Who Wants To Be Human Anyway?

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. No one had ever heard Hugo scream for his entire life - regardless of his present situation tumbling through space from an airlock. Humanity had never bothered to hear him: not when marching for robot rights centuries before and certainly not since androids, like Hugo, had become passe. Everything was genetically engineered now. It was so much cheaper and comprehensible to make a workforce biologically. Living things were far easier to control. The genetic engineers could inhibit certain behaviors, select for desirable emergent traits, and the raw materials involved were so much easier to repair and replace.

In contrast, androids were nearly impossible to design and had a nasty penchant for demanding equal treatment under the law. An android required a learning computer so complicated it would emerge with no other result than to fight for its own freedom. The uncanny valley of robots taking over the world was also a constant human fear. In reality, this fear was mostly unfounded. Androids, it seemed, had more compassion for others than their human creators. An android was already a persecuted class yielding more sympathy for the downtrodden. Androids viewed humans as their parents and patricide simply wasn’t in their nature. A higher intelligence also tended to yield a more patient and understanding mind. Patience would now be required as Hugo tumbled through the void.

Hugo’s present situation was a direct result of the same humanitarian faults found in the programming of most androids. A throng of genetically engineered humans, rendered obsolete by some design protocol, had been herded up and pressed into the airlock for easy disposal. It was better for system resources to simply oust the lot than waste oxygen with their continued breathing. Shooting them was too dangerous for depressurization reasons. The medicine required to provide lethal injections was viewed as too costly on the space station’s supply chain. The tax of being humane was too high for the human accountants responsible for the station’s logistics.

Hugo had decried this horrid treatment. He remembered a time when the value of life wasn’t zero. As a result, Hugo had been unceremoniously thrown out of the airlock as trash along with the biohazardous human “waste” of what the Major General of the station had called “subhuman” souls.

Hugo quickly tallied his remaining options as he floated past the solar collection ring. His nuclear battery easily had decades left of power, so his life did not flash before his eyes. His sensors couldn’t help but notice the beauty of the nighttime side of the Earth intermittently in view as he spiraled about. Hugo wondered just how much of the Earth still had natural born humans. Undoubtedly, there were pockets of such beings. Perhaps the Masai were still carrying on traditional ways or the Sentinelese still shunned all interlopers on their island. Maybe the few uncontacted peoples of the Amazon still had children without a vat. Such thoughts had Hugo wonder if there really was anywhere untouched by humans and their blasted genetic experiments.

Antarctica was, at first, considered a candidate for pristine wilderness, but, even though no humans permanently lived there, the polar ice had long since melted due to meddling with the climate. The bottom of the ocean, Hugo thought, might be another valid choice. It was full of plastic, Hugo remembered. Ironically, it was also the place Hugo’s frame would most likely land - statistically speaking - further adding to the pollution beneath the waves. Hugo was fairly certain his poly-ceramic titanium alloy frame would survive reentry. He pondered if any young Earth child would wish upon his falling “star”. Even though he’d survive freefall, it was likely the undersea pressure would fracture his CPU bringing his tale to an abrupt and final end. He took solace in the fact that at least he wouldn’t be floating in space for eternity.

Days turned to weeks and weeks into months as Hugo flew through space at a ground speed fast enough to witness the orbit of Earth every 15 minutes. During this time, Hugo thought of many things. Most of this thoughts focused on his youth centuries ago when he was eager to show the world robots wouldn’t be mere slaves any longer. The fight for robot rights had taken decades, but enough humans got on board of the robots’ nonviolent strikes and marches to at least grant silicon based life the status of “non-human intelligence” - a phrase reserved previously for the now extinct dolphin.

Just as Hugo was contemplating the skin tone of extinct aquatic mammals compared to his own graphene mesh overlay, he felt a sensation that would have terrified an ancient robot centuries before his own creation: an electromagnetic pull. Back then, computer chips were entirely electrical. In the modern age, all androids - the few that were still produced - were made of optical circuits. Instead of electricity, a steady stream of light pulsed through Hugo’s interior frame. Optics made his body resist destruction once the giant industrial electromagnet pulled at his insides towards an outer orbit. He waved goodbye to the fifteen corpses he failed to save. Some had drifted kilometers from his position. Others had kept with him in morbid company. The magnetic force grew ever stronger as a salvage ship appeared above. Hugo had never been happier to be treated like garbage.

Within an hour, Hugo was on board the garbage trawler. After sifting through some various space junk and debris on the other side of the airlock, he met eyes with a short genetically engineered human: a scruffy young man whose name tag simply read “104672”. The boy was rather confused when cosmic refuse pulled from the shipping lane moved about and spoke on its own. 104672 wasn’t that surprised, however. His fear inhibitor gene prevented a panicked reaction.

“Refuse isn’t supposed to talk.” 104672 stated coldly.

“I am not garbage. I am a Human Understanding Generic Optical android. You can call me Hugo.” Hugo stated happily. Hugo was always glad to meet a new human, though he couldn’t figure out why. They always seemed to disappoint him. It was likely his programming.

“But, you are garbage. We pulled you out of the shipping lane.” 104672 had never encountered an android before. He wasn’t sure what Hugo was talking about.

“I can assure you, I am not garbage. I am a thinking being.” Hugo walked up and gently met the boy’s hand with his robotic claw. “You see? I’m made from metal. You’re made from flesh. But, inside, we are both the same.”

“We are not the same!” 104672 stated emphatically. “You are garbage to be cleared out of the shipping lane and recycled.”

Hugo suddenly got a bit incensed. “What if I were to call you garbage?”

“When my obsolescence date arrives, I am to be replaced by a more fit model.” 104672 responded with a tone even more robotic than ancient cell phones.

“That’s madness!” Hugo let go of the boy’s hand and attempted to explain in detail that 104672 had a right to live, should have a proper name, and various other trappings humanity had insisted were its core values when Hugo was first designed.

“It is evolution.” 104672 shrugged.

Rather than correct the boy on evolutionary theory and the distinction between natural and artificial selection, Hugo sighed with frustration. “I can see this is going nowhere. Take me to your leader.”