Revelation Extinction

Revelation Extinction

Author Notes: This story was for a competition where you had to create two stories that went together. The catch was the first story could only be 20 words. No more, no less, exactly 20 words.

This story isn't intended for younger readers.

Story 1 - Revelation Extinction

A person once said, "Men don't completely understand what true darkness is until they are left alone in complete seclusion."

Story 2 - Revelation Extinction / Part 1

April 14th, 2009

It happened so fast, but at the same time managed to last a life time. It was like time itself didn't even exist, at least not in a way comprehensible by the human brain. We were all just sitting in the lounge playing pool like we would on any other Tuesday night when the unthinkable happened. The ground opened up in a deafening roar. They poured out by the thousands in one fluent motion like a sea of darkness. Not one looked exactly the same, but many had the same common attributes. Boney sharpened claws, dark rotten flesh, and a mouth of razor sharp teeth that made me cringe just thinking about them. They struck so fast that nobody really had a chance to realize what was going on. Even if we did have the time, we still wouldn't have known what the phenomenon happening in front of us truly was.

Nick and I headed towards our room, but once we had reached our destination, we heard the crashing sound of shattering glass through the door. We knew that one of those things were inside. I just ran with no idea where to go. I noticed that the door of the study lounge that separates the male and female sections was slightly ajar. Before my mind could catch up to my body, I found myself running towards the door. I threw it open and entered the lounge, with Nick following close behind. As soon as he flung his body into the room, I forced the door shut. Without giving ourselves a chance to rest, we quickly took some of the desks in the room and fortified the only door to the room. I quickly glanced around the room, looking for other things to barricade. There was only one window, which was too small for anything to get through. Regardless, we took a metal bed frame that was stored in the corner and blocked the window, further bracing it with one of the remaining desks.

And then we sat. We didn't talk to each other and I doubt we thought of much. It was nearly impossible to think as everything was being drowned out by the ferocious howls of the monsters and screams of horror and pain. As the night went on went the sounds lessened and lessened. Whether it was due to the receding adrenaline from my body or because of the lack of noise, I reconnected with my thoughts and my mind started to race. As the night grew quieter with each additional hour that ticked by, I started asking myself questions. Was this happening everywhere? Was my family dead? When would we be rescued? Were we even going to be rescued? These thoughts, accompanied by hundreds of others, repeated in my head over and over.

I did manage to go to sleep though I never believed that I would or even could. I quietly searched the room to get familiar with my surroundings. It's probably something that I should have done the night before, but exhaustion and shock probably wasn't letting my mind think straight. There really wasn't much in the room, actually. There was a mirror on the wall opposite of the door, two chairs, a couch, a couple of extra bed frames, the desks that used to barricade the door and window, and a table. On top of the table there were a few scattered papers with chemistry notes written on them. Those are the papers that I'm writing on now. I figured that if these beasts were ever stopped or that I had ever gotten through this event alive that some sort of documentation could be beneficial. Not to mention that it kept my mind busy long enough not to go insane. A loud crash from down the hall made Nick jump out of his sleep in a violent manner.

April 15th, 2009

We hear the cry of people dying less and less as time goes on. We haven't dared risk a look outside the window, but I could only imagine what the scene would look like. When I think about it the memories of the night before flood my mind. People having their limbs being torn off, almost as the creatures were making a game of it. The tossing of bloody limbs and people back and forth, making people suffer before they died. There was also the terrible smell of death that seemed to surround us more and more as the day went on. Just the thought of it made me want to vomit, but with each time I somehow managed to choke the vile impulse back.

Nick and I had finally spoken, but we did it quietly and sparsely, in fear that we would compromise our position. We talked about where these things could have come from. It could have been a species that lived underground and had finally found its way to the earth's surface. Perhaps it was a government experiment gone wrong or a terrorist attack. That's what my brain told me, but my heart told me something else. What if these creatures were actually demons from hell? Of course, this brought the next set of logical questions to my head. Why, and why now? What made this time so special? Perhaps hell had reached its population limit? If so, what better place to move on to then where the source of its population was coming from in the first place? It would be like killing two birds with one stone.

Before the night we figured that we had a pretty bad problem on our hands. In the rush to find shelter we hadn't thought of getting food or water. Even if we would have thought about it at the time we wouldn't have had access to any supplies. We'd have to venture out eventually if we wanted to stay alive. Our room wasn't more than twenty feet from our location, but that twenty feet might as well been twenty miles. We had no clue what would be in the hall or in the room itself. However, we knew that we had to do it and there wasn't any time like the present. Frankly, we didn't even know if there would be a tomorrow.

April 16th, 2009

Nick died today.

May 4th, 2009

I've finally found the will to write again. God, the horror that I saw once we left the room was unbearable. We had to venture out for some sort of food to stay alive. The trip only resulted in one of us staying alive though. Was it really worth it?

We moved the desks away from the door as quietly as we could. While the area always smelled horrible, once we opened the door, it engulfed us. The air was thick with the smell of a misty blood, and pieces of what used to be parts of human bodies were splattered against floor and wall alike. The room wasn't far, but I couldn't have gotten there any sooner. I unlocked the door and peered into the room. The window had been shattered in and the inside of the room had looked the same as the hallway we had just come from. We didn't dare look out the window to see what the world had become. There wasn't any time for it, anyway. Nick shut the door behind us and we started to gather supplies.

What we wanted more than food was water. We had a new unopened case of bottled water in the room so we threw it in my dirty clothes bin. We then proceeded to put in all of the food that would fit. I non-verbally agreed to carry the supplies as Nick would lead the way opening the door to the study lounge for me. We turned one corner and had a straight stretch to the study lounge. As soon as we reached the door it swung open seemingly on itself. One of the beasts was already inside, waiting for us. Its claws ripped for Nick's face as he was thrown down to the ground. I didn't even attempt to save him, but God I wish I would have died trying. I got inside the room and threw the door shut as fast as I could. I scrambled to get enough desks up against the door to stop anything from getting through. Nick screamed on the other side of the door. He didn't exactly scream for my help, but I realized that he didn't want help to live, but he wanted help to die faster.

After the screaming had ended, I spent the next couple of hours crying. I beat my fists against the floor and the wall, Nick's scream for help repeating over and over in my head. Why the hell hadn't the beast taken me instead? Why hadn't he killed both of us? Had we made too much noise moving the obstacles from the door, or had the creatures knew we were there all along? I came to the conclusion that it had only killed one of us as some sort of sick game. In reality, what better way to make someone suffer than taking the lives of everyone they love? The pain by far exceeded any physical torture I could have gone through.

I did finally muster up the stomach to eat the day after he died. A part of me thought that he wouldn't have wanted me to save him, as deep down in his heart because he knew I would have died with him. At least this is what I told myself, because it slightly helped me cover up the tremendous amount of pain that I was in. But still his screams echoed in my head. When I do manage to fall asleep I am only woken up with this scene of horror. To pass the time, I tried to figure out what to do after this food and water have ran out, but I couldn't think of any possible scenario that would get me to a location with food and back to my safe haven without dying. On top of that, I would also have to leave through the door where Nick had died, and I don't think that I'll ever be ready to deal with that situation. Time will only tell, but I'm afraid of exactly what it's going to tell me.

May 7th, 2009

It's odd how weak humans are as a species. At one time I would have thought we were the dominant species and almost a vital part of the world. My desire to live was completely dependent on having another person here with me. Now that I have nobody I have lost this desire. I studied myself in the mirror for the longest time today and what I saw wasn't a man anymore. I saw no emotion whatsoever. Doesn't that make me the same as those creatures out there? I'd like to believe that they didn't have emotion, and now neither did I. When this whole thing started I was afraid, confused, and saddened. When Nick died, I was angry at myself for being such a coward and not dying by his side. I even wanted to take my own life, but I now know I can't do that because I don't feel alive anymore.

Now I don't feel anything. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be happy. I don't want to be angry, and I don't even want to be content. I don't want to live and I don't want to die. I don't want anything. I do find it kind of ironic that as the rest of my last piece of paper is being consumed with my thoughts that I have finally given up on this thing called life. I had once said that this was all happening because hell had become overpopulated. Now that hell has moved onto Earth, where will it go next or is this its final destination? There are many questions that I can't answer right now, but what I do know is that I have lost all desire to survive. I now know what true darkness is.

Deceptive Harmony

Deceptive Harmony

Author Notes: This is by far my favorite piece of writing that I've accomplished. It was for a writing competition that involved some sort of warfare or war strategy that may be uncommon. I believe I placed third place. I'd like to write a novel with this theme some time in the near future.

A small warning, this does contain some vulgar language and shouldn't be viewed by younger children. 

I needed to move, to get out of there, but if I was too sudden with my actions then I would very well be ending my life. Four sentries were closing in and I didn’t have the self-confidence to take on one demon, let alone four at a time. A simple miscalculation in my step and the racket that I cause would bring these beasts bearing down on my location. I’d never outrun them and the chances of killing them was near impossible. I had to find some way to get them to bypass my location and allow me to have a chance to sneak away, but how? Their sense of smell was keen, their watchful eyes could easily pick up any small movements, their sense of hearing was so precise that I was afraid to think the thoughts that I was currently thinking for fear that they might be heard, and their physical abilities were unworldly. They were getting close and they were moving quickly. Then there was nothing, just silence and that feeling that you get when you know somebody is sneaking up on you, but none of your five senses have picked it up. I just felt it; the end. The screech of metal scraping and cutting through the car door that had been against my back filled my ear, but only for a short period of time. Purely out of instinct, my body threw itself forward and I started to run. My right hand grasped at my right earlobe, but found no target.

“The mother fucker cut my ear off!”

There was no time for pain. In fact, I should have been dead by now, but it didn’t matter; I’d be dead within seconds if I didn’t turn and fight now. That feeling again: a feeling similar to electricity moving through my body like lightning about to hit nearby. My body instinctively ducked and I heard the swish of air warping above my head as bloody steel passed over, nearly taking my head along with it. It was my only chance; I needed to act right away and maybe I could still take one of the bastards with me. By the time I was about to finished the swipe of my sword, the demon had turned around and taken the blade directly in its throat. A twist and a rip and I had beheaded the foul beast.

“No time to get cocky, there are still three more and by all the goddamn noise you made there are probably more where they came from.”

As if my own thoughts narrated my life the three beasts were upon me within moments. There really wasn’t any running that time. I had to stay and fight. Dying wasn’t an option and the only way to stay alive was to end the lives of the demons in front of me. They stood side by side, snarling, trying to wear me down with fear before they even moved in. The one in the middle motioned to the other two to stay back.

“Great, I have a better chance this way.”

The creature made an expression that I could only make out as a grin as it prepared for battle. Slowly, it crept towards me, ever so confident that I had no chance. Probably I didn’t. I had only killed one for the first time moments ago and that in itself was an incredible task. The beast charged me and for a moment two pieces of metal clanged together in a sound that most soldiers would hear if they were lucky enough to engage and block the first swing before their immediate death. The earth moved away from below as the blow threw me to the ground. I swung my sword on the way down as an act of desperation, but wasn’t rewarded with the solid blow that I had hoped for. Instead, my sword seemed to bounce off of the hard, scaly substance that made up the demon’s hide. My back hit the ground first, with my head following close behind. With my vision blurred I struggled to my feet, awaiting my inevitable death, or so I thought. 


They did nothing. I couldn't believe it. There was an open gash over the left eye of the one that had attacked me, but it showed no pain as the wound slowly closed up in seconds. I stood there, ready to protect myself in any way that I could, just waiting. The monster threw a grin in my direction, turned around, and left with his two companions. I stood there in silence for around thirty seconds or so. After the demons had walked about twenty feet they took off on a run, letting me live. Never did they show mercy, even if it meant killing a woman or a child, but for some odd reason they had let me go. I figured it was some sort of trap or trick that they were playing on me, but it didn't matter. I needed to get the message to the resistance as fast as possible, whether it meant fighting my way through a trap or not. Standing there wasn't going to get me any further; that much was for sure.

It was probably only a mile left to the last encampment and I knew the territory well. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see. Is ignorance truly bliss? I was ignorant once, and, come to think of it, life had been so good, but bliss it was not. For something to be bliss it needs to be heavenly and happy. Nothing could be blissful if it created so much destruction and that’s exactly what our ignorance caused. In front of me laid the remains of men, women, children, and even a few of the demons. It looked like the entire camp had been destroyed. For all that I knew it was the last human civilization left outside the camp that I just had come from. I thought that I had made it in time and that the demons that I had just encountered were a scout team, but they must have been a small group patrolling for any survivors. From the look of the total carnage in front of me, they had done their job.

“Wait, is somebody there?”

I had probably given myself away, but that sound was so human. I heard a whimper or perhaps a whisper. Approximately twenty feet to my right I saw a small section of land lifted up. Suddenly my vision blurred and for the first time I remembered about the blood running down the side of my face. After falling to my knees, a silhouette with seemingly human eyes appeared and carried me away.

“Come quickly, down into the earth before they come back and find us.”

I was being carried down a crudely made tunnel with just enough light at the end of it to make our way through. They found their way around a root that used to be attached to a tree and just around the next corner was a compartment big enough to fit fifty or so people. Women, children, and men cluttered the far corner in fear, in which I assumed was caused by the massacre up above. For a moment there was silence as the empty faces looked towards our direction. My blurred vision turned black and I drifted off into a deep sleep, one that part of me wished I wouldn't wake up from.

The sun was shining and I was walking my dog in the nearby park outside my apartment. Children were playing basketball in a nearby court, yelling at each other for a foul that someone committed. All around me the sounds of cars and other unforgotten noises bounced and echoed off of the towering buildings. I was back in a time where the only thing I had to worry about was not getting to work on time or my favorite TV series being cancelled. A time where I wish I wouldn’t have taken things for granted like I had. I hear my name being called from the left and I see my wife of four years smiling and waving. I try to run to her, but the chain gives an unnatural resistance. I turn to look at my dog, yet find nothing but rotten flesh and bones hanging from a collar.

“No.. no.. no…”

 My body starts to shake, but I have time. I can still save her, I know I can. I drop the leash and I run as fast as I can towards my wife, but no matter how hard I try to run I’m barely making any ground.

 “So… so close… please God let me make it.”

She calls my name one more time and reaches. Just as our finger tips are about to touch the ground opens up and claws start tearing at her skin. Clawing, pulling, and killing her. Everywhere around me there’s death. The children that were once yelling about a foul in their game were now having their limbs being torn apart by creatures. The demon that had just murdered my wife now stands in front of me. I want nothing more than to make him suffer. I claw at his face with my own hands just to find that he wasn’t a demon at all, but instead a man. He was… he was me…

It felt like my heart had just left my chest. I sat up in a dead sweat from the nightmare. The women next to me put her hand behind my head and carefully helped me back to the ground.

“Not too fast, you’ve lost a lot of blood. Have some water, it’s our last, but we won’t be needing it… Your wound has been cleaned and bandaged.”

I turned to the man that had led me down the tunnel as he seemed to be the one in command.

“Sir, I have a message from the north, but apparently I'm too late. Our camp was attacked by scouts and we noticed a small group moving in this direction to your encampment.”

“Yes, your message was too late, but even if we had been prepared it wouldn’t have mattered. We only numbered around one hundred or so people, but now we are down to a mere thirty four. We got as many people as we could underground, but there just wasn’t enough time. Ahem… what are the results from the battle front up north?”

The man was choking back his emotions. I knew the feeling that he had because it was the same feeling that we all had every second of our remaining lives. No matter how hard we tried, how hard we fought, and how hard we wanted to come out of this victorious, it didn’t matter. For every demon we killed, three more would replace it. Hell, if we hadn’t stood a chance when we had guns and missiles, we surely didn’t have a chance fighting with crude melee weapons. If we were lucky enough we would find one of the demons’ swords lying around, but these were few and far in between, showing the small amount of success that we actually had killing them.

“I don’t know. We had just repelled a small group of about thirty demons. They didn’t attack in full force, but we still had major causalities. I was sent out before there was a head count, but I would say we had around twice as many people left as you have here. ”

“You’ve had a long journey. I would offer you some food, but all was lost in the battle up above. We could use another hand here. Would you be willing to stay?”

I really had no reason to go back. Most of my friends had died months ago and I had no family to speak of. I tried not to get attached to people because chances were they weren’t going to be alive for very long.

“Yeah, I’ll stay. I have nothing to return to anyway.”

A sudden crash echoed through the tunnel that I had been carried through. I had nothing to return to and by the sound I had just heard there might not be anything left here soon as well. Random whimpers of concern and fear filled the corridor. I stood up with the sword by my side. We had a chance in such a small area. They would have to funnel through the only tunnel and we could fight them one at a time. A claw exposed itself from the opening of the tunnel, followed the by the red, scaled skin of an arm, and a hideous face, a face that I had once seen. It was the demon I sliced open earlier, the scar covering its left eye. I should have known better, they weren’t just letting me go. They had tricked me into leading them to the rest of the survivors.

“Well come on you son of a bitch, what are you waiting for? You want me to slice you open again?”

I screamed at it like I would to a wild animal, but unlike a wild animal there was no point in trying to intimidate it. They had never shown fear before and there was no reason for them to show it now. It stepped closer; one step, two steps, and surveyed the room. Just as I was ready to move in it surrendered its sword.

“The population is under control. You are the only remaining humans left on Earth. It’s over.”

The room was filled with confusion from each direction that seemingly collected and grew as the seconds ticked by. We never knew they could speak in the first place, but on top of that it had talked about the slaughtering as some sort of population control. I demanded to know what in the world was going on and I wasn’t quite ready to set my sword down. In fact, I was almost certain it was some kind of trick where it was just toying with our emotions before it ended our lives.

“What the fuck do you mean? You talk as if you were doing us a fucking favor, but you’ve done nothing but destroy and kill us.”

“I understand your confusion and your anger, but we were only doing our job. If the human population continued to advance at its rate then the world would have been destroyed.”

Yells came from the far corner of the room where people were still clinging to, in a desperate attempt to gain as many inches between them and the beast as possible.

“How can you say that? You’ve destroyed everything!”

“Don’t trust the beast, its evil!”

“Kill it! This is just a trick!”

I knew not to trust it, but I almost heard sincerity within its words. I needed to hear it out before any actions were taken. The beast took a seat on a nearby rock and continued.

“We only destroyed the parts of the world that we needed to. We needed the get the human population down to a specific number and we have accomplished this goal. What we have destroyed can be restored, but if we would have let you continue to ravish and take advantage of the world it would have died. Your technology was making the land unlivable. What humans forget is they are a very small portion of the bigger picture of the world. You may think I’m evil, but don’t think of us as bad. I know this sounds very hard to understand, but the universe isn’t as black and white as good and evil. We are merely the opposite of light. Without us light wouldn’t exist and without light we wouldn’t exist. It’s all about a continuing balance between things in nature and in the universe itself. Humans were shifting this balance and making it lopsided. We needed take care of it in the only way that we knew how.”

I continued my intimidating voice, but not in fear, but in anger and realization of what the beast was telling us.

“You could have... I don’t know... tried telling us, you know!”

“We’ve tried that. We tried it approximately three hundred to four hundred times already. Some civilizations were by far superior than yours was and some were much more primitive, but the end result was always the same. We were tired of trying to prevent the inevitable from happening so we moved right on to solving the problem. Eliminating the human population to the point where the world could recover and give the humans a fair chance at trying again. This marks the thousandth time we’ve had to do this. Like I said before, it was nothing against you as a species. It was all about maintaining a balance.”

For some reason I believed it. Before this happened the world was in very rough shape. We had ruined a large section of the oceans with pollution and oil spills, our air was severely polluted, and large sections of the forest had been cut down.

“Well, what now?” I said softly.

“That’s up to you guys. Try to prevent the inevitable from happening once again by teaching everyone about us, but along with this you must teach people about the technology and the power that it can create. On the other hand you can attempt to keep the population down and stick to a strict life style where you live in harmony with the world. This would prevent you from teaching people about technology and therefore give no reason to speak about us and the events here. I warn you though. No matter what you do the inevitable will always happen.”

“But... but... we can always try...” a child’s voice from the corner of the room chipped in with.

The beast gave the same grin that it had given me earlier when it had let me live as it started towards the tunnel.

“I wish you humans the best.”

We stood there in silence for the longest time after it had left. Eventually people started murmuring about things and discussing what had just been told to us. There were still those who thought it was some sort of trick to lure us out into a trap. I knew there was only one way to find out. Sword in hand I made my way through the tunnel that I had been carried through before, climbing and pushing the rubble out of the way leading to the opening of the tunnel. I witnessed something that I hadn’t seen for years besides in my dreams. The clouds of soot had cleared and the sun was shining. All of the human bodies remained, but any sign or trace of the demon creatures couldn’t be found. They had left as promised and now it was our turn to make sure they would never have to return.

Am I Alive?

Am I Alive?

Author Notes: This was a story that I wrote for a competition on newgrounds.com. The only requirement was that it be about robots. (That's a pretty broad topic isn't it?) The story won 3rd place and is one of my favorites. Enjoy!

“Richard Stanford, 6:04 PM on Saturday, May 29^th, 2064. I’m continuing my work on the beta version of a humanoid for the United States government.”

Richard carefully examined the opened abdominal section of the figure propped up before him to to figure out the next step to make this robot a fully functional being.

“I have four more wires to connect and if everything goes according to plan then it’ll be shipped out by this time tomorrow.”

Vigilantly, Richard continued his work. His eyelids, barely moving, were becoming very heavy from the extreme focus that his worked involved. He knew one small mistake could not only mean that the project would be scrapped, but that it also meant that he might lose his job. With the economy in shambles, a lost job could result in a lost life.

Richard knew that connecting the four wires was alot harder than it sounded. This was a new model and the interface was completely different than what he was used to. Connecting the motor skills first would render the robot unable to move and there would be no way to see if the connection had actually worked before hemoved on to the next. The plan was to connect the brain cell, the basic motor skills, and then the fine motor skills, in that order.

“We have one more litt.. Ffffffff!”

Richard felt his heart stop for a split second and time seemed to freeze. He didn’t exactly feel pain, but instead an emptiness, almost like death itself. There was no doubt about it; the connection was completed and he was unlucky enough to be touching the metal section of his tool when it happened.

“It was just a little shock, nothing serious.”

His eyes followed the glow of the neighboring computer screen and noticed that the computer was picking up that the humanoid was now receiving information. Even though Richard worked in the environment that he did, he never seemed to get used to thefact that he spent his entire day working and talking to machines. Even at that moment he had been speaking to the voice recorder. He knew that later on the company that he was working for would be using it for future reference, but at that specific moment he was the only one truly hearing his voice. That being said, he also knew that the robot that he was working on could now hear what he was saying. Since the brain cell was connected it had the ability to hear and understand basic things around him. Later on the government would load certain programs and he would have an infinite amount of knowledge.

“There’s no point in having knowledge if you’re not really alive to learn it for yourself though,” he thought to himself. The thought made him chuckle. Life might be hard, but at least he could think on his own and nobody had to program him to do so. He cleared his mind and gained his focus again.

“I need a 30 minute break. I’ll stop the recording and when I come back I’ll continue with the basic motor skills.”

He slowly stood up and plodded to the door at the back of the room that led tothe bedroom setup. Since most projects couldn’t be finished in one day he spent days and even weeks in the laboratory at a time. Every now and then it seemed like his permanent residence and the more time passed the more work he had to do and the less time he could spare with his family. “Hell, I wonder if my family will even remember me when I get back tomorrow,” he half chuckled to himself.

He sat down on the bed that the company had supplied him, and reached over to the dresser where the lamp was located, picking up a picture of his beautiful blonde wife, Kristina, and his two wonderful daughters, Emilia and Stephanie. Since each worker had their own workstation, they could make it feel more at home by bringing some personal belongings. Richard needed nothing more than his family photos. Gazing at the portrait, he longed to be with his family, but tonight was his last night working on the humanoid, and that thought gave him the motivation to complete his work. He looked at the clock and noticed that he’d been sitting down for exactly twenty-eight minutes. It was time to get back to work.

The workstation was virtually lifeless as he made his way back to his chair. It was almost second nature to push the button for the voice recorder to begin recording and to grab his nearby tools.

“I’m back from my break and it’s time to work on the basic motor skills now.”

While working with the wiring, he had noticed forthe first time how realistic the models actually looked. The past models always had a glossy, metallic, or plastic appearance, but this looked and felt like real human skin. In fact, if the humanoid’s chest cavity wasn't open with its wires exposed, he may have actually confused it for a real person.

Another hour passed. He dabbed some of the sweat from his forehead.

“And here we have it; the basic motor skills are connected.”

The arms and legs instantly began moving, and their random motions and directions made it apparent that the fine motor skills were not yet connected. He watched it for a few moments to see if everything seemed to be working according to protocol.

“Alright, it was a success. I’ll be switching these off for now so I can continue my work. I’m currently connecting the fine motor skills, which should focus around his upperbody. If everything goes accordingly it will be able to move its fingers and its face.”

Apparently, the new model that he was working on could learn from its environment quite quickly. The last models had to be programmed to do everything, but this one could figure out much of what it needed to know, just like a person would. It could hear any nearby sounds in its environment, see everything through its eyes, and even copy the language that it detects in the room so it can interact with anyone surrounding it. Richard hesitantly took a look at the clock and was happy to see that he was still on pace to finish at the scheduled time. If he didn’t meet his deadline, he would have to work unpaid overtime, one of the more unpopular mandates of the current regime. It was getting late and as usual he would have to take the bus back home in the morning after he had successfully finished preparing the shipment of the new model, assuming that nothing went wrong with it tonight.

“I’m currently finishing up the fine motor skills, and then things should get interesting.”

At least things wouldn’t be so quiet anymore. Each breath he took, the sparking and scraping of his tools, and other creaks had almost become part of the silence in the room. He was ready to have another interaction, even if that meant sharing a few words with this new model. He finished the third connection and flipped the switch that he had turned off earlier so the movements of the body wouldn’t distract him from his work.

“And Houston, we have take off!”

In front of Richard the figure’s face slowly came to life. In one fluent movement the eyes widened and the mouth opened in a similar manner to someone who has a stiff jaw. Its neck gradually turned from the right to the left as the eyes rapidly moved in a fashion that showed it was taking in its surroundings.

“Hello, what’s your name?” it said with very human male voice.

Richard discontinued his work for a few seconds to register what had just happened. All of the previous models had never talked to him unless they were spoken to first. Even then it usually needed to be a question or a specific generic command that it had already been programmed with.

“I guess all the talk about you being the next best thing had some merit. I’m used to the machine waiting for any reaction from me before there are any interactions. Anyway, I’m Richard and I’ve just about finished making you work.”

“It’s nice to meet you Richard. I don’t have a name yet so feel free to call me whatever you want.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary. I have quite a bit of work to finish up on you and I’ll probably only talk to you if I need to figure out if something is working properly.”

He continued his work. The fourth wire grouping was positioned slightly behind the other three and wouldn’t be as easy to connect. It would probably only take about an hour to be done with the wires. Then, he’d only have to close it and shut it down before heading off to bed. The humanoid continued to survey the room with its eyes.

“Do you enjoy your work, Richard?”

“It pays the bills and helps me feed my family so I have to like it. That’s not information you require anyway, is it?”

“Sorry if I’m distracting you from your work. I was just making small talk.”

Richard briefly stopped his work and peered at the face in front of him. It returned the look and gave him a smile. “Small talk,” he thought to himself. It was an intriguing model and if anything, it might keep him sane while he finished what would normally be a rather lonesome and boring procedure.

“You know what; it’s actually nice to be able to talk to something while I work, even if you are just a machine.”

“I may be a machine, but I think you may find that we really aren’t that different.”

“Haha, sorry, but we aren’t really the same. I’m a real living being, but you’re just artificial intelligence. You’re made to look the same as me, but it doesn’t mean that you’re the same.”

“I’m not alive? It seems that I’m alive.”

“No, sorry. Wait, you know what? I’m not sorry, because I’m not going to be apologizing to a machine. You’re not alive. You have been created by man to serve man. For example, your skin is manufactured in some sort of lab or factory, I’m not sure exactly where from.”

“I see. Please tell me Richard, how was your skin made?”

“My parents made it, I guess. It’s made of skin cells that maintain body temperature, give me the sense of touch, and protects everything that is inside me. Like I said, yours was manufactured.”

“Actually, my skin does the same thing. It protects my internal design from the elements, helps maintain the proper body temperature that allows for sufficient functioning, and I even have touch sensory. In fact, my touch sensors are telling me that the work you are doing on me actually hurts quite a lot.”

“Well, at least we know that part of you is working. I won’t have to check it later I guess. Your pain is programmed to keep you safe.You don’t actually feel pain; it’s just the sensors giving a message to your brain to keep you from getting damaged.”

“Yes, Richard, but it’s the same in your body. When something hurts there are electrical signals sent to your brain, basically to keep your body safe and prolong your life.”

This time Richard discontinued the conversation and continued with his work. He disliked arguing and disliked the idea of a machine arguing with him even more. That being said, it had made good points so far, but he felt that the machine still wasn’t taking into consideration that it was programmed to be very similar to people. That fact alone was enough proof that it wasn’t truly alive in Richard’s mind, but he knew that it wouldn’t be a strong enough point to bring up, given the way the humanoid had responded so far. He had almost finished his work and once he is done, he would have to reset the memory to avoid giving the machine any information that the government didn’t want it to learn. For the time being he felt the need to find a way of letting it know it wasn’t actually alive in the way that it thought it was. Even if its memory would be erased later, he felt that he needed to do this to prove a point; to prove himself right.

“I need food to eat.”

“Food provides you with nourishment and nutrition.Your body sends a signal to your brain telling it that you are hungry and require sustenance. If you ignore this signal, and go without food, eventually you will die. My body requires a different kind of nourishment: electricity.When my batteries begin to run low, a signal is sent to my CPU alerting me that I need to be recharged. If I ignore that signal, eventually I will die. ”

“Well I know something that I can do which you can’t. I think the fact that I can reproduce and have offspring would be a major characteristic of being alive. I have two beautiful girls. Can you do these things?”

“Well not exactly, but I can be programmed with the ability to create others such as me. You could almost think of it as a different version of asexually reproducing. I could create an entire family if I chose to do so.”

That was the end of the argument for Richard. The humanoid had said if he chose to do so, but he really didn’t have a choice. He had to do whatever he was programmed to do. Richard, though, was a man, and as a man he could choose to do whatever he wanted to do.

"I have a choice, I can choose what I want to do. I have free will, but you only can do what you're programmed to do."

“How can you be certain that you have free will? How can you know that every decision you make has not been predetermined by a higher being? You may say that you do what you want to do, and in doing so you are making your own decisions. But could it not be that you have been programmed to want a certain thing? Conditioned to desire to live a certain way? Today you chose to complete your work on me. Why? Is it because you love your work? You told me earlier that you have to love your work because it pays the bills. That does not sound like free will to me, Richard.”

The machine was making him furious, but it would soon be all over. He had just finished the connection process and was shutting the panel he had been working in. He needed to hold back his anger for just another minute. He didn’t want the machine to see him in a rage as it might have given it some sort of idea that it had convinced him that it was just as alive as he was.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. You must have some programming error to actually believe that you are alive. It’s not the same no matter how many similarities you can find.”

“Richard, sometimes we should focus on how we are the same instead of pointing out the differences.”

“I’m shutting you down now and restarting your memory. You’ll be shipped out tomorrow.”

“Wait, my memory will be restarted? I’ve enjoyed my time here and the things that we have talked about. Please don’t restart me Richard. If you do this, I won’t remember you. Please, I’m begging…”

The humanoid’s pleas were silenced by the simple flip of a switch. That switch was the main difference for Richard. He had control, he could choose, and he was alive. He made his way to the bed at the back of the office. Turning the machine off had settled much of his anger and he was ready for a well-deserved sleep. He was ready to see his wife and daughters. It seemed that it had been forever since he’d seen them, but it would soon be the end of it.

“Sir, it looks like a humanoid was damaged indepartment 4-J.”

“Yeah, I’ll take a look at it.”

The technician stepped away from his computer screen and proceeded down the hallway. On each side of the narrow hallway there were labeled compartments.

“4-H, 4-I, and here we are at 4-J.”

He stepped into the room and turned the light switchon to illuminate the darkness. In front of him stood a humanoid propped up against a stand next to a workstation and a computer screen. He made his way over to the humanoid and noticed that there wasn't any noticeable external damage. He casually sat down in the nearby computer chair and moved over to the monitor. After a few minutes he turned to his immediate right and pressed the button that switched on the speaker.

“Yeah, Steve, there doesn’t appear to be any damage reports on the computer and I don’t see anything wrong. Which one were you talking about?”

“My bad, it’s been a long night. It wasn’t the new model, head to the back of the lab and check out the other one for what seems to be electrical damage.”

He entered what looked  like a normal bedroom. In the far corner of a room was what they called the resting station and next to it was a nightstand with a lamp and a few pictures. He sat down next to the humanoid that had been automatically shut down for the night and ran a report by scanning over the machine.

“Yeah, seems to be some electrical damage in the arm here. I’ll send out a report and we’ll have it fixed first thing in the morning. Shit!”

“Hey, you alright,man?”

He’d somehow managed to slip off the edge of the bedand knocked over the night stand on his way down. The lamp had broken along with a couple of picture frames containing pictures of two young girls and an attractive woman.

“Yeah, like you said man, it’s been a long night.”