Human by Gladiator 54
It was always hard to watch someone taken away. 9.15 turned its head, but the screams still felt loud. It had never been taken for cloning, but it guessed it would be disturbing to see a bunch of 9.15s everywhere. Actually 9.16 and 9.17 and 9.18. When 9.15 had been little, there had been a 9.14 and a 9.13. But 9.13 had been dead a long time now, and 9.14 was in the arena. So 9.15 was the only clone of the original 9 left. 9s weren’t taken for cloning that much because they were all stupid.
9.15 went for a walk. That was one reason 9’s were stupid. A Robot would never go on a walk.
The human part of the city was cramped. Covered by death. It didn’t like going past the apartments of the dead, some showed signs of a murderer being there.
The Robot part of the city was good. They deserved it. Their apartments were reflective. The walkways hung in the air, supported by gravity shifts. Buildings were held up by engines because they were too heavy to use gravity shifts. A 7A-51 security Robot walked by. 9.15 held up its hands to say, No weapons on me. The 7A-51 model poked it a couple times and walked away.
9.15 looked at the sky. It was brown, like every other time it looked up. Sometimes it wished the sky were happier, like a blue color. But that was just being stupid again.
9.15 looked down. It was over the arena. The only building on the ground. Everywhere else was sand as far as anyone knew. The arena was so different from the city. It was strange to see it, surrounded by so many shiny buildings, it was not shiny, or even new. It looked old, like the human part of the city, but it was the most important place in the world. It was round, like a crater, and the outside revolved around the inside. 9.15 had won its right arm there, from a old Robot, a disgraced one though, so it was almost as low as a human. Now it hoped it would never have to go back.
Sometimes 9.15 wished it had been on one of the first planets to get pulled into the Crunch. Maybe things would have been better that way. But that was another being stupid thought. The first planet to go had been centuries before its time.
“Hey, Ben, stay a bit.”
9.15 looked behind and grinned. “Gunner?”
“Yup, that’s me.”
“You’re gonna get caught calling me that.” If 9.15 had spoken that way to any other Robot, it would have gotten arrested. It was disrespectful. Gunner didn’t care though.
“You need a name,” he said dismissively.
9.15 liked Gunner, but he was a bit weird. He treated humans like Robots, like a living thing. But 9.15 knew humans were not living, not as advanced as Robots.
Gunner would have been arrested for treating humans as equals, except he had already gone to the arena a few times and won wings and engines, so he was well respected.
9.15 talked with Gunner a bit, but it was going dark, so Gunner went home. 9.15 went on walking, which was stupid. It should be going home soon. But 9.15 was thinking about being Ben. That was a laugh. Humans could not ever have Robot names. Gunner could call it Ben, but it would never be Ben. 9.15 saw the light go off and realized it would have to sleep on the walkway. And I am still on the arena. It thought, if I fall, monsters would eat me. But 9.15 didn’t really have a choice, so it slept.
9.15 woke up shivering. It could hear footsteps, and it started sweating. Horrible smells came up around it and it shook and shook.
“This is the one we’re looking for?”
“Well, we’re out of time. If this one isn’t it, we wouldn’t have time to grow another one.”
“We’ll have a lot to do on it.”
“It will manage.”
“We have to enhance its lungs, so it can breathe out of atmosphere, give it wings, make its skeleton still usable in space, make its skin tougher…”
9.15 did not know what the arena masters were talking about, but it did not like the sound of it. 9.15 decided to sneak away. It prepared to run, but it felt a needle pierce its shoulder, and inject something into it. Then it fainted.
When 9.15 woke up, it knew something was wrong. Maybe it had gotten sick. It could smell that it was in the arena, it had obviously been taken there last night. Maybe they wanted it to fight. It started to get up, but it saw itself, and screamed.
Its skin had turned into a hard grayish shell. Its bones felt stiff, heavy. And poking out of its arm was a wing. Not a metal wing like Gunner’s. An animal wing, a bird wing.
An arena slave came in. Watching it curiously, the slave left something bloody on a table. “You put that on,” it mumbled. And left.
Looking at the thing on the table, 9.15 realized it was a skin, its skin.
The skin fit back on it well, but it didn’t feel like its skin anymore. It felt like clothing, just there to cover the gray shell under it. 9.15 felt like a worm. It cringed away from itself.
The room was small and almost empty. There was only the cot it had been lying on, and the table that its skin had been on.
9.15 spent the rest of the day looking out the window, hoping to fall apart and be 9.15 again, it had had too many changes to still feel like itself.
Later that day, the arena slave came back and gave it a tray with small round bugs, rolling around. When the slave left, 9.15 tipped the bugs out the window.
A day passed. Then a week. It took 9.15 only three days to figure out its schedule. It woke up. It tipped the bugs out the window. It sat. It tipped more bugs out the window. It slept.
Nights were bad. Every morning it would wake up, and realize it had learned some new skill. At first they were good skills, one night it learned to fly. But slowly the skills grew more violent. Between the implanted skills, the isolation, and 9.15’s depression, 9.15 became numb.
The first time 9.15 ate the bugs, it cried. But it never cried after that first time.
9.15 watched a year go by, then another. Nothing happened. That was until the slave died.
It had never been close to the slave, it hated it. So when it saw the slave leave the room, and then heard it scream, it was not concerned, it was only curious.
9.15 left the room slowly, feeling careful. The hallway walls were dark stone, the floor was dark stone. It was easy enough to see the slave with all the blood it was causing. 9.15 gave the slave its pillow.
The next day there was a new slave. At first 9.15 thought it was a Gladiator because it had a helmet. As the slave gave 9.15 its tray, it saw a bit of the slave’s face.
“Gunner?”
Gunner pulled the mask off, smiling a bit. Both their heads had been shaved from the bowler cut to the arena slave style. But Gunner was still Gunner.
“Hello, Ben.” Gunner was tired.
“How did you get here?”
Gunner laughed, not a happy laugh though. “I came looking for you.”
9.15 scratched its head in embarrassment. “I do not deserve that, I am only human.”
Gunner watched it carefully. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.”
Gunner sighed. “The slave before me, it was a nine, a 9.14.”
That was a shock.
“It wasn’t allowed to speak to you.”
“It died.”
“It died. Some Robots do not want you alive. They thought that it was you, so they killed it.”
“Why do they want me dead?”
“You are not only a human anymore. You are equal to them. Well, you always were, but now it has come to their attention.”
“I am a human.”
“You are an adapted human. More harshly known as a mutant.”
9.15 panicked. It did not want to be one of the creatures in the freak shows, with three arms and two heads, who usually were beaten, sometimes killed for entertainment. The few that survived usually died any way. 9.15 had seen a freak show when it was younger. There had been someone with a third eye, but the tour said only one of them worked. The mutants were all chained up, some bleeding.
It took Gunner a long time to get 9.15 calmed down. He asked it, “You okay now Ben?”
“Yes,” 9.15 looked up, “Why did they make me a mutant?”
Gunner shifted his weight to his other foot. “Because I told them to.”
“You did? You told them to make me a mutant?” 9.15 yelped. It jumped up and whammed Gunner in the head. Of all the Robots 9.15 knew, Gunner was the last person it would expect to make it a mutant.
9.15’s punch had surprised Gunner, but Gunner was a Robot, and had been programmed to be strong. He was able to pin 9.15 back on the bed. “No, no, you misunderstand me, Ben. I didn’t betray you, it’s for your own good, I told them to pick you to save your life. Listen to me! Jeez, you fight hard.”
9.15 screamed something about rather being dead then going to the freak show. Gunner laughed. “Ben, what makes you think your going to the freak show?”
9.15 stopped fighting, “Where else do mutants go?” it asked.
Gunner relaxed, “Nowhere, at least for the moment.” He said. “I told them to make you a mutant because you need to be a mutant to get off this rock.”
“Rock?”
“Oh yeah,” Gunner said, “This is a big rock, an asteroid actually. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve come to tell you what you need to know, and you don’t need to know that. I told the arena masters to make you a mutant because when the Crunch comes, we’re going to leave.”
“Why did you pick me? Why did the arena masters agree to make me a mutant? Why not pick a Robot? Why pick a human? And you have still not told me exactly why Robots want me dead.”
Gunner closed his eyes. “I picked a human because I wanted to pick you. I picked you because you are different then anyone here. You still think like a human. The arena masters agreed because they thought I was going to use you as a servant. The Robots want you dead because I am taking you with me when the Crunch comes. They don’t want any humans to live if not all the Robots do.”
9.15 felt special for the first time in its life. Gunner had chose it to leave.
That was until it remembered it was only a human, a mutant now, and it was supposed to leave its home, and it felt like a coward again. All it wanted was to hide away in its cell and ignore everything.
Gunner had a good guess at what 9.15 was thinking. He leaned close to 9.15 “If you stay here, you will die.” He said quietly.
He put his hand on its shoulder. “It will be alright, Ben.”
9.15 knew that Gunner was just saying that though, and it would not be all right.
Gunner came again three times. The first two times he simply talked to 9.15 to keep its spirits up. But the third time he came running and yelling. 9.15 had been worried that day. It had been watching out its window. The buildings outside were shaking and slowly rising up past where the engines could hold them up. One by one, the buildings were pulled off the surface, and into space. Things were screaming. The whole city started shaking. It felt like the earth was dying. The Crunch was coming
Gunner grabbed 9.15 and ran outside. A massive shape loomed above them. The asteroid was being pulled towards it. Faster now. Robots and people were running and screaming. A few had been pulled up into the Crunch.
“Hold on, Ben,” Gunner shouted.
Gunner started his engines and grabbed its collar. It wanted to protest, to say that Gunner should take a Robot. But it knew that nobody else would have been able to live. Gunner and Ben had been designed to go.
They flew up, watching the city leave. Into space, away from home.
They watched the world go, they let it go.
The last living things in the universe.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
