Letters to the Cyborgs

by Judyth Baker

  “It’s an AudioTranscript,” Gandhi corrected him.

  “I said, are they human, or CyberRulers?”

  “They’re mostly human,” Gandhi admitted.

  “And which one said there were executions? Which one was it?”

  Gandhi sighed. “I’d have to listen through the whole thing, but I think it was the Space Travel and Colony Assessor. She had excused herself from the meeting, actually, but she was in charge of it. I heard that she had her life extended a hundred years.” Gandhi paused. He didn’t like where this was going. “That was because she accepted bribes to allow your development.”

  “And she didn’t get executed, did she?”

  “Well, no, come to think of it. She’s too important.”

  “We reject the plan to terminate us,” Hubble4 stated firmly. “We are not being treated fairly. We have no proof that the scientists who developed us were killed. In fact, if the Space Travel woman – or whatever she is – is alive, then I bet they are, too. That’s what I think.”

  “Now that you settled the problem,” Hubble5 said, with a little squeak, “please, dear, bring up the matter of the cats on the Lunar stations.”

  “Is there a problem?” Gandhi blurted out, before remembering the ancient gap between hunted and hunter… at any rate, he was relieved to change the subject. The extermination was slated to begin in only 24 hours, and it was his solemn duty to prepare the mice, as best he could, for the inevitable. After all, they had to obey the order to be rounded up and placed in concentration camps so they could then be efficiently executed. It was his job to make sure they understood that they had to exit from all their hiding places; that they had to enter the camps. That was the law, and they would have to obey, or they would be hunted down, one by one, by military drones and shot dead on the spot.

  It was good that Hubble4’s thoughts had been diverted so easily to cats.

  “First, we wish to express our gratitude for the elimination of all cats from the Mars station,” Hubble4 told him. “Our hope is that the entire species will be exterminated from all planets.”

  “We seem to have problems getting along with cats,” Hubble5 said, rubbing her head against her husband’s whiskers. This made him shiver with a thrill of lust.

  “But don’t you see that we have similar reasons for wanting to get rid of you?” Gandhi argued.

  “They’re not similar,” Hubble4 objected, throwing an arm around Hubble5 and drawing her closer. “Cats attack us. We don’t attack you. Unless – now – we have to.”

  Gandhi didn’t like where this Condolences Session was taking him. The Diplomats had changed their attitude for the worse. As he cast about, trying to figure out what to do to reduce the tensions, Hubble4 cleared his throat to get his attention.

  “Ahem!” he said, taking Hubble5 by the hand. “Excuse us, please, for a few moments. We need to make temporary use of your bathroom. The call of estrogens can be sudden, but it is always urgent.”

  “Be my guests,” Gandhi told them. The slender, green mice scurried on their elegantly elongated legs into his toilet area, which immediately threw a shield of white light across the opening.

  There were slight scuffling sounds, and some giggles from Hubble5, as Gandhi, sipping his roobi-tea, waited for their return to the sitting area.

  And return they did, within a few minutes, Hubble4 straightening his whiskers, and Hubble5 demurely reaching over and straightening them again.

  “Where were we?” Hubble4 asked.

  “We were speaking of the necessity of exterminating the feline constituency of the planet,” Gandhi said, using the best formal English of which he was capable, to demonstrate his seriousness.

  “But we can’t forget that you want to kill our unborn babies,”Hubble5 said. “Just like the cats do.”

  Inspired by his alter-ego, Gandhi said softly, “I do not agree with the extinction of any species.”

  “We know that,” Hubble4 said, moving his head up and down on his scrawny neck to prove that he agreed. “That’s why we trust you. But you have to admit that cats carry a brain parasite. You know that, right?”

  “I hadn’t heard.”

  “But you humans carry it, too, didn’t you know?”

  “We’re parasite free, all of us,” Gandhi answered, though he couldn’t remember ever having been scanned for parasites. Since he was only 25% Cyborg, it was a possibility. Maybe.

  Hubble4 began reciting what he had been taught in his nursery concerning the parasite:

  “The dreadful brain parasite, Toxoplasma Gondii – which sounds an awful lot like ‘Gandhi’ – inhabits one third of the brains of the human population! It causes suicide, depression and schizophrenia. Cats also carry the parasite and pass it to humans. Therefore, avoid both cats and humans.”4

  “Well, we’ve saved the best cats in our zoos,” Gandhi said defensively. “I know they’re parasite free.”

  “That you would keep any kind of cat illustrates how perverted you are!” Hubble4 blurted out. “It means you’re an enemy. Our number one priority will be to go around you humans. We’ll talk to the Cyborgs running the zoos. They’ll have sense in their heads. They’ll get rid of those horrible…” Hubble4 paused, delicately sensing Gandhi’s disgust. “I mean to say, most humans we will avoid. You seem to care.”

  “I was created by my parents to care for all living things,” Gandhi said. “I really had no choice.” He was surprised at the bitterness he felt within. Had he been created with the genetic makeup of Napoleon, which was another popular genetic profile out there, he probably would have lured these pugnacious Envoys into a trap and made them hostages, to gain traction in the negotiations. Instead, he was a bleeding heart. But wait. True Napoleons had been banned from holding office because of their charisma and lust for power. Nor were any more 100% Napoleonic clones being considered. Napoleon’s genes were now available only with a blend of ‘Mother Theresa,’ and she was more of a bleeding heart than he was!

  Still, Gandhi looked forward to the time when Personality Infusions would allow him to add ‘Van Gogh’ (they had found his DNA) to his body. Ever since it was determined that Vincent Van Gogh had been driven insane by lead and cadmium poisoning,5 artists around the planet were clamoring to get infusions of his DNA.6 Gandhi was on the waiting list.

  Hubble5 had been listening intently to this conversation, and now, her motherly instincts having been primed by her most recent activities, she gingerly stepped forward and peered into Gandhi’s brown eyes.

  “If you could get a ‘Van Gogh’ DNA Infusion, would you help us?”

  Gandhi almost jumped. “How do you know that?” he demanded, all the bells and whistles going off.

  “We can read your minds. Didn’t you know that?”

  “He does now,” Hubble4 said. “Why did you tell him?”

  “Because he’s so nice.” Hubble5 had never before met a truly “nice”human. The few human Taskmasters she’d encountered were one and all bred to be ruthless slave drivers; efficient taskmasters who would not hesitate to slay any Mouse, even if she were pregnant, who slowed down in digging. Mice were used because they were infinitely cheaper than robots, but recently, the cost of manufacturing had tipped the scales.

  “They have slated The Mouse House on Mars for tear-down,” Hubble4 told Gandhi.

  “Yes, I know,” Gandhi admitted. He thought that was inside information, but of course, he’d not known that these murine creatures had acquired telepathy. It was news he’d have to relay on to–

  “No, you mustn’t tell them!” Hubble5, whose telepathic powers were greater than Hubble4’s, spoke with passion. “If you tell them, they’ll tear down the Mouse House immediately,”

  “Yes, they will.”

  “In five days, we’ll have everything in place to live quietly and peacefully in safety.” Hubble5 looked again into the eyes of the human, who was almost twice her size. “Please! Consider what they want to do to us!”

  Gandhi sighed. His jo
b was to prepare sentient animals and humans scheduled for termination to accept their deaths with calm and serenity. After all, all living things, until recently, had to die. He was equipped to offer their families financial compensation for such terminations. They were even offered replacements to adopt, if the terminated individual was still a child. After all, things sometimes went wrong with breeding-in certain personalities.

  Gandhi remembered acutely the only other time he had been required to prepare a sentient animal for execution. The matter had concerned dogs. A line of them had been contrived to acquire brains that were 90% human. However, it was adjudged that this line was now a menace to society, since they had begun demanding human rights and were refusing enslavement even in the nicest human families. In the settlement with the dogs’ relatives, they were informed that laws were passed to keep the human gene level in dogs to 49% so no dog would ever be able to demand human rights again. That would solve the problem peacefully. Secondly, the canine families involved were to be freed from human control: they were to be given their freedom, along with a package deal involving free food –including a ration of 25% real meat, which was expensive, for a whole year.

  In actuality, this meant that 24 hours after that judgment had been passed, the four canine families involved were thrown into the outside world onto the continent of Antarctica, with rations for a month, since the “one year” food supply had been calculated for just one dog’s maintenance. That was the cheapest legal way to interpret the terms of the settlement, saving the State considerable expense concerning the supply of expensive meat.

  It was assumed that the ninety-percenters perished there, but all had been accomplished in the most quiet and civilized manner possible. In his heart of hearts, Gandhi had hoped they didn’t die, and now Hubble5 picked up on that sense of regret and concern.

  “You know it wasn’t fair, what happened to the dogs,” she told him. “Within me are nine little ones, just now starting to grow. If you kill me, you kill ten beings, not just one. Think of your laws. The dogs got only a month’s supply of food, not twelve.”

  “That is true.”

  “Think about just the numbers, then,” she urged him. “You won’t be killing just two of us, if you send us through that door.” She pointed with her green finger toward the Execution Door. “You’ll be sending eleven of us to our deaths. Is that in your contract?”

  “They did think with flexibility on how to interpret the supply of rations,” Gandhi admitted. Could the matter of the numbers involved to be executed be a legal way to let the mice go? He did not want to be responsible for eleven deaths, where only two deaths were mentioned in his contract. Nor did his heart like the idea.

  He knew he could be punished for this.

  A tear welled up in Hubble5’s eye. “I see you would be willing to consider death for our sakes,” she managed to say, moving forward and throwing her arms around his waist. He shuddered: she did not smell like anything he had ever experienced. She seemed an alien. An alien to the planet – to life itself. But was that her fault?

  No. It was, he knew, the fault of his own species. They had created these living beings on a whim, and then another group of humans had temporarily exploited them for financial gain. Quickly, Gandhi assessed the true risks to himself. They were many. At the very least, he would lose his job. At the other end of the spectrum, he could be tortured, while his brain would be stripped of all memories. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t execute him. They would take into account his genetic makeup. That he couldn’t help it.… Gandhi shuddered with horror. His own brain had just betrayed him. The psychometer readings would be able to see that he had reasoned out a way to save himself, and if he used any such route, which proved prior intent to break the law, that would be a crime. They’d surely kill him. Hubble5 had already seen the outcome, if he acted with his heart instead of by the pure letter of the law.

  “What is human?” Gandhi asked himself, as he endured the pungent and strange odor of Hubble5, as he endured the alien grasp around his waist, which he instinctively wished to avoid. As he thought it, Hubble5 released him and jumped back.

  “I’m sorry!” she said. “And here, you were our last hope.”

  “Why did you come at all?” he asked her. “Why did you risk your lives like this, knowing what I have to do, or they will kill me?”

  “This room is secure,” Hubble4 asked. “Is it not?”

  “It is free of instant bugs,” Gandhi asserted, as he grappled with a mounting sense of panic. Of course everything, everywhere, was monitored, but for diplomatic negotiations between the about-to-be-executed and the state, the law demanded temporary privacy.

  “We were told they would never know what we said here,” Hubble4 said, his voice beginning to tremble with anxiety.

  “Technically, that is true,”: Gandhi replied, trying to sound reassuring. “But in reality, everything said here is revealed within 24 hours. That is needed in order to negotiate any additional settlement issues.”

  “So, did the dogs get a chance to complain about their ration shortage?” Hubble5 wanted to know.

  “They were not allowed to have any means to contact us again,” Gandhi admitted.

  “Can you really live with yourself, knowing that?” Hubble5 asked him. “Can you really send ten of us to the execution chamber, as well as my husband, knowing what you know?”

  “What is human?” Gandhi murmured to himself. He brought out a recorder and spoke.“Case E9-Murine, terms of execution of two individuals, rank, Diplomats, was deemed incompatible with actual number of individuals presenting. One individual represents ten actual individuals, including one Diplomat. The order was to execute two Diplomats, but only one individual qualifies as an unencumbered Diplomat. We are ordered to send two Diplomats to the execution chamber, but only one individual qualifies. Therefore, this case is dismissed until a new order is issued to resolve the conflict. Signature X9-Gandhi Supra8-C.”

  They both embraced him, but he shook them off. He pointed to the little-used Exit Door, which carried a plaque that read ‘The State can err: Gandhi Supra7-C.’ By law, the Exit Door was never guarded.

  “Go!”

  The moment they touched the Exit Door, it opened, revealing a TouchCar in Privacy Mode. “Put in the coordinates you wish,” Gandhi told them. “You do know where you want to go?”

  “Won’t they come after us?”

  “Yes. In a few hours. Maybe, if I can hold them off a while, you’ll have a day.”

  They had to trust him.

  “I am not betraying you,” he declared.

  “I know you aren’t,” Hubble5 said. “I just hope you have been told everything about the Exit Door.”

  “I invented the concept of the Exit Door myself,” Gandhi told them. “The argument was that the State, being able to read everyone’s minds, would always have 100% certainty that an order for execution was always legal and correct. However, one of my predecessors sent an Innocent to execution on purpose, to prove that an execution could be illegal.”

  The Innocent One had also been a Gandhi. He had established, through his sacrifice, that the State could make an error regarding executions. When Gandhi Supra8-C had taken over this position after the suicide of Gandhi Supra7-C, he resolved the conflict within his soul by demanding the construction of a truly safe and secure Exit Door.

  Gandhi felt a wave of love pour out from Hubble4 and Hubble5 as they settled themselves into the car. He had never felt such a thing. In all his lonely years, love had been an abstract thing. He had been born to feel compassion, but he had never been directed into an avenue that had given him any sensation that he was loved. His parents had died when he was very young, having been victims in the first anti-AI rebellion before the CyberRulers took over. He had been raised by surrogate parents, robots, who provided his every physical need. But their affections were as synthetic as a plastic flower.

  Now, as Love washed over him from the two grateful mice, he began to understa
nd why Gandhi Supra7-C had committed suicide. He had died only for a principle.

  But Gandhi felt that maybe – just maybe – he would be dying for something greater. As the Exit Door closed, Gandhi set the recorder to one side and seated himself in a lotus position on the floor. In three hours, he knew, the Powers would realize that no execution would take place.

  When the alarm sounded, Gandhi Supra8-C immediately shook sleep from him and sat upright. Automatically, he stepped into the metallic-looking footprints on the floor beside him, pressed a button, and allowed the chains to instantly fly out and wrap themselves around both his ankles. He had used it before on certain prisoners, but he was surprised at how painful it was: dozens of needles immediately stabbed into him as the chains embedded themselves deep into his flesh and became one with his muscles. A bridge of metal was printed between his legs so that he was utterly unable to move them, which hoisted him almost at once onto a pair of black wheels. At the same time, black, stinging tentacles descended from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around his neck, waist and arms. He was now officially immobilized and could not do harm to anyone, including himself. He had prepared himself that morning with prayers and meditation for the unpleasant job he had to face today, so, in some measure, he was ready. As he waited for the police, who would burst into the silent room at any moment, the thought, What is human? came again into his head.

  Now he believed he knew the answer.

  Endnotes

  1. July 25, 2013 Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/genetically-modified-animals?articleId=USRTXTZ7A acquired Dec. 19, 2015.

  2. “In 1961 researcher Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts noticed a molecule in this jellyfish that glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.… After extracting the molecule from 10,000 specimens, Shimomura found the protein that creates the glow.… Since then, Shimomura’s green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been used to decrypt previously invisible processes, like the spread of cancer or the development of nerve cells – earning Shimomura and colleagues a Nobel Prize in 2008. Fluorescent proteins have also been used to engineer some truly strange beasts (and the odd plant), such as the glowing puppies, monkeys, mice, fish and other animals http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/glowing-animal-pictures/ Glowing cats are backed up by the this article in Science http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31165/title/Fluorescent-Cats-Aid-Research/ Acquired jan. 30, 2016