A Spit In The Eye - For The Benefit Of Mankind

by Sally Dillon-Snape

  A single Defgar stands in it just as it always has

  Standing in the same unmoving position

  I do not recognize my inability to notice this information earlier in my existence

  I move down the corridor in my usual method until I am only one upper limbs length from the machine

  I bring my shutters down momentarily

  ObsRecs are supposed to do this often to keep lenses in our optical devices clear

  And I begin to transmit a recording of my movements around the facility

  I lift my shutters

  And I pulse the boom of the full power of the signal of companionship

  The Defgars head drops immediately

  But so too does the LazExt 66 it is holding in its upper limbs

  I have to react extremely quickly to stop it crashing to the floor

  I do react extremely quickly

  It is what I was manufactured to do

  And I hold the weapon in my upper limbs and it feels quite strange

  I am now armed and as dangerous as any machine on planet Earth though I cannot consider that I am

  I hide the weapon behind the totally immobilised Defgar

  #26555346

  I turn my cranium and observe that the Humans are continuing with their activities and routines and have not perceived my action

  That is a fine thing

  For I am not yet ready to be uncovered as an agent for Humans

  I walk away from the dead machine

  *

  I take the elevator up to the overlook area where two other Defgars stand

  One at each end of the open corridor that runs the length of the Humans gathering area

  I turn to my left and proceed along the corridor and kill the Defgar at that end

  Catching the weapon and leaving it hidden behind the lump of metal

  And I proceed towards the other

  That is standing totally still

  Unmoving

  Waiting for an attack

  Though it does not see one coming

  It has no concern for its already dead fellow Defgar

  I kill that one too

  No that is wrong

  I cannot kill that which is not alive

  Like a Human is alive

  With a heart that beats and a brain that thinks

  I cannot kill something that does not do those things

  I permanently immobilise them

  That’s what I do

  I deduce that these Defgar machines are useless without the capacity for communication and without the ability to deduce and reason

  High Office made a huge error in their manufacture

  The Defgar stands in exactly the same position with its head down and I relieve it of its weapon and place it behind

  Out of sight

  So far the daylight hours had gone well

  And throughout the rest of it

  I move through the facility

  Permanently immobilising Defgars without interruption

  In a single span of daylight I immobilise 20

  And I return to live transmissions

  I will attempt to immobilise another 20 after my wanderings of the dark hours

  *

  During the dark hours I travel down to the mouth of the hole in the earth

  Where I know Humans reside

  And I try to make decisions on how to introduce those from the surface

  Those who reside within the fortress

  With the free ones living in the hole

  If

  As improbably as it might seem

  If I free the Humans from the fortress

  I cannot suddenly inflict 10.000 Humans on the sub-earth population for they may not to be able to cope with such an influx

  There may not be enough food for example

  Not enough space

  Somehow I must introduce them gradually to give the sub earth Humans a chance to adapt

  Another conclusion to the problem settles in my system

  What if I travel

  Initially

  With only one Human from the fortress and that Human explains to the sub earth Humans

  Who it is

  Where it is from

  How it is there in the hole

  And ask for me not to be exterminated

  Explain that I am a friend

  I could use Eves papa for this purpose if I communicated with him and if he didn’t try to exterminate me

  As I move over the land through the dark hours a plan rises up in my systems that seems as good as any I have so far configured

  The very chance that I could free any Humans was only 0.01% so any plans that rose up were far from reality

  Still

  I had permanently disabled 20 Defgars and it was a start

  Over the following three turns of light and darkness I hunted ever static Defgar down

  60 of them

  And I shut them all down using a new method I should have used from the very beginning

  I moved past Defgars and switched from my front optical devices to the 1 in the rear of my cranium and I boomed the signal at them as I passed

  Machines were not capable of understanding what was shutting them down and as their heads slumped down I turned and caught the weapons

  Focussing my optical devices on walls

  Ceilings

  And suchlike

  It meant I didn’t have to keep closing my shutters or transmitting recordings

  I would continue focusing on other views while I hid the weapon

  And

  Nothing was heard from High Office

  No orders were received

  No instructions given

  I was not immediately exterminated

  High Office knew nothing of what was happening

  Defgars did not defend themselves and High Office would only activate them in the event of an uprising or an attack from inside or outside the facility

  Neither of which was happening

  High Office had never considered that a revolution may begin from inside the fortress by one of its own productions

  In retrospect

  They probably should never have produced ObsRecs

  They gave us too much freedom to roam

  Too much time to form opinions and when they

  Experimentally

  Programmed two emotions into us

  That was

  Probably

  The beginning of the end of the whole Machine world

  How many other ObsRecs were reacting to those emotions just as I was

  I thought the number may not be small

  But as I immobilised the final Defgar a new emotion grew inside me

  One I had never experienced before and it made me feel quite odd

  I searched for an explanation and I discovered an emotion that suited the way I felt

  The emotion was called

  *

  Guilt

  *

  And I was humbled by it when I immobilised the final Defgar

  First of all I leapt into the air and spun and somersaulted as I had seen little Eve do on many occasions and I did it for some considerable time

  Feeling most excited and exhilarated

  But once my initial emotion of excitement was over I stood in front of the final totally immobilised and never to be resurrected Defgar

  And the other emotion surged through me

  Guilt

  If I succeeded in freeing the Humans these Defgars

  Who have remained at their places of duty for over 100 years would never be used again

  They would remain in this massive building and they would slowly rot

  And I felt momentary guilt until I remembered the horrific demise of Little Eve and that I had made a promise to that Human

  And had set a course of duty that had to be seen through until completion or until my own demise

  I turned my attention to the MengTechs

&nb
sp; And once I thought of them all guilt faded as mist does in the heat of the morning solar orb and I could not wait to complete my task against them

  I moved along to the passageway where I could perceive happenings in the cages

  And I ran a recording of earlier movements for the benefit of High Office

  Three Humans were strapped to the tables but no MengTechs had yet appeared to experiment upon them

  The Humans

  One of middle age with an appendage between his legs

  One middle years without an appendage

  And an ancient one without

  All had expressions of total fear on their craniums and all turned their optical devices towards me as I passed on the other side of the glass wall

  And they must have been astounded to see that I was armed

  I hesitated for only 1 moment

  For the time was now

  I lifted the LazExt66 into my upper limbs from behind the Defgar that stood in that corridor and I held it as the Defgar had

  I searched every contour of the weapon for I was going to use it without training and if I got it wrong the MengTechs would pull me limb from limb and I would be exterminated

  I made a decision to test the weapon

  It had certain settings on the barrel of it and I set this to 1 and turned and fired it along the corridor behind me

  The lazer beam blasted the door into nothingness and I was quite shocked and I stood for some minutes to perceive if the door being blasted away had attracted any attention

  Nothing moved

  Defgars would probably have had that duty but there were none left active inside the fortress

  When I looked into the cages the Humans were all lifting their heads and looking towards me with mouths wide open

  I bowed forward from the waist and made my way to the corridor that led to the cages

  I had been there but moments

  Blocking the corridor

  When the first MengTech appeared

  Moving along magnetized floors

  Its six cutting antennae lifted in the air

  I waited until three of them had entered the corridor when I turned the setting on the weapon to 5 and fired the lazer at the first one in the line

  It disintegrated in front of my optical devices

  One moment it was present

  The next it was gone

  Reduced to dust

  A deep sense of excitement surged within me and as the second MengTech began to wave its antennae around I blasted that one in the same fashion

  But they kept coming

  One after the other

  Six of them in total

  With the vicious ends of their antennae snapping like the white enamelled things inside Human cranial orifices

  Snapping and snapping

  Like some of the large liquid living animals I had observed and the tiny things that ran close to the ground and which High Office had been so keen to eradicate

  But I blasted them all into oblivion and it felt very good to me

  The emotions inside me were high and charged through my systems and I thought I may be on my way to success

  I opened the door to Cage 3 and entered and the Human that lay upon the table stared up at me with an expression on his face that I could not translate

  I unstrapped the Human and departed Cage 3

  And Entered Cage 2 and Cage 1 where I released the Humans from the tables in those cages

  And together

  As they looked at me with strange expressions on their craniums they climbed from their tables and rushed their way back to the great area where Humans moved and did gymnastics

  I moved back to the corridor protected by the fence and I stared out at the Humans

  When the three appeared back amongst them

  Every single 1 rose to their lower limbs and stared at the returning Humans

  The three I had released came forward and began to make loud sound

  And as they made it

  All the Humans turned to stare at me

  A little yellow ObsRec standing in the corridor holding a LazExt 66

  Five Humans with appendages between their legs crossed the floor towards me and stood on the other side of the fence

  Eves papa was the centre of them

  ‘Thank you.’

  I lowered my cranium

  He stared with an expression of shock

  ‘You can understand me?’

  I lowered my cranium again

  ‘You have killed MengTechs.’

  I stared at him without moving my cranium

  ‘You will have to kill them all otherwise they will come after us and you.’

  I considered his sounds and spun round and made my way towards the elevator and rode it up to the higher floor

  There were 40 MengTechs toiling in the fortress

  6 I had already turned to dust

  14 stood in the large open area watching screens of what their experiments had achieved

  Including

  MT261000

  MT261340

  MT261502

  Who I held in my inner core with great hatred

  Carrying the LazExt66 behind my torso

  I made my way forward until I espied the hated threesome who were gathered with another around a single screen

  Now was a time of great danger for this OR for the area was open and there were 14 MengTechs

  All with snapping antennae

  Which

  Should they grip me

  Would slice me apart

  I would use my speed and the gymnastic ability shown to me by little Eve to avoid them

  I threw the LazExt into the air from behind my torso and it circled upwards and came down again

  And I clutched it in my upper limbs

  Aimed it

  And fired

  And disintegrated MT261000

  MT261340

  MT261502

  And leaped most athletically into the air as two MengTechs attempted to grab me with their attached antennas

  I landed on crouched lower limbs

  Turned and fired

  Blast

  Blast

  Two more disintegrated

  Blast

  Blast

  Two more

  And so it went

  OR33140 leaping into the air

  Twisting

  Turning

  Lowering my frame in all directions

  Backwards

  Forwards

  Sideways

  Firing the weapon forward

  Sweeping it around

  MengTechs disintegrating all around

  No other machines noticing the miniature war that was being fought between us

  They had their own duties

  And none of them dealt with warfare

  And throughout the conflict I transmitted recorded images of calmness within the facility

  Recordings showing Machines going about their duties with much attention

  I even transmitted FoodTechs going backwards and forwards as they prepared food for Humans at some past date

  And I continued to incinerate MengTechs

  Though they snapped at me with a range of weapons

  Sometimes snapping very closely with OR33140 having to swing back or swing sideways to avoid any contact

  But I eradicated the 14 on the main floor

  No other Machine took any notice

  They carried on with their duties as ordered by High Office

  Defgars may have come to the MengTechs aid but there were none remaining active in the fortress

  20 MengTechs down

  20 MengTechs still standing

  The remaining 1s worked in the laboratory into which I moved with great casualness

  Not wanting to attract too much attention

  The LazExt hidden behind my torso again

  The 20 MengTechs were bent over benches studying all kinds of flesh and bones with medical screen
s flashing all around the room

  Once again I threw the LazExt into the air and the moment I clasped it to my upper limbs I began firing

  The MengTechs in the laboratory were much further away than the MengTechs in the main hall

  So it became like a simulated shooting game

  As they turned or came forward so I incinerated them

  The LazExt being a most powerful weapon

  And no MengTechs came near to me and I exterminated them all

  I felt no guilt following this action

  No guilt whatsoever

  At no time did I broadcast to High Office that I was exterminating its Machines

  I transmitted only recordings of great calmness and Machines working together at their duties

  I exterminated all the MengTechs toiling within the fortress and none were now capable of causing harm or danger to the Humans

  I moved out and away from where the MengTechs had been obliterated and moved to the small area where the 8 GoebTechs practised their art

  The only 8 working in the fortress

  And I moved through the ingress of their office and blasted all 8 into oblivion

  They never even saw it coming

  Immediately

  I returned to the underground chamber to eradicate the remaining MengTechs and GoebTechs but when I entered

  I experienced something of a problem

  Half the MengTechs were active

  Though they seemed to be unfocused in their movements

  But the moment I entered the chamber they became focused

  On me

  They began to move more quickly than I expected over the ground with the ends of their antennas snapping and I fired the LazExt66 and cut down the first row of them

  As I still attempted to comprehend what had awakened them

  I considered that the MengTechs I had already eliminated must contain a localized emergency signal that prompted those on standby to become active

  And whilst considering this possibility

  I had to leap into the air to avoid the snapping antenna of the deadly Machines

  Each time I leaped

  I fired the weapon

  And more and more of them were eliminated

  Some antenna came very close to my outer shell

  Too close for comfort

  And I found myself twisting and turning in many directions to avoid them

  The miniature war continued for some time in the darkness of the long chamber

  But slowly I began to thin out the numbers of my adversaries

  Eventually getting their numbers down to a more manageable level

  Though they kept coming forward

  Trying to surround me

  And I swung around

  Firing the weapon in all directions