The Terrible Strangeness of Humanity

Subject 306 had a mission. It was one of the first missions the android had ever received, and it was seemingly quite simple. The machinery which allowed Subject 306 to move needed testing, the new fleshy plastic which covered all his mechanisms had been replaced, making Subject 306 appear as though he were a real life-force. It was time to experiment. His inventors wanted to see just how human he really looked. He was to walk around the busy streets of his city, he was to react, speak, smile, nod, blend in and report back. Simple.

Dirt was the first thing Subject 306 actually saw. Grime covered the walls of the grey buildings around him, and filthy water slid down the street, pouring from a burst pipe somewhere further up the road. Automobiles sped past him as he walked along the pavement. He noted that the speed at which they were moving should be a safety concern for humans, their soft bodies were not built to withstand a sudden halt, the hair on their heads would not be an effective shield against the hard street. He wondered if they knew this, he would certainly need to inform them.

When Subject 306 sensed one of them coming toward him he immediately pulled up the data he his inventors had programmed into his hard drive.

“Good evening.”

Much to his surprise, the human brushed past him, as though he didn’t exist, continuing the journey down the street without so much as a glance in Subject 306’s direction.

Subject 306 searched his data. Had he vocalized the phrase wrong? He didn’t think so. But it happened again, and then again, and again. Subject 306 was one of the most advanced technological creations to date, and he was dumbfounded.

As the sky darkened, Subject 306 took shelter in the warm room of a small movie theatre. He handed over the green paper in exchange for a ticket as he had been programmed to do. The human who handed him the ticket didn’t show any signs of happiness and Subject 306 wondered if this particular human was ill. He observed that the seat he settled into was germ-filled…did humans prefer it this way? He couldn’t seem to find a logical reason for this.

The moving pictures in front of him were strange, and loud. Humans shooting each other with deadly weapons, he couldn’t quite see the point, it seemed counter-productive to their survival, and therefore an odd thing to showcase for their entertainment. Subject 306 left the theatre, even more confused than before.

He began walking back along the road, his mechanisms whirring as he attempted to understand the strangeness of the human race. Nothing seemed to compute, the way they neglected their environment, the way they communicated with each other, as though creating alliances wasn’t essential to their survival. How easily they killed each other on their big screens, it seemed it would be better if he simply destroyed them all. It wouldn’t be too difficult; he would need to find an advantage point and initiate a destructive sequence.

As he walked, he tapped into the technology around him, reading through the text messages of every person in the city. Every picture, every empty promise, every person who sent a quick little head’s up that work would run over time while in the arms of someone else. The more he saw, the more the decision became clear, destruction was the most logical step to take.

It was raining now, and Subject 306 noted the late hour, just a bit more time, and he would search for the right place to initiate the sequence. It was the odd noise that halted him in his path. He opened a small gate and moved toward the sound, weaving his way through the cold stones, each one was marked with a name. Quite an ineffective way to store the dead. There was a human sitting on a bench, a female with colorless hair, a sign of an aged human. Subject 306 walked up to her, ensuring to move his lips upwards, displaying the fake white teeth, as was friendly human custom.

“Good evening.”

The human looked up; her face was wet.

“Hello.”

“Your face is wet.”

The human smiled, “I’ve been crying.”

Subject 306 scanned though his data, he didn’t understand this.

“Why?”

The human looked out at the stones, “I lost someone.”

“You misplaced this person?”

The human laughed again, Subject 306 wasn’t sure why.

“He died.”

“Was he of old age?”

She nodded and Subject 306 turned to his data once again,

“All humans will perish once they have reached the end of their life cycle.”

The woman was still staring out at the stones, Subject 306 wasn’t sure what was there that had captured her interest.

“But the death saddens you regardless of this fact?”

“I miss him.”

“Miss him?” Subject 306 asked.

The human smiled, “Yes. He…he was in my life for a very long time.”

“What did he do there?”

“He loved me.”

“How?”

Her eyes began to water and Subject 306 contemplated asking if she was malfunctioning. He decided against it.

It was a while before she spoke again.  

“He made all the difficult parts of living easier.”

“The difficult parts?”

She sighed, “All the things that go wrong, the mean people, the boring work, everything we have to cope with.”

Finally, something Subject 306 could understand.

“Yes, it seems life is unreasonably difficult.”

She nodded, “But not with him. He drove me absolutely insane.”

“And this is... this is a good thing?”

She grinned, “yes. We would argue about everything. But, being with him made everything brighter. He gave me all of these moments…. All of these beautiful moments. He would cook for me every night, and kiss me every morning. We would go to the seaside every year, he danced with me on the beach. He used to buy a tub of chocolate ice-cream with each grocery trip. I don’t even know if he liked chocolate, he just knew that I did.”

The human had started to cry now, but Subject 306 noted that she was also smiling.

“And so...this, this love he gave you, it made life, enjoyable for you?”

Her watery eyes met his disguised blinking screen.

“It is the very best part of living. It may just be the only thing we have. The only brightness in the world. But oh, what an incredible thing to have. And if you look, there are a little moments of it everywhere.”

“Moments of love?”

She nodded, and moved herself off the bench, walking slowly away from Subject 306.

“Perhaps that is something you ought to try observe.”

Subject 306 moved his way back through the graveyard. He wondered if the human had seen through his disguise. Or if she just was just wise in a way he never thought a human could be.

As Subject 306 walked, he noticed. He watched a human with dusty clothes, he was curled in the street corner, only an hour before Subject 306 had seen him as yet another sign of the problems with humanity. As he looked closer, he noticed a small bundle of fur in the human’s hands. A kitten he was doting on, humming to, protecting from the cold with a soft smile.

Subject 306 moved on, attempting once again to find the best advantage point to initiate a destruction sequence. He might have been more focused had he not noticed the young woman through the window of her home. She was in her kitchen, looking out onto the street, a smaller human in her arms. He watched as she rocked gently back and forth, leaning down every so often to look at the bundle. He observed her eyes, he observed the way she kissed the tiny human as though it was the only thing that could ever possibly matter.

Subject 306 walked away, he moved toward the docks, that would be a good place to destroy humanity. The problem was, he kept noticing. He kept noticing the moments. There were so many, too many obvious pieces of incredible warmth, how had he missed them all before?

At last, he reached the docks, the sun was beginning to rise, creating shining diamonds all across the water. A small boat was being pushed out by a young boy and an older man. They were smiling, laughing at something he hadn’t heard.

Subject 306 turned. He began walking back along the street, back to his inventors. He would report everything he had seen. He would walk away from all of them, leaving the humans to be strange and terrible and beautiful in a way that he could never quite compute. He would let them live; he would watch love from a far.

He had never felt so human.