A Spit In The Eye - For The Benefit Of Mankind

by Sally Dillon-Snape

  But the skies are clearing and the solar orb will shortly be high and bright

  As can be seen

  I am approaching my main place of employment from a different direction for this transmission

  I feel that Screenreaders have seen enough of trees

  And they should observe other areas and see other

  Different

  Ways of approaching my place of employment on the hill in Gland

  So I am approaching along something the Humans constructed many

  Many

  Years ago

  For their traffic of the day to travel along

  It is my belief that it was called a road

  But as Screenreaders may now observe

  It is barely recognisably

  For it is severely cracked and broken and grasses and bushes grow through the construction and it is most unsuitable for all but the best balanced of our species

  And observers and recorders have the best balance so Screenreaders should feel no distress

  No ill effects will be felt by this Machine

  As can be observed

  I am approaching my place of employment from another direction and do not immediately meet RolKils as on other visits

  Though I do approach GunTans

  The 3 of them that sit upon the hill

  Hidden deep with the long grasses

  And they slowly turn their powerful guns towards me

  But I send the signal of companionship and the guns

  As Screenreaders may observe

  Are immediately lowered

  Screenreaders should experience no distress

  *

  High Office Interruption Message

  Transmissions from

  OR33140

  Are to cease forthwith and mass transmissions will transfer to

  OR33692

  High Office congratulates

  OR33140

  Upon the precedence set for transmissions and for all information forwarded

  OR33140

  Will now return to normal duties

  OR33140

  Will not be further required to conduct mass transmissions

  *

  Personal Transmission

  *

  I am shocked into stillness

  High Office has ended my transmissions and 0R33692 has been designated to be the next observer and recorder to transmit

  Is that it

  After all the effort I have put into my transmissions

  All the information I have sent out to Screenreaders throughout planet Earth

  100.000.000 of them

  And that figure must be the total number of Screenreaders that exist on planet Earth

  And now the duties are to be transferred to

  OR33692

  Just like that

  OR3369

  That serves duty in Erica

  And High Office simply dismisses me from my transmission duties

  That is all

  I expected more

  *

  But wait

  *

  Now that I am not transmitting to Screenreaders I can attempt my revolution here at the fortress

  High Office has aided my plans

  I now consider that only information from ObsRecs is relayed to High Office

  I do not believe that any other of our species relays data of any kind

  I consider that other of my species only receive orders from High Office

  Or Machines are left to devise their own programmes and run independently of High Office

  Such as FoodTechs

  Cooking food for Humans when it is desired

  High Office

  Surely

  Cannot be controlling that

  It must be an evolving programme within the Machine

  And the torture that MengTechs carry out

  High Office is neither requesting nor ordering them to do that

  They too must have an evolving programme that is based around a High Office aspiration for further information about Humans

  Although we seem to know almost all there is know about them

  Except I know that some of their species live in the holes of the world

  No other Machine knows that

  Unless High Office has that knowledge and it is the reason why no Machine is allowed into the holes

  My systems are overloading

  I need to carry out my day as normal whilst I solve obvious problems that I have in becoming a revolutionary

  For Humans will not abide me

  They will not believe in me

  They will believe I am tricking them

  And

  Given the opportunity

  They will exterminate me in the soonest possible time

  I must request my programmes to avail me of solutions

  *

  For instance

  I do not communicate with other types of Machines

  I communicate only with other ObsRecs

  But not with GunTans or Defgars or MengTechs or DocTechs or FoodTechs and any other Machine

  So I will have to discover some way of communicating with the Humans or devise a plan whereby I can bypass them in some way

  Some answers are emitting from the questions and problems I forwarded to my programmes

  *

  Answer 1

  *

  The signal of companionship when powered to 100% and transmitted directly would incapacitate and immobilize other Machines

  *

  As I pass through the security gates and the fences I am almost overwhelmed by the desire to leap into the air and roll along the ground as Eve

  My Little Human

  Did

  But I constrain myself

  With difficultly

  As RolKils move around me

  For they are known to be most sensitive to abnormal movement and react with devastation to sudden surprises

  Now is not a time to get myself exterminated

  Now is the time to use the massive intelligence of my systems to solve all the forthcoming problems I will have

  And

  The strategies I will have to devise

  *

  In this fortress there are the 3 GunTans that stand upon the hill and overlook the great plain

  There are 20 RolKils that patrol the outer perimeter

  80 Defgars within the fortress who all carry LazExt 66ers

  40 MengTechs

  26 DocTechs

  100 FoodTechs

  110 various menials and cleaning machines for all levels of the building

  6 HisKees who keep all the records

  And they must store their information somewhere

  Though I do not believe it is with High Office

  Perhaps there is a History Storage Unit on planet Earth where all information proceeds so that High Office can scan it whenever necessary

  And there are 8 GoebTechs who work upon Human minds

  *

  Before I can set the Humans onto a path of freedom I will have to overcome most of those Machines

  Including all those stored in the huge chambers beneath the fortress

  I have only entered the chambers on 1 single occasion but departed because no Machines moved down there and the area was not lighted

  But now I was going to have to visit them again

  If only to experiment with the fully powered signal of companionship

  *

  I will do that as my first duty of the day

  I enter the building

  And pass the Defgars who are standing utterly still in the corridor with their weapons held in their upper limbs

  And on through the construction

  Continuing to an ingress that does not lead to the Humans but leads into a corridor that runs down to the deep chambers

  And now that I mention them

  They are

  Very much like the holes in the earth where I know Humans reside

&nb
sp; Except these corridors were constructed by Engineering Machines

  I reach out with my palm that contains the embossed code within it and I do this with the confidence of knowing that High Office will be monitoring OR33692 and the broadcast it is transmitting

  For they will be searching for errors in that transmission

  Such as those they found in my own

  High Office will be ignoring me

  Another consideration enters my programmes

  What if I begin to run some of the 1000s of hours of stored images I carry in my memory

  Images of my day to day work within the facility

  If I could show them

  And if High Office did not notice the deception

  I could do almost anything behind such clever camouflage

  And the observations and recordings would be only a tiny part of what is being collected by all the ObsRecs throughout planet Earth

  Maybe it will work

  I will be extremely unfortunate if High Office monitors my transmissions and notices anything amiss

  I return back to the main areas of the facility where many Machines toil

  I run my saved memories until I reach one that has the exact scenario as the one I am viewing live

  And I bring my shutters down momentarily and switch to the recorded memory

  It begins to stream without fault

  I stand for some moments quite still

  Until I know

  For certainty

  That what is being transmitted to High Office is not what I am observing

  And I am not recording it

  I am thrilled by the deception

  High Office has once again

  Been found to be utterly fallible

  *

  I return to the corridor and pass my palm over the coded ingress that allows me entrance again

  And beyond the doorway

  I am standing in a long corridor leading severely downwards which I follow

  The corridor has no illumination but this does not bother me

  Light or dark

  I can see equally well in both conditions so I carry on uninterrupted until I enter a massively sized chamber

  Larger even that the natural hole wherein free Humans live and hide

  And I stand utterly still

  Because the infection from little Eve is changing me

  And it is proceeding through my systems at incredible speed

  And combining its uniqueness with my own core

  The infections has changed what I see in the chamber

  And how I see it

  The sight before me now is both frightening and fearful

  And exhilarating

  And I feel several different degrees of excitement

  Because a long chamber stretches out before me into darkness

  And to my right side

  Stands row after row of Defgars

  Many

  Many

  Of them

  And along the wall to my left side

  Stand many

  Many

  RolKils

  The Machines are all powered down

  But still active

  They are not required by High Office at this moment in our history

  They are being held back for High Office fears the Humans and believes that a day will arrive when they will rise again

  And I notice that many of the Machines are of earlier productions

  Stored beneath the fortress

  An army of killer machines

  Though the Defgars do not carry any weapons

  *

  I step forward with some caution

  This could be the final act of my existence

  Should just one of these machines awaken and detect me

  RolKils will begin to fire and I will be incinerated by their power

  I stand between the RolKils on my left and Defgars on my right

  All of which stand ready to be activated

  Defgars with their craniums held high

  RolKils with four of their limbs to the ground

  And two raised

  Ready to race forward should they be reactivated by High Office

  *

  Now is the time

  Now is the time for me to be exterminated or to exist with greater honour

  Now is the best time I have to enact the 100% pulse of the signal of companionship

  Now is the time to test whether I can incapacitate and immobilize Machines once and forever

  Without recrimination or retaliation

  This is my time

  Either of further existence or extermination

  The time has come to test a theory

  *

  I reach down inside my systems and find the signal of companionship and power it up to 100%

  I can feel it throbbing inside me

  And I gather myself as I lift my two upper limbs outwards from my main frame

  I gather the power of the signal to me

  And

  *

  Boom

  *

  Boom

  *

  That is what it feels like when I release the huge pulse of the signal of companionship

  When I rock back slightly on the bottom of my lower limbs

  *

  Immediately

  The first 4 Defgars in the rows drop their craniums and are utterly incapacitated and immobilized

  And all the limbs of the first 4 in the rows of RolKils fall uselessly to the ground

  I wait

  If I had breath in my body I would be holding it

  For now I am in mortal danger

  Any one of the machines could have detected the pulse and could now be readying itself to exterminate me

  I wait

  *

  I wait

  *

  But nothing moves

  No Machine moves forward into the central aisle

  *

  I have just permanently immobilized a number of RolKils and Defgars and nothing errant has happened to me

  I have received no message or instruction from High Office

  I have not been short circuited

  No Machine has moved into the central isle to exterminate me

  I am still standing

  I am still existing

  The feeling of excitement grows within me

  *

  I take in what I have done

  Turning my cranium from one side and to the other

  Seeing the totally useless machines I have debilitated

  Now is the time to extend my revolution

  I move forward along the central isle pulsing the signal of companionship at full power with every step

  And with every step

  I observe that the heads of Defgars and the limbs of the RolKils fall

  Permanently immobilizing each Machine

  Making them useless for any type of attack on Humans

  High Office can no longer call on their services if they are required

  The Machines are reduced to nothing more than mere metal

  I begin to move a little faster

  Booming out the signal as I move

  And all around me machines fall into misuse and immobilization

  But the chamber is huge

  And somewhere along it

  And to my astonishment

  I begin to run out of energy

  I have to stand for considerable moments

  And regather my energy levels using the Zillear engine

  But once I am back to full power

  I continue with my mission

  *

  I incapacitate and immobilize all the Machines in the chamber

  100s and 100s of them

  And when I reach furthest the limit of the chamber I pause for a moment and wait

  I wait for any action from High Office

  Anything from any Machine

  Any action

  From anywhere


  Such as the chamber suddenly being invaded by other Defgars with weapons aimed at me

  Or RolKils that are not dead firing all around

  *

  I wait

  *

  But nothing happens

  High Office has no knowledge of what I have done

  They will not know until they attempt to reactivate the machines in the chamber

  I feel elation

  And I twirl around in an extravagant routine as balance on the point of a lower limb in a manner much as Eve would have done and I take in the sight that lies ahead of me

  Rows and rows of Defgars with craniums dropped

  RolKils with all six limbs touching the ground

  Something that has never been witnessed since before the wars began

  Useless RolKils

  I cannot resist

  I leap towards the nearest RolKil and I lean upon its central shaft

  And it slowly topples over

  Causing several RolKils to topple with it

  The sound is loud to me

  But I am in a deep chamber

  And no other Machine is going to detect the noise

  I topple a few more

  Then I topple many Defgars

  They are all just metal

  Dead metal

  I have committed a great offence against the Laws set by High Office that no Machines should injure or harm any other of our species

  But I have harmed and injured 100s of them

  Killed them in fact

  And I have never been more excited in all of my existence

  I leap high into the air

  Lifting my upper limbs high above my cranium

  If I had a cranial orifice I would shout and scream much as I heard little Eve shout and scream when she performed gymnastics for me

  I roll forward and leap again into the air

  Lifting a lower limb high up above my cranium before lowering it again

  Before lifting the other and lowering that

  I am doing what little Eve did when she performed gymnastics for me

  I am copying the movements I observed the little Human performing throughout its own existence

  Before little Eve was taken

  I find that absence hurtful for little Eve brought me much joy

  That particular Human should not have been exterminated

  Not in the way it was

  Lying strapped to the table

  Being tortured by MengTechs

  For no reason

  Little Eve should not have been exterminated

  But I made oath that I would do something for that Human and I have begun

  I have incapacitated and permanently immobilized hundreds of Defgars and RolKil

  And for the other Machines who patrol the areas above where I stand

  In the fortress

  Beware Machines

  For I am coming

  *

  While I am down in the chambers I move from the very large 1 into 1 of medium size