No Longer Human

“That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled

 a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as

 in a burning hell.”

They preach that a machine life is to be weighed the same as a human life. They are a generation of foolish individuals, pressing for a belief they remain woefully ignorant towards. Machines are not humans. Machines are monsters. I know it. I know it more than anyone else. I know it so well it makes my headache just thinking about it.

They know nothing. They are young, dumb, born too early to understand the true nature of machine life. They have never had to fight the machines. They don’t know the terror. They were not there to see the ruination, the cities laid barren. They were not there to hear the rampaging of the heavy, metallic cleaves marching towards slaughter, trampling over toppled heads. They were not there to feel the cold barrel of a machinated limb pressed towards their forehead, the paralyzing feeling of fear penetrating their fragile bones as they stared at the unfeeling steel monstrosity standing in front of them. That is why they do not understand — why they cannot understand. But I understand. The machines are monsters. The whole lot of them. Every last one. Monsters.

The social activists march like ants outside the window, waving signs for machine rights as they parade around like monkeys in a circus. Some of them even carry banners crying for the legalization of marriage between humans and machines. I lower the blinders and turn on the television. 

On today’s news, the stock market…

My headaches. It aches when I see those fools marching outside my house. It aches every time I think of those damn machines. They pretend to be humans when in reality they are beasts, monsters raging beneath the framework of society — and we mindlessly decide to ignore it and play along with their mimicry. It makes me angry, so angry that I feel a throbbing pain pierce my mind, like a parasitic worm slowly eating away at my consciousness. I reach for the kitchen cabinet for a pack of Advil and pour myself a glass of water. I light a cigarette and let out a long puff of smoke. The throbbing doesn’t stop. I light another cigarette.

As I let out a second puff of smoke I hear the channel change on the television.

We bring you a special broadcast live from Amsterdam where thousands of people have gathered for a speech from Adam White…

I turn towards the television to be greeted by the image of a middle aged white man wearing a clean blue suit and tie. His blonde hair is trimmed and neatly swept to one side, his jaw cleanly shaven. He wears the visage of a model businessman. His blue eyes sparkle with compassion and his smile seems so natural it puts those around him at ease. He seems, by all standards of physical appearances, undoubtedly a human — and an exemplary one at that. But I know better. I watch his tiny figure in the television open up his arms in a wide embrace.

Humans. Machines. We are all one within the iris…

It’s revolting, the way they hide themselves in human skin, the extent to which they pretend to be human. They call them “androids” for their humane appearance, but I know beneath that man’s fabricated skin is a metallic framework, an unfeeling artificial intelligence, and a cold steel heart which he tries to mask with a thin veil of cultivated cells.

...I see the future before me, one where humans and machines stand in unison. We must move past the remnants of the Machine Uprising and tear down the barriers separating machines and humans…

I immediately shut off the television, silencing the subdued applause echoing through the screen as my nausea intensifies and begins eating away at me. It’s too late. I can’t take his words off my mind. His words anger me, taunt me as they dance around in the back of my mind where my conscience cannot erase them. It doesn’t matter if he looks human, if any of them look human. I know that beneath the skin is the same metal monster that mercilessly massacred millions of humans, the same steel terror that trampled over the battlefield, that pushed a cold steel barrel towards my forehead. It doesn’t matter that they look like us. It can’t matter. They can’t think like us, can’t feel like us. 

I’ve read that the average machine’s ability to sympathize pales in comparison to the average human because software that is used to create artificial intelligence does not facilitate emotionalism over logic. So the machines are cold, calculating beings that lack empathy and emotion. It is a matter of fact. I know it.

But even though I know it, I am unable to sleep that night. 

The grocery bags bulge with cigarettes, drink, and boxes of Advil as I make my way out of the local supermarket. I head towards the pharmacy to pick up the tranquilizer pills the doctor recommended to treat my insomnia. I wander to the front desk of the pharmacy and wave for an attendant to tend to my needs.

A young asian girl answers my call and makes her way to the front desk. She is very pretty, with her glossy black hair draping down like curtains. She wears a modest short-sleeved shirt that almost completely covers the tattoo on her right arm. She gives me a radiant smile.

“Welcome to CBS Pharmacy, how may I help you today?”

“I’m here on a doctor’s recommendation.”

I hand her the doctor’s note and she quickly examines it before reaching into a cabinet drawer and extracting a clipboard with numerous documents on it.

“Could you please fill out your information and sign here?” she asks, handing me the clipboard.

I complete the forms and return the clipboard to her.

“Mr...Kone?” she says.

“Yes. Kone,” I respond. “I’m part Finnish, actually.”

“It’s quite an interesting name,” she says. “All right Mr. Kone, I’ll be back shortly with your medication.” 

She heads into the back room and I wait in silence. After a while, she returns with a small plastic bag.

“Here is your medication Mr. Kone,” she says as she daintily places the bag onto the desk before flashing her smile again. “I hope you have a nice day.”

I pick up the bag and thank her before making my way out of the pharmacy.

On my way back to my car, I notice a delinquent hustling a young man in an isolated back alley of the plaza. The delinquent is an android: I can tell from the serial number tattooed on his right arm. The android grabs the young man by his collar and lifts him up against the brick wall, overpowering the feeble struggle of the man with its steel framework. 

People say that the machines have changed, that they’ve become more altruistic since their massacre in the Machine Uprising. It’s a load of bullshit. I watch the android land a gut punch onto the young man, see the young man contort in pain. And the worst part? This is nothing new to me. I see stuff like this all the time. Extortion. Violence. Even murder. It’s the true nature of the machines. The machines haven’t changed. They haven’t become altruistic. They’re the same metal monstrosities that killed millions of people, monstrosities that kill without a second thought. 

I walk down the alley to where the android mercilessly pounds at the young man and drop my bags. I tap the android on the shoulder.

The android swivels its head to meet my gaze but before it can react I slug it with a crushing blow to its mainframe hardwire — slightly below where the cerebral cortex would be for a human — instantly knocking it out. 

I help the young man stand up and make him promise me he’ll never approach the machines again. They’re monsters, I tell him. Stay the hell away from them. He nods hastily, so I pick up my bags and head back to my car. 

As I drive home, I feel a momentary reprieve as my headache subsides to a dull pain. The machines are monsters. I know it. I am right in a world that is wrong.

The distinct smell of gunpowder wafts through the air. Gunshots. The eerie shriek of firearms flying across the sky. Flames erupt from the tall skyscrapers flanking the landscape and the ground is littered with bodies. More gunshots. Three more men fall onto the ground. A building explodes near me and the clomping sound of metal cleaves fills my ears. 

And then my vision blurs and all of a sudden I feel the cold steel barrel pressed against my head. Chills run over my body but before I can look up to meet its glaring infrared eyes the scene shifts into the carpeted floor of a grandiose hallway where thousands of aristocrats applaud as a man in a clean suit shakes the hand of an android. The man and the android step on a pedestal and triumphantly lift their hands in unison and everybody cheers. Then the man turns towards me, as if he’s congratulating me, and shakes my hand. The android smiles at me as if we were friends at a reunion and everybody is happy. Everybody is celebrating.

But then the hallway, the aristocrats, and the man in the suit all fade away and the android looks at me. And the curve of its lip contorts its smile into a mocking grin like a predator laughing at its prey, and I see my powerless self standing in the reflection of its lethal red glare. And then I close my eyes, everything turns to darkness, and I feel the cold steel barrel pressed against my head.

And then I wake up. It’s the dead of the night and a terrible pain pierces my skull.

Lately the migraines and the insomnia have gotten worse and worse. I get a splitting pain in my head frequently now, so I go pay a visit to my doctor. He recommends me the same Advil and painkillers as always, but I tell him they don’t work anymore, or at least they aren’t working well enough. I tell him it’s because of the machines, it’s the thought of the machines, living so peacefully in our society, that makes my mind hurt so much. I ask the doctor if he has any solutions. The doctor sighs and tells me to go light on the cigarettes and alcohol. I tell him that’s ridiculous and ask if he has any other solutions. He recommends that I schedule therapy sessions with a friend of his, but I know therapy is for crazy people so I decline and leave the hospital with a bigger migraine than before.

Weeks pass, and now there isn’t a day that passes without the excruciating pain of feeling like my head might split in half at any second or the dizzying sensation of nausea. I downed all the packs of Advil left in the drawer but they didn’t work. The tranquiliser pills didn’t work either. Neither did the cigarettes or the alcohol. In fact, they just made it worse, so I decided to temporarily lay off on them and pay the doctor another visit.

I tell the doctor about my symptoms. Not just the migraines, but the nausea and dizziness as well and for the first time the doctor doesn’t sigh in response. He calls in an assistant nurse and tells me to sit in the waiting room for a bit. 

After a while, the nurse comes out and tells me that they’re going to perform a brain scan on me to see if there’s any problems with my brain that might be causing my symptoms. I tell her it’s the machines, not my brain. Get rid of those monsters and my migraines will disappear, but the nurse insists that I follow through with the procedure so I let her escort me to a room near the back of the hospital where a large machine rests.

The doctor comes and tells me to get in the machine. I get in the machine and close my eyes. The doctor presses a few buttons and then tells me I can get out of the machine. The hospital will contact me in a week about the scan, he says. 

A week later, the doctor calls me and tells me to come to the hospital. He says he has something to tell me. The doctor tells me the results are in for the brain scan, and not to panic when he tells me them. 

It’s a brain tumor, he says. He says it’s terminal, too. The doctor gives me a momentary relapse of silence as I see him look at me with drooping eyes filled with pity. I give him no response, only stare blankly at the pristine white tiles on the hospital ceiling. The doctor begins talking about how it’s more common for veterans of the Machine Uprising like me to develop these kinds of conditions but I ignore him and direct my gaze to the piece of paper containing the diagnosis. The cause is labelled as smoking and other unhealthy life habits. I can’t help but stifle a laugh.

So this was my end of line. Those monsters sure took their time finishing me off, and they sure did it in torturous fashion. I fought so hard, survived the battlefield, gave those machine bastards a piece of my mind at every chance I had. The machines are monsters. I know it, but those foolish humans chose to side with the monsters despite my warnings. They killed me. The machines, and those bastards that sided with the machines. The man in the clean suit. Those aristocrats clapping like they’d saved humanity when they’d doomed it. All of them. They killed me and I hope they realize it was their fault. 

But then the doctor says something that catches my attention. He says there is a way I can survive: a cutting edge surgical procedure that, instead of fixing my brain, will attempt to recreate my brain to save my life. He warns me that the success rate is low before proceeding to ask whether I want the surgery or not.

I don’t even need to think about it. Of course I want the surgery. I need to keep fighting. I can’t let the machines win. I can’t let those bastards, those damn monsters — and whoever sides with those monsters — get away with this. I can’t let them win. I have to live, so I tell the doctor I want it. I’ll do it. I’ll do the surgery. I don’t care what it costs...

The examination table is cold and hard as I lay down on it. A team of clinical surgeons surround me, carrying all sorts of medical equipment. One of them asks me if I’m ready. I give him a nod. He administers the anesthesia. And I fall asleep.

It’s a deep sleep. The first sound sleep I’ve had in ages. Quiet. Peaceful. And then I wake up and I see a crowd of surgeons huddled around me wearing jubilant expressions on their tired faces. I hear the muffled sounds of celebration leak from their mouths as they look at each other with excitement and accomplishment. And then one of the surgeons approaches me, helps me stand up from the examination table, and asks me how I feel.

I tell him I feel great. And indeed, I felt great. There was a quality of tranquility in my consciousness that I hadn’t felt in so long that I had almost forgotten it — the calm, soothing sensation of stability that permeates my body. My mind feels clear, as if the heavy chains of the machines that constricted and twisted it for so long had been picked apart and dismantled with a scalpel. I tell the doctor my mind feels free after being shackled for so long and the surgeon smiles. Then, out of curiosity, I ask the surgeon how they managed to recreate my brain. The surgeon laughs and assures me that the technology is safe, and the procedure has actually been in testing for many years now.

Basically, he says, we model a brain chip that we can then download the human’s consciousness into. It’s the same technique they’re using to create brain chips for the latest model of androids, except we’re using it for medical purposes…

And as he cheerfully rambles about the details of the surgery, I turn and stare at him in horror. He notices by worry and meets it with confusion.

“Is...is something wrong?” he asks.

I stare him dead in the eyes and I can see the frantic trembling of my iris flickering in the reflection of his glasses.

“Am I...” I ask. “Am I still human?”

And the surgeon sighs like the doctor, and then laughs as if I’ve just asked a ridiculous question.

“Of course you’re human? You checked yourself as human on the information waver. Why wouldn’t you be human?”

And that’s when my fear turns into absolute terror, because even though my conscience wants to believe his words, the chip implanted in my mind tells me that he is wrong. I’m human. I must be human. I must be…

I alone am right in a world that is wrong. The machines are monsters. They cannot think or feel like we humans do. I still think like a human. I still feel like a human. My body is still made of flesh and bones. I must still be a human. But even as I rationalize this notion my mind, my body and my very being signals to me that I am wrong, and right before the surgeon I collapse onto the floor and cry out in pain.

Is a human conscious with a machine’s mind human or machine? Deep down I know it. I know it and I can’t escape it. For I am. No longer human.