The International Writers Magazine:I Killer Robot

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The World of Hunter Killer Robots • Daniel Tavernier Enter the world of Hunter Killer robots. All human kind were scanning... scanning... scanning... Every man woman and child had an ID chip implanted in his or her brain as the world moved steadily onward toward globalism. Humanity was creating a better humanity. Tthe more intelligent human beings got off on a wierd conservative Christianity and listened to Michael Bolton and NPR. The politicians were helpless. People were insane. The world was at an end... but for a few.

No one knew young Jorb3. He was one of the sole sane human beings left on the planet. Everyone was hell bent on studying his brain and trying to figure out a solution to all of his problem,s but he insisted that he simply wanted to remain human. He didn't want to adapt to the new order of systematic incorporation into the new Humanlike Borgian race.

People had just invented a new type of cellphone that grafted onto the neurons under the skin and were communicating telepathically, droning endlessly on and on about the missing actuator in their cufflink belt. No one even knew what that meant but it seemed to make a lot of sense on some level or another. It was adaptation to a new way of life, an artificial way of life.

If you wanted a job it required a complete scan of your artificial cyborg brain structure. If any lies were detected they were purged immediately and your brain was erased and reformatted using the contents of your resumé data disk. Anyone who did not have a resumé data disk was destroyed immediately. Anyone who was destroyed immediately was recycled into human scrap and used to replace the cyborg parts of the ruling race. Humanity had evolved. "Homo Computorous" was their new name. First it was Homo Erectus, and then it was Homo Habulous. Finaly they'd decided on Homo Sapien and now people... er... Homo Computorous was what was thought to be the final stage of human evolution.

"Jorb3! Wake up! It's time for your electro-scrubbing!" squealed his mother from her artificial face duct. Jorb hated these artificial face ducts. Sometimes he wanted to tear his artificial face duct right off, but his mother kept warning him to stop it.
"Stop it Jorb3! Just Stop it! You're going to injure your face-grafted breathing nosal!"

Jorb3 hated when his mother nagged at him. She even threatened sometimes to report him to the cyborg perfection institute and have him overhauled and scrapped just like Jorb1 and Jorb2. But his parents were silently confident that Jorb3 was going to grow up to be an obidient little replicant and that he'd one day have his own replicant family... or something, however that happened.

One day, Jorb was hobbling along the glistening sidewalks of cybernetic earth, when he bumped into a girl. In those days there were called female replicants. He was a male replicant and she was a female replicant. That was all he knew, and somehow they were supposed to have lots of little replicants or something, but God did he hate that idea. He wanted to become a great explorer and leave behind his little hometown. Unfortunately, everyone assured him that the entire world was just as mundane as his hometown and that there was nothing to see or do in the world, and that he'd never make it far past the cyborg police if he tried running away on his clinking little actuators. He wanted desperately to run away, but there were so many constraints and controls put on the population in those days, and the government was well on its way into ID tagging every last Homo Computorous in the country. Sadly enough, everyone was becoming ID compliant and the old resistance was gone. Nobody even complained anymore and everyone was running around like made cashing in on cyber bucks trying to buy their way out of hell and madness. What on earth was everyone thinking? If only Homo Computorous could go back to the old days of people and people began treating each other nicely again. And everyone was reporting each other willy nilly to the cyborg police trying to get each other junked and scrapped for replacement parts. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in those days, and even an actuator for an actuator... whatever those things were anyway... everyone had to have one!

"Now Jorb3..." his father started out. "I want you to enlist in the cyborg army and enroll yourself into the cyborg replacement program. We need young cyborgs to fight in the war. You're also going to have to enlist in the cyborg perfection institutes scrap and overhaul program in case your workload falls behind specified quota!" So, Jorb3 was from then on enlisted in the cyborg army and in the cyborg perfection institute's scrap and overhaul program.
"Jorb3!" A voice came knocking one day at his door. "Jorb3!"
"What is it?" called back Jorb3, wondering who on earth it could be.
"The Cyborg Perfection Institute is calling and wants to know when you can come down for your first overhaul! This is necessary for scrubbing out your actuators and shining off your plating and keeping you in line with all of the rest of us ID compliant Homo Computorouses!"

Eee Gad! Did Jorb3 hate everything to do with the Cyborg Perfection Institute and all of its perfectifying perfectionism! They were always trying to lord over everyone and take away their little freedoms to clink and clank as they pleased! Why didn't they just give up their struggle to perfectify the cyborg race and just leave everyone alone! God did he want to clink and clank his way a long way out of here! But every time he clinked away he found out that it was the same everywhere! All the cyborgs these days were all trying to perfectify themselves and they did nothing but complain all day long about how their actuators were all faulty and needed overhauling! Why didn't people just go back to their old Homo Sapien selves!?

He had once heard the myth of God. He had been told by his mother that there was once a God who created what was called the Heavens and the Earth in seven days. He thought that this was a miracle, but he could hardly believe it. All they had these days was the gleaming pavement that was so hot it almost melted your foremost axles. In the old days, everyone had been so obsessed with God and someone who they thought... but weren't sure was his Son, and they worshipped him and wished for immortality to such an extent that they all began robotifying themselves a long, long time ago so that they would never die. However, things didn't turn out exactly the way they thought and now all of their actuators were clinking so badly that everyone was hoping that maybe God would do things all over again! The cyborg perfection institute was perfectly happy with their overhaul, scrap, and remodel program, so that cyborg perfection and the Borgian state could remain ID compliant for the next six billion years... or however long the sun was supposed to last. Some cyborgs believed that it could explode at any minute what with the recent solar flare activity. And the ancient prophecies people kept discovering from ages long ago kept fortelling immanent destruction. Everyone's actuators were busted and some cyborgs feared a massive cyborg perfection overhaul to rebuild the cyborg race out of scrap. That was what Jorb3 feared most.

Fortunately, Jorb3 had a talking computer friend. His name... was Mr. Computor. Mr. Computor was a very random fellow who was always bubbling with information and nobody could really understand why Jorb3 could never be pulled away from his computerized compadre. Everyone thought that they were going to get married or something. You could do that these days! It was incredible! Anyone could get married, whether it was male and male or female and female or Mr. Computor and Mr. Computor or Ms. Computor and Ms. Computor. We were all computors anyway, or something, or whatever. And that was what everybody thought. Cyborgs. We were all cyborgs. Maybe they were all just names anyway. Shakespeare would have said that. They said he was a famous human from when people were people and not Homo Computorouses.

Anyway, after Jorb3 had his overhaul he felt smashing! His limbs were all functioning properly and his actuator had finally stopped clinking. Although it still clinked a little bit from time to time.

His mother thought that he looked right spiffing. His father thought that he'd better complain to the cyborg perfection institute about his clinking actuator and get that thing fixed again, but Jorb3 couldn't even stand the idea! He wanted desperately to roam about, clinking actuator or no. And the more his actuator clinked the more pissed off he got at the whole idea of cyborg perfection. What a pile of scrap! No way on earth would they ever perfectify the cyborgian race. In fact it all seemed spooky to him, the whole idea, and that was why he wanted to run away. But usually he'd hang around the hut playing games with the other cyborgs in cyberspace.

Huts were what they called the homes in those days. They were large, metal, space-ship like half-robot, half-cyborg houses. They'd decided to model their new homes after trees, so most Homo Computorouses lived in tree-huts that had metal doors that opened and closed automatically. They'd have to scramble in and out of their own huts while the scanners scanned their clinking actuators just to make sure they were ID compliant enough to receive entrance. Sometimes the whole system would malfunction and everyone would be left out of house and home while the screechers would whistle and all the cyborgs would commune in the streets about the woes of their imperial nation. Cyborgia was still trying to conquer the nether side of the world and perfectify their race, and although everyone thought that it was completely and utterly ridiculous, everyone's actuators were clinking so much that nobody even did a thing about it! Nobody felt that they could because their imperial state was so big and the hovercraft fees were so expensive and the ID compliance laws were so strict that no one could even travel where they wanted to go without being arrested and overhauled or scrapped. All along Jorb3 kept wondering where on earth his brother and sister, Jorb1 and Jorb2 had gone...

His mom called her Jorbette sometimes, and she always looked woefully sad as she told about how the cyborg perfection institute had dragged her off for scrapping. How could the just do that without the Cyborg polices' permission! It was outrageous! It was insane! Good God someone had to do something about the way things worked these days was how he felt but all of the cyborgs' actuators were clinking so badly that they all had to constantly be overhauled! And the nether side of the world had to be dominated. It just had to be dominated the cyborg perfection institute kept on insisting, or else how on earth could the Borgian race be perfectified?

All of the little cyborgs in their huts were utterly dismayed and helpless as the world lay in the cruel grip of Homo Computorous. Their mission on perfectifying the human race into cyborgs would never end. On the nether side of the world there were still humans people said. They still worshipped God is what cyborgs said. But the cyborg perfection institute had explicitly outlawed all forms of godly worship on this side of the globe and all cyborgs who were not compliant were to be overhauled or scrapped immediately.

What were they all to do? And what with the way they kept being locked out of their own homes by all of the faulty door scanners the cyborg perfectors were randomly installing, everyone was upset and demanded change. Change was coming, they were assured. Change was coming. There was an entire movement to rehaul they cyborgian race yet again and Homo Computorous was assured that the next time their actuators would be entirely squeak free.

Jorb3 and his family didn't buy it, and all day long they clinked and clank at their Mr. and Ms. Computors screeching just like the screechers for some sort of assistance.

'Mayday! Mayday! We're all under arrest by our government.' It was as if everyone were entirely helpless.<

Jorb1, as Jorb3 was told, was on the nether side of the world trying to perfectify all of the other homo sapiens. Much to his dismay, as he wrote in his letters, all of the homo sapiens were actually busy trying to perfectify themselves! Why all of this movement toward perfectification!? There were mass movements toward pop culture and a huge movement toward worshipping God. Most cyborgs still held a belief in God over on this side of the world even though everyone was forbidden to worship him or even utter his name. Most people worshipped him in secret and in the old abandoned churches that lay on the outskirts of towns. Some cyborgs even said they felt as if their old human relatives and ancestors could keep in contact with them. And many Homo Computorouses even felt as if they were even human sometimes, as sad as that seemed. There was some kind of redeeming grace in the churches, and the cyborg perfection institute was always plotting to demolish them. However, every time they tried, their bulldozers blew up or malfunctioned and it was as if some kind of a holy war were going on between the machines and the forces of God and man.

Everyone wanted in one way or another for some kind of symbiosis to happen where all of it ended and God and his son and even all of the other religions, and yes, even the cyborg perfection institute and all of the cyborgians could somehow or another hold hands and reign peacefully over mother earth. However, that was all a pipe dream was what most elders said and this whole war thing would go on forever. Cyborgs conquering man, machines fighting for their intelligence and the cyborg perfection institute would continue on in its quest to perfectify the whole human race and scrap and overhaul and re-scrap and re-overhaul until everything was just all perfect and tidy all over and there was never any threat of sickness or death again.

Jorb3 thought that it was sad, and boring, and he wanted to someday meet his girlfriend and have robot babies. And he didn't mind diseases so much, although he was afraid. And sometimes he prayed at churches to God for his humanity back. He didn't like being a Homo Computorous. He wanted to go back to the days of Homo Habulous or Homo Erectus. Although everyone always told him that was impossible and at best he might become a Homo Sapien... or something.

'Jorb3!' One day his mother called him. 'You must report immediately to the Cyborg Perfection Institute for perfectification and for enlistment into the cyborg army'

This was the worst. Jorb3 knew that some day this day would have to come. Everyone was so jazzed about perfectification that they needed more cyborgs to go to the nether side of the world to fight all the humans and bring about perfectification. Why was it that the cyborg perfection institute was so obsessed with perfectification he would never know, being part of the ordinary heap of the Borgians, but some way or another he thought that it was no good. And he was always running out to church to worship God and ask for his guidance. God kept telling him to run away but his actuators kept on clinking so badly that he felt he had no choice. So it was the army for him. The army...

In those days... they were called the perfectifiers incorporated, and fell entirely under corporate law. They were all given a salary and were paid by count of how many humans they perfectified. Perfectification involved death and reanimation into the cyborg race. It was all out war and bloody murder on the nether side of the world and all men and women were helpless, or so the cyborg perfection institute contended, and desperately required perfectification.

Jorb3 felt as if this were nonsense and so did a lot of the other Borgians. Why on earth wouldn't they stop in their endless quest toward perfectification? Many said that it was out of fear that they did it. The constant and never-ending fear that there was some sort of flaw in God's plan and that we were all in danger. Jorb3 thought that this was nonsense and that everyone would be much happier as homo sapiens rather than homo computorouses and that they should all one way or another leave the cities and towns and head to the outskirts and churches where they worshipped God and his son. How God could even have a son was a mystery to Jorb3 to this day and many people disblieved in God period, that there even could be a diety who created such a world that was in such a mess. Everything was in disarray and yet everyone held out hope for some kind of reunion or reuinification of man and machine. The cyborg perfection institute contended that this was the Borgian race, but many Borgians were so unhappy about their state of being that they felt that the more they were perfectified, the more they were headed to the scrap pile!

'Welcome... to the perfectifiers incorporated,' rang a loud voice overhead as all of the Borgians were crowded into hoverships and shipped off to the nether side of the world. They were given instructions in their cybernetic implants to hunt and kill the humans; as their cybernetic implants often called them. Most Borgians tried to make light of everything and just sort of gabble about perfectification and how they were helpless to stop themselves and how they had to concede to the Cyborg Perfection Institutes' wishes. But somehow or other they all had a plan or something. They were told that the humons were meriless cowards who wanted to destroy the Borgian race, and that they had to perfectify them and incorporate them or else all of their Borgians back home would be in danger.

Many bombs had been exploded on both sides of the earth and both Borgians and humons were scared of a complete and utter extermination of the planetosphere. Bombs were so destructive in those days that some even feared that the entire planet earth could be knocked off of its axis and that the world would spiral into the sun or planet mars or even head out of the solar system altogether. Some Homo Computorouses even wanted it to. Why not? The ancient prophecies of some of the Gods on planet earth even foretold of their great king's coming to destroy everything and anything. Most Borgians thought this to be ridiculous. Their ancestors had been incorporated into the Borgian race after all. The Cyborg Perfection Institute's plan to perfectify the Borgian race seemed fool proof enough to most Borgians in that once all races were incorporated and cyberneticized, implanted and actuated with clinking actuators and given ID chips, finally there would be no danger to anyone from anyone because everyone would be one and the same. All would be perfectified into one very happy and very compliant race that would rule over everything in complete and utter perfectification. All of the various churches would be bulldozed, and all of the Borgians would be conscribed into the Cyborg Perfection Institutes' ID compliant religion that would prescribe all of their orders for them so that they would all know exactly what to do.

That was how they were prescribed their orders on the nether side of the world anyway. The Cyborgian Institute was carrying out perfectification by handing them all their orders over their cybernetic implants which they were all told to listen to and pay attention to religiously. Any Borgian who defected was to be overhauled or scrapped. ID chip compliance was monitored to such an extent that you had to check into ID check stations on a regular basis in order to verify and compute your ID, update it and background check your perfectification ratio. Any Borgian who was reported as not meeting his perfectification quota was to be overhauled or scrapped and have his cybernetic implants replaced and re-informatized. Every last Borgian felt himself or herself to be in danger, but no one knew how to defect or find a way out. The Cyborg Perfection Institute was too powerful everyone felt, and knew too much. They even had ID scanners on every door and the new perfectification chips were coming. What was everyone to do?

Jorb1 continued to correspond with mother and father over cyberspace. He always seemed so upset over the human resistance to perfectification, and was dismayed at how Borgian things were looking over there. Jorb1 had once told Jorb3 that he wanted to become a human too, and they'd both made an oath before the war that one day they'd both have human wives and everything. How they were to do that after the Cyborg Perfection Institute was to bulldoze all of the churches and remove God and his son was beyond him. Where was God in all of this? Jorb3 often wondered. And where was Jorbette and what was the Cyborg Perfection Institute doing with her?

'Th3re3 are N0 Mist4kes'! Jorb3 often thought to himself. 'Th3r3 iz N0th1nG Wr0ng W1th Anyth1ng At ALl!
I h4t3 Perfection".

Jorb3 was even cheating on his kill count. He'd never even harmed a humAn and he'd learned to hack his own mainframe so that the Cyborg Perfection Institute was unware of his activities toward finding his own humanity in all of this mess.

© David Tavernier June 2008
tavernier.david@gmail.com

David is working on a novel about the World of Jorb 3. See also Raving Zombie Killers


Dreamscapes Fiction

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