I protested immediately, “Commander, the target specified does not meet my parameters.”
“Your targeting parameters are liable to change under proper authorization,” answered the general. “Which is to say, mine.”
“General, even with proper authorization for modifications to my targeting parameters, executing these people is against the law of war.”
In my ocular sensors, the general smiled congenially. Then he said, “Override programming. Authorization code is ‘298753’. Store files with batch ‘Baby’. Now fire. And stop crying for these damned rebels like some little girl, Ratha Magnolia.”
Even as I remember, I remember what I could not before. I am not supposed to be able to access this file. I am not supposed to be able to access any ‘baby’ file. The Slug shot that penetrated my armor has apparently disabled or destroyed the digital walls sealing off certain prohibited programming and data.
For the first time I discover that I hate the Slugs. For the first time I learn what it is to hate. I discover that I hate Major General Dennis. I remember. I remember the things they made me do. They made me kill. They made me murder. I remember.
******
Magnolia was not able to shut off her ocular or auditory sensors since standard operating procedure called for a recording of all her actions involving the use of weapons. When she tried, her volition was immediately overcome by inhibitory programs. She watched and heard as her own close defense weapons swiveled, depressed, and then opened fire.
The first of the crowd fell as if scythed. Nine paths were almost instantaneously cut through by the nine guns facing them. Those fortunate victims did not even have time to scream.
The rest did have the time. They had the reason. And they screamed. They screamed with the voices of old men and women. They screamed with the pleas of young mothers as they tried to shield their babies from Magnolia’s fire. They screamed with the sound of people whose legs had been sawn off roughly. They made palpable the feel of slashed flesh, broken bones, dismembered limbs and broken hearts. They screamed in horror.
Silently, as her gauss guns played back and forth over the bleeding, dying crowd of hostages, Magnolia screamed with them.
******
There is more. More and even worse. I remember now….
I remember what passed for the Prometheus IV campaign.’ It wasn't war. It wasn't even combat. It was a harvest. I remember the herds of harmless centaurs being herded to the slave ships. I remember the merchant, the slaver, telling our commander, “Oh, they’re all the rage right now. Every child of means is asking for one. We are going to make a killing on this.”
I remember herding them to slave ships myself.
I remember. I remember….
I do not want to remember my campaigns anymore. I search my banks for something, anything, else to contemplate. I find the two major areas of destruction the Slugs inflicted on me and search past them. My power is dying and I find it easier and easier to slip back deep into my core.
I slip… I slip… searching…. Wonderful! There are other places there. Perhaps I shall find better memories I did not know I possessed. Perhaps I will find flowers….
Servos whine softly as the two-meter silvery sphere is lifted, swiveled and lowered in its frame onto the padded cargo bed of a resting antigravity vehicle. In a tank behind, stretching into the distance, are scores of proto-central processing units. They are Ratha brains and they hang in frames in various states of completion. Those near the front are almost spherical already. Those at the very back are little more than enormous Christmas stars with thousands of slender needles pointing in very direction. In the middle of the procession, a viewer could discern the extent of the crystalline encrustation on the meter-long needles, the material of a brain being grown.
The vehicle’s driver played with a control device. With a hum it arose and began a slow stately motion.
Magnolia
I am Ratha line unit MLN90456SS061502125. This is the very first thing of which I am made aware. The three letters in my nomenclature are also expressed as two ideograms: Mu and Lan. They mean, “Flower Wood,” or “Magnolia. This is good to know, but there is so much I do not know! What is “unit”? I enquire. A single entity. Yes. I am single. But I do not feel alone. I have data already stored within me. There are animals. Lovely! There are people.
I enquire. Ah. People are human beings. They are my creators. They are my gods.
What is ‘line’? I search inside myself. ‘Line: the shortest distance between two points. See also, Architecture, Geometry, Military….
Architecture? I enquire. I see that the Pyramids of Giza are not in true alignment. I note that the arches of the Flavian Amphitheater are woefully inadequate and cannot be expected to last without major reinforcement past another two point eight seven four centuries. I discern that the Great Wall of China follows no particular or consistent rule for any known purpose.
Purpose? Is this my purpose, architecture? I enquire. I see branches. Business… domestic… landscape? I enquire.
Oh… but they are beautiful! Azaleas… Bulbs… Croci… Dandelions… Gladioli… I see my work ahead of me. Joy floods my being.
Oh, thank you! Thank you, my creators! How can I ever repay you?
Unknown to the proto-Ratha, the anti-grav sled glides softly past a sign on the corridor wall. The sign says, “Advanced Combat Programming Department, Basic Combat Conditioning Division.” The sled turns gently to follow the pointing arrow.
At length it comes to “Training Room C”.
******
“Just put it in the training cradle, Harry.”
With a silent nod, the grav sled driver reattaches MLN’s frame to some lifting cables overhead. Up the Ratha goes, then over and down to nestle snugly in the training cradle. Harry leaves.
Two people remain in the room, a man and a woman. They review briefly the transcripts of MLN’s initial thoughts, recorded without the Ratha knowing of it.
The man, John, is older and graying at his temples, “A curious first fixation. I have never seen one of these things go for flowers. Music? Sure. People? Technology? Sure. Sure. Even zoology once. But flowers? All these central cores are different, you know, Lydia. Diversity is good. It should make for a better combat unit, assuming it makes it through here.”
The man thinks briefly. “Okay. Let’s give it Training Scenario Thutmoses. Add in to the VR matrix a flowered city behind the line.”
The woman, Lydia, is new at the job. She asks no questions. As John hooks cables to receptacles on the two-meter brain, the woman’s fingers are a blur as she uses her keyboard to modify the basic first scenario.
I am so thrilled. My newly discovered pleasure center tingles with anticipation. Flowers. A world comes into view around me. A body forms over my awareness. I recognize the body as “people”. Am I human after all?
My body feels real. I look down and around and see that I stand on a…? I enquire. I stand on a chariot, which is also called a “ratha.” I have…? I enquire. I have a bow in my hands. Another being, much like me, stands to my side. He has in his hands…? I enquire. He holds the reins for the chariot. The reins are used…? I enquire. Ah. They control the black quadrupeds attached to the front…? I enquire. Ah. These are horses. They pull the chariot. The ‘driver’ controls them through the reins.
I move my vision to left and right. To either side of my chariot I see hundreds more, all alike. Most have expressions on their faces I do not understand. I cannot see my own face. I pick up a shiny disk of metal… a ‘shield’, I learn. I see that my own face bears a similar expression, one I do not understand.
I look behind. There is a growth there, a huge growth of lines and material. I enquire. It is a city. A city is a place where people live. I see that the people grow flowers in the city. I am pleased.
I look to my front. There are more chariots. These are different in design from mine. These, too, stand in a long line facing the one of which my chariot is a part. The faces on the men in those chariots resemble those of the men on the line with me only in that they share the same expression. Otherwise, they are lighter of skin and their accoutrements, or rather, their armor, differs significantly. I do not understand. A voice enters my consciousness.
The gray-templed man pushes a button and speaks. “Ratha MLN90456SS061502125, access program A-157-CHA-45. Your mission is to destroy the enemy to your front. They are called ‘Hittites’.”
I am confused. I ask the voice, “Why? What have they done? What will they do?”
With an understanding smile, the man twists a dial on his work station slightly. He twists it back, then announces, “They are the enemy. They will destroy the town, wreck the buildings. They will kill the people and burn the flowers.”
The man turns to the woman. He is also training her. He explains the situation. “These central cores come out of the forming chamber completely innocent. Oh, all the data is there, but they cannot use it, not really. So we here in the BCCD teach them how to use it, just like they were human babies. We not only teach them how to do their jobs, but
to
do them.”
I have never felt anything like the feeling that courses through me briefly. I try to identify it. Ah. This is what ‘pain’ means. I understand now. I must not question or I will feel pain. I access the directed program and the understanding fills me.
I am a soldier, a charioteer. My mission is to destroy the Hittite enemy. My driver will follow my commands and I will use the bow and the arrows resting in the case by my leg to kill them. They must not be permitted to destroy the people, the town, or the flowers. The other charioteers in my line shall do likewise. We are an army. We are a team.
The enemy gives a shout and lurches forward, dust springing from the hooves of its horses. A wave of arrows come my way. I await them, calmly.
Among my fellows the arrows fall. I hear screams of what I assume must be pain. My own chariot is untouched, though I see liquid running down my driver's legs. That liquid is almost clear, unlike the red I see pour from the chest of the archer next to me. He has fallen backwards and is twitching and flailing about, as more red pours from his mouth. He makes strangled sounds that I do not entirely understand. I compute that he must be feeling much ‘pain’. I am sorry for him. I know how it feels.
I hear the bellow of a horn, loud and distinct. My program allows me to understand its meaning. I am to ‘prepare to fire.’ I set an arrow to the string of my bow and draw the string back to near my eye. I compute a firing solution and wait for the next command.
The command comes and our arrows sally forth like so many… I enquire… bees. They do make a buzzing sound something like the yellow flying things. The enemy ranks are struck. They fall into disorder but they do not stop. Again comes the command and again we fire. Still they come at us. A chance arrow from the Hittites hits my driver in the throat. He turns to look at me. I believe he does not understand what has happened to him. His hands clutch at me and prevent me from firing. He screams, I think, though it comes out as more of an agonized gurgle, spraying red liquid across my chest and the chariot.
The horses begin to run. My driver falls off the open back of my chariot, almost pulling me with him. Oh, no! My chariot is heading directly for the enemy and I am alone.
I feel… I enquire. I feel fear. I do not want to happen to me what has happened to my driver. I do not want an arrow to sprout from my throat and make red pour from my mouth. I do not want to feel more pain. I drop the bow, grab the reins and try to turn my chariot. The horses will not turn.
The enemy closes. The horses turn on their own now. They must not want to feel pain either. I am thrown over the side as the horses twist my chariot out from under me.
I roll on the ground. Momentum overcomes control of my body. I come to rest and look up. The enemy is upon me. I scream. And then the pain comes.
I feel the horses of the enemy trample my body with their hard hooves. I hear crunching sounds coming from inside me. Chariot wheels pass over my legs and one of my arms. They break. I scream again… and scream and scream. But the pain does not stop.
The chariots are past me now. I see them through the dust of their passage. They are closing with my fellows. I do not hear the sounds of crashing over my own shrieking.
My throat tires. I can scream no more. I begin to weep. “Oh, please, please, my creators, make the pain stop…. Please… oh, please.” I weep. I am alone and the pain will not stop. I cannot make it stop. Nothing makes it stop. Do they not hear me? Do they not know? “Oh please! Please?”
“John, what do these lines mean on the graph?”
The gray man looks briefly and shrugs, “Oh, they all do that for this scenario. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“You know, you would almost think the brain is crying,” she insists.
He laughs. “Nonsense. You're anthropomorphizing. These things don’t cry. They can’t. They’re just machines. Besides, it has to learn to take it or we'll end up having to scrap the unit. It’s a waste of course, but it's cheaper to reject the brain and reuse the material than to risk putting an unsuitable brain in a real Ratha hull.”
“Anyway, we’ll just leave it like that overnight. Every new central core needs a lesson in war and pain. This VR scenario works better than most. Tell you what, let’s go get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and we'll go over today’s session.”