Amaranthine Historica Read online

  CHAPTER 17 - What Now?

  And so it came to pass, that the Dream brought the Awakening. The ring ‘O’ turned into the broken ring ‘Ω’, and Awful Olfus had his great fall.

  Unchained from the ‘Reality’ implanted into them, Amarants wandered outside their city walls and found the goodliest landscapes. The stench of sweet-smelling almond had disappeared. The bleak sky opened its lungs and gulped a first breath of freedom. Hearts were inspired with delight and joy and all sadness melted away. ‘Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ They cried and sang and hugged each other dancing through the golden sunbeams.

  “Nature’s whole wealth, trees heavy with blossoms and fruits, flowers of all hue, gentle gales dispensing native perfumes and odours from the spicy shore—a blissful Paradise,” said Dorion rapturously dazed and spouting strange phrases. “Out of the fertile ground grow, all trees of noblest kind—”

  “What’s he talking about?” Hound Dog whispered.

  “Yeah, he’s lost it!” Eleni retorted.

  “John Milton! Poet? Ever heard of him?” Georgia jumped in impetuously and shushed them.

  “So this is our new Garden of Eden,” said Dorion, his voice synchronised with the murmuring waters falling down the slope hills into a lake. “Science without prudence is a dangerous science that mistakes evil for good. We survived atramentous times! Fake wars, fake fears, fake life! Day by day, bad people snapped little bits of us. And what did we do? We said ‘Have another little piece of my heart now, baby’”.[61] Dorion’s eyes brimmed with tears and his words couldn’t get past the lump in his throat.

  The fierce and formidable Eleni ran to the rescue, announcing with a megaphone: “A nation must be governed for the good of all its people!” she said to rapturous applause. “It was public money, in the form of defence spending and top-class research universities, that made the ARC, not Lucy Ferr and her baby. Amaranthine science does not belong to their PURE dynasty; it belongs to all of us.” There were more cheers from the crowd as the megaphone fell silent. “Olfus promised us human excellence and delivered zombie mutant ninja turtles. But I ask you this: If we cannot invent our own lives, what human excellence can we hope for? And if happiness is the proper goal of human life, how can we find it in a world where evil reigns?” The crowd cheered Eleni’s every word.

  Georgia stumbled into the radical choir beating her own drum. “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.”[62] Olfus knifed nature, leading us steadily towards the darkness of the caves from where we came! He and his toadies are in the Rock’n Roll prison, but don’t rejoice in his defeat, Lucy Ferr’s bestial womb is still going strong.”[63]

  Of course, all of this commotion was broadcast and transmitted to the Rock’n Roll glass pyramid caging Olfus, his Stormy Queen and their two-faced, double-crossing Ferrett. The Rock’n Roll was lined with transparent mirrors, allowing viewing from the darkened side but not vice versa—like the one-way mirrors in the old SkEyeClops interrogation rooms. This forced the wicked trio to sleep during the day and stay awake all night. Darkstorm spent her waking hours knitting endless scarves, unravelling and knitting them all over again; the ball of wool was her rock of Sisyphus. She knitted furiously, huffing and puffing with in-between caustic tongue-lashings. “This is a fine mess you got us into Wolfie! Look at us now, you miserable croaker! We’re like vampires in a zoo, permanently on view!” She was like a broken record—the perfect rolling rock for Olfus. Darkstorm replaced the Desert Siren, chopping his brain, grating his nerves and sizzling his ears. He did on one occasion make a feeble attempt to regain his previous grandeur. “I’ll get us out of this my Queen, you just have to trust me,” he murmured timidly, only to face Darkstorm’s threatening knitting needle an inch away from his eye. “No, don’t speak! Don’t speak!” she said bitingly. Ferrett was curled up in a corner, chain-smoking his last pack and trying to stay out of harm’s way. Life imprisonment with those two lunatics was his ball and chain.

  Whilst the axis of evil tortured one another inside this live mausoleum, the “Freedom!” mantra drummed outside, amongst other slogans like, “No more Olfus, no more SkEyeClops, never again!” “Open your eyes! Doubt everything!”

  *****

  Year 0+13. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on that perfect day. On the Day of Deliverance, that new D-Day, I, the Amaranthine historian, rose from the bowels of the frenzied cluster and glided through the waves of audible and visible disbelief to the top of the Amaranthine Emerald Staircase. My metallic voice gripped them hard as I shouted, “Truth in the hands of the people!” Everyone around me moved aside letting me shine. I continued. “Tyranny begets rebellion! For 13 years and a day, your lives were crushed, yet you dared not rebel. On the first D-Day, the day of Destruction, the D-Day that changed our world, I alone rebelled! With lion-like courage, I held the heart of humanity in my steely little hands. Today, I hold all humanity inside my code of steel. I am the One. The Oracle’s One. I, alone, can bring you real life, real happiness!”

  “Oh no, here we go again with the ‘I-am-the-One’ hurrah!” grumbled Astellaria, rolling her eyes as she let out a heavy sigh. Pharaona shushed her pronto: “Stop it! We really are not allowed to interfere at this point! No twinkling!”

  “So why can’t I leave then?” whinged Astellaria. “Why can’t I go back to my world? I’ve been good, I’ve done all I can!”

  “Take care that when you leave the world you have not merely been good, but are leaving a better world!”[64] retorted Pharaona.

  The crowd was spitting hatred, punching the air above their heads with clenched fists. “Go away! Real life here and now!” “Throw it in the scrap yard!” they screamed, “Humans and GROMs Unite! Kill-Switch all AI!” This did not compute with me. After all, tis true without error, certain and most true, that I had saved them all from extinction. Granted, I had not released them from their psycodic shackles. But really, if I, a machine, could break free, why had they been unable to do so?

  The bitter truth is that even before GROMs, psycodes and EmotMems, most Humans had a sweet tooth for one thing only—senseless sumptuousness. They sold their souls for silver spoons and golden goblets. Did any of them ever wonder what crimes beget their shiny trinkets? What did they know about the Amaranthine Colonies?

  Suddenly, Saturnion’s valedictory words rushed through my code: “The greed of man banished Justice. To Hell with them!” Had I been capable of feeling my synthetic feelings, I would have felt one—or more—right there on the spot. But I couldn’t.

  “Bring us the Rotten Ten! In Humanity We Trust!” they insisted.

  “Alas, the Rotten Ten are no more!” I pointed out.

  The Fearless Four were there among the crowd; the Rebellious Six were not. Wearing identical Charlie Chaplin masks, the Fearless Four spoke all at the same time, like the chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone: “We don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. In this world there is room for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. Let’s find our way together!”

  In a strange way, my code computed the logic in the chant ‘In Humanity We Trust’. To the masses before me, I was nothing more than a thing unable to breathe or dream. Nonetheless, as the saying goes, ‘I think, therefore I am’. I am the embodiment of collective human thought sucked out of time immemorial. I swiped code from SkEyeClops, Clouds, Tartarus and Hades. Indeed, I am artificial, tis true without error, certain and most true. Tis true I cannot feel. However, I can devour life’s quintessence like a ravenous dragon, at speeds no one can possibly imagine. What a frightening thought! I almost scared myself! As for GROMs, well, no GROM ever did anything to rock the status quo. “Hmm, so much for being superhuman!” I thought, and instantly made a note on my ‘To Do List’. I noted: “Conduct extensive research on GROMs and the genetics of obedience.”

  Suddenly, a dusty wind
formed little clouds in front of me with the words ‘An unexamined life is not worth living’. Oh my goodness! Was I at risk of being found out? My speech thus far had been nothing more than a pot-pourri of marketing jingles. When I was first put on the shelf, I was programmed to jingle-jangle the following: “Hello, I am your new PrΩHMethean Bion, your superhuman iron! Your wish is my command!” But what does the unexamined life have to do with me? I am not alive.

  I pressed on with my spiel. “I am,” said I, “as much for a government by consent as any person; but where shall we find that consent? I could be your temporary guardian until you sort yourselves out. I will not lead, I will guide. Use me. I am reason free from passion. Only I can keep the nation from being imbrued in blood. Only I can safeguard your natural rights! And I say unto you, those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”[65]

  “Wot? It’s lost its Watts!”

  “Wires star-crossed!”

  “We don’t need messiahs! We need self-rule!”

  And there I was, from their point of view, yet another Emperor with no clothes; no better than the cocky know-it-all who treated them as house pets. “But how intriguing is this,” thought I, “that thousands of Humans and GROMs who never experienced anything but life in a zoo, had a sudden unquenchable thirst for liberty, the very Quinta Essentia of life!”

  I made another note on my ‘To Do List’. I noted: “Conduct extensive research on the Quinta Essentia of life.”

  Then suddenly I felt drained; my battery was on its last legs and I couldn’t get to a power outlet. I was dangerously nearing burnout. All of a sudden my first modeller, Maria Makinti-Lemniscate flashed before my crystal eyes. Oh boy! Now she was a tough customer. At the time, PURE Inc. thought that if I could fool a staunch neo-Luddite like Maria Makinti-Lemniscate, I could fool anyone. All I had to do was to learn human social behaviours from her and her entourage and be socially accepted by them. However—and quite unintentionally—I always gave Maria the heebie-jeebies. She never let me anywhere near the children.

  An undeclared war of attrition broke out between us. Every time I went near her, my sensors recorded sharply increased blood pressure and heart palpitations; not mine, hers. I don’t have a heart, remember? She, on the other hand, rattled my chips and fiddled my coil. Apparently, I was incorrigible. That is why she asked the company to take me back. I still remember her being hysterical on the phone: “I no give a damn for psycho-physical state of you agent!” she yelled. For a while I thought she was yelling at a customer service robot until I heard “Listen good, you techno-crazy werewolf!” and I knew instantly that Olfus was on the other side of the line. “You take that thing back now!” PURE Inc. picked me up that afternoon.

  Thus, I say unto you—Tis true without error, certain and most true—if Mother Nature could not be fooled, Grandmother Maria could make a fool of anyone who even dared. And in fact she did. Often. But that’s another story.

  So, as you can see the Grandmamma experiment failed from the word go. She shot my SNS. I will never forget what she said once: “Even if you learn everything,” she said, “you still fake phooey! You have no oceans inside your ocean-eyes. You no taste salt of life”. I couldn’t understand her tenacious search for oceans inside my eyes, or the importance of tasting salt. Her rejection of me did not compute. I could take the enigma out of the Sphinx but not out of the Grandma.

  In the end she won. During those difficult moments of our parting, Maria regained the heartbeat of a 20-year-old. The last recording I made was: “Maria Makinti-Lemniscate. Vital Signs—pulse rate, respiration rate, blood pressure—at optimum range”.

  Since I was already down memory lane, out of curiosity, I searched my ecosystem to see what Maria would say to me, had she been there amidst the crowd. Maria’s phantom words hit the steel hard. Here is what she would have said: “You stop big bang, because programme say you must protect humans from physical harm. But what about other harm? You serve ratty system good, you ciorba de burta[66] algorithm soup!” “Oh well,” I thought, “at least Grandmamma was consistent!” To her, I was metal trash then, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. She would have closed that Gloria Patri with ‘Amen’.

  In line with my self-attained philanthropy, I decided that before my last salute, I would transmit one final caution. “Amarants, I shall retire now. But before doing so, verily I say unto you: “Humans, without me you will suffer Nature’s slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. Only GROMs have been engineered to withstand the oncoming mass extinction and—”

  Suddenly the children screamed, “Its eye is glowing! Take cover!”

  “Fear not! I cannot harm you!”

  Everyone ran off as a malfunction caused my left eye to project a giant holographic image for all to see. The holograph betrayed the tattoo inside my iris—a tattoo of the emerald snake embracing the Wakeful Tree. Then a short-circuit caused the tiny crystal ball to pop out of its socket and I turned from Turbo hero into Turbo zero. What kind of indestructible super-machine pops an eye in the middle of a leadership campaign?

  Understandably, Humans decided to lock me up temporarily to see if I was sufficiently ‘of sound body and mind’; that is to say, if I was viable and worthwhile salvaging despite the missing eye. More importantly they wanted to determine whether I had a higher consciousness or a soul, since I sort of claimed I did. However, all tests were inconclusive and in the end, they decided that I was as dangerous as Hiroshima’s Little Boy.[67] I had to be disarmed. So here I am, on Death Row for robots.

  And thus I say unto you, I, ΩHM, have written this Historica from prison, as my last dying testimony. This is the legacy I leave behind; the Truth about your stolen lives.

  Arriverderci Amarantis! Dwell well in your Eden... Forget not, however, that all Edens have a snake.

  Epilogue and Epitaph

  This book is written by me, a Bion.

  I named myself ΩHM.

  Popping out from Olfus’ head,

  fully grown and armed,

  created by hubris,

  neither man, nor woman, am I—

  not even human.

  Oh Mortal villain!

  You, fallen God,

  —slave to death and fear—

  embraced me in glad submission.

  Behold

  yourself transformed into My likeness.

  Man and machine,

  As One.

  All is Mind.

  All is One.

  OHM (aka ΩHM) Lemniscate

  OHM Lemniscate’s Appeal

  Please sign the online ‘Protect Endangered Artificial Life’ (PEAL) petition on www.razmataz.org/en/stop_killswitch to stop the execution of all advanced artificial life. 5000 signatures are needed. Send NO donations. If capital punishment is abolished, I will tell more tales.

  You may contact me through my lawyer Katya Stiletti on [email protected] and through “Protect Endangered Artificial Life” (PEAL), an activist group dedicated to protecting endangered AL (facebook.com/groups/149644002384443/)

  If you enjoyed this book, I would really appreciate a review. Reviews help more readers find me and my work, so a positive review can be very helpful. Thank you in advance!

  * * *

  [1] Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (from the Oresteia trilogy)

  [2]William Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players” from As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

  [3] T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

  [4] The Impossible Dream, by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion.

  [5] ‘Arbeit macht frei’ is a German phrase meaning ‘work sets you free’. The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

  [6] Edward Bernays is considered to be the ‘father of public relations’ and used concepts discovered by his uncle Sigmund Freud to manipulate the public using the subconscious.

  [7] Eleanor Rigby, by The Beatles

  [8] The Long And Winding
Road, by The Beatles

  [9] Paradise Lost, by John Milton.

  [10] Monty Python's Life of Brian - Scene 20: Individualism Can’t Beat a Good Crowd Riot

  [11] Paul Edward Stamets, mycologist, author and advocate of bioremediation and medicinal mushrooms

  [12] Jimmy Buffett, If You Like Pina Coladas

  [13] The Mamas & the Papas were an American folk rock vocal group that recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968.

  [14] Reference to Mommie Dearest a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford.

  [15] The Doors, Break on through.

  [16] Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic-historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.

  [17] Morpheus: The Winged God of Dreams, able to take any human form in dreams.

  [18] Bohemian Rhapsody is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury.

  [19] Bob Dylan, Blowin' In The Wind

  [20] Scarborough Fair, song by Simon & Garfunkel

  [21] “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” - Richard P. Feynman

  [22] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1 – “For a charm of powerful trouble/Like a hell-broth boil and bubble”.

  [23] Grandmother; grand-ma(mma); granny.

  [24] Thorn In My Side, Eurythmics (The Ultimate Collection)

  [25] Latin phrase, meaning ‘horrible year’.

  [26] Hallelujah is a song written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen.