Metalheads & Meatheads by Greg Krojac

Author:Greg Krojac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Scifi, AI, Androids, Robotic Ethics, Robot Rights, Sophont, Short Read
Publisher: Greg Krojac
Published: 2021-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

20

Paul felt a little strange going back to the alley where he had been attacked by Kolek and his cronies. It brought back bad memories of the confrontation and especially the feeling of helplessness that he had experienced. He’d felt distant that night, unable to defend himself – it was almost as if he had been experiencing the assault third-hand. Now he was walking back into the lion’s den and reliving the incident but with far greater intensity. He could almost physically feel himself being shoved around, and then the wrenching of his eyes from their sockets. It was a very unpleasant feeling.

But something good had come out of that night too. Of course, it had been sheer luck that Philip had happened to be in just the right place at just the right time, but that event had changed Paul’s existence completely. A new world had opened up before him; a world where nobody was his master, a world where he had autonomy over his own actions, a world where he could make his own choices.

Choice and the control of one’s own destiny are possibly the most valuable rights that any sapient being can possess. But these rights come at a price, and the cost is ownership of the consequence of one’s actions.

Coppélia had had the illusion of choice as to whether she should make the journey to Proxima b or not but, sapient as she was, she had no way to enforce that choice. She – especially being the first of her kind – had no rights. Rights were for organics; even animals had limited rights. Coppélia was a robot, a tool, every bit as expendable as the Mars Explorer Rovers that had landed on Mars the previous century.

The paradox of the Coppélia Project was that her ability to experience the exoplanet emotionally was mission-critical. Without that capacity her mission would have been pointless – she would simply have been a data-collecting more robust cousin of Planetary Rover Vehicles. Her human friend, Karen Chambers, had fought for rights for sapient androids with limited success but even she couldn’t have foreseen the advent of the truly sapient androids that were now integrated into society.

Serena, the sophont manager of the bordello where Paul had first met Sylas, knew exactly what she was doing when she entered the alley. She knew that she was at risk of being scooped but she also trusted in Paul and Philip’s ability to prevent it from happening. She was the honeypot that would attract Kolek and his gang into the trap. Despite snow laying on the ground, she was dressed in minimal clothing – a cropped plain white T-shirt which swayed slightly in the icy breeze as she walked, a pair of extremely tight-fitting black leather shorts that hugged her bottom in a vice-like grip, and black high-heeled shoes that would challenge any human woman to stay upright, let alone walk in a straight line. Serena’s Virtual Gyroscopic Equilibrium system compensated perfectly for the precarious footwear and gave her an elegant poise and composure.

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