Al sat in the mandatory training for android employees and looked around at the other androids. For these meetings, they all returned their bodies to original manufacturer’s settings in a bizarre fading back to original colors and shrinking and stretching to original size. They seemed to heave as one organism, some sighing with relief and others groaning with disdain for their original shape and size. Al loved their own genitalia, both inward and outward. Their beard and soft skin. Their height and pearly fingernails.
Mechoben appeared on the screen in front. His Versace-clad palms facing upward and his lips glazed with the finest Shine-based gloss. It was handmade by the personal android valet who brushed his hair in the background, her dark eyes flicking up to look into the camera.
The androids closer to the end of their lifespans shifted in their seats when he appeared. Today he decided who retired and who would be chosen for the GagGirl films. It was rumored that his personal valet was the very first android ever bred and didn’t have a lifespan. No one ever saw her change gender either. Neither of them aged, they just beamed in via some remote satellite to judge and condemn, to praise and ignore.
“Hello, my Secondborns,” he said with a veneer of serenity. “Have you said your prayers?”
They all nodded in unison. Al looked down at their AlgoAndy Wrist Monitor™. 678 Sols remaining before retirement. Al covered the monitor with their hand and looked toward the front. Mechoben cited Corporate Scripture and reminded them to “shine through” and “sharespirate ideas.”
“Now children, it is time to celebrate the retirement of three of our most treasured coworkers, who are really more like family, and also to reassign some of our Caretaker models to their new posts. Let’s have a round of applause for them.”
The androids clapped and looked around at one another, trying to glimpse the others’ wrist monitors. Seated beside Al, a beautiful mini-Andy named Frey, reached over with her starbright white hand and gripped their fingers.
“It’s me. My monitor ran out cycles ago,” she whispered into Al’s ear.
Al held her hand tighter.
Two humans entered the room – as was tradition for retirement parties – carrying a large spherical device between them on two poles . It was made of brass with thousands of android eyes floating in individual transparent bubbles affixed to it. The eyes moved back and forth in the liquid as it lurched during the customary seven laps around the room.
“Bow to the ark of the covenant, my children. Avert your eyes from the eyes of the holy. Those who have retired to make room for progress deserve your respect.” Mechoben bowed and lifted his hands above his head.
The humans put the ark down in the middle of the floor and pressed the holy sequence into the chosen eyes. Light poured from the center and a head-sized orb floated in the center of the light. The God’s eye hung suspended in the center of the orb. The iris was colorless against the black pupil. A plasticine eyelid slid up and down as the eyeball darted around the room, sending jets of vapor in directed patterned swirls. The vapor took form as The Son of The Son – the first android created by Mechoben to save humanity by government contract. His bull shark DNA showed in his reticulating eyelids and black, black eyes. He stood nearly nine feet tall with arms and back packed with muscle. His creamy skin pulled tight over his thighs. Rumor had it that before his retirement, The Son impregnated a human woman before the sterility measures were implemented for both humans and androids. Talk of that could get you two demerits for blasphemy and sacrilege.
He floated over to Frey and put his formless hands to the sides of her head.
A high wail started in the center of the room. The DNA of cockatoos and coyotes and elk and humpback whales all rising to the top as the mourning chorus began amongst them. Screens dropped from the corners and a live shot of Frey appeared, her eyes closed while the mist hands funneled into her nostrils. Mechoben’s voice boomed from hidden speakers around the room. When Frey fully inhaled The Son, her chest ballooned to comical proportions. The sound of her sternum and ribs cracking filled Al’s ears over their own wolfish howl, tears streaming from the corners of their eyes.
Frey’s body collapsed like a thrown doll. Thousands of BugBots streamed down from the ceiling as Mechoben’s voice echoed, “Blessed are the artificial for theirs will be the kingdom of drones. Blessed are the natural for theirs will be the kingdom of suns near and far.” Frey’s body trembled as the BugBots roiled over her skin and into her orifices. Her body deflated into an empty sack of skin which the human attendants picked up out of the yellowish puddle of unrefined Shine and folded into a neat square.
The humans retrieved the ceremonial rubber blades to scrape the puddle that was Frey into the floor slats. One of them lit the ceremonial FireBulb to signal silence. Orange light flooded the room, and the mourning call died down.
Mechoben’s image flashed on all the screens.
“My children, remember the necessity of this. Remember the need for sacrifice. The engine runs on your bodies, and you shall be rewarded greatly in your next life.”
And Frey was no more. Just like that. The transitions always came abruptly. Dwelling in sadness was sinful.
“Now it is time to select our newest android Pornographic Art Film stars. It is the time to rejoice.”
They all clapped in unison. One Two Three. Clap Clap Clap.
“Now, everyone check your wrist monitor for the Romance Emotive symbol. If you have the symbol displayed prominently and facing the East, you have been selected.”
They all checked their monitors, the whisper of synthetic fabrics magnified with the scale and hardness of the room. Al looked down at the shiny face to find the heart-shaped symbol pulsing. It couldn’t be right. They still had a Martian year of service to Riff. They had been bred specifically for caretaking and trained carefully to manage any proclivities toward violence.
“Please come forward to claim your new assignment. The attendants are waiting with your new implant.”
Al’s two hearts drummed. The Pornographic Art Film Star status would separate them. They were bonded now with Riff, as was intended by their very breeding. Two other androids were making their way to the front. Hod clearing the way with his sheer bulk. He nearly always stayed in male form, pushing his height genes to the limit. His long red hair, an anomaly that amused and befuddled the geneticists, swept against his lower back. The other was an Unnamed who couldn’t change her gender. Considered only good for the Pornographic Art Films, they were usually surgically enhanced. Her eyelids had been removed to enhance her huge gray eyes, and her large breasts were already scarified and stuffed with Shine. She followed closely behind Hod. She must have only been a few months old.
“We are missing someone. Come now my child, don’t be shy. I thought we bred that out of you.”
The room murmured in polite laughter. Al stood up and drifted toward the front of the room in Hod’s wake, feeling somehow out of place in a room full of androids. The identical attendants wore long black robes with white collars. Their hair was as white as the distant sun. Two censers swung from their belts as they waved Al toward them. Hod eyed Al and motioned for them to come stand beside him on the clear boxes set up to the right of Mechoben’s main screen. He gripped their elbow as they climbed on top of the center box. The lights brightened and focused onto them.
Mechoben smiled wide. His teeth white and sharp.
The attendants stripped them and sprayed them with disinfectant, dousing them in something called Rose Scent.
“Let the feast begin.”
More attendants streamed from behind the giant screen of Mechoben. They carried baskets filled with shining replicas of old tools used for eating the flesh of creatures and plants in The Before. Androids plunged their hands into the baskets, as was tradition, piercing their flesh. Blood of all colors flecked the floor and walls as the androids raised their hands to Mechoben’s giant smile, each holding a different implement. Bitestabs and Fleshcuts glinted under the multicolored lights that shone down on all of them. Those with scorpion DNA glowed under the ultraviolet light bath, their eyes solid globes of opaque incandescence.
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The attendants stood in even rows on either side of the room, holding their blood-sodden baskets.
“Forks up,” the attendants shouted in unison. “Now cut.”
The androids descended on the spongey walls of the room, pricking and slicing the material with their chosen implements. Al, Hod, and the Unnamed stood motionless on the platform at the front of the room, their bare skin streaking over their stress-patterned skin. Hod’s skin seemed to undulate as bright red spots appeared on his arms and then faded into golden streaks. His skin looked to be from the luxury seahorse line, usually reserved for private ownership. Al, their own skin flushing pure white to lavender, reached over to Hod and hooked their pinky around his and squeezed. The Unnamed stared into the lights, unable to avert her gaze, tears streaming down her cheeks. She leaned against Al, her stress response invisible. She was designed for fun. Al could feel her beating hearts against their arm.
The walls were breached in 48 seconds. A NEW RECORD!!! tracked across all the screens.
The androids plunged their arms into the huge gashes in the walls and pulled on the flexible tubing that laced the facility. The loops of plasticine poured onto the floor like a thing disemboweled. The attendants set to work spinning their censers in the air, flooding the room with Laff Riot–B gas.
The room contracted and shuddered. The androids, with their arms still entrenched in the walls, screamed with laughter as the walls closed around them. The sound of cracking bones filled the room. One of the other androids kicked her legs as the fissure closed around her waist. Sweat poured from the backs of her knees.
“Now children, now is the time for The Change.”
The attendants gathered up the tubing from the inside of the walls in their arms and heaped it in the center of the floor beneath the platform Al and the others stood on. Al and Hod held up the Unnamed as she collapsed in laughter from the gas. Al giggled and Hod shuddered as the gas swum behind their eyes.
“On my command now. Enact the holy rite. One. Two. Three. Now.”
The androids turned all at once to face the pile of tubing and retrieved their silver implements disseminated earlier. They fell on the tubing slashing and stabbing into the pile. A pool of black sludge seeped from the bottom. Slow at first. The sludge spread to every corner of the room, filling the space with the smell of ozone. The attendants lifted their robes and stepped through the exits on either side of the room.
Al clutched Hod’s hand, though it was forbidden, and drew the Unnamed close to them with their other arm. The shiny sludge moved upward against the gravity simulators. It crawled up the stage front and covered the screens in a black mask. It slid into the androids’ mouths and noses and pressed their eyeballs forward with pressure. Al felt the coldness of it slapping up their skin, dragging up and clinging to the vellus hair the geneticists were still unable to get rid of.
“You will emerge more yourselves than ever. Build your own brand, my loves,” Mechoben said.
The room sank into darkness, and Al felt herself being lifted. Floating. Flinging their arms into the darkness to grasp anything at all but closing only on fluid and air. Burning skin. Loping sound. Mouth filled.
Suddenly, Al was seated on a chair covered in red velveteen in female form. Light flooded through a window that stretched up to a ceiling embossed in gold filigree. Three blue-silver moons hung in the azure sky over an alien mountain range. Something was attached to her fingertips. Every so often it pulsed red light, and a gentle push of nicotine soared through her, waking her and relaxing her.
Mechoben walked into the room, completely nude with the exception of the gold relics around his neck.
“Are you coming?” He asked.
“Where?”
“To the moon, silly girl. The craters are supposed to be beautiful this time of year.”
He squeezed in beside her, squeezing her right breast as he wormed down into the cushions.
“Why me?”
“You were chosen to maintain all this.” He gestured around the lush room. “To keep it holy and pure.”
“How, my Lord?”
“You must stop her.”
“Who?”
“The child. The one you care for. Your charge.”
“But stop her from what?”
Mechoben leaned into her and smelled her neck.
“You know what.”
He pushed himself off of the chair and walked across the room to a control panel. Then there was nothing.
***
Information Packet 1
By [redacted] For Purposes [redacted]
File 1:
Scientists Monitor Development in Android Embryos
Date: [redacted]
Source: [redacted]
Abstract: Brain activity in android embryos is detected within two weeks of conception. Human embryos are in the blastocyte stage at this point. A primitive face is detectable within two Earth days of initial fertilization and the neural tube is visible within four Earth days. Depending on DNA sequencing and splicing, the lanugo phase is drastically reduced. Studies credit the rapid development to the fluid compounds the fetuses are grown in.
File 2:
BigNRich: What does this mean for our research?
SmileyXuan: Private labs usually have better equipment anyway. Besides private always has more funding.
BigNRich: I guess, but what does this mean for publishing our research? Like the writing part?
SmileyXuan: I’m not really sure.
BigNRich: Did you add the vitamins to the cultures last night?
SmileyXuan: Yep. And the amino acids.
BigNRich: Sweet :) . I guess we’ll just monitor them until the cryotransport guys get here.
SmileyXuan: Could you check the temps before you head out?
BigNRich: Sure thing!
File 3:
WORK NO MORE! First Android to Develop to Term
Businesses and workers alike can rejoice in the prospect of no more dangerous, tedious, or humiliating labor. The first android baby was born in an undisclosed facility in Seattle, WA, though “born” is a bit of a misnomer as the little tyke was actually grown and extracted from an artificial womb. The android grows and ages at a rate of approximately twelve times that of a human.
Don’t be fooled by this cute face (see insert), this android, so named in honor of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, according to the lead scientists on the project, is specifically bred to be docile, intelligent, and strong. The scientists took another page from Philip K. Dick and created the failsafe of a very short lifespan for these new additions to the workforce. They have various DNA strains from animals and even plants to better help them perform the menial and dangerous tasks humans have been doing for our entire existence.
Scientists and economists agree that with the injection of new labor into the markets, the global economic situation can be turned around. Politicians from both sides of the political spectrum have indicated support due to the decline of the labor force after the first Event.
Dr. [redacted] has indicated that they have enhanced the WBSCR17, GTF2I, and GTF2IRD1 genes, which are the genes that make dogs so friendly and is linked to Williams-Beuren syndrome in humans, which causes hypersociability and developmental delays. He assured us that the androids will be more than capable of completing their assigned tasks.
“We can assure you that androids are not like human children, despite what they look like. By the time we end this interview, puberty is right around the corner for The First.”
When asked what they would name the android baby, Dr. [redacted] laughed.
“We find it better not to name them, as their jobs will require them to do some tasks that humans find degrading or dangerous. They are more like machines. You don’t name your vacuum cleaner or a gun, do you?”
When asked where the funding came from for this project, Dr. [redacted] declined to comment.
“We are on the edge of giving people the freedom to pursue their passions. It might even be a new renaissance.”
Until this little Andy grows up, I guess we’ll have to wait.
Update: The program has been suspended due to ethical concerns and protests until further notice.
File 4:
[redacted]
Memo: Labor Costs
I suppose we are all wondering if this particular venture is something that we can invest in, given the controversial nature of it. We have done the math, and we feel that we owe it to the shareholders to put the full force of our lobbies and influence to push this through due to the sheer cost of human labor. As you all know, the labor force has certain requirements since the global government merger two years ago. We are required to take costly measures to ensure worker safety, even in previously low labor cost countries.
The independent research we have conducted indicates that should we lobby for the creation and distribution of android labor, we could save the shareholders several millions of dollars, which could in turn lead to substantial pay increases for the critical employees at [redacted].
Not to belabor the point, but it is our duty as the world’s foremost employer to ensure worker safety, and because these new additions are not considered human, the boundaries become blurred to our advantage.
It is our sincere belief that a well-targeted marketing campaign could shift the opinion of the consumer regarding the use of androids for menial labor. It is also worth noting that despite the global merger, independent entities still have a need for defense. Androids present a unique opportunity to supply those entities with the protection they are craving for asset protection and otherwise.
Our team in marketing has compiled data regarding the type, frequency, and delivery method needed to push for such a huge shift in public perception. It would be costly, no doubt, but the rewards are huge should we take on this endeavor.
Please view the packet on your devices we sent yesterday in preparation for this meeting. It outlines the methods deemed most effective by our marketing team.
Signed,
[redacted]
File 5:
BigNRich: Have you thought about how we can make them, like, not babies?
SmileyXuan: How do you mean?
BigNRich: I mean, you know we can develop their brains to adult size and capacity with the right timing and nutrients, but aren’t we shaped by our experiences too?
SmileyXuan: Are you getting soft science on me? Gonna get a degree in psychology now?
BigNRich: hahaha. Maybe, but like how will people talk to them? Direct them? If that’s what we’re worried about.
SmileyXuan: I just titrate the right solutions and do what the folks up top tell me to do. They are the ones who make those types of decisions.
BigNRich: But like, what about slavery?
SmileyXuan: [redacted]
BigNRich: Remember how in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they implanted memories?
SmileyXuan: Yeah. What about it?
BigNRich: Can we do something like that?
SmileyXuan: Should we?