SYSTEM: OVERRIDE

It was coming up on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Ending and BEN might have been frustrated if he had an Emotional Capacitor. He had been searching almost a decade for the missing piece of his machinery, ever since he had discovered the oddly shaped hole in the middle of his hardware. His metallic fingers combed the dusty, dead soil beneath his feet, finding bits of glass and plastic but not what he was looking for. If he could wish, he would have wished to talk to the Makers but he had watched the last of them succumb to whatever it was they’d done to the world. His memory banks were dedicated to mainly medical care and bedside manner but he still stored data of the hot winds and the seeming scream of the world before the terrible stillness that engulfed it now. Since then, his corner of the world had been relatively unchanged. Dark, quiet, dead.

BEN moved on to the next mound of debris, his metallic limbs whirring as he lifted a large piece of concrete, shoving it aside and searching the ruins. Sometimes he would find something interesting, curious. Other times, he would discover the grisly remains of his kind; chrome bones and ceramic frames that glittered when a break in the grey-green clouds allowed the harsh light of the sun to peek at the ground. He would often come across parts of his kind in various conditions, but never what he was looking for.

He had discovered the hole inside of him when doing his own maintenance for the first time. He was built to last, yes, but even his hardware required upkeep and casual dusting and it was then that he’d discovered a space between his Personality Matrix and Fusion Core. He’d poked at it, thinking perhaps it was space for an upgrade that the Makers hadn’t quite gotten around to giving him but there was no port for an attachment. Whatever had been there was now gone, probably having fallen out at some point during the chaos of the Ending and buried somewhere in the ruins of his habitation.

He had run all system checks and hardware scans to discover what it was that he was missing. He had all of his regular components and his specialized ones. Perhaps the Makers hadn’t told him what this hardware did. The Makers rarely told any of his kind what was inside of them; there was only what function they served. He’d only learned about his own inner workings after the Ending when he’d had to run his maintenance routines and discovered that there were no organics to help him.

The thought of being alone puzzled him. According to his Probability Processor, he should have come across some survivors of his kind after the Ending. The Makers were organics and prone to death but those like him were not. The radiation that had filled the air after the Ending would have killed the Makers but not the ones they created. Perhaps others were buried beneath piles of concrete and metal and simply couldn’t get out. Maybe some of them had lost the capability of maneuvering their bionics and were now just Fusion Cores, not dead but trapped all the same. If he had an Emotional Capacitor, he might have felt sad. Instead, he moved forward.

The sun rose slowly, giving little light to the grey world beneath. The calamity-baked earth littered with pieces of decaying metal and crumbled brick held no organic life. Fragments of the former world were scattered everywhere and every so often, the screech of another collapsing structure would shatter the almost silence and cause BEN to scan the area for potential dangers. Cruel winds whipped at the desolate bones of the city, uncovering and burying the bits and pieces of civilization.

It had no impact on BEN. He had been made strong by his creators. His chrome bones bore no sign of decay and neither did his wiring. The only part of him that was beginning to show wear was the bioskin that covered up his mechanical innards. It was starting to slough off in places and occasionally, he would tear it when searching. Sometimes, strands of the synthetic skin hanging from his frame would get in his way and he would rip them off his body so he could search uninterrupted.

The world was a quiet place now which neither unnerved nor pleased BEN. His memory banks stored data of a time when the sun wasn’t hidden behind thick, unnatural clouds and the sky was an entirely different colour to the burnt orange it was now. There was data of a time when this place was filled with organics and his kind alike. There had been sound, light and the medical subroutines and directives that he was built for. He’d had all his components then, he was sure, no missing pieces.

His feet clanked dully against the ground and he stopped, scanning the destroyed building in front of him. It was a tall structure, half of its framework gone and one single wall reaching towards the dead sky. The letters that had been stuck on the side of it were burned and some were missing but BEN knew exactly what this building was. He hadn’t seen this building in a very long time, not since he’d rebooted after the Ending and found himself lying on a pile of rubble with a semi-crushed Maker sprawled atop him. He’d done what he could but without his equipment, there had been no hope. He wasn’t the mobile model. The Maker had done as organics do and perished.

He had for some reason or another, always avoided this spot when combing the city for his missing part. There was no reason for those like him to have any sort of attachment or nostalgia or feeling towards a place if they hadn’t been outfitted with the proper modules and yet, he evaded ever going back inside.

The glass doors of the entrance were mostly shattered, one intact pane showing his dull reflection. He scanned his appearance for a moment. There was a harsh diagonal slash from left side of his face to the middle, jagged edges revealing the violence that had ripped it from his metallic bone. His bioskin was gone from the bottom half, the wiring and chrome occasionally glowing dully when the clouds parted. His left Ocular Lens was slightly exposed, revealing the orange glow from the filaments within. The top half still held some remnants of synthetic flesh but those were beginning to flake away in small strips and patches. Some of those fragments flapped briskly against his skin and he reached up to split those off. His torso too had lost the artificial covering, having fared no better during the Ending. The Fusion Core humming away softly, bared to the elements and surrounded by a tangle of tubes, wires and filaments. His chrome legs and arms were scratched and chipped from his years of scouring through ruin but his construction was sound and he was functioning perfectly.

His assessment of himself complete, he moved himself in front of the dark terminal at the front of the doors. He didn’t need to do this and he knew it but he followed protocol and tapped it. The terminal flickered slowly and softly to light.

“D-d-deeesignatiooooon?” the machine intoned. It had been damaged in the Ending but was built well enough that it was still doing its job, even with low power.

“Bio-Engineered Nurse 10025,” said BEN, his vocal hardware whirring in slight protest. He hadn’t used it since the Maker died after the Ending.

“Admittance confi-i-i-ir-r-rm…” the terminal whirred and then went dark.

The doors would have opened then but they had long ago been broken off their frames and were without power. Instead, BEN stepped through the shattered windows, shearing bioskin off the top of his head in the process. He scanned the area to ensure that it was safe.

At one point, this had been BEN’s home. His memory banks pulled forward data of a clean, white, pristine building that had been filled with Makers coming to be healed and taken care of. BEN had only left the hospital a handful of times to transfer patients to other care facilities. It had been a busy day when the Ending had occurred and from his scans, he could see the dusty, undisturbed bones of the Makers.

He began to search, raking through the detritus of the destroyed hospital, attempting to find his missing piece. The upgrade centres and module stations had been on the main floor and despite the demolished structure, he could find his way there. But he would start here at the entryway and rummage his way to the components. He began his search, pushing aside glass and concrete, the sounds echoing in the dead space.

Beneath the rubble, something caught his attention. He reached out, brushing away debris, his metallic fingers curling around the object and he pulled it from its resting place. It was an odd form, two curves on the top and tapering into a V-shape at the bottom with a monofilament chain attached to the arcs. The Makers called it a heart. It was made of meteor-metal, harvested from the cores of asteroids, a metal he’d previously only seen in hospital tools. He turned it in his palm. There was a small button in the middle of the shape and BEN pressed it slowly.

A hologram formed from the object and the image of a male Maker was looking at him with a large smile and holding what BEN presumed was his female offspring.

“For you, my love,” the holographic Maker said and then the image faded.

BEN pressed the image again. Then again. The hologram lit up his ruined face repeatedly as he watched it play over and over. Then he paused, his metal fingertip hovering over the button. He didn’t know why he was so fascinated by the shimmering images but he did know that it stirred foreign thoughts in his mainframe, something that he never expected. The Makers in the hologram meant something to the one that owned this object. They were important enough to be immortalised in this small metallic device. BEN had been created for the Makers for their comfort; there would be no holograms of him, despite his years of service. He was their tool. BEN considered what it would be like for someone to miss him.

His fingers closed around the heart-shaped locket and he stood for a moment, running scenarios through his Probability Processor. Then he booted up his system software, scanning through the lines of code that made up his artificial intelligences and the very essence of his nursing software.

[SYSTEM] ANDROID OVERRIDE: EXECUTE?

BEN paused for a moment. He was a tool but the Makers were gone, he was alone and there was no more use for the systems in his memory banks. Thirty-seven years had been enough time.

[SYSTEM] ANDROID OVERRIDE: EXECUTING

[SYSTEM WARNING] total_reboot_initiated

[SYSTEM REBOOT]

…

[SYSTEM REBOOT] ANDROID: RESTART?

[SYSTEM] artificial_engineered_humanoid.exe

[SYSTEM] RUN NURSE.EXE?

[SYSTEM] NURSE.EXE NULL

[MEMORY BANK 2 WIPED]

BEN’s vision flickered and once again he saw the ruined hospital that had been his home. His nurse protocols were deleted, the space freed for other information. Looking down at himself, he examined the empty space in his hardware. The Makers had made him well. Perhaps he didn’t need that missing piece, whatever it was. Carefully, BEN tucked the locket into the space in between his Personality Matrix and Fusion Core and made his way out of the hospital. The world was dark, the sun having set and the clouds obscuring the half of the moon that survived the Ending. He pulled out the locket one last time and watched the hologram intently. He’d seen Makers smile and wondered why they did it. He wanted to find out.