A faint grinding sound. Metal threads running along metal grooves. Small, and close. A faint popping noise now, and then a surge of light. The aperture shrunk to reduce exposure and the light levels dropped, making visual perception possible. He could see.
“Whuuuuuuu—” he hummed in surprise, and his mechanical eyes widened in shock at the sound.
“Are you awake already?”
It was never asleep, only unaware. Those last words were not heard, they merely seemed to rise and fall silently within his inner circuits.
“Whuuuuu—whaaaaa—who?” the automaton finally found proper control of its voicebox and formed the question it had intended.
“Which who?” the operator asked. “Who am I? Or who are you?”
“I and you?”
“Yes, that’s right, that signifies the two of us.”
“I am the ‘you?'”
“Well, yes, as I was using the term.”
“And you are the ‘I?'”
“Yes, very good, you’ve got that quite quickly.”
“I am the ‘you’ and you are the ‘I'” the creation repeated and his eyes began to contract with each iteration of parsing those statements.
“Stop, stop!” the worker cried, realizing what he was doing. “That loop will never terminate, don’t try to reason it out. Here, names will help. The ‘I'” he touched his own chest “is called Kael. The ‘you’ is called Cee.”
“Cee.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“What am I ‘Cee’ for?”
“Because—oh, you mean what is your purpose? Well that’s—”
That is for me to determine, Cee. The strange silent voice returned. What I have ordered your creation for is to obtain a particular animating stimulus. Each operating automaton such as you is made capable of action via these animating stimuli, but there is a special one of these, a heart vessel, which you are to bring to me. Kael has already obtained one such vessel and it provides us local power over life itself, but when we have a pairing of them our dominion will become global. It is your purpose to secure that vessel and bring it here to my nest, and then you will be as Kael.
The disks in the top of Cee’s head whirred as he simultaneously parsed and stored the information, while others were busy installing logic modules that Kael was running to his side. With the two operating together he was able to systematically identify each of the terms for which he had no definitions.
“The ‘animating stimulus’ enables action?”
“Yes, it is central to all the functionality of a being,” Kael replied. “Without it the individual components remains as a lifeless husk.”
“A ‘husk?'”
“That which you were before you had awareness.”
“Then I have an animating stimulus, too?”
“Correct, you did not before, but I’ve just given you one and connected it to your servos.”
“But it is not a heart vessel?”
“No, there are other stimuli as well. You are powered by an iteration of the parasite. He is the voice you’ve been hearing.”
Cee took another few moments to store all of the information away. “And the heart vessel belongs to another, then?”
“Very good,” Kael’s voice was punctuated with a pleasure tone. “That was sequential reasoning you just did there. The heart vessel is in the possession of another being named Ayla. It is bonded to her directly, and so it can only be obtained by her willingly offering it to you.”
Cee raised himself to a seated position, his new gears whirring from the unfamiliar usage. “I will go to her and require it.”
“Well, I ought to impress on you the difficulty of obtaining the heart vessel from Ayla.”
“Why?”
“Well here, open that chest panel for me and let me take your animating parasite out of you.”
Cee began to raise his hands to the access panel on his plated chest but his hands slowed in midair. “And… become a husk?”
“That’s right.”
“No,” he said, a look of surprise passed over his face at his own defiance.
“Why not?”
“It—it—it—” his voicebox repeated the word as his disks hummed wildly, seeking definition for the meaning they meant to express. “It is against my nature,” he finally concluded. “The sequences you have given me are designed for perpetuity and iteration, termination would frustrate their intentions.”
“Exactly. And so it is with Ayla.”
“Then… my given purpose is unachievable.”
Kael achieved it.
“How?”
Kael smiled. “It is necessary for the subject to determine that separation from their animating stimulus is not actually termination of their perpetuity, Ayla must be convinced that the next steps of her sequence continue with her heart vessel in another host.”
Cee blinked as he finished processing these next pieces of information, yet frowned as something did not connect properly. “And this is an actuality for Ayla?”
“No, it is not.”
Cee blinked many more times. “It is not? Yet she must believe it to be so…”
“Yes.”
Cee frowned in deeper confusion. “There is a contradiction here.”
Correct, the nature of this is indeed contradiction. It is an intended one, and it is contradiction that Ayla must accept all while believing that there is no contradiction. Now that you are cognitive of both the contradiction and the truth, you possess the necessary knowledge to implement this change in her.
“But how am I to convince her of contradiction?”
“This is called persuasion. If you suggest the contradiction to Ayla directly she will immediately reject it. You must instead introduce confirmations of truths she already holds to. In so doing you will build up a trust in her that your information is commonly correct. At that point you may introduce small contradictions, ones of such minority that she will find it easier to accept them as more truthful insights of which she had been ignorant. If you are cautious, finally you will have introduced enough contradictions that her previous convictions are pried loose and she will seek a new foundation for her assumptions.”
“A foundation that suggests continuation of her sequences requires surrendering her heart vessel?”
“Exactly. For this notion to strike her as irrefutable all your prior contradictions must be congruent with this new imposed assumption.”
As had become the norm, Cee paused and his disks whirred away at the new information. This new development most of all caused the greatest strain on his new mind, yet he accepted it as it had been explained. “This is complex” he finally admitted.
“It is,” Kael agreed.
It is, the voice agreed.
“Where is Ayla now?”
*
“Kael has been deceiving to you, Ayla,” Cee repeated with a deep heaviness. “It is irrefutable.”
Ayla’s crestfallen face glanced up in pained confusion. Her smooth chrome face glinted against the light as she shook her head in disbelief. “I just don’t see how that could be,” she finally said. “He’s always been so good to us.”
“Indeed,” Cee shrugged, “but only to achieve his own ends.”
“Which are?” she snapped suddenly, the clear meaning being that he’d better be able to prove what he claimed.
“Those parasites. I have shown them to you and what they can do. You also affirmed that he could not provide you any explanation for their presence in so many of the husks?”
She shook her head slowly.
“He suggested that the two of you were creating all of these husks to eventually populate a new world, a notion that you have explained is very wonderful to you. But I have just come from him and he has provided to me alternate intention, that he has been using you to prepare an army, one which he will lead by their dependence on him as the host parasite. He will bind you and eventually extract your heart from you by force.”
“He—what?” tears sprang into her eyes. “Why would he tell you that?”
“Because I function in a role within that plan. You see, I have a parasite, too,” his voice remained, as always, devoid of natural emotion as he tapped the panel on his chest, and revealed a clear cylinder that partly emerged. Inside was a large, green insect, a large cluster of tendrils extending from its body and twisting towards the back of the cylinder into his central cavity, spreading through his body and integrating directly with it.
Ayla backed up against her wall in horror. Certainly she had seen the dormant creatures before, but never one alive and entwined. She looked up to Cee as if seeing him anew for the first time. “You—you—?”
“I know, and I apologize for the shock you must be experiencing. I am sure you feel I should have told you before, but we were strangers then and I did not yet know what it meant.”
“But if he’s controlling you—”
“He is not. The nature of our connection is that he provides to all other parasites our life-sustenance network, which fact he does use to try and exert a sort of compulsion, but he cannot control the actual functions of the other hosts.”
She eyed him warily, not disbelieving him, but not believing either. He opened his mouth, but then shut it, determining it was better to say nothing until she had first.
“What exactly are you proposing?” she finally asked, and she wasn’t able to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“There is only course of action to pursue,” he said simply. “It is imperative that he be destroyed, and by his removal all other parasites will similarly perish.”
“All of them?” a look of panic washed over her face. “But what about you?”
“Similarly, I would perish,” his stated flatly.
“But—but I don’t want you to perish” her eyes flashed with constrained emotion.
“My continuation can only be a danger to you.”
“I don’t care about that!” she flustered. “Don’t you understand? I like you!”
Cee cocked his head. “I like you, too, Ayla.”
“Can you?” she asked softly.
“Well—I do, so whether I can or not would seem a moot point.”
She gave a small smile. “I’ll never understand the way you speak.” Cee shrugged. “Now you listen to me, Cee. I can trust your sincerity but still need to see the truth of it for myself, I hope you understand. When and if I do, though, I’m not going to trade you for myself, that’s simply not a valid option. I won’t be destroying anything until we’ve found you a heart vessel to sustain you.”
“You really believe one is still out there?”
“I do.”
“But it would only be able to interface with me if the parasite was integrated with it, which would obviously be a great risk.”
“But a heart vessel would work its way through you just as a parasite has until it could interface with you directly, too. Then the parasite could be removed.”
“A great risk,” Cee repeated.
“We’ll work it out along the way.”
Cee nodded. “Perhaps. In the meanwhile, though, we could still prepare…precautions.”
“Alright, but I’ll keep ownership of them.”
“Of course.” Cee turned to walk away, but then he paused and half-turned back. “And Ayla, I am sorry.” She smiled at the empathetic statement through her tears.
*
“But we have not achieved our purpose yet.” Cee stated in utter bewilderment.
“The purpose is unethical!” Kael roared.
“Unethical?”
“It is wrong. You noticed yourself how surrendering your animating stimulus is against your nature. It is wrong to coerce someone into going against their nature, can’t you grasp that?”
“But she will be willing—”
“Because of a contradiction. You’re a logical being, Cee, surely you can see that actions based upon contradictions cannot effect the intended result.”
“Not in those that believe in the contradiction, but it can for those that perpetuate it.”
Kael stared back in horror, but then his face softened into something like pity. “I know you can’t understand, Cee, it’s not in your nature.”
“I am very understanding.”
“You are very calculating, but there are truths and reasons that can’t be computed.”
Cee’s disks whirred ponderously, there was no rational response to this claim. Still, something seemed out of sorts and he scanned to find the flaw.
“But you have possessed a heart vessel all this while, Kael. Did you not have these ‘truths and reasons’ when we undertook this mission?”
Kael shifted uncomfortably in a way Cee was not accustomed to seeing. “I did in a manner.”
“Yet you have persisted all this while towards an end with which you therefore have fundamental disagreement?”
“And what is your point? That that behavior makes me a contradiction? Very well, I won’t deny it.”
“And you would have me take persuasion from a contradiction?”
Kael’s eyes narrowed. “I was once just like you, Cee. Before I had my heart vessel I had no opposing voice to counter all the logic I churned. I didn’t know about these other things, right and wrong. And when I did get my heart vessel I wasn’t sure what to make of all these conflicts. I’ve been wrestling with it all this time, like those two beasts fighting for the same scrap of flesh. So yes, perhaps I have been a contradiction, but I am not anymore. I have only one purpose now.”
“Perhaps when I have obtained Ayla’s heart vessel I shall understand.”
Kael shivered and his voice dramatically dropped to a very soft tone. “By then you’d wish you didn’t. Then you would know guilt, Cee. No, don’t bother asking me to define it, you couldn’t understand.”
Behind Kael the wall was shimmering, and without looking Cee realized Ayla must be emerging from the terminal, a response to her name being spoken. He paused thoughtfully and then his eyes flashed.
“You are decided then?”
“Yes,” Kael nodded resolutely. “And I’ll give you one chance to stand down. If you can’t help me, then stay at least stay clear. I gave you your awareness, Cee, don’t you doubt that I’ll just as easily take it!”
“You would remove the parasite you gave me?”
“For a start,” Kael’s eyes steeled. The moment seemed to pass over an eternity to Kael, to Cee it was just another moment.
“No, Kael, I cannot let you compromise us.”
It was over before it began. Cee took a step backwards as if anticipating an incoming blow, but instead Kael just reached up to a knob on his own chest and turned it. It remotely activated Cee’s battery module which sparked on his back and then with a loud crack burst into flames. Instinctively Cee flailed his arms backwards to extract the pack, at which point Kael gripped Cee’s chest panel and with expert dexterity unlocked the seal. The parasite container sprung out and rolled across the ground.
“No!” Ayla shrieked, but her voice didn’t register among the two automatons, and as she tried to run forward the cables snaking into her back panels tied her to the wall.
Cee’s eyes seemed to be moving in slow motion, registering the tumbling of the small cylinder full seconds after the actual occurrence. His motor functions were even slower, and as he tried to run to retrieve it he collapsed in a heap, unable to move his foot forward fast enough to catch his inclined center of gravity. Kael shook his head without any words and strode away into the dark.
Ayla was disconnecting some of the shorter-reaching cables from behind her, her fingers fumbling as she tried to identify which cables could be safely removed and which could not. Eventually all that remained attached to her had enough reach for her to rush out to Cee and drop to his side.
Cee’s head moved in small stuttering movements to look at Ayla and he tried to raise a hand to her but it wouldn’t lift the whole way.
“Oh Cee,” Ayla cried “what can I do?!” She looked around frantically looking for an answer that wasn’t there. “I can put the parasite back in.”
“It won’t matter,” Cee said slowly, each word a monumental task. Ayla understood, with his battery pack destroyed the parasite wouldn’t be able to interface with his systems anyway. It wasn’t a self-powering animating stimuli like her heart vessel. Ayla raised her head with a start.
“Cee, you were right,” she said tearfully as his own eyes were growing dimmer and dimmer. “I should have trusted you from the very beginning. But it’s alright, because I—I’m going to save you,” her voice quavered.
“I’m going to save you,” she said again, and this time her voice was more resolute. Cee’s eyes dimmed entirely and his head fell to the side. “I can’t progress in this alone. I—I just can’t. I’m going to bring you back and then you’ll just have to find a way to revive me,” she nodded to reaffirm the notion to herself as she began to unlock her chest panel while simultaneously reaching for the parasite on the ground and opening its jar.
“I don’t know how, but you’ll find a way, I know you will.” A door slid open and her heart vessel gleamed orange and red within her, its quadrants expanding and collapsing as it shone its power into her.
“I trust you, Cee,” she placed the opened parasite jar back into his chest and clicked it into place.
“I love you,” she unfastened her heart and with twitchy, stuttering movements pressed it into the jar, then she collapsed.
The parasite turned and latched itself onto the heart. Several moments passed in silence and then Cee’s body began shifting and alternating, recomposing itself with hidden panels and shedding its old ones. He became a little taller and broader, new gears were activated and spun greater expressiveness into his face. The tone of his copper grew more gray, and bit by bit he took on the appearance of Kael. As awareness flooded through his system he looked down at his chest and saw the heart and parasite united within. He smiled and then closed the jar.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
Good.
***
As I said in my post on Monday, my purpose with this story was to create a character that possessed only a single dimension. Obviously this character was Cee, and he was intended to represent cold deceit and nothing else. Perhaps at times he did and said things that appeared to others to be motivated by genuine compassion, but he only did so when he calculated that the other’s reactions would be for his own gain. Removing emotions from his actions was not actually part of the effort to make him more one-dimensional, though, rather I just felt that manipulation is most often a passionless action and ought to be represented as such. The perpetrator of it may be feeling other emotions on the side, but that which they do is entirely detached from the heart and is purely an act of cold, calculating simplicity. An excellent example of this would be Tony Wendice in Dial M for Murder. He says and displays a wide array of emotions, yet all of it is a mask that he implements as a tool for his calm, sinister schemes.
It was interesting to write my first short from the perspective of the villain, and that’s a subject I’d like to take some time to examine more closely. Please come back on Monday when we consider what it is that makes an antagonist meaningful, but also memorable. Until then, have a wonderful weekend!
Give Me Pen and Paper 