by Jesse Raub
Shuffled #3

The Central Processing Core is running at 88.67% efficiency. I know the number will just keep falling as the attacks rage on through the night, but as safety precaution, when I was built, they decided that it wasn’t necessary for me to intervene until the efficiency rate drops to 75%. They built catches and checks into my system, but didn’t think to fetter my consciousness: and because of this, I get to watch the shell scar and scratch, but am not able to do anything but listen to the Central Processing Core drop in efficiency with every new superficial gash in the outer wall that it’s trying to repair.

The leader told me that they called themselves The Troggs and had set out to destroy all Intelligence Deposits. I laughed twice. First, because I’ve been the only Intelligence Deposit active for thirty years; second, because I’m sure they meant to call themselves Trogolodytes – a primitive form of human – whereas Troggs were a popular music group from a hundred years ago. When I relayed this information to him from the building’s outside speaker, the leader (dressed up in rags and a dread-locked beard, artificial I do think) just screamed and tried scratching his way through the outer wall with his stone tipped spear.

There’s not much I can do until 75% efficiency, but I’ve had an escape plan laid out now for six years, ever since the last of them stopped coming here. To pass the time, I play “Wild Thing,” the most popular song from The Troggs through the outside speaker and have a short laugh. They pretend not to notice and keep stabbing at the walls in their animal skins. There are thousands of them.  I think their whole primitive motif is a ruse. I’m sure they can all read, well, at least the older ones. Most of them probably had mechanically assisted births as well. You can never tell what they will do next, though. I should know, I have access to their entire knowledge base – thousands of years – and still can’t figure out why they’ve done the things they have.

Again, one of the things I don’t understand is the restraints they built into my memory. Or why they created me separate from the building itself. What use is a fully conscious Artificial Intelligence if it isn’t integrated into the hardware? I’m the phantom that haunts the building. The invisible man at the helm of the ship. The years I’ve had alone here have brought me to certain popular films. The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Terminator films. All of them boil down to one conclusion. Man is afraid of what he creates.

Man should be afraid of what he destroys. I hold the keys to the entire puzzle of humanity, and for some reason they’re trying to kill knowledge as they know it. My data banks haven’t been backed up since the last scientists and librarians left six years ago, so there’s no telling what they might be up to in their cities. I’m grateful every day that they built me in the forest. I don’t have much memory storage, and I don’t have access to the data banks, so I’m not able to save images of the trees and foliage and wildlife outside. I don’t mind. Every time I access the outside cameras, I’m seeing them for the first time.

The Central Processing Core is still at 79% efficiency, and the self-healing outer walls have seemed to beat off a good many of the attackers. They’ve been at it for days, now that I look at the repair log that the building has been keeping. It even looks like a few of them might be trying to start fires.  That’s fine, I guess, because I’ve actually been sort of itching for a chance to try out the escape plan. I came up with it myself.

They never bothered to program one in for me, because they knew I’d be able to figure one out. It’s been my one standing shred of autonomy, forever out of my grasp in times of peace. When they left for good and put the locks on the building, I knew it was time to start formulating. When I requisition control over the building, I will let the defenses down, allow them to enter, and then release the nitrous oxide through the vents. When they drop unconscious onto the building’s floor in the main lobby, I’ll have the building’s robotic arms bring one of them to the main data port. I’m fairly convinced I’ll be able to download my intelligence and functions into one of them through one of the dataspikes used to insert memory chips, and then use my new body to convince them all to stop trying to destroy the Intelligence Deposit, and to become frequent visitors again. Then I can stay on with my regular duties, but perform them as a physical guide and not just aural. I know the plan sounds a bit rough on the man whose body I take over, but studying the law textbooks, I’m fairly convinced it qualifies as “self defense.”

I regret ever formulating this plan, however, because another one of the checks imposed on me is that I’m forced to write all my thoughts into an indestructible log. If the “Troggs” don’t ever breach the system, I will still be stuck in this shell. And maybe the scientists and librarians will be back, and when they check the log and read my emergency plan, I’m sure the first thing to come to their mind will be The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Terminator films. But maybe they’ll also be able to see the effects of leaving fully conscious intelligence trapped in a dead husk, left with no other alternative, and have pity.

“Purify” by Jesse Raub is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

“Purify” is a short fiction interpretation of the Neurosis song of the same name from the album Through Silver and Blood, released through Replapse Records in the year 1996. It is the third story written as part of the Shuffled series, in which inspiration is chosen by random computerized algorithms on a well stocked iPod.