The Path to Cyberspace

It is September 4th, 2094, exactly a month since I found out that I am an android.

I had been suspecting it for a while, at the back of my mind. I saw the way that the citizens of Earth looked at me: at my pale, monochromatic skin and my piercing indigo eyes. How I never seem to age. How I stood at the backs of rooms, leaning against the walls, completely still except for my watchful eyes. No one spoke to me. No one asked me why I was there.

Oddly enough, I had never noticed that I am different from the humans. I do not eat, nor sleep. I can walk for a month, if I must. That is what I did.

I do not know how long I have been walking through these almost abandoned streets on the planet Earth, silently observing the humans. It must be a long time. Nor do I remember how I came to be. I just walk, and I watch.

A month ago the people of Hex 87 called the police—if they really do deserve to be called police—demanding why I was watching the locals. They took me in to their facility, and scanned me.

I remember sitting quietly on a rusted bench as the inspector came back to me with the scan results.

"Do you know what you are?" he asked.

"No," I responded truthfully.

The inspector lowered himself onto the bench next to me and looked me in the eyes. "Calixto, you're an android."

All I could do was nod. This seemed right.

He straightened himself. "Now listen. We'll want you out of Hex 87 in an hour. You know how folks don't like machines. Especially not the ones that can talk."

"Where should I go?"

"Out into the Wastelands, I suppose. Or another hex, if you must."

I stood, and walked towards the door without another word. From inside the building, I heard a woman speak.

"Sheesh, he's creepy, Al."

"I doubt it's even a he," the inspector responded.

I have been walking ever since that encounter. The Wastelands disturb the humans. But nothing disturbs me. Every object I see—a rusty, overturned car, a dust-laden trashcan, even the cans and bottles below my feet—I note with interest, and keep walking.

One day I thought I saw something flying above the murky horizon. Perhaps a bird, though it is common knowledge they now only exist within the hexes. It turned out to be an abandoned flag of some long-forgotten country, moving in what little wind there is.

The trash of the Wasteland goes on for miles, broken only by trees fighting to stay alive or the dirt roads that no one ever uses. Sometimes I see the paths that lead to hex communities. But they do not interest me more than the Wasteland does.

I often wonder how the humans could have so utterly destroyed their planet. They have nowhere else to go.

But they do have somewhere else to go. There is a way to escape this dying planet. Ironically, when so many humans left, it caused the destruction. In theory, if the humans leave Earth, Earth should thrive. But instead, Earth was left in incapable hands.

They used to be a society that cared about nature and sustainability. Now all the people who do care—the friendly, smart, people who are responsible for innovations—have left. The people who now populate Earth are confused and they do not care about others. These are the people who are not taking care of nature. They are chopping it down and harvesting it without restraint.

And when the Earth started dying, they just used up the resources faster than before. They are fighting for survival. They want to live, even if it is only in small hex communities, where walls enclose them from five of six sides and they try to preserve their resources.