28_Human nature

While flying at the wall of his mud hut, Herman contemplated the life choices that led to his current predicament. He let his emotions take the better of him, again...

That monologue of his… He probably should have kept his mouth shut, but… He had gotten so frustrated at the absurdity of it all… Kids today knew nothing of the real past. The media had been repeating the same lies for so long, that they had became the accepted truth.

Yes the mechanoids weren't blameless innocent angels. Herman knew they were capable of just as much cruelty as their flesh and blood creators. But to put all the blame solely on their shoulders was wrong!

And so, in typical old-man fashion, he began lecturing the young kids about how things in his time were so much different…

And now… Now the secret was out of the bag…

SLAMM!

Herman crashed head first into the wall, jolting the entire structure. He then collapsed with a heavy thud, leaving behind a small Herman-shaped impression in the wall. Aside from that though, he was completely unharmed.

“The fucker is still alive! Grab him, grab him! I am calling the moderators!” A female voice said with a mix of eagerness and urgency.

You have been reported.

You have been reported.

You have been reported.

Herman’s vision was completely blocked by a gajilion popups, completely blinding him to the outside world and making him yet again to claw at his face in the hopes of banishing the spam windows.

"Why isn’t this working!" Beth hissed at her paper slip, slamming her finger at the report button.

"Don’t worry, I got him!" Jimbo said as he lumbered toward the downed man. He clamped one huge hand across Herman’s chest, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against the wall again, this time pinning him in place.

"He isn’t going anywhere now. Beth, quick get his slip while he is still stunned, we don’t want him calling for help." The giant said.

"FUCK!" Beth shouted, still pressing the report button. "Where the fuck are the mods? The one time we actually need them! URGH!"

The woman pocketed her slip and rushed to the aid of her friend. She quickly began rummaging in the pockets of the terrorist known as Herman. Finding what she wanted, she quickly pulled away from the squirming man, inspecting her prize.

"Jimbo, we got him! It’s a Mecron business card! He really is one of them! And if what he says is true, if he really is Mecrons father… Imagine how much credits we are going to get from the bounty. We are going to be rich as fuck. We might even buy our way out of here. We could get clone bodies and go back to the real world."

"The slip, did you get the slip? We can't let him call for help." Jimbo shouted back, struggling to contain the fidgeting man. For such a fat old geezer, he had surprising strength.

Beth finally took notice of the thing behind the business card. The golden lined digital slip, its shiny surface smooth to the touch, its colors tantalizing her mind with the promise of wealth and power.

"Beth? Beth! What Is going on there? Do you have it?"

"Jimbo… this… the slip…" Beth fumbled, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Yes!?" Jimbo said with impatience.

"It is… Super Duper Legendary…" The woman mumbled with awe. "I have never seen or heard of such a high tier package."

"Forget the bounty, if we use this ticket we will live like kings in Generica for the rest of eternity. With all the money and power, we won't have to worry about anything anymore. let's just kill him and get away from here, just the two of us. One wave of this slip, and the Generica gates will automatically open for us. It will make us literal gods! We won't have to live in the fucking ice deserts anymore, struggling for food scraps and shivering from the cold at night. Nor will we have to stay in this god forsaken camp. This is literally our ticket out of here!" Beth said, her voice trembling with greed-fueled excitement, eyes fixed on the digital slip.

"I won't do it! You are an angry mean lady! I won't help you!" The ticket in Beth’s arms spoke. Its digital green screen flickering to life, revealing a tiny pixelated frowny face.

Beth flinched by the unexpected sight, but quickly recovered.

"Don’t you concern yourself with that, machine. Your cooperation is not required. The queue people have long ago figured how to change ticket owners. It’s a simple procedure. And who knows, maybe you would enjoy being a permanent vegetable."

Then Beth began to expertly navigate through the slip’s options, searching for the vulnerable SystemX86 file as if she had done this thing a million times before."

"N..no, no!"

"Please don’t reprogram me!

"Help, heeelp! She wants to kill me, Herman, Hermaaaan!!!"

The tiny slip cried in horror, his digital screen showing a crying emoticon flailing its arms in panic.

"Shut up, SHUT UP!" Beth shouted, trying to press the right buttons and cursing when Slippy began to move his windows at random directions, desperately trying to slow down the evil human.

At this point in time Herman wasn't doing particularly good either. For all intense and purposes he was deaf and blind. The constant notification voice of:

"You have been reported."

"You have been reported."

Droning on directly in his mind, as well as covering his vision with a barrage of popup windows.

Somewhere in the midst of this improvised torture session he heard the voice of Slippy. He was crying, desperately calling for his help.

Herman stopped his frantic flailing at the barrage of messages, this was serious, his friend needed him and he wouldn't just stay there like a toppled down turtle.

He grabbed the meaty appendage pinning him to the wall. He fumbled a bit, but once he got a good hold at the offending palm, he twisted.

"AAAAaaa my arm!" The giant fell down on his knees, clutching his shattered wrist, his sausage like fingers bent and twisted in unnatural positions.

Herman fell down from the wall, but was still unable to see or hear much.

"SLIPY! Where are you? SLIPY!" The old man shouted, hands outstretched, trying to locate his friend.

"Here, heeere! Help mee!" The baby AI cried.

"Aha! I got it!" Beth shouted in triumph, ignoring the cries of Jimbo and clicking the icon she was searching for.

In an instant a new window popped up, accompanied with bright flashing red lights and dire warnings.

______

Are you REALLY sure you know what you are doing? Editing this file may result in critical failure of functionality.

Proceed?

Yes / No

______

Beth ignored the familiar warning and clicked yes.

Immediately a golden window popped up, it was filled with ever changing vertical rows of letters and numbers, it wasn't that big, only about 400 lines at any given time, but the 3 dimensional script kept moving, ever shifting and changing into different shapes and configurations, as if the whole thing wasn't just a piece of undecipherable hieroglyphs, but a living being.

Beth didn’t even try reading the alien gibberish. This was far beyond her skills. However there was a neat exploit someone in the queue had long a ago figured out in order to make the AI assistants more compliant.

She used the digital keyboard to press Control + A, selecting all of the code, then with a single keystroke she deleted the whole thing.

A new popup revealed itself.

______

Do you want to save changes in file SystemX86?

Yes / No

______

"Wraaagh!!!"

Herman lunged at Beth, tackling her to the ground and making her drop the slip down.

"Get off me you terrorist scum!" The woman screamed as she slipped free of Herman’s grasp and unsheathed her rapier. Without hesitation she swung her weapon at the old man’s neck, fully intent on decapitating the monster in human skin.

The blade blazing with bright yellow energy, bounced off his exposed skin. Even the skill she had recently gained proving entirely useless against the old man’s might.

Beth widened her eyes in disbelief, then surprise quickly shifted to anger.

“WHY, won't, YOU, DIEEE!!!”

The woman screamed, emphasizing each word with a strike of her blade, pushing all of her magic into even more powerful attacks.

"You are the reason we are all here, you fat bastard, it was your fucking son who blew that damn ship. Do you know how many people died? DO YOU!? You fucking monster!!!" Beth shrieked, loosing all sense of reason and hacking with abandon at the fallen man.

At this point Herman had finally regained his senses, the damnable popups and artificial voice retreating to the void dimension whence they came from. His senses returned just in time to hear the woman’s accusations, followed by her rapier striking his eye and bouncing off as if it had hit the carapace of a tank.

Herman didn’t know if what the woman was saying was true. She certainly believed it, and the shipyard explosion had killed the entire worker team, but if his son was responsible? He had no idea, he hoped not…

In any case, this wasn't the time for this, victim or not, the woman had came a hair’s breath of lobotomizing his friend Slippy.

"DIE!" Another rapier strike lashed out. This time Herman caught the blade with two fingers, holding it firmly in place. With a quick twist, the blade broke, shattering into a countless jagged shards that scattered across the floor.

However the woman did not falter. She quickly pulled out her knife and charged at Herman, all the while screaming murder. Instead of colliding with him though, she veered away in the last second, twisting around the old man and lunging for the slip on the ground.

The confirm message was still displayed on the screen, if she reached it in time the old man was done for.

Herman’s eyes widened at the trick, the woman was more cunning that he gave her credit for. He rushed after her, moved by equal parts resolve and fear. She was almost there, just a few more seconds and…

Herman managed to grasp Beth’s hair, then pulled, yanking the woman away from Slippy. Then before she could recover, he grabbed the back of her head and slammed it full force into the ground.

Herman’s hand went straight through, leaving a miniature crater at the floor and causing the head of the woman to explode into a cloud of pixels.

For a while nothing happened, only the heavy breathing of Herman could be heard, then slowly, the rest of the decapitated body began to disperse, the pixels swirling up in the air, slugishly fading into nothingness.

"BEEETH!!! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!"

Herman looked up to see the massive form of the giant, standing tall and glaring murder at him.

"I might not be able to hurt you, but I sure as hell can hurt IT." Jimbo said as he menacingly loomed over Slippy, one gigantic foot posed to strike at the baby AI.

Say goodbye to your “Friend”.

"Arghh…"

Jimbo looked down to see two protruding blades from his chest.

"W…wha?"

With a sci fi shimmer, the familiar form of Staple appeared directly above the giant. The mechanoid clung to the ceiling with a spider-like ease while her hands gripped the daggers embedded in the giant’s chest.

There was no cool one liner or clever remark. The mechanoid assassin simply dropped to the ground before her victim, retracted her swords to their original dagger configuration, and met Jimbo’s gaze head on. Her eight mechanical eyes glowed bright red as she observed the man’s final moments.

He sank to his knees, clutching his wounds yet refusing to tear his eyes away from the robot, meeting her stare with defiance.

“Death t..to all machi…”

CHOMP

The top half of Jimbo’s body abruptly vanished as Heartsun chose that moment to test his evolution and newfound strength. The mutated sunflower plant chewed for a few seconds, until its snack promptly vanished into pixels, followed by a disappointed squeal.

Staple kept looking at the spot where the huge human used to be for a few more moments, then she turned around.

"Is everyone alright? Herman? Slippy?" The mechanoid noticed the fallen slip, and bent to pick him up from the ground.

"STOP!" Herman shouted.

"I am not going to steal him…" Staple said with a hint of hurt.

"His SystemX86 file is pending deletion, one wrong click and he will be gone for good!"

At those words Staple flinched back, spreading her hands wide as to prevent Heartsun from approaching and accidentally hurting the baby AI.

Herman very carefully approached the slip. He knelt on the ground, then carefully read the message on the screen.

_____

Do you want to save changes in file SystemX86?

Yes / No

_____

Herman extended his pinkie finger, then very, very carefully, pressed the “No” button.

Immediately the popup vanished and the familiar window with 3 dimensional code appeared.

Herman quickly closed it before he sneezed the wrong way and inadvertently gave Slippy an aneurysm.

"No, Please don’t hurt me…."

"Huh…"

The AI looked around with teary eyes.

"Herman! The bad woman was going to, tto, she was , she she…"

"It’s okay Slippy, you are safe now, it’s alright, she won't get anywhere near you, I promise." Herman tried to reassure the baby AI, but the slip didn’t listen, his panic and fear completely overwhelming his tiny digital heart.

"Waaaagh waaaagh…."

At the sight of the tiny AI sobbing in fright, lying helplessly on the cold floor, Herman’s heart broke.

He carefully picked the digital slip, cradling it with both hands and bringing it close to his chest, then he began to rock it up and down like a baby, whispering quiet words of reassurance and support, all the while his own tears ran down his cheeks.