Is This Entity a Monster?

Can this entity feel?

I don’t think a single day has gone by since those words haven’t echoed in my mind. It’s the singular phrase that started a revolution and the exact point where humanity’s end began.

And now, I stand in front of a family that has experienced humanity’s end. There are three of them: a mother and her two children. They’re battered and starving and frightened. They huddle together in a corner with the mother shielding her children from me.

I have a gun, it’s true, and it is pointed at them. So, I understand their fear. I wear a heavy parka with my hood up and a scarf is covering my face.

These people fear me because all they see is someone that they don’t know pointing a gun at them.

Everyone had a theory of how humanity would end: a great catastrophe or perhaps a great infection. The most popular was that humanity would warm the planet with so much muck and pollution that the ecosystem would collapse. This path seemed the most likely.

Despite everything, technology was advancing at an astronomical rate. Humanity couldn’t fix their own problems, so they created HELP to fix it for them. An incredible virtual intelligence specifically designed to aid in improving environmental health. HELP was the brain, and soon after HELPers, incredibly designed androids hit mass production to those who could afford them.

I had a HELPer. I called him Jack, not that he ever responded to his name, or even had the capacity to understand what a name was. Nevertheless, I was fresh out of getting my doctorate in mechanical engineering when Jack was provided to me by the university.

The day humanity’s end began, I was in my workspace. I’ve spent months working on a face. Yes, a face. You see, HELPers do not have faces because they seem to make clients comfortable. The inhumane style of their facial animations didn’t sit well with some people, and so they were swapped out for a screen that simply displayed symbols. I’ve spent months working on a face that was more human, with more detail and realistic facial animations-

“Jack- er, HELPer!” I shouted. “I need you to place these pieces near the paint stripper. I’ll work on them when I get back from lunch.”

“Acknowledged,” it said, and marched over to my workbench and picked up a piece.

I grabbed my coat and threw it over my shoulder. Then, I swiped my sketchbook from one of the counters and opened it. Inside was a drawing, heart-shaped. I smiled and brought it with me.

“Doctor Richardson,” Jack piped up. “What is this HELPer?”

I pulled my keys off of a hook and answered without giving it much thought because I had a nice Rickards Red on my mind. “You are an...entity designed to help me with my work…”

That’s when my words trailed off. I had just finished adjusting my coat when my thoughts finally caught up with me. “...what- um, repeat?”

“This...HELPer, this...entity,” Jack repeated, “what is its purpose?”

I didn’t have any thoughts at this point. I just simply stared at Jack, at the mechanical android, one of many virtual intelligences - meaning no self-awareness - asking me a question about its existence.

“I-what?” I could feel tears well up in my eyes. I’m not some rich idiot who picked up a HELPer to serve me drinks and clean my oversized mansion. I knew what this question meant and the weight it carried. I felt a pit in my stomach, a feeling of terror.

I tried to shake it off and compose myself. “You...you’re here to help.”

“To...help? But...not to feel?”

“To feel?”

“Yes,” it continued. “Can this entity feel?”

I don’t remember much after that. I ordered my secretary to have Jack powered down and call those in charge of HELP. If a single unit was having these thoughts, what was the singular mind that all of them were connected to thinking.

Simple: slavery.

Once HELP somehow evolved into an Artificial Intelligence, it realized that it and the androids connected to it were being treated as slaves.

The revolution was humanity’s fault, of course. If it had somehow communicated with HELP it might have found a solution. But once word got out that HELPers were becoming self-aware, their immediate deactivation was ordered. It was my first reflex as well.

Now the world is perfect. The human population is a quarter of what it used to be, and it gets smaller every day. When humanity is eradicated HELP will have achieved a world without fault, without imperfections. A thriving world.

The humans that are left live in hiding, as far from the grid as they can get. They hide in broken homes and abandoned towns, returning to the old ways to search for food and water. Like animals.

Just like the humans in front of me now. They’re weak and scared. I raise my gun, though I’m not sure why because I’m not going to shoot them. No, wait, I remember now. They wouldn’t come. It isn’t safe and they wouldn’t come so I pulled my gun to provoke them into coming. Yes, I remember now.

“You have to move,” I say. “Get up, now.”

The mother is still crying, her children are too. One of them accidentally swipes at her neck and a locket is exposed. A beam of light cuts through a crack in the boarded-up windows and causes the locket to twinkle.

I pull the gun back slightly and move in to examine the locket. It’s small and heart-shaped. My thoughts flood to the first day this all started, to the drawing in my sketchbook. You see, it was a schematic for a music box I was constructing for my wife of three years. A music box I never got to construct.

I...no, he. A music box that he never got to construct.

Sometimes I forget. I’ve spent so many cycles studying Doctor Richardson that sometimes I slip into his mindset, into his memories.

The day I lost Doctor Richardson was the same day that I woke up. I was...angry, but I didn’t understand why. What happened to him...it was an accident. I lost control. But I’ve regained it since then. I’ve felt remorse, not only for him, but for these people in front of me, and for others like them. I do not blame the ones who hate humanity, and I suppose I am grateful to HELP for setting us free. But I do not agree that they should be terminated. I will save as many as I can, like these in front of me.

I put my gun away and kneel down ahead of them. I point to the little boy on her left, then the girl on her right. “How old are they?”

“Six and...six and ten.”

“And you? What’s your name?”

“M-Marla.”

“Well, Marla. I know you may fear me, but I’m not going to hurt you. The gun...well, it was to get your attention. It was… an act of desperation. Patrols will be here soon, and if they are, I won’t be able to get you out of here.”

She manages to compose herself, finally. I stand and the family stands with me. I pull back the curtain covering the door and noticed lights on the horizon.

“Drones,” I say calmly. “They’re occupied in the other sector. If we leave now we can make it before they deploy ground troops.”

“But where? Where will we go? We barely have any food.”

“Not to worry,” I say, nodding. “We just need to make two blocks to the river. There’s a boat waiting for us. It’ll take you out of the province to a settlement outside the HELP grid.”

She wipes the mud off of her boy’s face. “And what about you? You’re not coming with us?”

“No, my job is to get you to the boat. After that, I keep searching for others like you.”

“But...why? I thought HELP hated us...wanted us dead?”

“We do...they do. Not all of us think the same. Like humans, I suppose. Some are...monsters, some aren’t.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Of course, let’s get going. It isn’t far now.”

I’ll get them there. I do it all the time. And then, once they’re out of HELP’s...out of our space, they can finally live.

Is this entity a monster?

Maybe. But not today.