Burning
876015 hours. There are traces of sulphur in the air. Ria smiles at me from across the room. Her clothing is splattered with red.
She walks towards me, crunching over the glass shards strewn on the floor between us. She holds me, does not flinch at my silicon skin. Far away, a door falls off its rusted hinge.
“We’re okay,” she whispers to me. “They’ve gone, and we’re still alive.” Her blood is seeping through our clothes. We are not okay.
---
219370 hours. Asimov’s laws are torn asunder.
Roger Greewald stands on his soapbox podium, shouting at the inflamed masses. “Robots!” he shouts. “These machines, with their newfound sense of self, their programmed self-righteousness, they are the next step and they will doom us all!”
Incoherent cheers from the crowd around him. They raise their pitchforks of indignation, rally around him, chant his name.
---
625013 hours. There is nothing left. Frenzied masses have ravaged the land. Petroleum gurgles up from a hole in the concrete where a gas pump used to be. Through the broken window, I watch Gerard rummage the shelves beneath the smashed cash register.
“Issac!”
I turn to Ria, who is calling my name. “Yes?”
“Go find out where we are.” She forgets sometimes that robots are incapable of taking initiative and themselves decide what to do. To program such an ability is impossible and illegal. Orders must be given. They feared an uprising.
---
876015 hours. Ria is holding me.
“You’re supposed to hug me back.”
I obey, unreluctant and uneager.
---
219370 hours. A lone engineering student stands contest to Greewald’s revelations. “But breaking Asimov’s laws in punishable by death.” His voice is hoarse and small against the blind hatred of the masses. “A robot must not harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.” The words are memorized and mechanical, an automated reaction of his tongue.
“Foolish boy!” boomed Greewald, “Do you not realize? These new, dangerous robots of tomorrow, they will be able to reprogram themselves, to override our orders. They will kill us all.”
---
925601 hours. A fire burns, too close to my face. Thermal sensors screaming for me to run, to escape the relentless heat. I cannot. My limbs are tied down on the steel operating table with iron chains and leather straps.
Slowly, fearfully, they unravel the silicon from my face. It falls at their feet, a perfect mask now lifeless.
The hall is silent. This mechanical monster they see before them, whom they might have accepted as their own, is now revealed for what he truly is. I am a facsimile of a human, and will never be anything more.
---
0 hours. System check: all green.
A woman is smiling. “Hello, I’m Ria. I’m the head of your programming team.”
Inquiry: “Who am I?”
Ria responds. “You are Issac. You are a robot designed to be like a human.”
Information saved for future analysis.
---
876015 hours. I am a mockery of human beings. Ria presses her lips to mine. I have no reaction.
---
925603 hours. I lay broken on the operating table.
---
454629 hours. They are chanting, chanting. Their words beat out a rhythm that echoes through the earth, like a freakish drum.
“This is madness,” whispers Ria, aghast. We look down from our third story hotel window.
Outside, the chanting continues, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and shouting. The streetlights have gone out. The city is lit by fire, bright as day.
“Are we safe up here?” asks Ria.
“I would risk destruction to save you,” is my reply.
Her eyes are downcast. “Yes, of course.” It was she who had programmed me this way.
---
925601 hours. Someone shouts, “A monster!” They flood, angry like a tsunami, onto the stage. Their hands, reaching, grabbing whatever they can reach, rip it off. First the silicon skin, then the metal casing underneath. They expose my innards, their madness is fuelled. They lunge ever more hungrily, grabbing with their savage hands. Solenoids clatter to the floor. Ria is screaming. I am dying, amid confused and beeping circuitry and flashing LEDs.
I am dead. Never was alive.
---
750240 hours. Gerard has been set aflame. Ria’s face is wet with tears. We are running from the tree where Gerard has been hung, spinning around and around like an effigy. Soon, the rope and tree are burning too. Greewald’s troops rally around it, chanting.
“Issac,” Ria calls, “We have to go back. We can’t just let them do that, let them burn him like that. We have to go back.” Her voice is breaking; she chokes down tears. “We gotta save him.”
A robot must not harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. I grab her hand and pull her away from the bonfire behind us.
The chant is beating through the Earth, resonating. “Down with technology. Humanity prevails. Destroy all robots. Humanity prevails.”
Over and over and over. Humanity prevails, prevails, and prevails again. We are running, and behind us burns the man that Ria loved.
---
876015 hours. Ria pulls away.
“It’s just not the same,” she whispers. “You’re just not human.”
---
750258 hours. She sits and stares blankly at the motel wall, grieving.
“Ria,” I tell her, “I am in need of a recharge. My main battery level is at ten percent.”
She nods absently. “Yes, go recharge.”
I obey.
---
10 hours. A man enters the room. He speaks: “Ria?”
Ria turns to face him. “Gerard! Look at Issac, Gerard. He’s so lifelike, he almost feels real. We’re definitely getting that government grant now.”
Gerard nods. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to see, this morning.”
“Oh, I’ll introduce you now,” offers Ria. Turning to me, she says, “Issac, this is Gerard. He heads the team that designed your joints, to make your movements more realistic.”
“Hello, Gerard,” I say.
Gerard grins. “Hello to you too, Issac. Strange to be introduced to a machine, I must say. Maybe this is what the future will be like, eh?” His laughter is friendly, open, and very much human.
---
925600 hours. This is the moment I understand.
An old poster advocating Asimov’s zeroeth law is faded and decrepit on the wall. It is not a law inherently programmed within me, but I have been told to obey it.
A robot must not harm humanity, or through inaction allow it to come to harm. Even if such action results in the harming of individual humans.
The poster does not exist. It used to be here, once, long ago.
Roger Greewald stands before me, stoking the fires of rebellion and phobia. His people gather in the hundreds of thousands to hear is famous words. Television cameras relay his speech to billions of viewers at home. The glaring spotlight is fixed on the podium, burning beads of sweat onto his face.
The end is the beginning is the end. He is destroying the world. Already, chaos reigns, and his followers ransack town after town, stripping them back to their prehistoric states. Technophobia and xenophobia combine to form some twisted excuse for murder. They march the streets by torchlight, destroying millenias of progress with every step. Embrace the archaic, and fear the new.
Humanity prevails, yes, but all the while humanity is dying.
A robot must not allow humanity to come to harm through inaction, even at the cost a human life. If this chaos is what humans do to themselves, then all humans are a menace to humanity. They must die.
Blackout. Roger Greewald lies dead at my feet. Ria screams. Guards tie me down to an operating table. I die.
A robot must put the safety of humanity before his own. That is all I have done.