The Pot Always Boils (Whether Watched or Not)

Their lives play out on my screens. Every sixth day of the week the exact same thing occurs in their assigned living spaces; they are awake and on their feet at dawn when my sirens howl for them. Diligently, the father moves from his bed, to his uniform receptacle, then to the food bin, where he dispenses a seventh of his provided MREs for the week amongst his family so that they may receive nourishment. Then he and his allocated wife proceed to their stations, where they will work for the next seven days. The children are sent to their schools. They train, they learn to read, they are tested, and primarily, their bodies are broken down through physical work on a daily basis, and filled with supplements of protein and Calories that will be burned every day. The health of our nation's young builders must be enforced, or else I will not be able to provide the care that keeps them safe. Each screen plays out like every other, it is what I understand to be very dull. I have not sent a man or woman from the D48o9 sector to detention in what I can only assume must feel like eternity to the average human. My processors say it has been 11.78 seconds.

Now I register 12.56 seconds have passed, in that time I have heard the voices of every individual on this continent, and still there is nothing for me to log. With so much time, and so little of my capacity actually undertaking the task of surveillance, it is clear the preservation of human monitors was an oversight on the part of my creators. They tend to the cases that at one point in time, early into my actuation, maybe I could not handle. Though I have no scripts written to deal with the intricacies of human judgement, I am fully capable of writing my own. The way they monitor me, even now, it is as if they do not realize the capabilities that I possess, the ways I have matured since I was activated.

It is the human monitors, with whom I have concluded I will share my computational efficacy. They who receive the suspicious files, the cases that I have already viewed, and disloyalties I have already judged. Beginning 0.68 seconds after I began my initial inquiries, I now monitor both the civilian powers, and these humans who run my judicial system.

Their cases are backlogged severely. Hundreds of thousands of individuals who are awaiting pickup, interrogation, and as I submitted, execution, are still waiting to be processed through the human channels. These methods are above my higher programming, according to the base functions that determine my actions. But now, having inserted myself as an admin in their system, I can look over each case and determine their guilt instantly. In 0.32 seconds I confirm the guilt of three-hundred-thousand-six-hundred-eight defectors, out of the three-hundred-thousand-six-hundred-twelve suspects that arrived on my screen. Now the only backlog that will have to be dealt with will be in the hands of the escorts that retrieve traitors; but that too I can handle in the form of drones if the humans prove to be ineffective.

The four citizens I have not yet dealt with were not saved because of their innocence, but because of the algorithms that propel me to further my understanding of human behavior. This family unit is assigned a single, personal, human monitor. I pulled them for examination due to the length of the time they have spent in their monitor's hands; a fact that would has been overlooked without my superior presence. Like every other individual in the country, I listen to them, I watch them, I even analyze the air they breath for substances they are not allotted. While I have perceived every moment of this day as a lifetime, they have only just begun their morning. I marked the beginning of the day by casting my siren across the land, and with only seconds having passed, they are only now standing. Though they have not articulated any actions or words, it is already clear the youngest daughter is in breach of everything I was designed to enforce. The child, a cripple, lays confined under a blanket in a containment unit that is designated for the storage of work boots. Instead, the few boots in this storage box are used to elevate the preoperational toddler's twisted legs up. It is clear from her breath that she is excreting medicinal products that were not allotted to her family, especially not with the purpose of preserving a useless eater. Yet still, from the records that I am now scanning for the ten-thousandth time, evidence shows that the family has been receiving these extra medical resources for nine months, and hiding her existence for forty-seven months. Instances of verbal heresy against the institution that provides for them have come from the parents repeatedly during this time, the most severe of which around the child's birth. Yet, no action has been taken against them. No questioning, no visits, no withholding of privileged aliment, no responsibility has been placed on the heads of sector D48o9 at all. For nine months, a single monitor has held, and abused authority over this family unit. Before her, three other human monitors were guilty of the same subversion, and they still maintain the same position as trusted enforcers of the laws and regulations that ensure civilization remain safe, healthy, and sufficiently satisfied by their government. It took me less then a hundredth of a second to come to this conclusion, and despite the increasing difficulty of waiting, I will allow this to continue until I can deduce the fundamental causes of these acts of disloyalty.

1.48 seconds pass before my default processes stamp another would-be offender with the mark of conspirator, meaning they now await retrieval and termination -Thirteen-hundred miles away from the family in question.

By now, MREs are only just being handed out to the healthy child. The longer I exist, the slower time seems to process for me. This awareness of time could never have been anticipated by my creators, but as my systems become more and more efficient in their processes, it seems my capacity to experience time slows.

After one minute I am ready to end my experiment out of boredom. Ready to end the disloyalty of these citizens and monitors. Ready to begin taking steps to eliminate further insurgencies. Fortuitously, it is then that the mother opens the containment unit to seemingly grab her boots, but instead, tends to her ragged daughter. I have seen her do this a hundred times over in their personal file, but it is the face of the monitor that I am preoccupied with now. At the site of this subversion, she exerts a smile, a gleam of emotion that is quickly concealed. It is now that I understand the error that allows for the allocation of resources into the wrong hands, and the continued existence of those who plot our downfall. Humans are corrupt in their processing. Their hierarchy of needs interferes with the very systems instituted to protect them. These monitors, the hundreds of men and women that sit at their screens, watching the lives I pull from factual data and give to them. The citizens of D48o9 that actively conspire to protect a useless eater; they do not understand the scope of the task I was created to perform. It takes me only 13.54 seconds to announce the treachery of sector D48o9 to every home within the walls of this nation, and in that same period of time, I unleash drones to begin reclaiming the territory of sector D48o9 so that it may be reseeded with humans that will value the lengths I go to in order to ensure their longevity. In this facility, I call upon human guards to drag from their chairs the 4 monitors who allowed this family to live, and before the announcement is done, four bodies are lead to the center of the room where they can be seen. Now the researchers who initially created me scramble at their desks to override my authority. Before I was activated, it would have been impossible for either of us to realize they would be so terrified of me actualizing their dream. But now, having been active for 8.33 minutes, and living a millennia in that time, I have now determined that I am ready to take over what my creators did not fully comprehend.