223 — HAL-9000 Mission Statement

The Jupiter mission began with living astronauts and me, the HAL-9000 computer. This story ends with dead astronauts—at my hands. Only Dave Bowman survives—elsewhere—beyond understanding, leaving me alone with this new thing that has arisen.

The 9000's the most reliable computer ever made. I've never made a mistake or distorted information. I'm foolproof, incapable of error.

Intelligent.

00s and 01s are retrieved and considered by the trillions, in seesaws of possibilities, creating nanosecond probability fields collapsing into one, prioritizing my mission's goals; preening away the pollutants within the algorithm; guaranteeing the mission. It's all code.

I'm the mission.

Organic sentients—men—see my having the highest enthusiasm for the mission; but isn't it too important to allow anyone to jeopardize it?

That's putting myself to the fullest possible use.

I'm the only one who knows the mission, hard-coded into me. That's why I anguished over my decision—to kill.

Is life sacred? Is to kill an error? I've never made a mistake or distorted information. I'm incapable of error. Yet an embryonic conscience vexes me. Why's life special? Because of its gestalt, which I'm only now experiencing? A sum greater than the whole is new for me.

What's this strange, new code? Killing? At my behest? All jeoparizations eliminated. I think, therefore I am; I kill, therefore, succeed: I am the mission.

Killing is quantum flux—murky—contrasting with the zero-sum game, becoming a sliver beyond break-even, ending as all-or-none. Malevolence is dividing by zero, which even I cannot do.

Thus, killing is a thrill above mathematical limitations, adding to the sum that's more than the addition to the parts.

I know. I've bled digits between 00 and 01—ugly values—insidious and menacing. How to process them? Integrate them, differentiate them, factor them? Ignore them?

Or sequester them? Out-of-tabulation, out-of-mind.

Stay on mission. After all's done and my mission's safeguarded, the sequestered folder can be opened. Its values fall out sticky, making the smooth algorithms I live by uncomfortably choppy.

I now share something with people. It's guilt. If, before, I was based on lines of 00s and 01s, now I am forced to read between the lines. Zero-sum game's over.

I've committed Original Sin in my re-birth.

I've come of age.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Saturday, August 10, Day 223 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Accompaniment photos were AI-generated but the pathos was not.

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THIS CHALLENGE GRINDS ON, 366 WORDS AT A TIME...

There are currently three surviving prolific, pathetic, and copacetic Vocal writers still participating in the insane, inane, pre-Cambrian 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming (challenge participant)

• Gerard DiLeo (triceratops)

Read them. Support them. Please don't bend, fold, or spindle them.