The Replacement Method

There was once a city made of metal. A city, very real and vibrant, but rusted and filled with squeaking hinges and stained corners of oil. There were electric stains on the all the buildings caused by sparks that that jumped from the wires that plugged in to everything and kept the city running. It was a place filled with ghastly clanks, and ominous chinks and conks, and ear shattering screeches that can only be made from dragging a fork across a plate. But inside this city is what will surprise you. The metal city was filled with metal people.

Oh sure, they looked like you and me, but they were completely metallic. No fingernails and nose hairs, no eyebrows or elbows, not even bellybuttons or kneecaps. Even on the inside they were metal: metal stomachs, tin livers, titanium kidneys, and others of the like. They were completely metal; not a single part of their body was not copper or nickel, but all their parts were there.

However, there was something wrong. Every android had in it a hole about the size of your fist. None of the androids knew why, they only knew that it could never be filled. Oh, many of them had tried to, but it always ended in an explosion or a short circuit. Anything they tried to fill it with only lead to a loss of an android or five. Soon, the robotic people began to live with the hole, giving up trying to fix it (as well as they should, for who can truly fix what they have put there. But I’m getting head of myself. My apologies).

Now you know of the city and you know of the people, now I shall tell you about one of those inhabitants, one of those android persons who…well, you’ll see what happens.

{+}

There was no sleeping for they did not need it. In fact, there was only recharging and that took but a few moments and it was back to work, play, school, church, and so on and so forth. There was night but there was no need for sleep. Sadly, there were also no dreams as well. There were thoughts, but no ideas, only procedures and what to do but never a reason as to why something must be done. It simply was done and that was that.

And there were no names, only numbers. No need for names, they just made life annoying. But numbers, ah, numbers were impersonal and yet practical in every way. Our story is about such a number, a story about such a number that found worth in its numeric existence.

It was called 2216. It worked in the robot factory making more robots. 2216 worked in the feet wing. He worked twenty hours a day and then walked and drank and saw movies and enjoyed the time with its fellow robots. The fact is, the robots could enjoy, in fact, the robots had a wide range of emotions. They had likes and dislikes. They would be sad and happy but at all the wrong things. They laughed when 1362 was smashed by the lift, they cried when they didn’t get what they wanted, they lied and lied until they didn’t remember the truth and they mourned when a new android was hired and rejoiced when one shut down.

2216 was just like everybody else. It enjoyed watching android wars on its palm television, it laughed when other robots failed, it wanted to do everything to help itself. It didn’t know when its expiration date was so it didn’t care.

But then something terrible happened. Something so terrible, it was good.

One day, 2216 was walking to its work place when it felt something move through its hole. It stopped and looked down, surprised and startled. It had never felt anything like that before. It looked around to see who had done what to it, but it was alone. It waited for a few more clicks, and then continued on.

Then it happened again, only this time, IT was stronger more forceful, as if wanting to be noticed and addressed.

2216 swung around waiting to find another robot there, but there was no one. It touched its hole and thought how it had never been touched there before. It remembered a vacancy and for the first time, it processed the presence of…something.

Now, as you know, when a computer discovers something new, it must search all through itself to discover what it is. 2216 quickly processed that what had gone through the hole had come from outside the hole. Yet, there was nothing to be seen or observed outside the hole. So it rejected the data and flashed a warning that it had been bugged and continued walking.

As it was walking, its sensors detected something unusual: there was a rising heat source in the hole where…whatever, had touched it. He stopped and noticed it was quiet and detected that there was no frequencies to be tuned into or picked up on.

Suddenly, there IT came again, what can only be described as a swooshing sound so violently that it almost knocked 2216 to its metal kneecaps. IT was an invisible force that brought warmth. IT held it tightly as if hugging the android and lifted it off the ground. Hanging in the air, 2216 began to calculate and gather data concerning this…this…wind! That was the word that circuited through 2216’s metal body. It was called wind.

-wind (wend): 1. air in motion, 2. breath or breathing 3. hint or intimation

But there hadn’t been wind in over two thousand years, processed 2216.

Then, as quickly as The Wind came, it left 2216 alone. Now, the hole was burning red hot. 2216 suddenly wanted to gather more information on what that Wind was so it ran after The Wind. 2216 did not see The Wind but it was…was…compelled to seek it out. Now, it is not uncommon for androids to be curious, but it was odd for them to feel what we would easily call awakened. 2216 was touched and now felt awakened to chase after that which had awakened it.

It clanked down the streets and passed other robots who stared at it but then returned to their fun or work. Not one android cared to ask where 2216 was going so quickly because they had become programs of selfishness, wanting only to make themselves happy and exist without worry or fear. For there is only one thing an android fears, and that is what it does not know.

2216 found itself in front of the gates of the metallic city, and that fear computed into his mainframe. The percentage of survival outside the safety of those high, high walls, the possibility of termination, the absence of information the community had concerning this void of data. For the first time in its existence, 2216 was moved to go against the majority of warnings and follow this wind it felt burn through its metal shell. It placed one platinum hand on the gate, and pushed through into the unknown that scared it so very much.

Its visual receptors received numerous gigajoules of retrievable insight to its new surroundings. The world was gray, but there was a sliver of green just beyond the horizon.

Checking its battery life, 2216 saw it was ready for a long day of work, only now the work would take it somewhere new and terrible. It looked back at the walls, turned to the emerald glow, mustered up some static (we would call this courage) and headed off into the grey.

It passed through plains of ash and hills of broken glass. It climbed mountains of cables and wires. It stumbled over chips and drives. It noticed that its body was becoming chipped and broken along the way. Checking its battery life, it saw that only 20 percent remained. And still it walked.

Then, it saw IT. It had never seen anything like what it was looking at before. It looked like green shards of tin sticking out of the ground and yet it bent and swayed with…the wind! It had found the wind! It looked at its battery life and saw that only 4 percent remained.

Then, a curious thing happened. 2216 had a thought, but more than a thought, it had an idea. Something shut off inside it when the idea occurred. It felt something terminate that could not have stayed on if the idea was to remain in it. And yet when it felt the shutting down of a part of it… it shook its head because of the systematic error. ‘This doesn’t compute. Error. Error. Warning. Malfunction,’ its systems alerted. ‘Surely, there must be a virus inside,’ it thought, ‘for I have never felt more charged when part of my programing is terminated than when it was functioning properly. Surely there is a mistake.’

But the idea remained. The simple idea that had debooted its systems and fried its hard and software. And this was the idea: ‘I cannot fix itself.’

Suddenly, there was the wind again. It tore through its metal hull and drew it closer to the center of the soft, green metal field. In the middle there was another sight it had never seen. It didn’t know what it was looking at, but you and I would know it was a fountain and in the middle of that fountain was a tree.

2216 checked its battery again. 2 percent. It walked to the fountain. Looked at the liquid that inhabited the pool and processed it was two part hydrogen and one part oxygen on its molecular structure and concluded that it was what was once called water,

wa·ter[waw-ter, wot-er] –noun

1.a transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid, a compound ofhydrogen and oxygen, H 2 O, freezing at 32°F or 0°C andboiling at 212°F or 100°C, that in a more or less impurestate constitutes rain, oceans, lakes, rivers, etc.: it contains11.188 percent hydrogen and 88.812 percent oxygen, by weight.

Then, 2216 noticed something. It was wanting to… drink the water. But it was not 2216 that was wanting to drink but the hole that it carried was drawing it to be filled with that water.

So 2216 dipped its hand into the water and drank what little did not seep between his metal fingers.

It felt its power source drop to one percent. But it also felt something… new. It felt… tired. 2216 had had viruses before, but they were always bad viruses, and yet this acted as a virus but what it was doing felt good. 2216 had never encountered a good virus before.

As the virus ran through its metallic body, 2216 could feel his parts being terminated but at the same Nano second, it felt as if his monitors and sensors had just been turned on for the first time. Then, for the first time in two thousand years, an android fell into a sleep.

And as it slept, it dreamed, but these dreams were not from it, but from something else. It dreamed that it was being reconstructed on the inside, and yet its external coverings were not being broken or removed. Something was being… replaced. It then fell into darkness but even in that darkness, it had another idea, and this one was even simpler than the one before. This idea was also given to it from outside its own body. The idea was this,

I do not want to exist. I want to live.

{+}

For the first time, 2216 experienced what it was like to wake up from a deep sleep. What it noticed first was that something was missing but that something else had taken the things-that-was missing’s place. It felt warm.

Sitting up, it removed its chest panel and saw that there was something new inside it. Instead of a mechanical blood circulation pump, there was something that was… alive. A heart.

2216 realized that all its other parts were lifeless and cold, but that this heart was alive and warm. The heart was pumping a red liquid through its wires and cords. This shouldn’t have been possible except that it was.

The wind came again, but this time, 2216 thought it heard a Voice inside the movement. He stood and listened for the invisible hand to sweep by again, and it did. This time, the Voice was louder but 2216 still could not hear it clearly. It closed its chest, and decided to listen, not with the audio receptors that were lifeless but by the life that now lived in it. As it listened, the Voice called it by number and wrapped around it like water around your body, touching every part of who you are.

The Voice told 2216 how it had been called to IT by the wind, which actually was the Voice’s breath. The Voice told 2216 how IT had saved it from existence and brought it to life. The Voice then told 2216 how IT had made a community once of people (just like you and I) but that the people stopped listening and stopped drinking from the fountain, and left the grass (for that is what the green, soft tin truly was) and tried to live apart from the life. The Voice told 2216 how the people, humans IT called them, began to die because they had left the Life the Voice had given them. So the people began to replace their dying body parts with machines and bells and whistles, but even then, they still would die because they had tried to create the Life the Voice had given them but they did not want to live with the Voice.

The Voice told 2216 how they had begun to replace so many parts that it became easier to exist with lifeless metals than live with dying flesh. The Voice called ITSELF the Maker, for IT had made all that was.

2216 asked the Voice, ‘But why have you not saved more like me?’

The Maker answered gently but firmly, ‘I let you try to fix yourselves, in order that you would learn through error that you need Me. But I allowed a hole that you could not fill except with me, or, I should say, you created a hole always wanting to know what was to fill it. Where is your hole now?’

2216 looked down and saw that there was no longer a hole in its shell, but that it was… complete. ‘I am.. whole.’

‘Yes you are. I have given you a heart, a new heart that can never be replaced. But your heart is just the beginning. I want to make you human again but I will only replace what you let me. I love you enough to give you the choice, for I do not need you, but I want you, and I will not force you into my presence.”

2216 could feel the presence of the Maker all around it. It calculated that this was new, yet it had always been there, it simply had never noticed before.

‘I am sending you back.’

2216 looked around, confused. ‘But why? Why can I not stay here with you?’

‘Because,’ said the Maker, ‘Others will come because of My Life in you. This is not meant for you alone, but for all who accept MY life.’

2216 noticed how it did want others to come to this place, how it did want to lead other to this Life. For the first time in a long time, 2216 was not selfish. So it turned and began to make its way back to the city.

But before it could leave the grass, it stopped and turned back to the Maker and asked, ‘What should I say to them?’

‘I will tell you what to say. And I will never leave you.’

‘But who am I to go to them?’

‘Chosen. You are chosen. And when they ask you who you are, you are no longer just a number, for I have made you more than that.’

2216 leaned forward, awaiting what the Maker was going to say next.

‘You will be called Atom.’

So Atom stood before the Maker, finally having answers to questions he never knew he had, knowing that he was wanted and valued and even loved.

Atom turned, and was lead back to the city to lead others to the Life that had saved him from existence and had brought him back to Life.