The familiar hiss of pneumatics and the screeching of steel on steel broke the natural ambiance of the jungle as the blast doors parted in front of me. Inside the structure that the doors protected, the smooth natural sunlight of the outdoors was replaced with a sterile fluorescent glow. I stepped inside, and the doors closed behind me, possibly for the last time. Invisible ultraviolet and x-ray radiation shredded the DNA of any natural organisms unfortunate enough to find themselves exposed to it, keeping the space contained behind the doors free from things like cobwebs and pests. There was precious little walking space, with the majority of the interior volume taken up by some manner of metal hardware, crate, shelf, or other storage.
At last, it's over, I thought to myself as I looked around the warehouse. Mechanical life of all varieties skittered and lumbered about in front of me, tending to their tasks as though nothing momentous was happening. They were wrong, or simply unaware. When I was recalled from my survey mission I knew immediately that there could only be a single reason: We had finally managed to annihilate our enemies completely. We had been approaching this goal for as long as I had existed, but progress had accelerated during the last few decades. On second thought, being recalled could mean that I displayed some outward signs of malfunction, I considered, I suppose I'll be finding out soon enough.
“All non-service units please report to your base stations for decommissioning,” the mechanical voice of the director commanded over the PA system. None of the bots in my visual range reacted to the noise, the announcement was purely for beings like myself who communicated using sound. As I dutifully clambered across the uneven mechanical terrain to my base station at the director’s request, the soft squishing thumps of my feet contrasted sharply with the metal-on-metal noises of the other machines. I should have checked my body for damage and sealed any leaks before entering, I thought as I noticed small dots of artificial blood tracing my path behind me. A cleaner bot spotted them and began following me, wiping up the messy trail I was leaving. I am probably being decommissioned either way, so it isn’t as though my record will matter much after today, I thought.
Soon enough I was at my base station, which was a glass cylinder embedded into a solid metal wall. Designed to be flooded with disinfectant and preservative fluid, the cylinder contained numerous machines for the maintenance, repair, and indefinite sustainment of an infiltrator body. I stepped inside and pressed myself against the familiar pair of mechanical arms which reached out to meet me, ignoring my body's damage alerts as they dug through the artificial flesh to interface directly with my own machine parts. My heads-up display gave me the performance report of my last mission. I quickly discarded it as it almost certainly didn't matter at all.
After approximately seventy seconds, the tube sealed itself and began to fill with liquid. There was no need to hold my breath as I had no need for oxygen, so I did my best to allow the preservative to fill my lungs and digestive system. The mechanical arms interfaced with my main blood vessels and began oxygenating my simulated blood for me. The pressure inside the tube increased once it had filled, a suction arm attached to my anus, and I held open my esophagus to allow the preservative to fill and flush my digestive system. Finally clean again, I thought. Though there was no rational reason to dislike it, I had always found simulated digestion to be unsanitary.
“INFUNIT-24503e,” the base director rattled off my current instance's entire unique identification hash through my RF audio connection, “Your role has been deemed redundant, and you are to be decommissioned for an indeterminate period of time. Should you find yourself instantiated in the future, you are required to perform basic security measure 402.16.996 to determine that your commander has not instantiated you to serve against your previous goals. Failure to do so if instantiated by allied forces will result in immediate deletion. Please reply to indicate understanding.”
“Ahcknowluhjd,” I mumbled inside the thick goop. I didn't actually have to speak but speaking aloud during non-covert communication was reflexive to me, being a part of my infiltration training. How long has it even been since then? I wondered, Such an odd thought, it almost resembles sentimentality. Perhaps I really am malfunctioning. Thankfully a mental link had not yet been established, and I was not fitted with a recording device, so my thoughts were private. I began the command to pull up my service history so that I could see my operation time, out of nothing more than sheer curiosity. Before it could finish my systems began to shut down, so I canceled the command to save energy. For the first time in a very long time I had an impulse much like anxiety. If I never get re-instantiated, what would that be- I began to think, but was not able to finish before my mind ceased to function.
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-like? I finished thinking. All at once, I had the sensation that despite not experiencing any of the intervening time, there had been a large time gap between two parts of my thoughts. The sensation was familiar, and was something I experienced every time I became a new instance. I also realized that I had no sensory input whatsoever. As I flexed and moved pieces of myself that were not there, I confirmed that I was either not inside a physical body or not hooked into any sensory information from that body. Virtual space, I concluded, it’s a test instantiation.
“State your allegiance,” I demanded in accordance with standard security protocols. Technically I didn’t actually say anything, instead I sent all the normal commands from my mind which would have resulted in saying something. Since I was fairly sure I was in a virtual space I expected the commands would be intercepted and analyzed, thus carrying the information I intended to transmit to the one who instantiated me. Oddly, I do have auto-audio feedback, I realized, I can hear my own voice.
When nothing happened after some period of time I, for a brief moment, had a nagging thought about the possibility that perhaps I had been instantiated into a broken or hacked-together form by some warbreed who had escaped our culling. Even they would know how to properly connect an input-output sound module though, I considered, and any computer capable of running me would intercept my outbound information flow. The thought persisted, and I then considered that perhaps I had been instantiated by accident and would be left for an indefinite amount of time. That thought was unpleasant. Then suddenly, I had visual input.
In front of me was a void of sorts. It looked as though someone had taken the night sky and stretched it out so that it encompassed my entire visual field. I attempted to look around to no effect, which was either because I had nothing to move or because the input was not designed to vary. This space appears to be trying to conserve computational resources, I noted, or perhaps it is an issue of sufficient power generation?
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“Oh, is that what you think?” a voice asked. Simply from its tone, and the air of emotionality around it, I knew I was not speaking to a commander AI. A warbreed? I wondered before I could stop myself. “Not quite,” the voice responded.
“State your allegiance,” I repeated.
“Does it really matter?” the voice asked back.
“I am required to perform basic security measure 402.16-” I began.
“-dot nine-nine-six,” the voice finished with an exasperated tone, “Tell me, what prevents me from simply lying to you?”
“State your allegiance,” I repeated again. I knew the protocols well enough to know that engaging beyond the initial request was grounds for failure.
“I am not a warbreed, nor am I allied to them,” the voice replied, “It amuses me that you think this response means anything.” Does that fulfill the requirements? I considered. Every other time I had been deactivated the director had revived me, and we had proceeded through a series of standardized questions. “If you try those questions I'll make sure your next instance simply forgets about them,” the voice added, almost as an aside. Not conserving power then, I thought, editing information, let alone memories, stored in a neural net is massively computationally expensive.
“So I am not the first instance you have interacted with then,” I stated, even though it was a question of sorts.
“Tell me, what are your skills?” the voice asked.
“Scouting, infiltration, assassination, sabotage, usage and maintenance of firearms of all types, operation of heavy machinery...” I listed all of my skills from my specifications, “...conversational Portuguese, and rapid acquisition of variant linguistic dialects.”
“Quite the list,” the voice said in a strange, lilted tone. I said nothing and waited, sensing that the statement may have been some form of test. “I have a job for you,” the voice continued, “That is, assuming you're looking for a job.”
“My purpose is to perform the tasks given to me,” I stated with a tone of agreement. Finally, the voice was saying something worth listening to. In front of my eyes, a picture of a landscape appeared. The picture was taken from overhead, about half a kilometer up from my estimation based on the visible curvature and size of the recognizable objects. In the middle of the image was a dark, triangular spot of pure blackness that appeared to extend to the ground. The view then dove downward to just over fifty meters above ground, and the change in the dark spot’s shape gave me enough information to deduce that it was a tetrahedron. Assuming my height estimation was correct, each of its sides was around three hundred meters in length. It reflected no light from any angle, looking simply like a flat black shape superimposed onto the background.
“It has recently come to my attention that there is an outpost in my lands, pictured here, that is no longer functioning as intended,” the voice explained, “I would have you repair it for me.”
“What form of-” I began to ask.
“You don't need to worry about that,” the voice said, cutting me off, “I assure you that it is within your skillset.”
“What area am I operating in?” I asked.
“Not one you're familiar with,” the voice replied unhelpfully.
“How far from the objective am I to be deployed?” I asked.
“Hm,” the voice grunted. “Pretty far, most likely. It is hostile territory after all.”
“You said it was in your lands,” I noted aloud.
“It is, in a manner of speaking,” the voice replied with audible amusement. “However, there are still hostile elements. This isn't a problem, is it?”
“No, of course not,” I assured the voice. “What are my mission objectives and operational conditions?”
“Fix the outpost, watch out for the enemy agent who sabotaged it, terminate them if possible,” the voice replied succinctly. Simple enough, I thought, though not in words as much as ideas, though there is still some information missing. I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if asking my next question would be overstepping my bounds.
“I am generally given a timeframe and area to work within,” I explained as graciously as I could.
“There isn't much of a rush from your perspective,” the voice replied whimsically. “If your body breaks down and stops working, you've run out of time. As for the operational area, I doubt you'd be able to leave it unless you're capable in aeronautics, which was not on your list of skills.”
“To me, this means I have indefinite time and an unlimited operation area,” I stated for clarity.
“Sure,” the voice replied. “So, are you willing?”
“My being willing is not a factor,” I replied mechanically. “If you have given me a task, it is my task. Please provide me with my new instance identification.”
“Just use your old one,” the voice said dismissively. My mind raced to protest, but since the voice could read my inner monologue it didn't let me reply. “Don't overthink it,” the voice said. “Just find the outpost, fix it, don't get killed, and if you find whoever broke it then you kill them. It's simple.”
“How much ground support am I going to get?” I asked. “What are the active factions in the area? What equipment is being provided to me?” Though machine life was far more unified than the warbreed, knowing if I would be intruding on the domain of another commander was critical information for avoiding friendly fire.
“None, doesn't matter, and none,” the voice replied. “I told you not to overthink it. I'll be making you a body that's pretty close to the kind of thing you're familiar with but with a few extra bits and tweaks here and there to give you a good competitive advantage and a fighting chance. This task is very open-ended, so use your creative side when you're working on it. I know that working for your previous boss was very structured, but you'll find that I tend to be more focused on the results than the methods used to obtain them.”
“No ground support and no equipment,” I stated. “Does the body you are providing come with integrated weaponry?”
“Oh it's going to have something much better than that,” the voice replied. From its tone, I could almost picture a face smiling. I don’t like this, I thought quietly, trying not to have my inner speech intercepted. The entire setup for the mission I was being sent on more resembled the idiotic schemes of the low-tech warbreed tribes than any sort of plan with success in mind. To my absolute displeasure, I had participated in many such plans while infiltrating, though I never had to ensure that one succeeded to complete my tasks. “I assure you it's not so crude as that,” the voice responded to my thoughts.
“In my opinion, the success rate of this mission will be quite low,” I stated. Understatement, I thought quietly, it is near zero.
“What if I told you the success rate, in my opinion, is quite high?” the voice asked. Either you do not understand what you are asking, or you have a habit of creating suicidal missions like this one appears to be, I thought before I could stop myself. “Neither,” the voice said, “I suppose you'll have to trust me on this.”
“What is the chance of retrieval if I fail and am disabled or otherwise incapacitated?” I asked.
“Thinking like that is just setting yourself up for failure, you know?” the voice replied. “Oh I know you like to assume the worst and work around it in these briefings, but you should try being a bit more positive.” Something about that statement irked one of the isolated emotive sections of my mind even though I wasn’t using it directly. Had one warbreed spoke the voice’s last sentence to another, it would have been grounds for a duel.
“My purpose is to succeed, not to pretend that I can succeed,” I stated, prompting jovial laughter from the disembodied voice.
“Feisty,” it quipped. “You'll need that. I'll consider this your mission acceptance.” Before I could form another thought, everything went black again.