The days I live out are of no interest. There is nothing to anger over, and I lay comfortably on the patio taking in a questionable amount of sunlight, if it’s dangerous then hey, at least I’ll finally see some action. Not that I’ll miss it, of course, yet it is painstaking to watch the skies all day long, feed myself and my daughter, and then sleep. Rinse and repeat. Construction is still taking place down the road, the main town itself still in cinders. It was but a few months ago, the 7th War of Atropis took place. A gruesome one, my memory proclaims, as most of the rookies were mere children. The enemy? Not other nations with a differing ideology, in fact I wish it were; at least structured genocide would have a reason in such a case even if horridly misguided. Instead, they were what we called Engels. Our whole support group, the Ravora, wiped out during the 5th War. But the Engels were not human. They weren’t alien, but rather man-made. A spectator of this work can deduce that I am referring to androids or robots. This suffices, but to an extreme as these androids rebelled against their creators, dubbed the “Ideal Masters” of Pacifion. Pretentious to call yourself a master in war, I know. It was 2014 when these meticulous groups first appeared, after they created “Lucy”, the first semi-autonomous android with limited functionality.
Allow me to step back a bit. The Ideal Masters originated from pre-War America, United Kingdom, Russia, Australia and Germany; comprised of nearly a thousand men and women dedicated to proliferation and enhancement of A.I to human integration and oneness. Pacifion was a private land established from the ruins of former Europe, English was not at all what they spoke and do not speak, perhaps I am the only one left able to speak it somewhat well. Meanwhile, we had Iranian scientists working on time travel methods, thank the Divines they were taken during the first War; I don’t think I could stomach going back to see what the other Wars were like. The world was destroyed during this primary war, and what was left of any developed nation was decimated during the third. The Ideal Masters constructed and designed these androids as if it were second nature to do so. The Declaration became a piece of paper, the Amendments a thing of comedy. The dollar and pound were moot, and laws were not really laws but regulations and demands. There was no slavery… yet. What was once countries, races and ethnicities waging war were now struggling to survive together from nightly carpet bombings of a threat not a soul on this world saw coming. Sacrifices initiated daily at the stake as if to appease the mechanized nightmares, you would think the androids were human. They might have been what humanity was like had we lost emotion. The rebellion of these perfect machines took place after the 6th War, where all the Masters were hunted down and captured by their creations. The citizens believed this to be an act of protection for themselves, until Pacifion itself was destroyed in a combined assault from the androids, the radiation compose potent enough to poison millions in one shot. The earth shook at their presence, and their abilities struck fear in all, myself included. Sadness, fear-ridden, selfish. We became bonded yet alienated from one another under the threat of human creations. Phantoms in flight, we found shelter as often as we could; the sky never again shined or beamed a beautiful hue of blue due to constant cesium-137 poisoning in the skies. The rain, when it occurred was more dangerous than it was beneficial. I was but a small child when my town was sacked by common looters and thieves, but it wasn’t until adulthood that my fear erupted. The criminals were predictable, but none of us could predict the day that the androids learned to speak and perceive motion. No longer were we able to hide. That was when they were slaughtered during the 7th War.
Nowhere to run, I took to scribing all that I witnessed. I lost hope a few times watching the same cycle of horror ensue repeatedly for years. I watched as my child looked up at the dark sky and bloody soil without a single look of fear on her face, yet always ran to hold my hand and smiled anyway. How heart shattering, that a young soul be thrust into this world of death and fear, aware that her parent cannot stop it yet smiles on anyway. Unmarked and unstained wisdom beyond my years, knowing what it was like to die while still alive. She would be amazing at chess. Had I not survived the recent War, she might not be here to gaze at the dark world with those forest green eyes. What got me through the war was this small, excitable and creative five-year-old child, and hope for the world. But no hope for mankind.
Along with little Zera (whose name was inspired by a myth of an ethereal warrior), I can never forget my comrade-in-arms, who still fights on the frontlines to this day. After all, she was the warrior who shifted the tides and enabled us to win the recent Great War. Precipitously she appeared, her philosophy written and encoded in what I can only call begetting. Wherever she picked this ideology and language up, it is no longer existent today.
Just before leaving, she left this. Leather bound it seems. The Ideal Masters came looking for it once, making me question just who I was teamed up this whole time. Power and morals beyond comprehension. A mortal I cannot ever completely understand. Her origin from Europe. This piece written the Seventh of Fairdas (formerly October) Roughly translated, it says:
If we live in a mirage, the world below and above us an illusion, just who are we to dictate what is true and untrue? The vision our eyes present differs between individuals. If these eyes have seen blood, another has seen everlasting peace. We can only walk the right direction in life when our counterparts are in tandem, I am the barrier and roadblock you must learn to overcome in time. I live my life blind, bound to the concept of real and right, lost in a life shaped by beliefs that both are and not my own. The bits and bytes that have comprised my life to date, can I say for certain that they are not just copies of another? I will not die, that is impossible. If it happens, the future will sow the seeds of a new leaf, my child beyond. The beasts visualized through a glassed wall, they failed to measure my human capacity. Your head now lies here, beneath my foot. My sword, raised above my head. Destroy me, the soul will never die.
Excerpt of Hidden Text
Before I contemplate and brood over this, the warrior’s insane cry, I must tend to Zera. I hear her playing with the wild birds again without supervision. She loves their wings in flight. My child, the bits and bytes our life is made of, can you one day tell me of their originality? All that and more, you now carry what I have begun, what our ancestors feared you now harness innocuously. Unlike myself, you bear a heart of fine gold, untainted and untethered to this world. Yet powerless to control it. You admire my light, it pales to that radiance of yours. This blood-stained Atropis series will end, I promise.
Don’t worry, my child. I hear you loud and clear. Break, and I will pick up the pieces. I’m on my way, just wait for me. We can play with the birds together. I love you.
The world is yours. Mend its sword, and raise your own.
End of Abstract 1