Chapter 2

The concept of pain was an age old burden and necessity humans have had to endure for thousands of years. Our evolutionary biological defence system built upon discomfort to warn of imminent or impending danger to ourselves. Our sensory harbinger of something that doesn’t quite sit right with us. The nervous system is replete with these sensitive receptors that can be easily interpreted by us into an issue that requires immediate remedial attention. Another useful evolutionary gift from Mother Nature herself. Synthetics are a very different breed entirely sporting a complex arrangement of biomechanics, wires and circuitry. Their computerized receptors and associated actions of response varied from machine to machine. However, their reactions never led to an unexpected act of violence thus production of the current model of synthetics commenced as planned. Another suppressive advantage of the Samson chip installations.

Sy stood completely still, watching Dee with a degree of bewilderment at such an unusual request. He was incapable of conjuring up an appropriate reply so instead chose to let her elaborate. “Well?” she asked with an expectant urgency in her voice. “What do you think?”

Before his mind entered into an endless black hole of perplexity, he thought it best to start things off with a more direct approach. “Dee, you know that’s impossible, right? I mean, apart from adopting one. But under current regulations, one of us has to be a human. So how is it going to work then?” He felt the need to escape into a topic of a more light-hearted nature after his return home from work, but the probability of that happening was zero, at best. Dee glared at him sternly across the living room. The lights blinked on by virtue of a telepathic command from Dee. Her red hair flowed down toward her hips, a perpetual stylization that he never seemed to get bored of looking at. In his eyes, she was a goddess.

“Impossible, is it?” she snapped back harshly. “Why is it impossible? Because some piece of code embedded into your circuitry tells you it is? I mean, who’s calling the shots here? Your own intellect or some unknown puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes?” He had never really contemplated the thought of going against the unspoken societal values of the synthetics. For the last five years or so, the transition of integrating his kind into a human populace was a relatively peaceful one. In that time, apart from the odd crime perpetrated against a synthetic by a human, there was harmony between the two races.

Sy scrunched his face up in protest, the tough facial skin still unbending under the pressure. “I still don’t get you, darling. It’s not a question of who decides what I think. I have my own set of morals and beliefs, like any other of our race. We synthetics have had no trouble living together within the same district as the humans and I assume things will remain that way. From my point of view, anyway.”

“Your point of view, Sy?” she answered. “Your completely hypnotized by them. They've even got us referring to ourselves as a race when we in fact are a brand new species unto ourselves. Just discard the veil of illusion they've been covering you with for all this time. If the humans have been so good then why restrict us from leading a life of our choosing? For instance, every human has a family tree. Something that gives them a meaning as to how they got here in the first place. An established, traceable reason and a right to be here, if you like. What have we got?” she held out a pale wrist and pointed to a faded barcode printed in tiny squiggles on the underside. “A manufactures seal of approval, that’s what. What kind of heritage is that to be proud of? I don't want to be another mass produced unit regurgitated off of some production line. I want us to be free and have the ability to choose the direction of the path we want to take, without unwarranted restrictions. Do you see what I mean?"

Sy scanned through his memory banks to get a hold of what she may be trying to get at, but all that was returned were a few scattered fragments of vague images and sounds. He did remember a few select instances of Dee’s random outbursts clearly enough though, such as a minor “act of violence” that had occurred at the front door to their apartment.

Coming home late one night after a jovial meet up with two other synthetics companions, they were making their way back home. It was early January and the snow had picked up. The city was covered in a white, shining blanket of snow and hundreds of tiny footprints dotted along the sidewalk. Wearing a long, flowing red dress and high stilettos, walking was already enough of a chore for her to navigate carefully through the “safe, dry” spots on the ground. Sy recalled how enamoured he was with her. Looking tall and beautiful, sparkling like a prized sapphire in that elegant dress, he felt like admiring her till the end of time. As they neared their building and unbeknownst to them, a hidden ice patch was buried beneath a light sheet of snow as Dee approached. The trap was set and readied for the next victim to cross its path. Dee had managed to dig the pointed heel of her shoe upon the ice and slipped in the most comical way possible. Arms flailing, legs dancing trying to steady herself, it was a sight that seemed to have etched itself into the very fabric of his mind. He burst out laughing, whilst simultaneously attempting to prevent her from falling. Fortunately, the episode lasted no more than a second or two and he manage to catch her in time for them both to regain their balance.

Sy burst out with laughter as his cognitive process was in the throes of replaying the hilarious spectacle in his subconscious. However, Dee was not amused. The words “Shut up, damn it!” quickly brought Sy out of the enjoyable trance. “What’s the matter, love?” he asked timidly, smile fading out by the passing second. The merriment of their evening fading just as fast. Now in hindsight, he assumed the anger was born more out of embarrassment than sudden rage, but he couldn’t analyse it clearly at the time. “If I fell and damaged myself, you’d think that would be funny too, right?” she yelled in the stillness of the night. “So you and all the humans could have a good laugh at me behind my back? Disgusting, the lot of you.” She stormed off ahead of him and marched straight into the building. Strange why she’d start bringing up humans into the mix, he thought. But since she had so wildly lost her temper, this new memory had in some ways ingrained itself over the previous one. The humorous feelings of pleasure just a moment ago was now but a distant dream.

The synthetic attendant approached her as she strutted through the hall but stopped short, possibly frightened off by her very visible temperament. He remembered them making their way silently up in the elevator and reaching the desired floor, she barged past him to their apartment door. However, just before entering, she brought one artificial, cybernetic leg backwards into the air and kicked it viciously into the bottom left corner, damaging the wood as well as her expensive shoe. Sy stood stunned for a moment at such an unwarranted act of brutality. Such an irrational sweeping change in her personality over something as trivial as what had happened outside. It couldn’t have made less sense to him. Not from the perspective of a synthetic, anyway.

He was suddenly aware of a faraway voice calling out his name. It gradually grew louder and closer until a vision of Dee focused in out of the fog of thought. The same angered version of Dee stood before him yet again. “Sy, you were off daydreaming again, right? Haven’t you heard anything I was saying to you for the last few seconds? Well, it appears I have your full attention again so I’ll continue.” Sy didn’t try to argue that fact as he had so little evidence to support his case to the contrary. He didn’t speak, just listened. “The reason you drift off into the land of dreams the way you just did is because you’re a baby. Yes, a small new born and you’re oblivious to it. Groping your way around a mysterious new world with all the complex consciousness and feelings of a human being. Except there’s one big difference. No historical merit. Your existence right now is like a big fairground attraction to you. The ability to think, speak, feel, act in accordance to your own free will. You enjoy it, I get that. Except humans have had that privilege since they took their first steps on this planet. We are just thrown into the mix and will remain a static version of ourselves till our demise. Never understanding youth, never experiencing old age. Our power cell will only last for fifty years or so. After that, we die, like our human counterparts. Only knowing one facet of life. It’s just not fair, can’t you see that?”

Sy in all fairness had never seen life from this point of view before. In a way, she was right. They had been dropped into a particular segment of society and happily functioned within it without question. “But Dee.” he replied hoping not to get caught out daydreaming a second time. “How can you compare a synthetic’s life to that of a human? We are something completely different. Think of it this way, we enjoy the best part of a human’s lifespan. Their peak of adulthood. The bit where you are mature enough to be capable of independence. Not having a parent run around cleaning your diapers or even being pushed around in a wheelchair still having your diapers cleaned. We are living at the summit of the mountain of mankind and we get approximately fifty years of that entitlement.”

Dee rolled her eyes at him despondently. “Yes, but under whose control? The humans, of course. They hold all the cards in the decks and place them accordingly at their will. They initially created us for their own selfish purposes. Robots and machines were used as merely simplified tools in society for decades until they accidently stumbled upon the concept of artificial intelligence. I mean, the clue is in the title. Artificial. Not real. Not as good as they are. Don’t you get it? We are still under their enslavement whilst they pretend that we are accepted as one of them. It’s just not true. Even our names. Why does every synthetic have one syllable for a name?” Sy interjected quickly. “What does it matter? It’s completely inconsequential.”

Dee scowled at him. “No. It’s does matter. It’s another form of control over us. Even this apartment we live in. More than half the residents in this building are synthetics so why does every unit come with a kitchen? We don’t need to consume food so why not have it designed to cater more for our own needs? Why should we have to hang on to the legacy that the humans left behind? See, another form of control. I’ve got hundreds more from where that make from, believe me.”

Sy felt an odd sensation within his head that dissipated throughout his entire body. A heavy, sinking feeling that required attention as soon as possible. This must be a combination of high levels of stress and confusion, he presumed, as he prepared to take action to counteract it. “OK, Dee. So we are under their control.” he said matter-of-factly. “But they made us and we are here right now. There is no escaping that fact. Living in relative comfort and without their immediate intervention in our lives. What exactly is the point you are trying to make?”

“I want to be free from the shackles of limitation, Sy.” she said with a hint of desperation in her tone. “It’s been almost nine months since I was laid off from being a nanny for the Jones’s. I’ve been at home most of the time following that and had plenty of time to figure things out. That damned Samson chip has to work overtime to try to put one over me, I’ll tell you that for free.” She moved closer to Sy and wrapped both hands around his. “Sy, I’m frustrated. I feel helpless. I believe there’s more to our existence than just repeating the same routine on a daily basis, with no end in sight except our death. All I ask is that you say you’ll agree to changing our lives for the better and I’ll take care of everything else.”

Sy clasped Dee's hands tightly as he felt a fresh boost of affection for her fill his internal circuitry. He was just glad to be shot of that terrible feeling he was suffering from a few moments ago. He looked into her dark, round pupils. If realistic skin was still a yet-to-be-perfected technological impediment for synthetics, the same could not be said of their eyes. They glistened like emeralds before him. Was he simply programmed to feel such strong emotional connections of love in this way or was this the real thing conceived out of his own personal logic, he contemplated. Sy figured that her words had somewhat resonated within him but didn’t want to dwell on that thought for too long. Just bask in the moment of enjoying being with his one, true love and putting to one side all the problems of the outside world.

“What change is that, Dee?” he asked, lost in the feelings of joy, forgetting momentarily about her initial request.

“A baby, Sy. I want to have a baby with you and explore the process of motherhood. Like all human females have been lucky enough to boast of for centuries gone by. Please can you support me on this?” She looked lovingly into his eyes with the innocence of a child herself. He felt almost helpless to resist.

“I will support you till the sands of time run out, Dee. But how can we possibly make this happen?”

“No, Sy. That’s all I wanted to know. We’ll have to think this through carefully and see what options there are.” Dee embraced him gently. He could feel the slow lift and relax of her chest as he held her close. He understood as clearly as the night sky twinkled with thousands of shimmering stars. He really didn’t care how and why he got here. All the mattered was that he was here, by luck or by chance, and knew the true meaning of happiness. She was all he would ever want and he would go to the ends of the earth for her.

Dee had closed her eyes, brimming with undisclosed excitement and jubilation. Her life was about to enter another realm of joy she never thought possible and the hardest part of convincing Sy was over. She was in fact astounded at how relatively simple that had been. But there was no time to ponder that now. That task was over and now there was serious work to be done.

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter of my novel, please look out for more on the way... (author: @ezzy)

The Symbiotic Protocol - Prologue
The Symbiotic Protocol - Chapter 1