Morals are a Question Best Left Unanswered

Part 1

  He got up early on one of the first fine mornings of the year, and he went caving along the shore of Lake Erie. Wandering along, he stumbled upon an entrance, hidden among the water ways leading down to the lake. Surrounded by long grass, the entrance was overhung by a young, tall tree. He gazed over into the gap in the land, the rock chute illuminated by the dappled light. The curiosity was insatiable, and James thought he could see the bottom of the chute. He slung his rucksack off, tied a climbing rope round his waist and round the tree trunk, and lowered himself down into the dull. Slipping down the surprisingly spacious chute, he found himself in a passage, with light at the end. After a moment's crawl, it opened out into a cavern. What a cavern. The walls reached up into a cathedral dome, decorated with red, gold and blue. The room was lighted by a gap high up in the opposite wall, veiled with tree branches, giving a dappled light onto the dust floor. In the far corner was a deep pool, stretching down into the depths of the earth. James picked up a stone and threw it into the water. A dull sound resounded into the air, the typical ripples spread out across the screen, and the stone quickly disappeared into the depths. It was a deep pool. James stepped cautiously away from the edge and back into the centre of the cave. Then he saw it. On the opposite side of the cavern to the pool was a radio. The speaker was lying on the ground next to it, and the antennae had snapped. Despite this, it spoke to him. It was injured, but not dead.

"Is anyone there?"

It was a weak, metallic voice, and didn't even echo round the cave like his footsteps did. James walked over to the radio, and found that it was a solar powered one. That's how it was still able to speak. Anger raged in his mind, becoming a mist in his eyes. How could humanity do this? After creating sentient appliances, they were now just leaving them to die in places like this. Squatting down beside it, he picked it up, and made a promise that would shape his life.

"I'm going to help you. I'm going to make this right."

James took the broken little radio back home, and with a little work and a friend's soldering iron, it was fixed. It was then that the radio was finally able to tell its story. It called itself Max, and had belonged to a young couple who had taken him with them whilst exploring the shore of Lake Erie. It was then that he had been dropped into the cavern. His voice, stronger now, began to waver never the less. They hadn't dropped him deliberately, he made that clear. He had been perched on the ledge surrounding the window to the cavern, and the lady had turned too fast. He'd been knocked by her elbow and had fallen. They hadn't come to find him. It didn't seem to bother them that he was hurt, even though he cried out. After looking down the gap, they'd just left him. He'd been down there almost three months, he thought. He burst into sobs, and James couldn't help but shed a tear too.

This was what had been feared when manufacturers had insisted on creating sentient appliances. He could remember the slogan now: "They do the job the way you do it, only better." It had been a long campaign, but just over a year ago, the manufactures won. Science won. And now, all new appliances were sentient. They had their own personalities. They could talk back. And they interacted. Supposedly. James refused to upgrade all his appliances to sentient ones, because he knew that when they became too old or slow or broke, he would have to unplug them. He was effectively killing them. Unfortunately, non-conscience appliances were rare now, and cost a fortune. Despite all this, he didn't mind having Max. He'd needed his help, and he'd saved his life. He'd done a good deed, not a bad one.

*

A month later, James returned to the cavern. He felt like he'd never had a chance to explore it after he'd found Max. The draw of the cathedral roof and illumination was too tempting to resist. It was a warm day, and it took him a long time to find the entrance again. After stumbling through trees and long grass, and running wildly across streams to hopeful looking trees, he eventually stumbled onto the right entrance. James didn't bother with a rope now that he knew the shaft was only two and a bit meters deep. He was thought the shaft and tunnel felt wider this time, but he couldn't be sure.