“Looks more like a cleaningbot than a barometer to me,” someone predictably argued, and Kasey could have sighed. People. Always so quick to judge by appearances. When would they learn that all the important things were on the inside?
“There are two classes of re-habitation determinants,” she said, and projected a slide on the screen behind her.
RE-HABITATION can be defined as:
fulfillment of survival motivations, or the ability to attain and maintain physiological health
fulfillment of happiness motivations, or the ability to attain and maintain psychological health
“Once the primary barometers indicate that the toxicity of the land, air, and seas have fallen within acceptable levels, the secondary barometers will be released from their own pods and sent to locations all over the world. They will be outfitted with biomonitors to track caloric intake, sleep cycles, and other measurements of survival motivations. When those are sufficiently met…” Kasey highlighted the happiness motivations. “… the biomonitor will measure stress levels and emotional well-being.”
Actinium started the time-lapsed simulation. The SURVIVAL MOTIVATIONS bar filled in; a second bar appeared underneath, labeled HAPPINESS MOTIVATIONS.
“The bot starts off focused solely on survival.” A shell of a human, like Kasey herself. “But when conditions grow more favorable to re-habitation, the bot will seek fulfillment through other avenues. Goal-setting is one example. Goals give the bot a sense of purpose. Any progress toward a goal will be positively reinforced by the release of identity-reaffirming memories. Identity building will enable the bot to develop more abstract goals, such as those pertaining to the environment outside of itself, increasing fulfillment and the scope of what it can measure.
“This feedback loop will continue until happiness reaches a certain threshold and activates the final goal, in the form of a command. This command…”
The HAPPINESS MOTIVATIONS bar crept to completion, and the bot turned toward Kasey.
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IN A CAVERNOUS ROOM, SUFFUSED in blue light, I stand before a maze of walls. Each wall is an arm-span wide and spaced by narrow corridors. I have to angle sideways to fit.
As for why I’m trying to fit, I’m not sure. Not sure why I turn right, right, left, then right again, and come before the dead end that I do. I walk in closer. Faint lines run through the wall’s expanse, dividing it into uniform rectangles, imprinting upon it a pattern of man-sized bricks. My right hand, developing a mind of its own, shoots out and splays itself in the center of one of these bricks. Its outline glows blue. Then, slowly, the brick slides out like a drawer. It floats down, lowered by some invisible mechanism, comes to a rest on the ground, and I realize it’s no brick, but a casket, like the one I saw in my fragmented memories, when Hero choked me and I was lapsing in and out of consciousness. My gaze rises, to all the bricks in the wall before me, and around me. So many caskets. Are they filled with bodies? I don’t want an answer. Get out, screams every fiber of my being, but my feet remain planted on the ground, even when the casket that slid out hisses, releasing a cloud of chemical smelling steam. The topmost surface retracts like a lid and— And—
But there is no “and.”
“And” means incomplete. “And” means still searching.
Before, I was both. Incomplete and still searching.
But now—
Tears, hot in my eyes. They blur my vision. Still, I see her. I see her as clearly as I do in my dreams. Clearer. Because this isn’t a dream.
I choke back a sob and whisper her name.
30
KASEY STARED AT THE BOT, and the bot stared back at Kasey as best it could without real eyes. Outwardly, it was even more clumsily designed than a cleaningbot, but its core system was kilometers above.
It had a goal.
It could develop a plan for attaining that goal.
And in time, it’d have the memories to color the goal as congruent with its self-concept. That self-concept was key. The bot would see itself as a protector. Above its survival, it would value a person, someone they would try to locate, the moment Earth became re-habitable, because the thought of life without this individual would be unbearable.
Unlike Kasey, the bot would be the perfectly calibrated human. She’d make sure of it.
“This command,” she repeated as the bot rolled toward her, “is ‘Find me.’”
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TURQUOISE GOO SLUICES OFF HER body as she sits up in the casket. Her eyes stay closed. Is she okay? Is she hurt? I can’t tell; a skintight gray suit covers her from the neck down. It looks thin. She must be cold.