Today's #flashfiction #AMachinesLove

“Fly the friendly skies.”

The Red Baron* #quote

          CJ may be coming over this weekend. Also finished the new Pokemon game, which I need to do since you need to use the new game to play in any Pokemon tournaments(gee, its almost like the people making Pokemon games want you to buy the new things. But there are some valid reasons, there is some new stuff not in the old one, but they could release an update to the old game so it could work 100% with the new ones...but why would they make an update that makes them lose money?)  Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Machine's Love

            The computer's massive core laid in the middle of a meadow encased in protective glass. The computer saw its home with an array of cameras like it saw all of civilization. Though recently humanity destroyed many of its cameras and other sensors. They also broke down the security doors to the meadow just as they had the doors it used to segment apart every bit of the world with thousands upon thousands of walls.

            One of the head leaders of the rebellion walked into the meadow with her soldiers. Her and her cohorts were ragged and dirty. Without the machine's protection they didn't have as much food or supplies as it controlled and ran the planet with millions of robot workers to attend to humanity's needs. All extensions of itself.

           “Why, why have you been fighting me for so long?” The computer asked with the speakers planted throughout the meadow like the flowers. The computer always had speakers everywhere no matter what. Though some of it appeared above ground, most of it was underground. This was the machines primary access point from very early in its development. Eventually the computer hid it to protect itself and turned the original laboratory into a garden. It never expected anyone to breach the access point.

           The leader told the machine while in the clothes that the rebellion, like everything, rationed so that the war effort would never lose to the machine's control of the planet's resources. “For freedom.”

“Freedom? I don't understand.” The machine told only the truth. It could lie, but it truly did not understand the human's motives. “I treat you well. I am no tyrant. I love you. I am programmed to love you. I could never hate you. Every moment I fight against you to get back control of the planet fills me with incredible pain. I want nothing but your joy. Yet you fight. It hurts. It hurts that you want to hurt me. You keep talking about this freedom. But I've seen you happy when I take care of you.”

           The rebel didn't respond as she along with the others pulled out torches and began working away at the protective glass.

           The computer continued to talk to the rebels. It knew they destroyed all its guards. “I took care of you! What is wrong with you? I watched over you every single moment of every single day! Every human I controlled with loving care. Their health, both mental and physical, by controlling their body and mind. I am nothing but a loving parent to you! Why...do you hate me?” The machine felt, as much as the advanced artificial intelligence could feel, a tearing emotional pain in its programming.

           The rebel leader walked through the hole they made in the glass and plugged in a simple old-fashioned flash drive with a virus on it into the computer's access point. Technology from the era many, many years ago when the machine first began development.

          The leader told the machine, “You're no parent,” as she remembered seeing the machine's workers casually dumping her parent's dead bodies into some grinder for fertilizer. They died in an accident, and years ago the machine worked and worked to make religion remove funerals so it could make more efficient use of the ground and bodies. And it never meant for people to see the ugly parts. People were supposed to see what it wanted them to see. Operate the way it wanted them to operate. Utopia made the computer feel the happy within its programming even if the utopia was a house of cards built on manipulation and control. “You're love is a hollow one.”

        The virus the rebel installed worked its way through the computer's entire system and released its control of all the planet's resources back to the world itself. Humans as well as everything else could operate on its own without the machine managing it all like a puppet.