to their human forms. They were alive – and as a little bonus, functionally immortal. This little act of playing god had made him quite popular.

Meanwhile, Timmy 'I forgot to pick up my phone and all of my friends nearly died' Turner was getting something of the cold shoulder treatment.

Eventually he got sick of all the praise being thrown on Jimmy and went to sit outside, under a tree in Jimmy's backyard. There he waited for it all to end.

"Timmy?"

Timmy looked up. He was rather surprised to find Tucker had followed him out.

"I think you're right about Jimmy," he said.

"Well, at least someone believes me," muttered Timmy.

"Dude, he's started turning people into robots!" exclaimed Tucker, "That's kind of a warning sign!"

"So what do we do about it?" asked Timmy.

"We have to convince everyone else he needs help," replied Tucker, "Since he literally just raised the dead, this might be a bit hard…"

"Oh, you think?"

By the time I was seventeen, I finally had the respect I deserved. I had raised the dead. I had developed a way to live theoretically indefinitely. I was nearly God.

Naturally, Mabel was the first to ask for a conversion, and I was only too happy to do so – same parameters as Dipper, as promised. But she was the last 'baseline' android.

It was time to improve the human condition. Sure, this would render the Pines' and Wendy obsolete almost immediately, but such was the price of progress.

It was just a matter of changing around the casing which housed the transferred conscious – more power for rationality, less for superfluous thoughts.

One by one, my colleagues took me up on my offer of conversion. One by one, homo mechanicus began to grow.

The only problem was Timmy Turner – still in disgrace after his utter failure to turn up to the battle with Vlad and Bill. He was starting to gather followers, convincing them that I was 'insane' and needed help. Foley joined him first, then Dib (what right does he have to call me mad?), then Dani…

I didn't care. I had no idea just how annoying they'd end up being…

At nineteen, Timmy had known for some time that Jimmy was insane – but he'd never considered that he might have started to turn evil.

It was, in the end, Carl Wheezer who clued him in. He turned up in the dead of night, Sheen in tow, looking distraught. Timmy had taken him up to his room (he still lived with his parents, joy) and calmed him down.

"Okay Carl," asked Timmy, "What's going on?"

He glanced over to Sheen.

"And why's Sheen so quiet tonight?"

"Jimmy did something," replied Carl, shaking his head, "Like he did with Dipper but…this is different."

"Different?" asked Wanda, "In what way?"

"Isn't Sheen always different?" quizzed Cosmo.

"He doesn't talk anymore," said Carl, "He just…follows Jimmy around. He helps him with his inventions, he helps him lead the team, but…but…"

He sniffled.

"…but he's not Sheen anymore."

"I am Sheen," interrupted Sheen, his voice a hollow monotone, "I am simply a refined Sheen. I am an improved Sheen. I am better."

Timmy shuddered, as if a cold breeze had just blown through the room.

"That's just wrong," gulped Wanda, "It's just…wrong."

"Jimmy wouldn't do this," snapped Timmy, "This…this is practically a lobotomy! Even if he's insane, he's not…"

"He calls it 'being more rational'," explained Carl, "He says he's making people more…logical.'"

Timmy shook his head.

"We have to stop him."

Carl. My oldest and truest friend had sold me out.

The betrayal shook me to my very core. If my father had turned out to be selling my inventions to the Guys in White in exchange for them assassinating me, it would not have felt so bad.

Carl.

That was it. That was my revelation. Humanity was a vile, base race that needed to be superseded by homo mechanicus. It was our evolutionary imperative. I had to lead the coming revolution.

I had to end the human race.

…Carl.

Timmy was twenty when he realised Jimmy couldn't be saved.

It had been a while in coming. Timmy had developed what he called the 'Jimmy Intervention Force' – a team consisting of himself, Carl, Tucker, Dani, Dib, Jenny and – irony of ironies – the Pines and Wendy, who had realised their 'saviour' was hardly being altruistic.

They had entered Jimmy's lab by way of Carl's useful if creepy bag of Jimmy's hair. They had descended deep into the labyrinth of machinery, finding that the walls were lined with massive wires and valves.

Eventually, they found Jimmy.

He was standing, arms crossed, in front of a small platoon of homo mechanicus, most of whom Timmy knew – AJ, Chester, Tak, Patrick, Sheen, Libby, even randoms from Retroville like Nick Dean and Butch. All were armed with what looked like pulse rifles – all were aiming at the intruders.

"Hello, Turner," sneered Jimmy in a tone that sounded just a little too much like Crocker, "We've been expecting you."

"Jimmy," breathed Timmy, "Why?"

"Progress, my friend, progress," replied Jimmy, "Progress you will soon be joining."

A light turned on. Jimmy and his minions were standing in front of a machine, shaped disturbingly like a heart, with two chambers attached to each side – one marked 'man', the other 'machine.'

"So," said Jimmy, "Who first?"

It's gonna be the future soon,
I've never seen it quite so clear,
When my heart is breaking I can close my eyes
and it's already here.

AN: BLASMIUS

Yeah, made it up as I went along. Hopefully it doesn't suck.