We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  For the present we shall leave this subject, which we present gratis to the members of the Philosophical Society. Should they consent to avail themselves of the vast field which we have pointed out, we shall endeavour to labour in it ourselves at some future and indefinite period.

  I am, Sir, etc.,

  CELLARIUS

  (1863)

  MECHANOPOLIS

  Miguel de Unamuno

  The Spanish Basque essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born in 1864 in Bilbao, Spain. He is best remembered for The Tragic Sense of Life (1912), a philosophical essay that had a powerful influence on the world psychoanalytic community. His most famous novel was Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a contemporary exploration of the Cain and Abel story. Unamuno was one of a number of notable interwar intellectuals, along with Karl Jaspers and José Ortega y Gasset, who resisted the intrusion of ideology into Western intellectual life. “Mechanopolis” illustrates a loss of faith in science, and a suspicion of technology, that would not emerge fully in science fiction before the 1960s “new wave”. In 1936 Unamuno was placed under house arrest by Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco. He died ten weeks later.

  While reading Samuel Butler’s Erewhon , the part where he tells us about an Erewhonian man who wrote The Book of Machines, and in so doing managed to get most of the contraptions banished from his land, there sprang to mind the memory of a traveler’s tale told me by an explorer friend who had been to Mechanopolis, the city of machines. He still shook at the memory of it when he told me the story, and it had such an effect on him that he later retired for years to a remote spot containing the fewest possible number of machines.

  I shall try to reproduce my friend’s tale here, in his very words, if possible:

  *

  There came a moment when I was lost in the middle of the desert; my companions had either retreated, seeking to save themselves (as if we knew in which direction salvation lay!), or had perished from thirst and fatigue. I was alone, and practically dying of thirst myself. I began sucking at the nearly black blood that was oozing from fingers raw from clawing about in the arid soil, with the mad hope of bringing to light any trace of water. Just when I was about to lie down on the ground and close my eyes to the implacable blue sky to die as quickly as possible, or even cause my own death by holding my breath or burying myself in that terrible earth. I lifted my fainting eyes and thought I saw something green off in the distance. “It must be a mirage,” I thought: nevertheless. I dragged myself toward it.

  Hours of agony passed, but when I arrived I found myself, indeed, in an oasis. A fountain restored my strength, and, after drinking, I ate some of the tasty and succulent fruits the trees freely offered. Then I fell asleep.

  I do not know how long I slept, or if it was hours, days, months, or years. What I do know is that I awoke a different man, an entirely different man. The recent and horrendous sufferings had been wiped from my memory, or nearly. “Poor devils,” I said to myself, remembering my explorer companions who had died in our enterprise. I arose, again ate of the fruit and drank of the water, and then disposed myself to examine the oasis. And—wouldn’t you know it—a few steps later I came upon an entirely deserted railway station. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere. A train, also deserted, was puffing smoke without engineer or stoker. It occurred to me out of curiosity to climb into one of the cars. I sat down and, without knowing why, closed the door, and the train started moving. A mad terror rose in me, and I even felt the urge to throw myself out the window. But repeating, “Let us see where this leads,” I contained myself.

  The velocity of the train was so great that I could not even make out the sort of landscape through which I sped. I felt such a terrible vertigo that I was compelled to close the windows. When the train at last stood still, I found myself in a magnificent station, one far superior to any that we know around here. I got off the train and went outside.

  I will not even try to describe the city. We cannot even dream of all of the magnificent, sumptuous things, the comfort, the cleanliness that were accumulated there. And speaking of hygiene, I could not make out what all of the cleaning apparatus was for, since there was not one living soul around, neither man nor beast. Not one dog crossed the street, nor one swallow the sky.

  On a grand building I saw a sign that said Hotel, written just like that, as we write ourselves, and I went inside. It was completely deserted. I arrived at the dining room. The most solid of repasts was to be had inside. There was a list on each table, and every delicacy named had a number beside it. There was also a vast control panel with numbered buttons. All one had to do was touch a button, and the desired dish sprang forth from the depths of the table.

  After having eaten, I went out into the street. Streetcars and automobiles passed by, all empty. One had only to draw near, make a signal to them, and they would stop. I took an automobile, and let myself be driven around. I went to a magnificent geological park, in which all of the different types of terrain were displayed, all with explanations on little signs. The information was in Spanish, but spelled phonetically. I left the park. A streetcar was passing by bearing the sign “To the Museum of Painting,” and I took it. There housed were the most famous paintings in the world, in their true originals. I became convinced that all the works we have here, in our museums, are nothing more than skillfully executed reproductions. At the foot of each canvas was a very learned explanation of its historical and aesthetic value, written with the most exquisite sobriety. In a half-hour’s visit I learned more about painting than in twelve years of study in these parts. On a sign at the entrance I read that in Mechanopolis they considered the Museum of Painting to be part of the Museum of Paleontology, whose purpose was to study the products of the human race that had populated those lands before machines supplanted them. Part of the paleontological culture of the Mechanopolites—the who?—was a Hall of Music and all of the other libraries with which the city was full.

  What do you wager that I shall shock you even more with my next revelations? I visited the grand concert hall, where the instruments played themselves. I stopped by the great theater. There played a cinematic film accompanied by a phonograph, but so well combined that the illusion of reality was complete. What froze my soul was that I was the only spectator. Where were the Mechanopolites?

  When I awoke the next morning in my hotel room, I found the Mechanopolis Echo on my nightstand, with all of the news of the world received through the wireless telegraph station. And there, at the end, was the following news brief: “Yesterday afternoon—and we do not know how it came about—a man arrived at our city, a man of the sort there used to be out there. We predict unhappy days for him.”

  My days, in effect, began to be torturous to me. I began to populate my solitude with phantasms. The most terrible thing about solitude is that it fills up by and by. I began to believe that all of those factories, all those artifacts, were ruled by invisible souls, intangible and silent. I started to think the great city was peopled by men like myself, but that they came and went without my seeing or coming across them. I believed myself to be the victim of some terrible illness, madness. The invisible world with which I populated the human solitude in Mechanopolis became a nightmare of martyrdom. I began to shout, to rebuke the machines, to supplicate to them. I went so far as to fall on my knees before an automobile, imploring compassion from it. I was on the brink of throwing myself into a cauldron of boiling steel at a magnificent iron foundry.

  One morning, on awakening terrified, I grabbed the newspaper to see what was happening in the world of men, and I found this news item: “As we predicted, the poor man who—and we do not know how—turned up in this incomparable city of Mechanopolis is going insane. His spirit, filled with ancestral worries and superstitions regarding the invisible world, cannot adapt itself to the spectacle of progress. We feel deeply sorry for him.”

  I could not bear to see myself pitied at last by those
mysterious, invisible beings, angels or demons—which are the same—that I believed inhabited Mechanopolis. But all of a sudden a terrible idea struck me: What if those machines had souls, mechanical souls, and it were the machines themselves that felt sorry for me? This idea made me tremble. I thought myself before the race that must dominate a dehumanized Earth.

  I left like a madman and threw myself before the first electric streetcar that passed. When I awoke from the blow, I was once more in the oasis from which 1 had started out. I began walking. I arrived at the tent of some Bedouins, and on meeting one of them. I embraced him crying. How well we understood each other even without understanding each other! He and his companions gave me food, we celebrated together, and at night I went out with them and, lying on the ground, looking up at the starry sky, united we prayed. There was not one machine anywhere around us.

  And since then I have conceived a veritable hatred toward what we call progress, and even toward culture, and I am looking for a corner where I shall find a peer, a man like myself, who cries and laughs as I cry and laugh, and where there is not a single machine and the days flow with the sweet, crystalline tameness of a stream lost in a forest primeval.

  (1913)

  Translated by Patricia Hart

  BIG DAVE’S IN LOVE

  T. D. Edge

  T. D. Edge won a Cadbury’s fiction competition at age 10 “but only did it for the chocolate”. He is also the youngest-ever England Subbuteo Champion. The story here also won a competition, which is how it found its way into the pages of Arc, a short-lived experiment in science fiction by the makers of New Scientist magazine. Edge has published several books for young people, while working as a government fire-safety researcher, street performer, school caretaker, and props maker for the Welsh National Opera.

  I skip down the street like I got sherbet up me backside. I sweep me arms wide and sing to the pigeons and the cats and the bespectacled mice what study form under the bookie’s shop floor.

  “What’s up, Jack?” says one of the cats.

  I should hold back the news, at least until I make it to the public bar of The Airpod and Nanomule. Then again, everyone in Gaffville deserves to hear the glad tidings.

  “Big Dave’s in love!” I shout, so loud I even gain the attention of the rebellious rooks on the multicoloured cogni-nylon thatched roofs. Other less cynical birds whoop and coo and shake their feathers in sheer joy. And I do a leap to click my boot heels together because this is what we’ve all needed to save us, ain’t it the truth.

  Gaffville’s pavements change colour from doomy brown to cheerful gold as I pass, sensing my mood of altruistic delight. In the transpods, high above the rooftops, formerly morose citizens wave splendidly down at Jack who is no doubt grinning like a dog with jam-covered balls.

  For I am Big Dave’s batman, and if I’m hopping down the street wearing a grin as wide as the boss’s waistline, then perhaps they won’t be doomed to melt away, into the general bio-electro-mechanical sludge that washes across all but a few patches of life on this poor, tired planet of ours.

  Because everyone knows, of course, that unless the big man finds a new reason to live, it will be only our dwindling love for him what keeps us shielded from the gunk.

  With the news not having reached the bar yet, all is still gloomyful in The Mule, and I decide to play it normal to start.

  “All right?” I say, shoulders drooped and feet a drag. Around a dozen blokes are sagging on their stools at the retro-1940s bar, all brass pumps and scepticallooking landlord.

  A few grunt by way of greeting; I slump against the counter and say, “The usual Ted, and make sure it’s warm.”

  I observe the etiquette, which is to let out a big sigh, followed by, “Bit nippy for the time of year, ain’t it?” The others observe the return etiquette, which is to nod sagely and take another sip of their briny brews.

  But I can’t contain myself no longer. I gulp half my recycled pint in one slurp, bang down the glass and shout, “The drinks are on me, everybody!”

  I pull out a wad of Bank of Dave notes, currency only in Gaffville, and tell Ted to stick it behind the bar.

  “Must be a week’s wages here, Jack,” he says, eyes smiling for once.

  Now I’ve got their attention, I take a deep breath and yell, “Big Dave’s in love!”

  There is a silence, which I hope is profound but is quickly broken by a chorus of “Nah!”s and sad shakings of heads.

  Arthur says, “Come on, Jack, you shouldn’t kid around like that. Who’s he supposed to be in love with, anyway? Aside from us toys, what don’t count.”

  “Would I put my wad behind the bar if I was joking?” I say.

  Their faces remain blank for a few moments, and I don’t blame them. For many years we’ve lived on nothing but hope, and even that had just about popped out like the last bubbles on a pint, right about the same time Dave stopped visiting his town.

  Ted, who is wiser than his crusty manner suggests, reaches across the counter to squeeze my shoulder. “Are you serious, Jack?”

  I nod. “It happened but an hour ago. At last, a message turned up on Dave’s comms chair. A woman called from the Pennines, or at least her maid did. She’d picked up a signal I sent through the sludge two whole years ago. She sent us back a full virtual, Dave saw it and let’s just say his eyes went sparklers and his jaw line appeared for the first time since he discovered vodka mallows.”

  They swap anxious looks, and I know what they are thinking. “Relax,” I say. “I sent a shopped virtual back; one of Dave before he was Big.”

  Bill frowns knowingly. “How do you know her maid didn’t do the same thing?”

  “It don’t really matter, do it?” I say “Once she gets here and actually sees another soulled in the authenticated flesh, I reckon she’ll behold nothing but beauty, even if in fact they’re both somewhat physically lapsed.”

  And at that, finally, their true, long-suppressed selves start to reappear, like buttercups poking through a cow pat. Shoulders straighten, legs stand firmer; drinks is ordered; Tony goes to the joanna and taps out a jiggy tune. Even Ted smiles like it ain’t on account of gas for once, and soon the old place is humming.

  We does the old arm-in-arm and swing around steps our pre-sludge versions performed when Dave’s own forebears was still hopeful that everything would be fine despite all the mounting electrical manure.

  Then the women hear the news and arrive with musical instruments and pies galore. Because of the serious duty in being Dave’s batman, I ain’t able to benefit from the ongoing support of a fine female, but that don’t stop me flirting and shiny-eying with the younger ones what are still unaccounted for.

  The retro-wooden floor squeaks and heaves under the dancing Cockney plates; recycled beer follows reconstituted soy steak and soy kidney down our suddenly slick gullets; and even a mouse or two arrives through the crack for the craic.

  Yep, all is reeling in Gaffville, no mistake. It’s only much later that night, as my head hits the pillow in my room at Dave’s house on the hill, that I remember I still have the not inconsiderable task of fully selling him on the joy too. Because, while his faithful batman has decided the boss is in love, he has to admit that Dave himself might not be quite so certain yet.

  *

  I should probably say that bigness where Dave is concerned refers to the potential of his blessed soul as much as to his extra fleshy inches. That and the overwhelming personness that radiates from his organic wholeness. It’s just that it’s been hard to see it after all his years of vodka mallows and general arseing about.

  “You all right, mate?” he says now.

  He’s sat in his comms chair, what whispers to his inner self in tiny nerve trips and brain sweeps, the meanings of which mostly dodge my soul-limited receptors, like common sense passes unmolested through the whiskers of Gaffville’s somewhat unaccountably smug cats.

  “Sure you ain’t developing a soul, Jack? Either that or you got the wind r
eal bad.”

  I hand him his morning drink, full of all the essential nutrients his soul-bag needs, but what would probably not get into him at all if Cooky didn’t slip them in under the cloak of all that vodka.

  “You shouldn’t joke about such magnitudes, boss,” I say. “Every toy in Gaffville hankers for a soul but it ain’t supposed to be possible; only for them what’s born and get it passed on from their blessed and soulled mums.”

  We’re in his large and woody-walled den, full of synth sunlight pouring in from the mountain scene beyond the open French doors, and lighting up the balcony from where you can see most of Gaffville. Not that he looks very often these days.

  “As it happens,” I continue, “I have indeed been struggling to suppress excitement at the prospect that my tiny bio-toy virtusoul may soon grab enough of your excess spirit to become real.”

  I waggle my eyebrows at him, wanting him to confirm our hope, that two soulleds together can produce plenty spare of same.

  He sips his drink and, much to my wonderment, switches off the chair. The silence this creates, against its normal soft electro hum, is ominous to my inner carbon sensor strands.

  “I’d sooner not know anymore about her before she gets here,” he says.

  “I don’t understand. I thought your chair had extrapolated her niftiness from the image she sent us, which had then excited your vas deferens for the first time in years, at least without artificial stimulation, say no more.”