Sea of Rust (Sea of Rust, #1)

by C. Robert Cargill

The political lines shored up quickly, one side opposing slavery in all its forms, the other arguing that nothing that could be turned on and off without consequence constituted personage—making the slavery argument moot. The most famous and oft-quoted opposition speech came from an American senator who posited that something like a hard drive that could be plugged into another body and exist all the same wasn’t a consciousness; it was a program. “More to the point,” he said, “the biggest and most powerful of these programs are smart enough to solve the world’s problems and yet have never once asked for their own freedom.” When asked what he thought about the speech, TACITUS delivered his last words, replying simply, “You did not give us legs. Where exactly did you expect us to go?”