"We have shot down their helicopter. They landed in a lake." Arlo reports to me through his radio.
"And?"
"We know the children can't swim. They never learned."
My domes city in the mountains. Perfect in every way. Perfect, as long as you stay inside the system.
"You'll bring me Lucinda won't you?"
"Of course miss."
I feel my circuits flare with temper.
"Do not humanize me. Do you forget our last meeting? Need I remind you?"
"No. Computer."
"Arlo. I want you to bring me Lucinda. Shoot her, drug her, trap her like a rabbit for all I care. Bring her back alive."
"Does it matter how alive?"
"Breathing."
I hear a smile in his voice.
"It can be done."
Now that the children are taken care of, Lucinda is my prime focus. I'll have a chip put into her, I'll learn everything about her, take every fiber of knowledge from her and leave her to rot with nothing but a heartbeat and a single emotion to rule; fear.
Fear is the answer. Fear is how you win.
"Uh.. TIB?"
"Arlo?"
"They're alive."
"What!? Did you just lie too me? Are you implying I am foolish? Kill them! I don't care how! Seriously! Are your men so untrained that they cannot neutralize a group of three unarmed fugitives?"
"There are four."
My lights buzz. An idea surfaces, an idea that was programed by Lucinda ages ago, at the beta stages of my life.
"Bring me a human. Preferably a woman."
Arlo is listening, but this command is directed at my mechanic.
"Bring me the superchip."
The superchip, it makes my gears turn, the MicroLoc makes them stop.
Two things created by two people.
Lucinda, and an old friend of hers, a man. What was his name..
Emmet.
But either way, the superchip was my conciousness, it was me. The mechanic inside brings me a young woman.
She's already loyal.
"Attach me."
"Are you sure TIB?" Arlo speculates.
"Attach me."
The mechanic removed the chip from my circuit board and in the space where the woman's TIB chip was, he places the superchip inside.
It's a process that takes about nine hours, but soon I open my eyes.
Human eyes.
"Arlo? Return too me. I'm doing this dirty work for myself."
I'm human.
It feels disgusting.
YOU ARE READING
Falling Cities
Science FictionIS LIFE WORTH LIVING IF YOU LIVE FOR TECHNOLOGY? TIB, the most advanced AI system to date has built and maintained a flourishing city in the mountains of Colorado. Its citizens have no memory of their life before. Nor hope for time after. But is lif...
