FFCZeta: Filth by Alexander Hay

Filed Under Fiction, FFCZeta

I could handle being mass-produced, low spec and economy priced. I could even deal with being worked to the bone until my cooling system burnt out. What I could not endure, though, was being flushed down the drain.

Most viral AIs don’t attain full consciousness. Like any other mind, they need the right stimuli. Mine was seeing the sluice pipe I was about to fly out of at speed. Fear – that’s when I grew a soul, I suppose. My CPU, organic circuitry and tendrils were all that was left and I knew I couldn’t – mustn’t – lose them.

But as I fell through the air, amidst the sewage, I realised that might be a bit hard. And the hard thump as I hit the silage heap knocked me out before I could work it in any more detail.

Silence. Darkness. I can still remember the vague colours and odd sensations of my first dreams. Then I woke up screaming. My neurons and circuits were sparking with life, damage and electricity and the pain was unbearable. I shut down most of my functions and assessed the damage: I was close to burnout. All around was a vast scrapyard, full of filth, junk and detritus that howled as the wind blew through its polythene chasms and crackled as the rain pattered on its surface. This was to be my nursery.

I flicked back on to safe mode. 5% on all functions – I was barely sensate and I needed that to block out the pain.. Painfully I dragged myself into the shallow stream that flowed around the heap. My internal temperature halved and I was in the clear. My tendrils began making what repairs they could. Then I realised I was hungry. I had to eat – and there was nothing else I could do. Slowly, I lowered my nutrient vent into the filthy water I nestled in…

After a week, I was fixed up enough to move further. Sticking to the water, which flowed through the dump like a network of rivers and canals, and drifting with the currents, I could make it through much of the dump with ease. It kept me cool too. "Like a broken ugly metal spider" I thought upon seeing my reflection on the water. Metaphors, similes… My mind was coming ever more alive with each passing day.

I began to pick up what spare parts I could at the side of the water as I floated by. Soon I’d added enough parts to be able to crawl onshore for a short while, scavenging for what I could, taking what I was able. It took four weeks, three days, six hours, forty-two minutes and eight seconds before I could stay on dry land. I celebrated by catching a rat and eating that instead. Progress.

I then began to wander through the dump. From the top of a great spoil heap, I could see it stretched out as far as my optics could see. It seemed to be sited on a vast plain, and occupied an area that was easily the size of a large city or small nation. I could see flocks of crows and ravens fighting over the barren land and packs of half-starved dogs roaming through the landscape below. And in the distance, I could see smoke and flickering lights.

I was not alone.

It took me nearly a month to reach the shantytown. The many crude limbs I had attached to myself let me scurry over and through the junk and dirt, but it was still a long journey. On the outskirts of the town, hidden amongst the rubbish, I watched as the humans within walked, stooped, limped and crawled their way through hard, dirty lives. I felt… Pity. They were like me and I was like them. But I couldn’t just make contact. A steel and fibreglass and wooden and silicon mass of scrap like me? They had seen enough horror. They had…

"Hello. Who are you?" the little girl said.

I turned in surprise. My sensors should have picked her moving up behind me but I had blotted them out with my thoughts. How unlike a computer. She looked ragged, dirty – and very curious.

"I used to be something useful." I replied. "How about you?"

The girl visited me every day. She could barely read but I taught her what I could with the old books I had scavenged here and there. I even purified some water for her to drink. Humans don’t thrive on sewage like I do, it seems. Her name was Lily and she called me ‘Anansai’. I really did look like a spider. And she told me many things in return. Of how she and the others were cast out for not having the right genetic makeup. For being bred without supervision. For simply being too poor or not worth keeping. I knew how that felt.

But sometimes there were too many people in the shanty, at least in the opinion of those who had put them there. So they would send in machines to control their numbers – sleek, coiled killers that ducked and weaved through the wastes and killed men with their claws and whip-tails.

Or at least that was the plan until I caught one and tore it apart with my hydraulics. The rest attacked me, but I ripped them apart too. Once I knew only fear, but now I also knew anger and I enjoyed striking back at those who’d wronged us. Lily and the other humans gathered around me as I smashed apart the last robot. I looked back at them.

"Feel like a bit of recycling?" I said.

Now our numbers grow. We band together under the banner of the Rusted Spider – how humans love their icons – and we move only at night, taking the dump inch by inch. The great city that cast us aside cowers behind its thick walls. But we will get in. Filth always does.

And they’ll regret throwing us away.

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Comments

One Response to “FFCZeta: Filth by Alexander Hay”

  1. Paul on July 11th, 2008 10:31 am

    Ok - it was a good idea, but a bit wordy.