IMMORTALITY GUARANTEED
My job, which I dreamt of since I was a child, has become the most gruesome part of my day. A normal day at Immortality Guaranteed, the laboratory where I work, consists of encountering a bunch of loaded lunatics who wish to defy nature itself. Which human in his right mind would want to transfer his consciousness into a machine? I know my opinions do not suit the age I am living in, after all it’s 4023, but this is mind boggling. It all started when that eccentric scientist came up with this brand-new technology. Mind transfer is now possible, but only from human brain to machine. There are some levels of consciousness that do not transfer, such as empathy and love.
The resulting A.I. is not quite human at all—but something far worse—and the appeal of immortality is causing too many people to undergo the process. If it keeps ongoing, then this planet will be nothing but a ball of walking monstrous robots with a human brain, lacking a human heart. However, this is going to change soon, if not right now. Volt, Raze, Orion and I have a plan.
This horrendous technology has to be destroyed. Tonight, after work, we will sneak into the control room and delete all the files required for mind transfer. We have managed to procure some weapons for our expedition. It’s almost closing time when I meet my friends. We hide in the store room and manage to trick the security robots. All thanks to Volt for her amazing invention. She designed the wristwatches that helped us camouflage and be out of sight of the robots.
Now our next stop is the control room. We manage to get to the room, dodging every security we encountered till now. But here is where the real problem starts. At least my skills will come in handy at this point. I connect my palmtop to the lock and hack into the system. It was easy. Somehow, our eccentric scientist is too proud to set a strong password. He trusts his technology blindly. Orion and Raze started searching the computers for the files we came for. They are brilliant at their job. But they can’t find the files.
It’s not until now that I realize that we are surrounded by an army of robots and with them stands our boss, the scientist. So he is not the stupid one, we are. We charge at his army and our weapons are serving us good until he takes control. We all stand rooted to our spots as he reveals his true face. I knew it. He is not a human. He is a robot. I feel horrible standing here, not capable of doing anything as he tells his tale. The fables that I heard from my grandma, where the humans feared that robots might take over the world, don’t seem like fables anymore. I can’t believe how hind sighted we have been. Here is the result of all that, standing right in front of me.
It takes a moment for reality to sink in. But as soon as it does, our minds start buzzing. Gratefully, telepathy has been possible since the last decade. Orion offers to slide past the scientist robot when he is talking to his minions and deactivate him. Neither of us is sure about it, but he is determined. We try our best to deflect attention, and soon Orion is behind the scientist. He goes for the deactivation button, and our boss is no more.
All of a sudden, the alarms in the laboratory go off. We come to know that the laboratory destruction control was directly connected to the scientist’s deactivation button. We manage to get out of Immortality Guaranteed just as it goes down in flames. It’s gone. My dream laboratory, whose founder turned out to be a villainous robot, turns into ashes in front of my eyes. Maybe I will find a better job now. And maybe humans learn a lesson from this devastation.
Moral- No technology can replace the human values of empathy, love, kindness and forgiveness. We must remind ourselves what makes us different from a robot are these values, which should be treasured as gold.