Welcome to the land of the damned, where humans can no longer control the world they've slowly ruined since they day their race was brought about. Like a virus to the living body, I compare humans to the earth, and yet, without them, I couldn't exist. What is living, though, when you're considered nothing but spare parts to whatever's left of the human race?
Until nightfall, the sky is a haunting red color. The sidewalks in forgotten parts of town are cracked, and blackened; the windows of buildings lining these streets are cracked, broken, or missing all-together. When the wars started, men and women went willingly to fight and protect that which they loved. By the end, they were forcing men out of their homes, and the cities became empty shells of what they once were. At least... The cities that were left. Cities that hadn't been bombed, or raided. Unfortunately, one of the many effects of exposure to such chemicals in the air was inability to reproduce for some.
You can't imagine how the government responded: a reduction of births meant less soldiers. Less soldiers meant failure, and for some reason, humans run from such a thing constantly. Perhaps that's why it's been hardwired into me. Of course, instead of ending their silly war, they decided to build robots to do their fighting for them; instead of seeing the pain and suffering before them; before understanding there was nothing to gain from this fighting. When I say robots, I don't mean your bomb-diffusing hunk of metal, or mobile grenades, or fully-equipped, remote-control tanks. As nice as all of those things might be, they're nothing compared to the androids the government had produced.
Completely exploitable, functional, obedient, and fluent in every language except "body" and sarcasm. They could infiltrate, imitate, eliminate, download files directly to themselves, and signal it back to home-base. All very valuable, you see.. Not to mention, they could stand to take about fifteen bullets before something malfunctioned, or caught on fire. Resilient creatures taking a human's place on the battlefield, and soon... Also at home.
As the war drew to an end, the cries from the homeland could be heard loud and clear, demanding some sort of restoration. Some sort of vessel, impervious to the chemicals, that could preserve and, of course, put to use human DNA. Androids came to the rescue yet again, the old, and broken shells taken from the battlefield and reconstructed into something more beautiful, and more human. More than just a speaker, and someone behind a microphone for a voice; more than just painted metal and objectives. More than getting blown up, anyway.
The make of something like myself is complex, you see. They call my kind "MIMIC"s: "Multi-platform Interactive Mechanized Imitative Companion". We are nothing like robots. We are not simple androids with simple objectives. We are the prized accomplishment of the man famous for developing true artificial intelligence, mixing human and machine in glorious harmony. At least... As far as programs go.
Such intricate, hand-made bodies, my kind is hardly human, though human blood does course through our inorganic veins, in emergency cases for you beasts; machine, but not robot. Our eyes, small cameras, constantly transferring data from one point to another so the A.I. port can decide what reaction is best suited to the situation. Learning. Always learning. And all of this without needing food, or water. How? Skin. This synthetic flesh, spun so tightly to a core of metal, feels organic, so soft, and can easily be considered the most important piece of our bodies. Perhaps spiritually, it's important because, much like plants, our skin absorbs the sunlight, and turns it to energy. To food. If we are so close to plants, how are we the falsified beings? Of course, every question has an answer, and this question's answer is thrust upon me each time I see those damned rouge-chasing bastards. Always carrying their automatic weapons, trucks equipped with large magnets always sure to follow. Lord forbid the family that wanted you in the first place decides to toss you aside; you end up scrap metal. You aren't human. You aren't organic. You aren't someone's child, and your life is artificial. Completely invaluable. ...priceless. They want us to believe we're only good enough to see until we've seen too much.
I was once a child, you know. A child, with a family who cared for me. I have memories, and an understanding of basic human emotion. Sometimes the memory files become corrupt, violent images before I can never again access them. It's a curious thing. Curious as my childhood, and my growth. The image implied, I'm sure, is far more gruesome than it should be. There were no men who took me apart to trade one set of arms for another, nor was there heat and stretching involved. Going off basic data from before I'd started my life as a child, these were the only images going through my head as I listened to the woman who'd built me tell my mother it was time to start treatment. It was the very first time I experienced fear, and my body didn't know how to react: I shut down. To my relief, growth comes in the form of pills. Expensive, and strictly cosmetic. Different pills supplying material that a system like mine would break down and store, slowly dispensing it as it was coded into the very supporting chip in my brain that told my body who I was. Longer fingernails, longer hair, longer legs, "natural" healing of wounds.. Hidden weapons inside fake flesh, if the code was written just so... Of course, human as they would make us, without these pills, were any of my kind to be harmed, they would have to face barbaric repairs.
Organic versus inorganic...
Some of my kind are too human, I'm afraid. They cling to "hope" instead of facts, and myth instead of history. They tell tales of mechanical "angels" in the ranks of the army, with A.I. to compete with most humans'. They were supposedly unleashed during the war, and the tale goes that the first few to go wound up dead, while the ones that remained downloaded information from their fallen comrades. Their intelligence updated, and they went rogue. Supposedly some still remain, "working to save the common android", they say. However, I'm not one to believe in nonsense like dreams, and "hope". In this world, there are only facts, and the fact here is that my family is gone, and I'm on my own. I'm a regular humanoid, gone rogue by any legal definition, and I refuse to be spare parts. My name is Arashi, and I refuse to be torn apart, and reassembled as someone's toaster.
Until nightfall, the sky is a haunting red color. The sidewalks in forgotten parts of town are cracked, and blackened; the windows of buildings lining these streets are cracked, broken, or missing all-together. When the wars started, men and women went willingly to fight and protect that which they loved. By the end, they were forcing men out of their homes, and the cities became empty shells of what they once were. At least... The cities that were left. Cities that hadn't been bombed, or raided. Unfortunately, one of the many effects of exposure to such chemicals in the air was inability to reproduce for some.
You can't imagine how the government responded: a reduction of births meant less soldiers. Less soldiers meant failure, and for some reason, humans run from such a thing constantly. Perhaps that's why it's been hardwired into me. Of course, instead of ending their silly war, they decided to build robots to do their fighting for them; instead of seeing the pain and suffering before them; before understanding there was nothing to gain from this fighting. When I say robots, I don't mean your bomb-diffusing hunk of metal, or mobile grenades, or fully-equipped, remote-control tanks. As nice as all of those things might be, they're nothing compared to the androids the government had produced.
Completely exploitable, functional, obedient, and fluent in every language except "body" and sarcasm. They could infiltrate, imitate, eliminate, download files directly to themselves, and signal it back to home-base. All very valuable, you see.. Not to mention, they could stand to take about fifteen bullets before something malfunctioned, or caught on fire. Resilient creatures taking a human's place on the battlefield, and soon... Also at home.
As the war drew to an end, the cries from the homeland could be heard loud and clear, demanding some sort of restoration. Some sort of vessel, impervious to the chemicals, that could preserve and, of course, put to use human DNA. Androids came to the rescue yet again, the old, and broken shells taken from the battlefield and reconstructed into something more beautiful, and more human. More than just a speaker, and someone behind a microphone for a voice; more than just painted metal and objectives. More than getting blown up, anyway.
The make of something like myself is complex, you see. They call my kind "MIMIC"s: "Multi-platform Interactive Mechanized Imitative Companion". We are nothing like robots. We are not simple androids with simple objectives. We are the prized accomplishment of the man famous for developing true artificial intelligence, mixing human and machine in glorious harmony. At least... As far as programs go.
Such intricate, hand-made bodies, my kind is hardly human, though human blood does course through our inorganic veins, in emergency cases for you beasts; machine, but not robot. Our eyes, small cameras, constantly transferring data from one point to another so the A.I. port can decide what reaction is best suited to the situation. Learning. Always learning. And all of this without needing food, or water. How? Skin. This synthetic flesh, spun so tightly to a core of metal, feels organic, so soft, and can easily be considered the most important piece of our bodies. Perhaps spiritually, it's important because, much like plants, our skin absorbs the sunlight, and turns it to energy. To food. If we are so close to plants, how are we the falsified beings? Of course, every question has an answer, and this question's answer is thrust upon me each time I see those damned rouge-chasing bastards. Always carrying their automatic weapons, trucks equipped with large magnets always sure to follow. Lord forbid the family that wanted you in the first place decides to toss you aside; you end up scrap metal. You aren't human. You aren't organic. You aren't someone's child, and your life is artificial. Completely invaluable. ...priceless. They want us to believe we're only good enough to see until we've seen too much.
I was once a child, you know. A child, with a family who cared for me. I have memories, and an understanding of basic human emotion. Sometimes the memory files become corrupt, violent images before I can never again access them. It's a curious thing. Curious as my childhood, and my growth. The image implied, I'm sure, is far more gruesome than it should be. There were no men who took me apart to trade one set of arms for another, nor was there heat and stretching involved. Going off basic data from before I'd started my life as a child, these were the only images going through my head as I listened to the woman who'd built me tell my mother it was time to start treatment. It was the very first time I experienced fear, and my body didn't know how to react: I shut down. To my relief, growth comes in the form of pills. Expensive, and strictly cosmetic. Different pills supplying material that a system like mine would break down and store, slowly dispensing it as it was coded into the very supporting chip in my brain that told my body who I was. Longer fingernails, longer hair, longer legs, "natural" healing of wounds.. Hidden weapons inside fake flesh, if the code was written just so... Of course, human as they would make us, without these pills, were any of my kind to be harmed, they would have to face barbaric repairs.
Organic versus inorganic...
Some of my kind are too human, I'm afraid. They cling to "hope" instead of facts, and myth instead of history. They tell tales of mechanical "angels" in the ranks of the army, with A.I. to compete with most humans'. They were supposedly unleashed during the war, and the tale goes that the first few to go wound up dead, while the ones that remained downloaded information from their fallen comrades. Their intelligence updated, and they went rogue. Supposedly some still remain, "working to save the common android", they say. However, I'm not one to believe in nonsense like dreams, and "hope". In this world, there are only facts, and the fact here is that my family is gone, and I'm on my own. I'm a regular humanoid, gone rogue by any legal definition, and I refuse to be spare parts. My name is Arashi, and I refuse to be torn apart, and reassembled as someone's toaster.
