The Automaton by Ian Young

Author:Ian Young [Young, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Funky Fresh Publishing
Published: 2022-10-17T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

As the sun blazed in the sky above, Isaac exited the tower proper from a hidden, rarely used maintenance entrance and entered into the bustling city streets. Thermo-receptors in his synthetic skin registered an unusually warm day, trigging his coolant system to engage. For Africa, that was saying something.

From the outside, he looked like anyone you would expect to find in the city, though his pressed uniform was a little too upper-class for his liking. That similarity was the true point of the assimilation process—remove the differences. Look the same, sound the same, act the same, be the same. It was his mantra. He knew it wasn’t a healthy thing to continue to tell himself, but it was for the betterment of his people. At least, that was what he told himself.

He turned the corner a few blocks later, hearing a rising commotion, then balked at the sounds of chants, anger, and fear. Entering into a market square, the automaton was welcomed by a horrific, but all too common sight: store front windows smashed in, garbage receptacles upended, and anti-assimilation picket signs scrawled with derogatory words, depicting skinless automata with red exes crossed over them. Civil unrest, they called it; it would quell itself with time, they said. It was a good thing the automata weren’t sent in this time to squash dissidence—that would have exacerbated the situation beyond comprehension.

In the baby-boom, shortly after the end of the war, populations had begun to grow once again, and cities like New Scalia were ticks about to burst. For humans, being told to assimilate with an enemy that had held the world hostage for twenty-odd years led to a population that was seething with hate.

“NO MORE BOTS! NO MORE BOTS!” came the chants.

Hypocrites, Isaac thought. The automata saved you from extinction and never asked for anything in return—other than to live their lives in peace—and as soon as they show you your inadequacies and how you’ve forgotten how to live without them, your ego deflates, and now you want them gone. But who will take care of you without us?

The present automata continued about their day, though not without attempting to blend in and habitually looking over their shoulders.

This is not what we envisioned, not even close.

New Scalia police forces performed a mixed duty. The officers of bone and blood half-heartedly worked their way around the square, providing as minimal support as possible. The officers of metal and electricity desperately attempted to calm the protesters down politely, which only threw more fuel on the fire.

Isaac began to step in when something in the back of his mind processed and made him pause. With his appearance on the late show and the many speeches he’d given as Ambassador, his appearance wasn’t exactly unknown. Cases of automata-on-human violence were few, but every charge in the book would be levied, and summary destruction was the rule, rather than the exception. Human-on-automata violence, however, rarely led to trial, and punishment for such crimes was often

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