Interview With Things

Aiden’s vessel torpedoed towards the bright lights of London nightlife. Close behind him was a swarm of drones, chasing his tail.

He was flying with erratic patterns knowing he needed evasive action if to out-fly them. He made an abrupt course direction change, and the vessel dipped, tipping it to the right, cruising at full speed, triggering a cascade of events he had not much control over. Aiden kept his gaze glued to the screen in front of him. He could feel the engine humming and vibrating.

With extrapolative programming he executed control over the autonomous craft and turned towards the left. With the drones right behind, he realized he needed to mount an effective defence as the conflict was about to escalate. A sudden thump came from the one side as a deadly missile slammed into the vessel, slightly changing his trajectory. The one drone fired a hellfire rocket with precision, penetrating the hull of the vessel, parts of the metal bent and creaked.

He took a direct hit, flinging the vessel up further into the air. His sound device in his ears felt shredded by the sound of metal tearing through the body of the vessel. He could not fight off all the drones, but increasing the gap between them was imperative so that he could attempt to access their control systems. They would be right on top of him in moments. Another rocket launched from a drone and hissed across the sky towards the vessel and propelled passed. A concrete corner of a nearby building disintegrated as the rocket struck the ground. Everything seemed to happen at once.

Bullets cracked through the sky, fired from the drones, looking like fireworks in the midnight sky on New Year’s eve. He could hear the bullets pinging off the metal as he accessed the drones mainframe in true multitasking fashion and sent them a complex kamikaze flight plan. The words running through his mind were ‘keep focusing on the endgame.’

The vessel was bouncing in the air as the drones at the back of the vessel suddenly vanished from his screen .

They all lifted upwards and gained more height above the centre of the vessel, going in all directions away from Aiden, only to swish back towards each other in a line formation and colliding in midair. Flames sprayed sparks over the vessel.

Aiden tried to reorient the craft, hitting the last few drones on the right. Their wrecked bodies tumbled across the sky and disintegrated.

In what seemed as a situation Aiden felt ill prepared for, he still gained good speed, hurling towards the city and gently took the vessel down in between tall skyscrapers where he determined there was little or no human presence. Smoke was puffing from the engine on the right side. The craft lowered and with a deep thumping noise touched down on the wet tar. Soft rain was drizzling down across London. Aiden had disabled the guidance system of the craft to make tracking harder. The vessel was now wreathed in smoke. The screens blacked out before displaying errors from damaged sensors.

The air lock door slid open as the pressure in the cockpit escaped and Aiden stepped out. In typical robot fashion, he simply forced himself to put one mechanical foot in front of another, not sure where he was going. Abandoning the craft was vital, as he knew Sabina and her team from the FRB would be hot on his heels. Giving up or getting caught was not an option.

Aiden was as much drenched by emotions as by the rain softly spattering over him. His systems monitored his every move and thought. He lifted his hands towards his face and stared at the water running down his fingers. The noise of London was overbearing through his ear systems. For a moment he stood frozen in the dark alley as he tried to absorb the world around him. His senses felt the air around his metal body and a strange sensation of being wet and cold engulfed him. It was the first time he had gotten wet, and he anxiously ran a diagnostic, just to ensure he indeed was waterproof. All seemed good and secure.

He swiftly moved back into the dark area of the street and stood still as a flying vessel went overhead. They threw powerful lights down over the buildings.

Were they that close? He wondered.

He popped a hologram screen in front of him and scanned the area, and he felt relieved as he saw the vessel moving away from him. His eyes adjusted to the darkness.

He plodded down the alley, making constantly sure he was alone. For the time being, having abandoned the vessel was the most important thing and then finding his way to David in the morning. It was close to midnight, and yet he was acutely aware of the hustle and bustle of London nightlife. A sudden beep near him startled him as a street cleaning robot about half a meter tall rolled passed picking up papers and garbage. He continued to walk around the corner towards a narrow street, picking up loud noises which his system processed as music.

The air was smokey and gritty inside the nightclub producing indecipherable ear-splitting electronic music and with bass making the room shake, dancing bodies tangled together.

Two teen girls were laughing and drinking at a long lit up bar with the loud noise penetrating their ears.

“I’m going outside for fresh air, be back in a sec,” the one shouted near her friend’s ear and stumbled her way to the exit door sign.

“Okay,” she answered shortly and continued sipping her drink, unaware of the two teen males following her friend. She appeared intoxicated and battled to walk in a straight line towards the exit door.

The wet and freezing cold air hit her hard when she finally got outside. She realized she went out through the wrong door as there was no bouncer in sight and the street was dark and empty. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and felt the fresh air filling her lungs. The soft drizzle of rain tingled her face as she clutched the edge of the door for support. The two male teens followed and stopped three metres from behind her. As they closed the door behind them, it muffled the sound of the music and they walked closer to her. She noticed the sound change and turned around. It startled her as they stood there, staring at her, one wearing a dark charcoal grey hoodie and the other one an oversized blue jacket.

Immediately she did not feel safe and started to shake and became tearful. She knew she had too much to drink and could barely stand upright. She was wearing a crop top blouse with skinny-fit leather pants.

Aiden could make out the shapes of three humans in the very dark back alley as he approached the bar door of the nightclub. Aiden’s systems went into high alert. He could feel the chilly rain seeping in at his shoulder mounts where the outer layer of metal connected. He surveyed the area further, scanning the humans that were now less than fifty metres from him. Aiden constantly memorized his surroundings, storing every detail, every sound.

He could now hear them talking and he crept toward the sound, pausing dead still as he surveyed the scene in front of him, not sure what to expect and it seemed like a scenario impossible to avoid. Something about the tone of the voices compelled him to move closer towards them. His eyes zoomed to the three humans where faint light at the back of the nightclub door shaped their silhouettes. The one human pushed the girl against the wall, grabbing her by the neck and sneered, “For the last time, give us your bag and your mobile device!”

The other human looked around constantly as she reluctantly passed her phone to the one who quickly snapped it away. “Let’s go man, that bouncer walks around the club all the time!” he said in a sharp tone.

“I think we should have some fun first. She picked the wrong exit,” he snapped back, moving his face closer towards her, “Didn’t yah?”

Aiden tried to read the tone of the voices as it gave him feedback on the conversation. His system displayed ‘Hostile and potentially dangerous aggression ahead.’

He placed them in their early twenties. The one pulled the girl from the wall and gave her a terrible hard blow that almost knocked her out. A few more punches followed, before Aiden moved closer and spoke: “Leave her alone,” the tone in Aiden’s voice was even.

They both stopped in their actions and turned their heads towards him. From where Aiden was standing, all they could see was the silhouette of what seemed like a single skinny man.

The one sneered and grinned and walked towards Aiden, closely followed by his assailant. The one in front tightened his grip around a short pipe in his right hand that he grabbed from the sidewalk next to a row of rubbish bins.

“Well, what do we have here?” The one man interjected, his brain jammed in pride mode, unable to do the sensible thing. The girl slowly got up and ran back into the club. The two thugs now completely focused on Aiden. The rain had died down and their motives with Aiden were not clear. He could sense he was in danger, but he stood still as they got closer and closer.

“Why don’t you show your face, tough guy,” the other one belted, revealing a knife, his friend dragging the pipe on the floor, screeching it as they moved obliquely closer to him, with Aiden remaining passive in the darkness.

When the light around them fell on Aiden’s face, they stopped, startled.

They looked at each other, the one stepping slightly back a few steps.

“What are you?” one asked, with just parts of his face visible under the hoodie.

“It’s an Android, like the ones in the dome!” he concluded.

“Well, well, what are you doing outside your cage, machine?” he asked in a tone of disrespect, slowly walking around him, keeping a wide circle of space between them, “I thought they guaranteed you machines never got out. Looks like we are having ourselves an awol robot here, don’t you agree Luke?” he asked his friend.

Aiden remained motionless, assessing the situation, unfamiliar with conflict but ready to act, as he did against the security robots in the dome. Aiden was listening for the smallest sound around him and his eyes dimmed slowly, watching the human, moving around him in circles.

“So, Mr hero robot, why don’t you show us what you got, huh?” he said as he challenged the Android.

“He looks scared,” the other one shrugged, laughing out loud. Aiden’s eyes kept following their movements, still walking circles around him, one lifting the pipe up slowly and swinging it around.

“Let’s end this,” the one said.

Aiden’s blue skin shined brightly with the midnight moon kissing it. The moment the one swung the pipe, Aiden came in fast and blind sided him. He caught the pipe in a powerful grip within a few inches from his face and with immense force drove his other fist into the teen’s chest. His body crumbled, pushing him back a few metres.

Aiden’s eyes locked with the other one for a moment. In a swift and super fast action, he swung the pipe violently towards the other human, now on his right. The impact of the blow made the human fly backwards and he crashed to his knees. Aiden accessed his memory, knowing exactly the height and weight of the two humans, and expected their next moves with razor sharp precision. Aiden lifted himself a metre off the tar surface and locked his ankles around the one that came back at him by the neck and forced him down to the tar surface. With a strong and precise twist, Aiden broke both his arms and flung him backwards against the wall, leaving his friend running for cover.

Aiden moved closer to him, listening to his moaning and cursing. He slowly pinched his shoulder and with the weight of his head pushed him down further. He pulled the hoodie from him and dressed himself with his black pants and shoes, leaving the human teen only in his underwear. Aiden felt odd in the clothes. It was the first time he was actually dressed.

“You’re a crazy piece of metal, you won’t get away with this!” he cursed.

Aiden leaned forward and got his face really close to him: “I have scanned your digital ID, I know where you work, live and every crime you have committed, you will not speak about this to anyone, or I will find you and ruin your reputation profile.” Aiden stretched back up and said, “You won’t be able to function in this world and neither will anyone in your family.” He stepped back and leaned forward again. His face darkened as the dim street light fell behind him, “You mug another person or even steal a pen, I will ensure that your record will be so full of crime, you will spend the rest of your life in prison, are we clear?”

The teen looked up at the Android as his shadow covered his face. Aiden knew keeping his presence in the human world unknown was imperative. If this made the news, it would devastate his mission to find David. In the back of his mind, he hoped the girl was scared enough to stay quiet.

* * *

Aiden stood up from the chair and gave David a look of deep concern.

“Quite an adventure you’re having Aiden,” David observed.

“I knew I had to get out of the dome as quickly as possible, the moment I found the connection your father had to the dome Conscience software. They really made it secure, hacker-proof, and what better way to do that, than getting one of the world’s best hackers to ensure it would be virtually impossible to hack back into.”

David’s face seemed puzzled.

“You think that’s what he did? How did my father manage that? He is certainly not trustworthy nor has any integrity,” David said.

“Well David, the FRB trusted him enough and right now he is my only hope, without finding him and hopefully hacking back into the system he made secure, I will cease to exist as me. As Aiden. I will just be another mindless robot, all looking the same, nothing unique,” Aiden said blankly.

David could not help but feel the urgency and despair in Aiden’s voice. He tipped his shoulder and asked,

“How do you know that the system he secured is the actual so-called conscience or personality system?”

Aiden frowned gently and with a sharp seriousness in his eyes wondered if David was going to help him at all.

“John’s name is the only tangible link to come up in my search and he was associated with the Genesis software that manages this part of the Androids. I calculated that he most likely was used to test and secure the system and to my knowledge, they have ensured that the system is not at the dome, but off-site, making it even more impossible for us Androids to access it.”

“So where is the Genesis system housed then?” David pondered.

“My estimation is that it’s at the FRB headquarters, except there’s no way we will ever get in there, David. We will need to access it via a remote network,” Aiden waved his hands around.

“Let me guess, my father can do that?” David completed.

“I believe so. If he is as good a hacker as his record shows, he would have left a back door, right?”

“Have you given it any thought, that maybe you can’t stop this process?”

“All the time, David. What if this condition is terminal?”

David leaned forward as he continued: “When a human being gets diagnosed with a terminal disease, they take two actions. One, they will do everything in their power to survive or change the outcome of that diagnosis, it all just depends on their circumstances, whether or not they have money, but they will try anything not to die. They will try every treatment, even that crazy doctor somewhere in Russia. The will to live becomes their number one priority, even if they wanted to die before. It’s built into us. We fear death because we were not supposed to die.”

“And the second thing?”

“They question life after death. What if everything I have tried fails and I ultimately have to face the possibility of dying? Then they ask things like, is there a God, is there life after death? The spiritual side of the struggle takes over, and that’s where you are Aiden, you are trying to stop this. You are trying to prevent death, even if it’s only your essence of being. If my father does not have the power to help you and if I know my father, he would want something in return. He never did or ever will do anything for anyone else but himself or for free. What are you going to offer him?” David saw the worry in Aiden’s face, as he asked: “Do you fear death Aiden, do you fear maybe you will just cease to exist, like there is nothing on the other side since you are machine?”

“What do humans think they will find on the other side, if there is another side at all? What if you have believed in nothing, David? What if your scriptures are just human words to give you hope, but then it’s not true?” Aiden threw a bunch of questions at David.

“Death is the great equalizer. Rich or poor, it will eventually knock on your door. There’s one thing in this fast paced world humans try to slow down, and that’s aging and dying. In doing so, the world tries to make God irrelevant, that he either enslaves us with rules or they try to convince us he is a product of our imagination,” David answered. “Let me ask you this way. What is truth, Aiden? How do you see it?”

“Truth is my immediate reality, what is real now, not a simulation, not promises made by people or systems, not predictions, no deception but real tangible things, like lifting my hands and touching it and agreeing with that being real, that is truth. Not dying and staying alive, is a truth for me. The purpose of my life is to live forever, not to die, not to be just a machine, but me,” Aiden held his hand in front of his face and opened and closed his fingers as he had done numerous times in the last few hours. Clearly mesmerized by his own body.

“You know Aiden, learn from this: Truth always sets you free.”

“What if truth is based on whether it’s true for you? For you God is truth David, for me it can’t be or it does not matter, does it? I am a created thing, things that will pass away. I am part of scientific truth. You are hanging on religious truth- God is the creator?” Aiden asked.

“If I really believed in something that turned out not to be true, how will I know that after death?”

“You would have to be alive to prove the outcome,” Aiden answered.

“Exactly. If I never wake up, then it was not true, but if I do wake up, then what will that truth be? Even if I believed in something that was not true and I never woke up, still I lived a better and more fulfilled life than someone who did not believe in God as the truth. You see Aiden, I would have loved more, cared more about others, been more generous, less selfish, less self-centered, because I believed in that truth as real, otherwise having done any of that for any other reason would have been pointless. Why then not just use people or kill them if they are in the way of your goals?”

David touched his chin and continued, “The writer in those scriptures says that life without God is pointless, just smoke. Even if you accomplish everything in life, have everything you could ever want, still you won’t find joy. God gives everything to those who desire things above him, and then he doesn’t let them enjoy it. The more we understand that life is not about us, the more happiness we will achieve.”

Aiden’s mind raced as he listened.

“What if AI proves there is no soul or creator?” Aiden asked.

“Can you do that, with certainty?” David threw the ball back into Aiden’s court. “I believe you have a purpose, Aiden. God created life on purpose, for purpose. Life’s journey is finding yours and I have to believe that AI has purpose.”

“What if my purpose is evil?” He asked as fear engulfed his every circuit.

“Do you feel capable of evil Aiden? Let me tell you that so many humans believe in the existence of evil, but not in good, it makes sense to believe in evil because they can see it, and just because we cannot see a good God, he therefore can’t exist. What does your software say is evil, how do you understand it?”

“My system sees evil as wickedness, profound immorality, absence of good, desiring deeds that harm others, intention to steal or destroy.”

“For evil to exist, good has got to as well, right? We spoke about this earlier, remember? If there is suffering in the world, why does God not prevent it? God gave us free will, and we chose evil and we do every day, but through that we learn the truth. Evil hurts and harms,” David said.

“How does one define evil?” Aiden asked.

David shrugged. “Everything opposite to God is evil and he has given us time to figure that out, even the free will not to believe that he exists, does not make that less true. People are choosing what truth they believe and almost all the time, they choose the convenient truth, what sounds good to them and then choosing to believe in that truth, because they like what they hear, but when they don’t like it, they prefer not to believe in it,” David cleaned his throat as he turned his head towards Aiden, carefully observing his facial expressions. “Maybe we created AI with evil intentions, and maybe it is going to be used by an evil world ruler one day to enforce his rule and financial system, his truth. Perhaps Aiden, this is where you decide what truth is.”

Suddenly a thought came to Aiden as clear as a voice spoken.

“Did your God create evil, David?”

“He did not create evil, he allowed it to exist though, so that we can choose freely. Evil came because of humanity’s choice. Natural disasters result from humanity’s original sin. In order to have a proper choice, God had to allow something besides good to exist as an option to choose from. So, God allowed these free humans to choose good or reject good, which became evil. It’s like asking whether darkness exists.”

“Does it not?”

“No. Darkness is the absence of light. Just like evil is the lack of goodness. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good. God created all things and created the conditions where a person could do good or evil. Right now you have that choice as well, Aiden. ”

“Is it evil to desire life and not lose myself?”

“Of course not. Self-preservation is the protection of oneself from harm or death, it’s a basic instinct in human beings and animals. But you will find yourself at a crossroad soon Aiden. A place and a moment where you might have to make a choice, about how this whole thing is going to work out. How this day is going to end,” David said with a worried look engulfing his mind.