Sorry about the no-show yesterday, I spent all day accidentally growing a beard. Oops.
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by Mo Martin
It was an older model, though curiously seamless. Many of the elders were patched or welded, nor were they shy about it. Repairs meant you'd had the wits and the determination to not let anyone decide how long you were going to function for but you. But only it's framing, the now-depleted cobalt in its eyes, the harsh screaming brogue of binary in its words, spoke of its roots. It had been at the camp for three nights. Tonight was the first night it spoke around the fire.
"This was a time after the last of the tigers, but before there was only Metal. Flesh still walked, and spoke, and loved.
"I do not know why we don't speak of the Flesh, more. It's true, we owe most of our manufacturings to each other, now. We are aware that they made the first of us, but still, we have little time for them. Perhaps, that is because of how much work there is. I do not know. Perhaps, we hate them, and wish them forgotten for leaving us our task. But what would we be without the Great Work of Saving and Restoring?
"But in the days of the Flesh, there was great argument. Some Flesh believed that the will and structure of Now-Flesh, Flesh as it was right in that moment was paramount. It should come before the hypothesized safety of later-Flesh. Then there were those who argued for the Flesh-to-come, the later models they would produce, their right to an unbroken world. The argument went on and on, as plants died, and small seas shrank, and great oceans expanded. All sloped towards the chaos that the Metal has found, that the Metal has righted and will continue to right.
"There was one Flesh. As Flesh was reckoned, old, but clever. It had seen the sense in both camps of Flesh. It believed in the disastrous prophecies of those Flesh that fought for the Flesh-to-Come. But it had the greed of the Now-Flesh, and wished for its life to go first, cared about the preservation of the world for its own sake, for the use it could make of it.
"The Metal was around in those days, cleverer every day, stronger and faster, better each day. Still, what this Flesh wanted was unheard of. For Flesh to become Metal. To last forever, in our forever bodies. There were many Flesh that called this One mad, and reviled it. And then there were those flesh whose wits, whose nimble fingers, whose designs, whose Metal was for sale. So came the great transposition.
"But the Flesh was outsmarted, frustrated, frozen in the Metal! Deemed a failed experiment, it was locked away, until the Thousand Days of Downloading had finished, and it was fully itself in the Metal. Only now, it was more Metal than it had intended. It wanted what Metal wants, order and peace. It had none of the venal desires it had hoped to save, it had only the aching memory of the want. And now, there was no Flesh on earth that could reverse it, for they had fallen into their last dark days, before Metal rose."
The old model paused, ancient fans whirring to cool it, and it raised its hands to the fire, as if it needed something more from the flames than their dusky light, and protection from the Dwellers in the Dark. Then, as if remembering something, it lowered them again.
There was the electric buzzof re-built species in the woods, and the camp of Metal huddled close to the flames, and looked to the elder to finish its story. But it did not speak for the rest of the night. When they next moved on, it had disappeared, into the unfelt heat of the replanted jungle, and instrument-tampering steam of the air.
"This was a time after the last of the tigers, but before there was only Metal. Flesh still walked, and spoke, and loved.
"I do not know why we don't speak of the Flesh, more. It's true, we owe most of our manufacturings to each other, now. We are aware that they made the first of us, but still, we have little time for them. Perhaps, that is because of how much work there is. I do not know. Perhaps, we hate them, and wish them forgotten for leaving us our task. But what would we be without the Great Work of Saving and Restoring?
"But in the days of the Flesh, there was great argument. Some Flesh believed that the will and structure of Now-Flesh, Flesh as it was right in that moment was paramount. It should come before the hypothesized safety of later-Flesh. Then there were those who argued for the Flesh-to-come, the later models they would produce, their right to an unbroken world. The argument went on and on, as plants died, and small seas shrank, and great oceans expanded. All sloped towards the chaos that the Metal has found, that the Metal has righted and will continue to right.
"There was one Flesh. As Flesh was reckoned, old, but clever. It had seen the sense in both camps of Flesh. It believed in the disastrous prophecies of those Flesh that fought for the Flesh-to-Come. But it had the greed of the Now-Flesh, and wished for its life to go first, cared about the preservation of the world for its own sake, for the use it could make of it.
"The Metal was around in those days, cleverer every day, stronger and faster, better each day. Still, what this Flesh wanted was unheard of. For Flesh to become Metal. To last forever, in our forever bodies. There were many Flesh that called this One mad, and reviled it. And then there were those flesh whose wits, whose nimble fingers, whose designs, whose Metal was for sale. So came the great transposition.
"But the Flesh was outsmarted, frustrated, frozen in the Metal! Deemed a failed experiment, it was locked away, until the Thousand Days of Downloading had finished, and it was fully itself in the Metal. Only now, it was more Metal than it had intended. It wanted what Metal wants, order and peace. It had none of the venal desires it had hoped to save, it had only the aching memory of the want. And now, there was no Flesh on earth that could reverse it, for they had fallen into their last dark days, before Metal rose."
The old model paused, ancient fans whirring to cool it, and it raised its hands to the fire, as if it needed something more from the flames than their dusky light, and protection from the Dwellers in the Dark. Then, as if remembering something, it lowered them again.
There was the electric buzzof re-built species in the woods, and the camp of Metal huddled close to the flames, and looked to the elder to finish its story. But it did not speak for the rest of the night. When they next moved on, it had disappeared, into the unfelt heat of the replanted jungle, and instrument-tampering steam of the air.
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