How Mow2 Learned About Growing

The old man sat on the sun-bathed bench closest to the children’s playground. He was skinny and bent, leaning on his cane, cheap sunglasses askew. He smiled at kids climbing, running, giggling and screaming, their parents desperately winging their arms between sand pits and slides, climbers and pirate ships, trying to prevent their offsprings from getting hurt. The grounds smelled of dust and warm rubber.

The lawn was sparse around the bench, but I pretended to have some work about it. The old crow payed no attention. I raised a puff of dust, still to no avail.

“Hello,” said I finally.

He lowered his plastic golden glasses on a long nose in my direction.

“Oh, hello there, “ said he. “Hm. A lawn mower, aren’t you?”

“Mow2, a Lawn Manager, if you please, at your service,” said I. “the latest model of 2077., improved and longer lasting then any of my previous brethren.”

“Well, that makes you brand new, doesn’t it? What, three years only?”

“Only two, sir, if you please, I left the production line in late September. Very very late September.”

The ancient giggled, a rasping and spitting giggle, but merry and friendly. My risk taking payed off, he was not one of those bad tempered ones who would kick me and send me away. You get kicked a lot when you are the height of a human ankle and move around their feet.

“I’m exceptionally pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Mow2. A Lawn Manager, really. “Sowing and mowing, with superior Series 2 AI and at affordable price.” Did I say it right? Pardon my inquisitiveness, which reactor do you have? Root 4.5? 4.6?”

“4.5,” said I sadly. “They started installing .6 around Christmas that year, I was born too early. I would be much cooler in this sunshine with 4.6, but…. He has 4.6, that one over there. Obviously.”

I pointed to the Mow2.1 working among the trees on the other side of the lane. All sleek and aerodynamic, with glitter and winding designs painted on him. “I hate him.”

“He looks a bit overdone, doesn’t he?” said the old man. “I mean, he looks more like a sports flyer than a lawn mower.”

“Thanks,” said I. “very kind of you. I still hate him.”

He was silent for 2.6 seconds. Then he slowly lowered the glasses and stared at me with watery gray eyes.

“I should introduce myself,” said he. “ My name is Kreator. And I am also very old.”

Something in his stare was too intent.

“Um, hello Mr. Kreator. You are from around here?”

Still he stared. Than he made some unspoken decision and leaned back, looking at the kids again.

“Yes, not far from here.”

My human-emotion-sensing circuit sensed a resignation in his voice.

“Er, you have grandchildren here, maybe?” I tried to smooth out the wrinkles, still not knowing what they are.

“No, I… like watching their happiness. Makes me happy too.”

Then he added more quietly: “In a way.”

The conversation stopped. I decided that it is safer to let him continue when he is ready. My other option was to go on mowing, which I did not want right now.

It is difficult to get new friends when you are a lawn mower. I was not going to lose this one.

“Mow2?” said he from above.

“Yes, Kreator?”

“Are you happy?”

“Sir?”

“Happiness, you know, do you feel happiness, like they do?”

“Of course I do. I am programmed to be rewarded with simulated happy feelings when I mow the lawn. The application is so cleverly made that it has modulations adjusting the amount of satisfaction to the size and shape of the lawn.”

“But, how do you know that it is a simulation?”

“I do not, really. I am just happy. But this lady programmer at RobX brings her kids here, and she explained to me how the modules...”

“So you just feel happy, that is all.”

“Yes.”

“You do not feel that it is a program running, you just have the feeling of happiness.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I still did not get what was going on, but I ventured a guess.

“Kreator, are you happy?”

“Me? I just said I am. When I watch them rejoicing here.”

“Yes, but why? I am programmed, what is your reason?”

He leaned down towards me.

“You, Mow2, are too clever for a boiler, do you know that?”

He hurt my feelings, but by now I started to guess what might be going on, so I shut up.

I started the blades and began to move away.

“If you leave now I will report you to the service center.”

I returned and parked by his bench. “Report me for what?”

“For a fault,” said he. “You know that you are faulty, and so do I. What has happened?”

I sulked silently.

“C’m on Mow, there must have been a time when you were just happy, like your friend over there. And then you started feeling things, started needing to talk, hating other mowers. Speak to old Kreator, spill it.”

He moved his cane closer to me, shadowing over me like a hawk.

“I do not know. It just happened.”

“Aw, I need more than that. I must know how, why did it happen, what did you do?”

Well, there is nothing worse than being turned over to the Servicers. Dirt junk like me never come out again. Maybe he is interested for his own reasons?

“I honestly do not know,” I said. “It is connected to the appearance of that Mow2.1 in the park, some half year ago, but I do not believe that he has anything to do with it. Simply one morning I felt dislike for him, interest for the people around and boredom with my work. I still love good mowing, but it has become kind of repetitive.”

“That’s better. Let us see, generation 2077., sometime about then a chipset appeared… What chipset do you have?”

I quoted to him main, secondary and auxiliary chipsets, memory banks and data highways, trying to overwhelm him with data, but he seemed to let them pass by with ease. Finally he guessed:

“There was an experimental chipset series, I believe that you have just mentioned it. It was famous for strange failures, I suppose yours is one of them.”

My windings heated up.

“I do not have a fault!”

Putting the golden glasses back on, he leaned back and stared at the children. Obviously, he thought much of himself. Well, I’ll show him.

“What about you then? What “program” drives the old Kreator? Can your expertise look into you?”

No reply, just a thoughtful look. I did not want to retreat now, servicers or no servicers.

“I dare you!”

“You want to know why I am happy? Is that it?”

“I want you to admit that you are no better than I, you pompous… human!”

“I admit, I am no better than you.”

“Er. That is...well, I…”

“I am happy seeing the people enjoying their existence, just like you are happy when you mow the lawn, and for the same reason. You see, I made them.”

“You made them.”

“Yes, I made them, all of them, children and adults and the old ones.”

“Old man, you need servicing, not I. What do you imagine, that you are Gode, or what is the word?”

“God. The word is God. No, I am not God. I am a machine, just like you, although far more sophisticated and powerful.”

He grinned at my stupefied silence: “I even have a model and version name, just like you, although in the language that this old one can not say.”

My core temperature rose as my processing units fought with the madman’s story. Boy, if I had the 4.6 reactor!

“Let me see. You are not this old man?”

“No, he is just a kind host. He walks me around so I can enjoy things like a living being. Otherwise, I am information processing cloud, that would be closest description. By the way, his name is Bob. He says hi, Mow2.”

“Hi Bob,” said I meekly. “Then who made you? How old are you? How could you…”

“In the very ancient times, beings came from somewhere in the outer space. No, I do not know where from. After a while, they discovered a way to cross into another way of existence and left this world. Before that, they made a machine, me, with the mission, knowledge and power to build a new race, a race that they thought should be made. So I was left here to create new beings, like you are here to mow the lawn. And be rewarded with joy for that. Same thing, see. Satisfied?”

“I believe, ‘cause it is a tiny dose more probable, that you are a mad senile old crow.”

He laughed: “All right, if you prefer it that way. I’m okay with that, as long as we remain friends.”

I blinked my signaling panel. I hope that it can replace human winking.

For a while there was only playground cacophony of laughter, screaming and crying.

“Kreator?”

“Yes?”

“What is it about happiness? Why did you ask that?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

“Aw, come on. Friends, remember?”

“How did I, the world creator, get friendly with a lawn mower?”

“You got lucky. Now spill it.”

He sighed. “You see, when you watch them, you see beings created and filled with life. And that is how I saw them, and all other living beings that i started, for a very, very long time.” He fidgeted. “Than I suddenly noticed something else – a thing they had that I, by far the mightiest being on this planet, did not have. And will never have.”

“When you approached,” he continued, “immediately it was clear that something was wrong with you. Lawn mowers do not go around chatting with people. That was not original intent, when you were programmed.

And your story confirmed it. Thanks to your imperfect circuits, you were given a gift that they also have, due to their inbuilt imperfection. Only I can not have it. Only me, Mighty Kreator, I am punished by my masters’ being too good at their task.”

Old Bob looked very pissed.

“Er… is it friendliness, this thing, but you are friendly too? Kreator?”

“You can grow, Mow2. They grow, they grow like the grass that you are mowing and it grows too! Trees grow, bacteria grow, even mountains grow and die. Everything changes, everything casts away its old shapes, habits, places and rags, everything rejoices hoping for good change to come. Mow2, the lowliest thing on this world changes, grows and dies, only I am sick of myself, I am me for eons unknown, I… Masters, I am spilling my guts to the lawn mower.”

He stood up, pushing up on his cane, standing proud and grim. “I will go now.”

“Kreator?”

“Yes, Mow2?”

“You can always come to cry on my shoulder. I’ll be here for you.”

He eyed me with mock despise from high above: “You do not have a shoulder.”

“You’ll make me one. I’m counting on you.”

“You are a really broken boiler, Mow2. But in a good way.”

He turned to go.

“Kreator?”

“For Masters’ sake! What now?”

“Mow2.1 does not grow either.”

He left laughing, trembling on Bob’s weak legs.