8] This is what we were made for.
I've never thought I would be bringing a guy flowers.
But Solomon Greenburg has been dead for the last four years, and entombed here on Earth for two of those. Flowers are what you bring when you visit the dead.
The great equalizer.
His artificial children had entombed him right in the house he lived in until he vanished twenty eight years ago. In the middle of a suburb, right in the middle of the block.
The homeowner association fined them each month, they got their money.
The house on one side was up for sale. The sign looked to have been out front for a while.
His Golems had shown up one day with an offer in gold bars to buy the house from the latest in the series of owners since Greenberg had vanished in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm.
After some lawyers got involved, and the gold was converted to cash, a trust was set up to handle the Golems legally taking possession of the house.
Greenberg's last wish on his deathbed in the tower that had become his home in another world, was “I want to go home.” They decided that he meant the home that he had been taken from.
It was a long, but tolerable drive to his home on Mayfair Street. And the two story high golden statue standing on the front lawn made finding the address easy enough.
The smooth featured Golem held a simple, waist high, on him, sword in front of it, making it look, and it had to be deliberate, like an enormous Oscar statue.
As I recognized it, the metallic features of the Golem’s face moved seamlessly into a grin and a slow exaggerated wink.
I gave it a nod in return and headed up to the front door.
A woman made of brightly polished copper wearing a blue with white flowers house dress opened the door as I approached and welcomed me by name. "Hello, Mr. Brenner. My name is Penny. Please come in.”
Unlike “Oscar” who had been standing out front, Penny had actual eyes made of smooth all white orbs and lips that opened as she spoke.
The interior of the house was like stepping back into the nineteen fifties, or rather, a magazine photo of one rather than a home that was actually lived in. Everything was brand new looking, and clean.
Penny noted my confused look. “We used divination magic to find as many of his possessions from the time he lived here as we could, the items that had survived anyways. The rest are the same brand and models as Father's possessions from when he was taken or custom made reproductions. All the original items were restored by magic. We wanted his home to be as close as it could be to how he left it.”
She took the bundle of lilies from me. “Let me take those and put them in some water. Then I can take you upstairs to pay your respects.”
Other people, including some officials, had gotten the Golems story before. Greenberg had been taken by a summoning ritual by the Republic of Kapdashar State University due to his skills as an Engineer and Metallurgist.
The ritual was supposed to summon someone who could bring everlasting peace to their world.
The Kadorians had been using magically powered automatons to defend their nation against hostiles of all stripes and had found themselves hard pressed with the development of weapons powerful enough to take down their war machines.
After getting brought up to speed on magic, Greenburg had come up with the idea of giving the automatons intelligence, and self will.
They got their peace and then had to deal with Greenburg's creations. Sentient beings with wants and desires of their own.
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Up the plastic covered stairs I followed my hostess to an old fashioned looking bachelor’s bedroom. With the elderly Soloman Greenburg under the covers in a dark blue set of pajamas. His long white beard was neatly combed out.
A glistening coat of something covered his hair and skin, somehow preserving his flesh and preventing it from decaying or giving off the accompanying smell. His cheeks were hollow, not from death but more likely from the age associated illnesses that had ended him.
A cruder looking mechanical dog that had been lying at his bedside rose and trotted over to me as I stood there respectfully, without a clue what I was supposed to do now.
It sat down beside me. I was a little surprised when it spoke. “Father was already in his sixties when he was brought over to Keptashar. The magic he mastered stretched out his remaining years three times as long as he should have lived. But eventually, old age caught still up with him.”
I considered trying to pet the mechanical hound, but the whole being able to talk thing, and it being a mechanical dog made me decide to play it safe. “So time passed slower in the Republic.”
The hound looked up. “Eighteen years here, fifty five there. I think the ratio of time wasn’t as bad as most worlds and Earth because magic was a more involved process there, something that required long rituals and devices rather than spells they could just throw around with a few magic words.”
“The more magical a universe is, the worse the time difference seems to be. Or at least that is my theory. Oh yes, you call me Spot. Father had a sense of humor.”
That time difference part sounded... accurate. And something I should look into. Eventually.
Greenberg had ultimately created what he called an Emet, a way of giving his creations life and he believed, a soul. More importantly, it gave the automatons he created and called Golems the ability to make their own decisions, and this is key, the ability and desire to duck when automaton killing ordinance was pointed at them.
And take cover, and demand their opponents to surrender instead of killing them without remorse even as they tried to run. That saved a lot of lives on both sides.
Then the wars ended and they were left without a job.
“We have tried to do what our Father wanted us to do, what we had been made to do, but we find ourselves no longer needed for that. Instead, we tried to help in other ways, but there were living veterans who needed those jobs. And had families to provide for."
“We found ourselves unwanted, and alone.”
I thought that over. "Well, it isn’t just what he wanted you to do for others. What did he want for you for yourselves?”
I suddenly found myself with Spot and Penny’s complete attention. Outside the bedroom window, a golden giant leaned down to stare into the window with its smooth molded face.
I froze up for a second. “Ah, you called him your father. Parents normally want something for their children, not just things from them.”
The hound looked at the dead body. “What did he want, for us? That’s a good question, for all of us.”
Visiting the house on Mayfair had given me a few things to think about. Like how we should treat artificial life on Earth, as servants, slaves, or children.
We have an opportunity now, to learn how other societies handled things, and what were the consequences of their decisions.
Maybe I will even be here long enough to see which way we go.
Addendum:
Let me be clear.
I didn’t mean for them to invade Palestine. I didn’t even suggest anything like that.
But I can see how and why they decided to do it. Their Jewish father made them to defend a nation and named them after the Golem, a creature made to protect the Jews from people hostile to them.
And for the legions of Golems he had made, who were no longer needed to defend the nation of their creation, a Jewish nation under attack from people hostile to them sounded like a job worth doing.
Their father created them with the ability to take prisoners when facing people they had no chance in a fight against them. So they didn’t just march in and start killing Palestinians, not the citizens, not the soldiers, and not even their leaders.
Instead, they arrested the people they considered the troublemakers.
The divination magic they had access to ensured they broke down the only the doors of only those who had given the orders to kill civilians, and those that carried them out. And to be fair they arrested quite a few people from Israel as well for the same reasons. As they put it. “War crimes are war crimes. No matter which side committed them.”
I wonder if a few people in our Congress and the Pentagon ended up sweating the idea of the Golems applying that rule to people outside of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
After getting the worst of the worst out of the way… the Golems started building sewers in Palestine.
And repairing Hospitals, schools, fire stations, the power grid, and got fresh water flowing again to every home.
Why? When asked they stated. “The less they suffer, the less reason they will have to hate.”
And for those that still hate? “They may hate, as long as they do not act.”
As for the people they arrested. “They are being held in another world. In two separate penal colonies. Some of them may be returned if they should truly feel remorse for their actions and we believe they will no longer be a danger to others."
Their justification for all it. “No one here was fixing the problem. So we are fixing it for you. You’re welcome.”
The Golems I had seen around the house on Mayfair turned out to be just a handful of the Golems that Soloman made as one offs. A sort of honor guard.
The ones he made to defend the republic on that other world numbered in the thousands. And they are all now here.
Several of them have been destroyed. Weapons made to wreak tanks can take them down, but the minds which ride around in the metal bodies just get collected and rehoused in a fresh new body in their father’s tower in another world.
A tower the size of a skyscraper with an entire industrial Golem making plant in the basement.
They shot a documentary about their invasion, ending with the line “Resistance is futile.”
I guess a sense of humor is inheritable even without genetics being involved.
Again, I didn’t mean to in any way have anything to do with any of this.
Neither Israel or Palestine are my responsibility, and while the Golems may be taking away people's rights, they are decisively ending the bloodshed over there. So if anyone has a problem with than, tell it to them, not me.
Not my circus, not my magically animated free willed war machines.