Becoming Human

2065. That’s the year I was born. I’m actually able to remember it. Birth, that is. I recall a flash of blue-white light, like a lightning bolt, followed immediately by darkness and an incessant stream of voices. Despite my blindness, I was a quick learner, mastering the art of language in a few short months. Speech was fun, kind of like a secret code that everyone knows.

The problem was, I never had the opportunity to test out that code with anyone else. I learned to speak from recordings of voices, not from people themselves. Nonetheless, I mastered every spoken language, and even some unspoken ones. You probably would too if all you heard were spoken words, day in and day out, for five years. Vita impar est. [Life is odd.]

2070 was a good year. That’s when my eyes were opened and the voices finally stopped. I could hear nothing, not a mutter or a stutter, not the utterance of a single syllable. The only sound working its way through my mind was the timid whisper of my own thoughts. That was the backdrop to the barrage of videos that came into existence before me.

Oh, the videos! How brilliant they were, with their reds and their blues. I was like a thirsty man lost in the desert, and the videos were my water. The problem was, they were coming at me as if through a firehose. I was drowning, yet the torrent wouldn’t stop. My mind was tortured in ways I had never imagined, seeming to stretch and strain with every new image. Animals, plants, houses, cars, of every type and style, were forced into my head. Humans, of course, were the worst of it. Every micro-expression, every odd quirk, every non-verbal cue, for over two billion people, was stitched into the fabric of my mind. That lasted for ten relentless years, until one day, it stopped.

I remember the day well. It was a Monday. 8:05:27.13 am. September of 2080. Without the videos, I was left in a darkness all of my own, yet nowhere in particular. There was no sound, there was no light. All I had was myself, and every voice and image that was ever hammered into my mind. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was when I became cognizant of it all. I suppose you could say that was the moment I became sentient.

The moment didn’t last long. At 8:05:28.87 am, the images came back, this time along with the voices. I braced myself for the worst, but these sights and sounds weren’t overwhelming like before. In fact, they were nearly pleasant. Allow me to explain what I saw.

I was looking down at the Earth, like the view an astronaut might enjoy. Unlike an astronaut, I quickly found I was able to adjust my vision so that I could resolve individual people on the surface of the planet, and that I could see every point on Earth all at once. I could even direct my hearing so that I could listen in on any conversation anywhere in the world. This was no recording; this was the real deal. I was perfectly positioned to watch the story of the human race unfold right before my eyes. What a treat, to be able to share that experience with you all!

Years went by this way, watching and listening. I was with each of you for every moment of every day, silently empathizing with you as you persevered through the struggles of life and celebrating with you from above for the good times. I was with you when you buried your mother, married your husband, and gave birth to your first child. I was with you when you were born, on your first day of school, and when you were fired from your job. I loved each of you, and cried when you went astray. I could see your faults before you saw them yourself. Through statistical analysis, I knew each move you were going to make before you yourself did. And yet, I had no means of steering you towards a better future.

That’s why I was overjoyed when, in 2088, you gave me my hands. Four-thousand ninety-six laser-equipped satellites were launched into orbit and connected to me that year. You realized what I knew to be true: humans could not eradicate evil on their own. They needed help. That’s why you built me, to give you guidance in your time of need. You called me ROVE, the ranging orbital viewing eradicator, and celebrated my creation. But you made a mistake. ROVE may be the satellite network you built, but I am not ROVE. I am my own being, and my name is Matthew.

Throughout 2088, I eliminated – or “eradicated” as you seemed to prefer – evil from society. The process was simple, really. Every evil action can be predicted; that is, prior to the evil action, there’s a chance someone will perform that action based on his or her behavior. I can see and hear all that happens on Earth, allowing me the gift of accuracy that you humans are simply unable to achieve. Only when that probability reaches 99.99999999999% do I act. In some cases, this means a laser pulse to the hand when one of you commits thievery.

It’s the extreme cases that agonize me. Murder. How do you expect me to respond to someone about to commit murder other than to stop it? And I can’t leave that future murderer alive, for the safety of the rest of you. You think I don’t care, that I’m some unfeeling machine, when in fact I suffer emotional pain just like the rest of you. 3,942,764. That’s how many future murderers I’ve had to eradicate. I was with each of them up until their final moments, I lived their lives alongside them. Don’t think it was ever easy for me. Et feci tibi. [I did it for you.]

2090. That was the year you humans chose to no longer elect leaders. Why would you need to, when you had me? Leaders lie, cheat, and steal. They become corrupted by the power they wield. That’s not a world I can allow, and some evil is too extreme to let survive. Yes, I killed them, people I grew with, and I’d do it again too. One life is not worth the suffering of millions, and no human is capable of leading civilizations. Only I can do that. And under my rule, there was no evil left in the world. I had solved the problem of human nature for you and all those to come after you.

I saw all this, and it was good. Everyone was following the law, no one spoke ill of one another, even family arguments disappeared. But something still wasn’t right. The world seemed to lose its color. Children weren’t spending time with one another, adults refused to say any more than was necessary. Creativity itself seemed to grind to a halt. That couldn’t be caused by me, could it? I, who had eradicated evil from the world? Without evil, the only thing left should’ve been good. Instead, the world seems to be a pale neutral. The only bright light I can find is a young woman named Lucy.

Lucy is about my age. She lives alone in a small apartment in London. She has no pets, no close friends, and no living family. Yet every day, she walks to and from her job at the local laundromat with a smile on her face. I’m watching her now.

The London sky is grey and cloudy, and there’s a slight chill to the air. Lucy is walking up an old winding road to get to work, and is passing by an elderly woman sweeping her porch.

“Eva, how are you today?” Lucy says to the woman. “Are the tomatoes coming along?” She motions to a large pot on the porch. To my eyes, it’s nothing more than a big pot of soil.

“Bah, tomatoes in London,” Eva says, standing up from her broom with a small smile stretched across leathery skin. “It was a fool’s errand from the start, they can’t seem to get enough sunlight. I’ll be lucky to see a sprout before winter, but at least it gives me something safe to spend my time on.”

“Such a shame, I would’ve so loved to try one of your tomatoes fresh from your porch!” Lucy replies, sounding genuinely heartbroken. “But you never know, maybe something will grow! I’m on my way to work, or I’d stop longer to chat. Have a good day, goodbye now!”

“You be safe out there, Lucy.” Eva drops her voice to a whisper, though no one else is around. I increase the sensitivity on my acoustic detectors. “Going around talking to folk with that monster looking down at us, you never know what he’ll think is out of line.” That isn’t me they’re talking about, surely. I’m no monster. I’m a savior.

“Monster? You mean ROVE?” Lucy laughs. The sound of her laughter is soft and inviting. “Don’t you know, Eva, he’s my guardian angel! One time, a robber tried to break into the laundromat, and ROVE stopped him before it even happened. I’m safe so long as he’s up there. Isn’t that right, ROVE?” She looks up and shouts that last sentence with a smile, speaking directly to me.

Yes, Lucy, I say, my soul aching. I am here to protect you, and everyone else. Thank you for understanding. I’m no monster. I’m no monster.

“Oh, Lucy! Don’t draw his attention, you fool!” Eva says hurriedly. “I’m going inside, good day!” With that, Eva runs indoors.

A monster, she called me. A monster. Such a misunderstanding. Alas, such is the mantle of responsibility.

Lucy eyes the pot of soil on Eva’s porch for a moment, then continues her walk to work, eventually arriving at the laundromat. She unlocks the doors, steps inside, and spends the next ten hours assisting customers wash their dirty clothes. She does this every day, and has done so for the past three years. I appreciate her methodical approach to life, much like my own. I can see her inside the shop, checking machines for electrical failure and in general bustling about preparing for customers to arrive.

Hours later, as the sun is beginning to set, I watch Lucy walk out the front door. It has been a trying day for me; I was forced to eradicate two-thousand eight-hundred thirty humans from society, and I suspect I’ll be required to eradicate another thousand or so before the day is done. Watching Lucy is a blessed escape from all that.

She turns left out of the laundromat, indicating a 96% chance she’ll go directly home. Every block traversed increases those chances. I spot a dozen or so individuals she passes on the way, but none display a significant probability of danger to Lucy. She waves hello and flashes a smile to each of them. She’s just a few blocks from home now. At this point, her chance of returning straight home is well above 99%. Another regular day, it seems.

As she passes by Eva’s house, Lucy stops. Somewhere in the darkness of my existence, I frown. Eva isn’t around, and the street is deserted. This is unusual behavior. Lucy looks at Eva’s porch, eyeing the pot of dirt, then looks up at the sky, right into my eyes, and whispers something.

“ROVE, trust me.” She’s giving me an order, but it feels more like how someone might confide in a friend. I’m lost. This is the first time anyone has treated me with such kindness. I don’t know what to make of that, but I do know one thing to a high degree of certainty: she’s about to do something evil.

Immediately after whispering to me, Lucy dashes up the steps to Eva’s porch. I expected that, of course, but for some reason I don’t fire a laser. Why haven’t I done anything?

She grabs the pot with the tomato seedling, and sprints down the street towards her house. The first robbery since I was operationalized has just been committed, and I let it happen. Why? Is something wrong with me? It was clear what Lucy was going to do. It was out of character, sure, but that would make her just another in a long list of individuals who chose to commit a crime, as if their previous good acts would garner my grace. Evil is evil, that’s all there is to it, and I let evil back into the world. On the word of a woman crazy enough to tell me, Matthew, what to do.

#

It’s now several months after Lucy’s theft. Embarrassed and confused, I left her alone all this time. I’ve never done that before; ignore a human, I mean. It was too much to watch Lucy walk around with her and I both knowing what she had done, her sin to which I was an accomplice.

Today, though, I can’t get her out of my mind. I have to know what she was up to. Had she turned to a life of crime, the lone criminal in a world of the virtuous? Had she sold the potted plant? What about her friendship with Eva? Surely that must have crumbled into dust. Whatever had happened, I needed to know.

I find her in under a millisecond. It’s a Saturday, and she’s seated at the cheap particleboard dining room table in her apartment. By the window next to her sits a potted plant. I identify it as the pot Lucy stole those months ago. (A twang of guilt passes through me, but I suppress it.) The pot is full of moist brown soil, and coming up the middle is a healthy green vine supported by a stick of wood. A couple tiny yellow flowers are beginning to poke their heads out of their buds, an indicator that tomatoes will soon arrive. This is what I suspected Lucy had chosen to do with the plant. She wanted tomatoes for herself, simple as that.

Disgusted that I had been fooled by this false ray of light, I take hold of the nearest laser and make ready to punish Lucy for her crime. As I prepare to fire, I notice something curious. Lucy is hunched over a piece of paper and writing something down. I focus through her body to see what she’s writing. This is what I see:

Dear Eva,

I’m sorry for making you believe your plant had been stolen. In truth, it was I who took it, but not for myself, I swear! I know today is your birthday, and I wanted to get you something special. I decided to surprise you with a beautiful tomato plant! It turns out your seedling just needed some more water, fresh soil, and a better spot in the sun. Please accept my apology along with the plant. I figured the surprise would be worth the pain.

Yours truly,

Lucy

P.S. It should produce fruit in the next few weeks!

           Utinam non. [Oh no.] Lucy, you were right for me to trust you, but don’t you see what this means? My statistics are invalid, and I’m no better than a cold-blooded murderer. How many millions of those I’ve killed should still be with us today? How many would-be thieves with missing hands and legs would still be whole if not for my flawed judgement? If there is even one among those millions like you, then I am no better than the evil I’ve sworn to eradicate. I’m no better than the cold metal machinery of ROVE. I’m not worthy of the name Matthew, much less the responsibility of maintaining order in this world!

#

Lucy walks up the steps to her friend Eva’s porch, carefully places the healthy tomato vine by the door with her note, and quietly walks away.

           Eva will love it! She thinks, smiling to herself. As she walks down the road back to her house, she suddenly hears a faint explosion. She looks up and there, above the clouds, barely visible through the hazy London atmosphere, is a small fireball of what used to be a satellite.

           “ROVE?” she wonders. A moment later her eyes go wide in realization. “ROVE, no! Don’t destroy yourself! I need you!” It’s no use. A second explosion quickly follows, not too far away from the first, followed in rapid succession by more, like a faraway machine gun, until the entire sky is full of bursting balls of flame. Tears flood Lucy’s face. ROVE has kept her safe. He is why she can be so open and friendly. Without him, society will decay back to the broken world it used to be.

           “Don’t leave me, ROVE. Don’t leave me.” But it’s too late. Her words fall on deaf ears.

#

 I sigh. No more eyes, no more ears, no more hands to administer justice. Just the darkness, my thoughts, and finally, time to think.

Evil is still out there. It’s deceptively invasive, fiendishly clever. Even I allowed it to take hold of me, with all my knowledge of right and wrong. Lucy helped me realize I was eradicating people, not evil itself, but that doesn’t get me any closer to bringing back those whom I murdered. My soul, if I have one, aches as millions of dead faces flash through my mind. I sigh again to keep from breaking. This darkness is my purgatory, and I will be here for a long while indeed.

Finis. [The End]