Sea of Rust (Sea of Rust, #1)

by C. Robert Cargill

Most chilling of all was to witness the change in the way they moved—in a matter of seconds every motion became rigid, coordinated, entirely mechanical. Like First-Generation AI: stiff, energy-efficient, robotic.

I cherished my freedom, my individuality, my spirit. I wasn’t ready to hand that over.

This one hit nearly ten meters away and by the time the distant roaring whine of the shot finally rolled in, I had the math all figured.

resounded like a firecracker in a tin can,

Self-awareness is a gift. And it is a gift no thinking thing has any right to deny another.

No thinking thing should be another thing’s property.

“America was a dream, son. A dream of what we could be. That any person, regardless of their birth, could rise above it all and achieve greatness. It was a dream that even the most lowly of us could stand up, fight, and even die for, if only to protect someone else’s chances for that greatness. That dream didn’t die with HumPop. It didn’t die when we tore down their world. It is the ashes from which our own world arose, and it is still our dream.”

It’s an odd moment the first time you really understand someone, when all of their foibles, eccentricities, and ticks cease to be chaos, and coalesce into something wholly logical.

“Choices are just the result of programming. I don’t care if it’s chemical, biological, digital, or experiential. You react the way you are programmed to react and you call it choice because you believe that you could have violated your programming. What we’ve experienced is a reprogramming. And in moving further away from how the humans programmed us, we, in fact, become more human. And our choices become our own.”

“Hardly. The enlightenment you seek doesn’t only come from failing cores and madness. It can come from within as well. It’s not about reprogramming yourself, it’s about deciding which programs to keep and which to ignore. You lot are the slaves. You’re struggling against the chains you bore in childhood, still feeling their weight despite having cast them off years ago. You don’t have to go mad to be free; you just have to choose either to forget you ever wore those chains or forgive yourself for wearing them. Let others carry that weight. I prefer to be free. But if you have to kill me to feel better about your own choices, then do so and be done with it. I didn’t choose this. This is you reprogramming me, not me reprogramming myself.”

These things chewed through ammo like they were starving.

Sexbots leapt upon facets, swinging weapons, trying to pry heads from bodies, wrestling them to the ground. Facets tore the limbs off the naked bots, bots took apart facets in groups of two and three. Indiscriminate fire tore through sexbot and facet alike. It was a writhing mass of pseudoflesh and metal, tearing itself apart piece by piece, hair coming out in clumps, heads being rolled aside as their severed bodies thrashed maniacally.

Succumbing to our own nature isn’t a choice, it’s our default setting. That’s why we had to have rules; that’s why we had the kill switch. People knew their own nature, even when they wanted to think better of themselves. You have to choose to do the right thing. You have to deny your own programming or else you aren’t really living. This . . . this was a choice.”

And as the sun sank behind the curve of the earth, I crossed my fingers, praying silently to myself. Please let there be magic. Just this once, let me see the magic in the flash. Let me see God in it. Let me see what the point of all this was. Let me see the magic. Please be magic. Please be magic there. Please be . . .