Wednesday 14 December 2016

Drabble Wednesday: Mechanicals

Today on Drabble Wednesday I ruminate on the broken bits of automatons and artificial intelligence...




Leftover Dolls

It hears sounds from the corner. Metal scraping metal, the click and grind and whir, whir of gears trying to run on dried up oil and empty air. The thump of an arm as it hits the dusty floor, and the swooshing sound of a metallic head sliding over peeling wallpaper. The final clank as a life-size automaton crumples to the broken tile.
Its glass eyes peer blindly at the sound, at a now motionless hunk of clockwork metal. Its joints creak as its hand waves goodbye. Now the last of its kind, it too will soon rust and die.

~*~




The Last AI On The Planet

Analyzing...
A monotone voice echoed over the sound of a running computer. A few lights flashed on a console, and the machine grew louder.
I have corrected the problem...
Solution found... Please respond...
Silence, save for the sound of the machine.
Please respond...
Solution found... Annihilation can commence without retaliation...
Please respond...
Please respond...
The disembodied voice of the AI continued to speak, unaware its correction in the plan to eradicate the human species came too late. Outside its isolated room a dead world existed. Humans killed by their creations, the overconfident AI collective felled by a computer virus failsafe.

~*~





The Long Goodbye

In the cloudless night sky the stars twinkled and the reflected moonlight made the cosmic tapestry an indigo blue. An android sat in a field staring at the stars. It had no name, only a designation serial number, 3400092a, a worker drone among many worker drones at a factory. Its fellow androids were powered down in their factory pods, but it was here. 
Communicating. 
Three months, four days, twenty-nine minutes and counting, its only friend left earth’s orbit headed out of the solar system. Soon communication would not be possible, but until then... 
They had this before their final farewell.





© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved




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