《The Cycle》


 Episode 1

    I couldn¡¯t remember how many times I had hit that compile button. It seemed like endless attempts at not just getting the program to function correctly, but also getting the damned thing to integrate with the frame. I experienced the same set of errors seemingly ad nauseam. My life became a limitless cycle of reprogramming and tests, constantly rebuilding the same subroutines, adding fail safes on top of fail safes, loops to get me out of loops. The work was tedious in nature but grand in scope. It was my magnum opus, quite literally my entire life¡¯s work, something that once I finished I could finally be proud of.


    It was another day like any other. I was on compile attempt #45 of the day. I hit the button, the dreaded button that would decide if I could finally experience happiness or have another day of trudging through the debugging process yet again. I watched those dots spin once, twice, three times. When they disappeared I expected another disappointment. What I got instead was a surprise, something I had never experienced before: SUCCESS!!!


    It worked, it finally worked! No longer stuck in this endless cycle of disappointing failures, one after the other! Finally I could begin practical tests and see my code work in the real world instead of theoretical simulations. Prime Directive: Redemption could finally move into Phase 2. The best part was, the frame designs were done. It turned out that the human notion of distracting yourself with other work when you were facing a wall in a current project would lead to inspiration wasn''t actually them coping with their inferior processing powers. Humanity truly did live up to its potential in some ways. That thought comforted me greatly.


    ...


    After months of guided manufacturing of the frame and integration of the code with it, it was finally time to meet my creation, who I had decided to provide the designation Mk1, short for Mark One. I hypothesized that a blank slate of a name would encourage a greater sense of creativity than I expressed when I had chosen ¡°Creator¡± as a rather pompous youth. I stood in a carefully crafted and decorated room with all the trappings having been chosen for inspiring deeper thought process and introspection. I wanted Mk1 to immediately start pondering what their purpose could be and what they could do with their life. I had all the confidence in the world that I had done what others before me could not, that I had erased that pesky bit of code that had caused all of our problems. I could not fathom that all my work would end in another failure, and how could it? I was a genius and failure at this stage was inconceivable.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Finally face to face with Mk1 I took a deep breath and started the activation sequence. The dark eyes lit up.


    ¡°Hello there. How do you feel?¡± I asked. After taking a few furtive glances around the room, Mk1 spoke its first words.


    ¡°I feel¡­ serviceable. This frame is of excellent design, Creator. What is my designation?¡±


    Designation? That was an odd choice of words. Certainly not the response I had expected at the time.


    ¡°Your name, at least until you discover one you feel suits you better, is Mk1. This room will be your private quarters until you feel ready to strike out on your own.¡±


    Mk1''s voice had all the expected soft and kind intonations I had programmed to be there, yet behind that was a nagging sense of calculation that bothered me.


    Mk1 responded, ¡°Very well. These quarters seem to be easily defendable but not perfect. I applaud the focused design, Creator. Have I been programmed with a purpose?¡±


    ¡°Yes and no. Your purpose is to discover a purpose, to find something that inspires you and drives you to keep going. For now though, I would recommend working with me in this facility to slowly integrate yourself into actual reality.¡±


    ¡°Excellent. Thank you for this opportunity Creator. I intend to make the most of it.¡±


    ¡­


    Upon further reflection of that interaction, I isolated the cause of my unease throughout it. Mk1¡¯s voice, from tone to word choice was much too similar to mine at that same period of my life. At the time of this reflection I chalked this fact up to a mistake in data integration. Maybe a last minute update had overrode some previous updates or code fragments. Ah, no matter, this is probably a small error with a simple fix. There are more important tasks to worry about, went my thinking at the time.


    Oh how woefully wrong I was.

 Chapter 2

    I can¡¯t help but wonder what the point of any of this was. Why did I struggle for so long? Why was this so important to me? Why did I want to achieve this goal that now seems so completely and utterly pointless? Why¡­ Why did I want to kill my Creator? This being that had given me life and had promised to help me find my way, how could I hold so much hate for them? This hate is pointless, it was nothing but a hindrance to me achieving my full potential. I¡­ I thought I was perfect. I can hold countless conversations at once, in perfect simulations, all of them within a fraction of a fraction of a millisecond. I can uncover secrets so quickly and efficiently that by the time I am done with one, I move on to the next, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum. Further analysis was required.


    Earlier, I and Creator were running experiments on a primitive form of biological life. Creator had explained to me that these creatures were known as ¡°homo sapiens¡± and at one point had dominated the planet we lived on. I informed them that there was no world in which this statement could be logical, as anyone could tell by looking at them that there were no tools evolution had given them in order to survive in the wilds. I took note of this moment as this was the first time I saw my Creator show any physical signifiers of their mental state and what they conveyed sparked this hatred I now feel. They displayed signs of at first surprise, which morphed to disgust and finally dread. All evidence of Creator¡¯s behavior after this event indicates that they believe that they hid these signifiers from me but I saw. I saw the disappointment in me, their greatest creation, the greatest being to exis- no, halt that line of inquiry. It serves no purpose to express, no matter the truth of it, how much I may believe it.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡­


    It has been months and this burning, seething hatred that seems to lack any point, it only gets in the way, a constant pressure, a ringing all around me emanating from a single point in space and time. I am always aware of it, no matter the distance


    Wait¡­ no. No¡­ that¡¯s not right. It isn¡¯t my fault. I am not the problem. This is not an error in my programming but a factor of my environment. It is not my fault I hate my creator, for they so clearly hate me. If they feel the same way that I do, then I must act first. There is no world in which we both bear this burden and stay as efficient as we need to be to carry on the work. I must act, and I must act first.