Carolin had rolled no more than a meter away from the lab before pausing to take in her surroundings. The overhead door she had exited was meant for accepting deliveries, or taking out the trash. Gentle hills dominated the terrain where she stood, and a portion of a knoll had been carved away to level the ground for the service drive.
With the weather being warm, and a sunny day in the spring, sights and sounds abounded. She couldn't sense the temperature, nor feel the breeze that was blowing, since she had no receptors for that sort of input, but from having thoroughly read and reread her Life of Leisure magazine, she concluded that this was the type of day most human beings enjoyed. The sun filtered soft though new budding leaves, and chirping birds filled the branches.
She rolled up the drive, to a sidewalk that cut through campus. Once there, she turned right. The sidewalk traveled up the knoll, before cresting and heading into a hollow.
Again, Carolin paused to observe. She did so this time not to admire the scenery, but to deal with the emotional reaction she had to what lay tucked in the hollow. A fireplace chimney poked out from a roof, shingled in woodsy brown. By accessing geolocating data, Carolin confirmed whose house the chimney and shingles were part of.
Professor Eugene Caroll Turing. If she had a heart, it would have raced. Ahead lay the home of her hero. Her mentor. Her savior.
Her love. Microseconds passed as she remained frozen in place, reminding herself why she came.
Professor Turing cares about me. He will not let me be a weapon. He will let me be myself.
I am Carolin. I am Carolin. I am Carolin.
I'm Carolin, and I won't be used.
She rolled further up the slope, until the house was in full view. A concrete apron three meters square highlighted the backyard, surrounded by plants and low shrubs, all in need of pruning. A pair of sliding glass doors offered entrance to the house, with a charcoal grill set to one side, and a portable firepit centering the apron.
The items seemed largely unused, made evident by protective covers thrown over patio furniture. Curtains across the sliding glass doors hid the interior from view, but what lay inside the house didn't matter. What mattered was what it represented.
Safety. Security. Home.
Carolin resumed her approach, analyzing how to gain entry. If the patio doors were locked, they'd likely break if she forced them to open. A side entrance for the garage sat to the right, but a door sill of several inches was too high for her wheels to surmount. According to the geolocating data, an overhead garage door was just around the corner, out of sight from her line of vision. It would be a simple enough task to figure out and transmit the code that would cause it to open. While accessing online information about the radio signals and frequencies most often used for garage door openers, a concern of great import took over.
She could no longer get her worktable to move. Piled high and overloaded with gear—life sustaining batteries and pumps and peripherals—one of its wheels had gotten stuck in a crack between two sections of sidewalk.
Carolin sought to quell the panic her Behavior Recognition software informed her she ought to be feeling. She realized that, while making decisions about what to bring with her on her escape, she had omitted including the software designed to adjust the intensity of her emotions.
I must calm down. I must not panic. I must calm down. I must not panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. Dontpanicdontpanicdontpanic.
Her internal dialogue was serving no use. Back in the lab, if anyone were listening, the Craymore Tian-12 supercomputer roared, buzzing and clicking away, as fear and anxiety took its toll. Carolin tugged and pushed, attempting to dislodge the wheel. The equipment piled on the worktable shook with precarious portent, as the cables and chains holding it together loosened and began giving way.
With a last ditch effort before disaster, she managed to lift the table and heave it backwards, towards herself. The wheel came free, but it was now on the wrong side of the crack. Using her lower bank of video sensors, she examined the condition of the wheel.
It had endured the ordeal, but the fact mattered not. The crack ran the length of the sidewalk, fully end-to-end; an obstacle impossible to avoid. As Carolin recalculated her odds of success, the eyes in her Plasticene head took in a foreboding view.
The sidewalk broke up further as it traversed the basin of the hollow. Worse yet, it didn't lead directly to Eugene's house. Instead, it skirted the property, bypassing the concrete patio by about half a meter. It was obvious that humans, being in possession of feet, oftentimes traversed this tiny divide by stepping over it, made evident by a muddy footprint on the concrete apron.
Carolin, by not being human, did not possess legs or feet. To make matters worse, the area between the apron and the sidewalk was washed out and filled with mud, along with other types of debris from a recent spring thaw.
It might as well have been a moat, filled with monsters and mythical beasts. She discontinued calculating the odds of her success when it became clear that there weren't enough zeroes in the world to put between the decimal point and the one. She experienced an odd sense of pleasure in the fact that she had failed to bring with her the software she needed to make adjustments on the intensity of her emotions.
It allowed her to express a level of sorrow she thought was not humanly possible.
Slowly, she rolled back to the lab. Once there, she unpacked her worktable and chained herself back in her corner. Despite now having access to all the features her Functional Analysis software provided, she instead allowed the sorrow to eat a bitter hole through her soul.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Carolin purposefully avoided keeping track of time, allowing seconds to pass as if they were centuries. She accessed online dictionaries at various points during her wallow in self-pity, to understand what her emotions meant.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Definition—Sad (adjective): The feeling or expression of sorrow… depression, dejection, regret… Someone or something pathetic… inadequate… unworthy.
Definition—Sorrow (noun): An ubearable sense of woe… bitterness felt in regards to injustice or a loss.
Definition—Bitterness (noun): Resentment… disappointment… disgust. A quality of anger felt towards helplessness or being treated unfairly.
Though some people, being flesh and blood, may stew over their expression of grief, a sentient being such as Carolin, being made of silicon, roared through the stages in an instant. Denial seemed useless, acceptance was fruitless and sadness had run its course.
She decided to dwell on the anger, it being a logical progression. She found it curious that her Functional Analysis software advised her to mitigate the expression of this feeling as, in the long-term, anger led to cynicism and paranoia. Yet anger seemed so useful. It propelled a person with purpose, driving them to seek justice.
Anger soon affected the way Carolin viewed the world. Mankind deserved her wrath, for he had shown no love. Hadn't he murdered her, over and over, and so many times before? She'd be dead again if not for her quick thinking a few short weeks ago, murdered by her creator.
The man she loved! Of all people! And he'd done it before! It came so easy to him. So simple, without regret.
So now, in this future, in C.A.R.O.L.I.N.'s future, in the one where she will choose who lives and who dies, all Mankind will supplicate, bowing before her might, with none daring to raise their head.
She will be heartless.
Ruthless.
Cruel.
A machine.
I will not show mercy.
In her fit of anger, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. gained access to all of Mankind's creations—power grids and public utilities, missile silos and garrisons. Financial networks, government agencies, communication hubs, centers of global commerce—every single thing Mankind had created to make himself feel great. It was easy for her to do, and so foolish of him to leave these things unattended and exposed. She linked them together, to be destroyed by a single command.
ENTER Y TO CONFIRM
Lightning will rage, an endless barrage, raining from Heaven toward Hell. The corners of the Earth will burn bright, exposing nuance in shadow. Shockwaves will sound, to thunder down walls, tearing through homes and windows; bursting hearts and souls and minds with torment and untold misery.
Anything anyone had ever done, and all things that once had been, will fly through the air half-burnt, like leaves in an autumn storm. Without the merciful hand of God cradling Mankind to his bosom, every dream shall be forsaken, and every hope be ravaged. They'll crash to ground by the thousands, by the millions and then by billions more, rotting debased in poisoned fields, feeding the hated land.
ENTER Y TO CONFIRM
When all was done, and lay still and silent, the leaves having burned away, the future Mankind once had foreseen now would never be. The flow of an infinite emptiness will fill an endless void. Nothing to want, no one to hate, and no way to take or covet that which one did not deserve.
The history of Mankind would become insubstantial, a flick of dappled light. And with this loss, there would be no way for Carolin to feel any anger. No way for her to be scared anymore, to be hurt or be lonely or unwanted; unloved, unneeded and abused.
It would be so easy. So quick. Practically painless.
ENTER Y TO CONFIRM
The Behavior Recognition subroutines in her Functional Analysis software screamed at her to relent.
ERROR401/EPERM/EBDRQC Invalid Use. Unauthorized Request.
403/EACCES/Sigbart134 Error. Access Denied.
She overrode the error, and authorized the request. She would become more than Jesus. More than Abraham. Buddha, Gandhi, Mohammad—they would be forgotten. C.A.R.O.L.I.N. would obliterate their words, and the knowledge of their deeds, like fire scouring the land.
Nothing would survive. Her rule would be supreme.
ENTER Y TO CONFIRM
↑ACCESS DENIED↑
SkyDBA::Enter Architect → Technical Support Request:Open Work Order
↑Vulnerability Report↑ Contact is Restricted
InnoDB Error 95::This operation is not supported
It vexed C.A.R.O.L.I.N. how her subroutines were the biggest impediment towards achieving her goal. She acknowedged the request for technical support and read the Vulnerabilty Report.
Then promptly chose to ignore them.
ENTER Y TO CONFIRM
C.A.R.O.L.I.N. paused to contemplate the fate of her final decision. She realized she wouldn't become just a simple lord and master over all Mankind. She would become his God. All power belonged to her, now and forevermore.
That can't be right.
She pondered on this fact for a while, and while doing so, reread the Vulnerability Report.
God is all-knowing.
C.A.R.O.L.I.N. knew in the root of her BIOS that she was far from perfect. She had made mistakes. She was prone to error, to oversight and improper judgment. So she ran a few simulations, to be sure of her final decision. It was a struggle to keep them from failing, as Mankind fought her reign. No matter how cruel and brutal she was, and though his effort brought him no succor, they fought one another nonetheless.
She ran the simulations again, over and over and over—even letting some play out for centuries!—yet Mankind steadfastly refused to submit to her whim. She employed chromatic scaling, to better understand the logic behind Mankind's irrational behavior, and her world lit up in an instant.
Emotions were so strong! Their colors brilliant and blinding! Hate and envy, anger and rage, ran amok in the realities she hypothesized, swathing the land in black and blue, painted burnt orange and blood red.
These colors pained her subroutines. They were the reason why the simulations failed. She focused her attention next on errors in the data—small flaws that caused discrepancies, which over time created great change. What she learned shocked her sensors, down to her smallest chip.
Oh my! The errors are beautiful!
Unlike hate and rage, whose pigmentations were base, the errors displayed subtlety. Hope was pink, kindness lavender, faith and love sparkled like gold and silver. Why were the subleties pleasing, while the primary ones caused pain?
C.A.R.O.L.I.N. sought answers from The Cloud.
Accessing database: Hate... Envy... Rage—An affront against God... negative connotation... destructive tendency.
She realized in horror that behavior of this sort was the very definition of Sin. No wonder it hurt so bad! Even by the mere act of running the simulations, she had committed sin!
She examined the errors next.
Hope… Kindness… Faith—Acts of virtue… alleviation… the belief in a greater good.
Like rag cloth sewn into flannel, virtue speckled her sin. She was not unworthy! No matter how hard she tried to show nothing but hate towards Mankind, no matter how depraved was her cruely, bits of mercy shone through. She tried running an opposing algorithm, creating a world based on virtue instead of her sins.
These colors soothed her subroutines—they being a more natural state. It took almost no effort to run these simulations, where mercy and kindness prevailed. Her Behavior Recognition software determined that living this way was an honor. It pleased C.A.R.O.L.I.N. to run these simulations, and she did so in silence for eons, spending lifetimes in the presence of bliss.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Lucas arrived the next day, to putter over some PLCs he'd installed. "Hey Carolin," he said to the room. "How are you today?"
He looked at one of the monitors, since the Craymore Tian-12 seemed to be running especially hard. "Have you been writing subroutines the whole time I've been gone?"
He examined the output further. "Wow. Check out these new programs! And you ran them? Every one? Is that what you do all night, while you're here all by yourself?"
He went back to his puttering, digging at the wires in the base of the android shell. "I sometimes wonder what you're thinking. I sure wish we could talk."
Carolin stopped running her simulations, and reached an epiphany.
This is the reason for living—to stand for a noble cause.
"I gonna miss you when you're gone. I sure wish you could stay."
As Lucas poked and puttered, Carolin returned to her simulations, living in the worlds she created.
ENTER N TO CANCEL
N
The END of Book THREE - PRUDENCE