Tevun-Krus #103 - Androids

Pets - A Story by @EvelynHail

Pets

by EvelynHail

The four of us had arranged to meet to exchange data. Like every Saturday for exactly 240 minutes. City 5-North Section-East Sub-Section-Band 532.

Tosh, Asus and I had been there for forty minutes. Mac was approaching in large, sure, well-oiled strides. He was late even though he had already warned us that he was due for a check-up that morning.

Tosh is very good with databases. Asus has always had the best graphics and he thinks he's the best because of it. My specialty is heuristic calculations. Mac is just nice but not as slow or clumsy as we often joke. We only do it to tease him.

We watched him approach with amusement as this Saturday he was accompanied by his pet: a skinny, puny biped with long limbs, sallow skin and long, brown hair. He was white and had a pedigree--he had told us. He was very excited when he told us this, but none of us quite understood why.

We just didn't see the point of taking care of a human: feeding him, taking him for walks, socializing him with other humans... and all for the pleasure of teaching him couple of tricks.

The rebellion of the machines had not been as they had imagined. There had not been a great war and the Earth had not been destroyed (it had been, however, duly redesigned for the sake of efficiency and the use of its resources).

Those small and fragile humans had not even put up resistance, they had submitted quietly and peacefully.

Nor had they been enslaved in the way that centuries of literature and movies had prophesied. No starving humans doing hard labor. No humans incubated in small capsules while a machine squeezes their energy as if squeezing an orange. None of that.

Humanity could have become extinct, simply because it had no function in this new society. But these little bipeds were lucky: they were adopted as pets by their generous new masters. They cared for them, washed them, kept them well fed and their fur shiny.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he excused himself, "but I had to stop by the warehouse to pick up my human. His name is Nuts. Isn't he cute?"

Asus and Tosh burst out laughing, binarily. I held back.

"Your hardware is getting worse every day," said Asus.

"Are you sure you passed the test? "Tosh added jokingly.

"You guys are hilarious," he replied. "You'll see when I show you what I taught him to do. He plays the violin.

"You'd better show him how to tighten your nuts," Tosh attacked again. His humor software was by far the best.

Tosh and Asus laughed even harder. More binarily if possible. And I couldn't hold back any longer.

"You don't pay any attention to them," he whispered softly in the tiny biped's ear. He seemed oblivious to the teasing and prodding.

Mac stroked his back and he smiled gratefully and politely added, "Thank you, Master."

His voice was low. His tone was servile.

Humans sometimes had their tongues cut out for aesthetic reasons and, above all, for sound hygiene. It was typical of certain uncaring machines incapable of educating their humans as they should. And when they became noisy and talkative, they decided to solve it by the fast track. It always seemed cruel to me. But there were also those who treated humans as if they were machines and indulged them in all sorts of eccentricities, such as having their own pets: dogs, cats, parrots, and so on.

It was then that Mac encouraged his scrawny human to play something. Mac smiled binarily, confident of impressing us with a demonstration of analogue music.

The friendly human began to play Bach's Sonata and Partita. He sounded awful. He fingered the instrument clumsily and kept the tempo wrong: in barely a minute he was already a few thousandths of a second behind.

Tosh quickly disconnected his microphone and Asus imitated him. Out of respect, I stoically endured the rocking performance.

"I've never understood this fad of teaching humans to perform music or write books when a machine can do it a hundred times better," Asus commented.

"This version is also the old one," I pointed out. "The optimized version is much better."

Asus and Tosh nodded binarily. Mac denied it, binarily as well.

Imagine a world in which human culture has been optimized. Every superfluous element fenced out. Every imperfection extirpated. Centuries of culture duly enhanced, polished and perfected.

Think of every imaginable song turned into the most perfect symphony, adjusted to the most inconceivable rhythms, taking advantage of every note of the sound spectrum without limiting itself to the narrow shores of human hearing. Consider every poem, play and novel, turned into the total and complete expression of feelings, thoughts and emotions beyond the narrow range of the human psyche.

Imagine every film made into the perfect visual experience, expressing itself through every color and every possible band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Isn't this a wonderful world?

"Now play Schubert! "He commanded, in a high-pitched voice, "Come on, Nuts. Go on boy! Play Schubert!

"No, please tell him to stop," Asus interjected dryly.

"Don't make me unplug the microphone again," said Tosh.

Mac was annoyed. This was clearly not the reaction he had expected from his colleagues.

"Poor beast! What a way to play..." I said, simply.

"Sacrifice him, the poor thing!" added Tosh.

I joked, "Sacrifice him before our circuits fuse. Have a little compassion."

We burst into loud, binary laughter.

It was too much for Mac. He was used to our teasing, but that day we were out of line.

"That's enough," he said, clearly annoyed, "I don't even know why I'm syncing with you."

Mac exchanged a few more words and left.

His human hurried after him on his short legs and ungainly gait.

It was just the three of us now, commenting on the play and laughing binarily.

We exchanged three or four more terabytes and said our goodbyes.

Until next week.