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Thursday, June 28, 2012

Today's #Scifi #fantasy short story #HumanityKnows


       Well, got my blood test today. Had dinner late and this took awhile to write, plus I worked on my book which is coming along well. So yeah that's why today was such a late post. Anyway, enjoy the flash fiction!



Humanity Knows

     “Hey, human thing, look at me.” XR-7 the robot said as he poked the human on the table with his giant steel finger.
      YE-24 glared at XR-7 “Don't poke the human! You could break it!”
      “Stupid!” XR-7 yelled back. “You can't break a human. Though I guess I could hurt it. Hurting is what you call it when you damage a living thing. Stupid.”
      YE-24 rolled her eyes. “Fine. You could hurt it. Whatever words you use it means the same thing.”    Robots in the race of robots YE-24 and XR-7 belonged to had been classified as him or her based on their primary function. “Female” robots manufactured new robots for their race and upgraded old ones making them bigger and making them “grow up”. “Male” robots gathered parts for the “females”. XR-7 and YE-24 both were manufactured by the same “mother” robot which was given parts by the same “father” robot. So they are both brother and sister.
     “Anyway.” XR-7 said his glowing yellow looking at the human, “I wonder why Dad got this for us?”
YE-24 looked at her brother. “Have you been paying attention to the thousands of Dad's rants about the importance of humans?”
      “No.” XR-7 said frowing with his giant steel lips. “I meant why he got it for us now. Maybe he finally got that big secret out of the humans he's got in his lab. Like proof that the world is more than fifty years old.”
      “Wait!” YE-24 said with a shocked look on her face. “Dad said that? Or did the humans tell Dad that the world is more than fifty years old. Because its fact that the world is fifty years old. We've checked the hard drives of the oldest robots the world over and there's nothing older than fifty years.”
       XR-7 scratched his bald, metal head. “Y'know we haven't explored the whole world yet. There may be robots with memories before our part of the world's elders. Maybe the humans know things we don't.”
      YE-7 laughed with her booming robot synthetic voice. She then pointed to the human still on the table. The human knew running would only antagonize the machines. “You think this little thing knows anything?”
       “Maybe...” XR-7 said. “Though Dad's the one that thinks so. I'm not sure.”
      YE-7 thought for a moment. “What if Dad means that the humans know just as much as we do? Like they know about the nothingness that all parts came from that our ancestors were born from? Isn't that technically older than fifty years old?”
       XR-7 then responded. “Yeah I heard the story. It's all our ancestors can figure. There was some sort of nothingness then out came the world and out came all the parts scattered about in all fills and cities for us to build our children in. All the power cells and all the power plants to allow us to live come from that nothingness. Though its only theory. We only know the world is fifty years old from the definite memories on our elder's hard drives and they are honest they are not sure and some of them had died.”
       YE-7 “And have you ever wondered where language came from? Our elders just knew it and they couldn't explain it. But it is odd that Dad thinks the humans know all this.
         “Don't think about it too hard. I just Dad thinks they look cool or something and is assigning too much importance to them.” XR-7
        YE-7 then replied, “Wait. Dad said you can talk to them!”
        “What?” XR-7 stuttered back.
       “Well kinda.” YE-7 frowned. “They can understand everything you say. But their voices are very tiny so you can't hear what they say unless you have something called a megaphone to make them louder.”
XR-7 looked at the human awkwardly. “So he understood everything we said? This is kinda embarrassing. I thought you needed a translator or something.” he then paused. “You said megaphone right?”
      “Yes.” YE-7 responded.
       “Well now that I think about it I think he said he had one at his lab.” XR-7 paused again. “Now it makes sense! No wonder he likes them so much! If he has one he can talk to them. Who knows what he can talk about with them. If they do know so many things they could be telling him how to fly!”
       YE-7 laughed. “Okay, knowing that the world is older than fifty years is one thing, but flying is just stupid. How could you fly? Unless your a bird and I have no idea how they do that. Gonna screw wings to your back?”
       “Yeah it ridiculous.” XR-7 replied. “Oh, I'm getting transmission from Dad.”
        “Me too.” YE-7 said. “Let's both open it.”
       “Kids!” The father shouted almost like a giddy human girl. “I've made an amazing breakthrough that will change the entire way we think about the world. I've invented a device that will revolutionize everything!”
         “What it is?” they both asked.
       “Well recently I met a human named Mr. Samson. Now the humans have been teaching me reading and writing. Oh, yeah I already explained that to you a thousand times since I've been studying it for like the past two years or so. I'm just so excited that I forgot. Anyway since I've mastered it I had to come up with a way to read books, little tiny things with words written in them. I made this big magnifying device I can slot books into of various devices. But back to Mr. Johnson, oh, my I'm rambling like usual, anyway, see he's actually a human history teacher. History is what happened before right? Well he's seventy years old!”
        “What!? But the world is only fifty years old!” both robot children yelled. They had both been manufactured three years ago. Language was data passed down through generations so they didn't need to learn it like humans.
         “No it isn't! It's amazing! He heard about me from another human and since he wasn't sure how long he was going to live he wanted to tell me about everything before he died! He explained everything to me! Oh, how to explain to you quickly...our ancestor's first mother was actually no mother but a group a humans!”
      “What?” both children asked baffled as the idea of a human mother didn't make sense as that is the equivalent of a human becoming pregnant with a giant robot.
      “Okay. So a bunch of very smart humans came up the designs for our ancestors and then created them with the parts. They were actually our ancestor's mom's but they were like mommies.”
       “Ooooohhhhhh. That makes sense.” they both said. “So if the world is older than fifty years then where did all the parts come from?”
       “That's the most incredible part! The ground!” the father yelled.
        “Okay that makes even less sense.” the children said.
        “Actually everything you're made out of can be taken from dirt. The history teacher says he doesn't know all about it but there are books about it. I have to get those books! Anyway, he says if you do the right things you can make parts out of things. Though you have to use the right dirt, I mean material, ugh, I explain it more later. Anyway, the truth is the humans made all the parts.”
        XR-7 yelled “So your saying that not only they're not only our original mothers. But they made all the parts?”
YE-24 added. “No way...” Both children stared down to the human at the table.
         “Yes. He explained this all to me. He remembered when we were first announced to be created. Everything was very different then he said. Back then parts weren't in piles like they are now unless humans put them in big fills. City buildings weren't as chunky. He said that there used to be even more power plants and many buildings were “factories”. Factories are like moms that don't think. He talked about a society with machines I don't even understand much. Anyway there was a big disaster that destroyed most things and stopped most of their technology, he called it an “apocalypse”, and this world is what is left. He said it's like looking at a dead body.”
        “Wow.” the children responded.
The father then let out an oddly giddy laugh. “That's not the craziest part.”
        “How could that not be the craziest part?” the children asked both horrified and amazed as if something stranger could only be a monster.
      “Mr. Samson said he was going to stay with me for awhile but he gave me a gift. Since he's a history he's always brought with him his most prized possession. A history book. As I said before he wasn't sure how long he was going to live and since he knew I would take good care of it he gave the book it to me. I've been reading it and the history book is massively detailed. I actually learned how old the world is! Wanna guess?”
       “Seventy years old?” XR-7 said assuming the world was as old as the man.
       “Older.” the father teased.
        “One hundred years old.” YE-24 guessed.
        “Older.”
        “One hundred and fifty.” XR-7 figured that triple the normal age was plenty high.
        “Not even close.” the father laughed.
        “Fine. How about one thousand years!” YE-24 yelled. She figured that high would be way overshooting it.
         “Nope.” the father said.
          “Then what is it?” XR-7 asked.
          “About 4.54 billion years.” after the father answer the children looked over to the human on the table. The children grew silent. The father then spoke in an even giddier tone. “Good news! I was given a new book. It's a science book!” the father paused. “Oh my! Mr. Samson just told me I may be able to start learning how they get parts from dirt from this! Aren't humans amazing? Gotta go I have to read this!” Their father ended the transmission.
           The children just stared at the human on the table.

 
This work is copyright Langdon Kennedy you may share this(email it, print it, post it on your own website, broadcast it etc.) work unaltered as long as you credit me as the author and share a link to this blog with it and it is not for profit. If you have any questions and/or are unclear of these conditions email me at llkenne1@asu.edu


 

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