If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions[...] we only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines."
Theodore Kaczynski, "Industrial Society and Its Future" - United States of Lyra, 1972
Theodore Kaczynski, "Industrial Society and Its Future" - United States of Lyra, 1972
New Danzig, Brest-Litovsk World State, 1st of May of 1974
An industrial heat tamed the frozen tundra, melting the few snow flakes that fell over its chimneys, as with mechanical perfection, one of the Pzl. Tripod assembly plants functioned. Piece by piece, the towering tools of war: the Tripods, were built, from every leg articulation to their alien, sculpted metal hulls, stretching through a never-stopping assembly line, where machines built further machines, and the heat of living beings was nearly nonexistent, for the facility was almost totally automated. Rail guns, anti-aircraft anti-tank missiles and ultraviolet laser beams capable of melting a Second World War era heavy tank armor were melded to the frame of the beasts as the last stages of the manufacturing process, as each of them was at last given a serial number, and the symbol of the Polish Home Army, still honoring its historical efforts during the now distant Second World War.
Looking at the perfectly timed process from the panoramic glass windows from the maintenance control room would give to someone the impression of being in an alien world, a world where no will existed, only an ever present standard, an ever unchanging establishment into its summit of perfection. Mikhail was the last human to dwell in such facility, with every other being gradually replaced during the course of the last decade, by ever more self-sufficient robots and machines, being instead led to a delightful retirement. He was the only one left to be replaced by the machine, and in a way, he felt himself proud, for he was the Maintenance and Operations Director of the factory, responsible for leading correctional measures and implementing upgrades into the processes, for the machines have not yet been able to repair themselves without human support.
Yet, it was a lonely job, watching the eternal monotony of an ever constant manufacture, with occasional stops as the need of war machines was deemed lower.
However, for Antoni, there was a second activity. Something he felt proud to do despite its lack of necessity. He personally kept track of the number of tripods manufactured every day, even though the Emperor of Brest-Litovsk managed everything by itself, its perfect and artificial mind replacing the wavering and corruptible minds of human politicians and managers for decades. In some way, the fact he used an obsolete notepad for doing so actually made him feel proud that he was still a man who was not totally dependent from the machines.
Looking at the numbers he was annotating while he sat next to his steel desk, staring at the panoramic window from the observation area, he had a gut feeling something was wrong. The pace of production has accelerated drastically compared to yesterday, and yet there was no likelihood of war reported, making the decision by the Emperor to accelerate the manufacture strange, unless a general fault occurred in another plant, which was extremely unlikely.
However, occasional speed ups weren't uncommon, and thus he resumed his waiting, for should anything go wrong, he would have to fix it. Such was the only role that wasn't yet replaced in the entire Pzl., where the last humans who still worked in the organization were. Nothing was truly out of place, just an unnecessary paranoia, as two hours after, the production resume its traditional pace.
Antoni operated his computer terminal, checking upon temperature and stress variables as part of his daily routine, and for now, nothing was going bad nor there were signs that a maintenance could become necessary. It were four of the noon, a longer time than imagined for a planet which day lasted only twenty hours, and where daylight lasted only eight hours. Suddenly, something changed, as a cold, synthetic voice announced:
"Antoni Tchaikowski, proceed to the cafeteria. You have been mandated a snack time."
"Excuse me?" he asked to the artificial intelligence controlling the factory all-seeing and all-hearing inside the facility through countless cameras and microphones, "This never happened before, why did this order come?"
"You will be put under arrest for sedition if you do not comply!" the synthetic voice threatened. Sighing, he began to head down the maintenance control and observation room towards the cafeteria.
Something wants to kill me
--------------------------------
BSG: Prelude to War
He could not think otherwise, but he proceeded nonetheless towards the Cafeteria, taking a few bags from a drawer before, walking undisturbed through the robotic security guards in each corridor, who could easily gun him down, for he carried no weapons, as mandated by the Gun Control Decree of 1968, but seemingly, if they simply were going to kill him, they could already have done it. Out of sheer curiousity and common practice, he took one last look at the assembly line final stage, as he immediately forced himself to disguise his shock, after quickly looking back. The flag of the Polish underground has been replaced by something he never saw before, which symbolic meaning was very clear. However, he was now powerless to try anything and to discover whether such was a sign of treason or not.
The cold corridors, many of them metallic, now ended into one of many doorways, which top had the word Cafeteria inscribed in Polish. The glass doors were now tinted in black, something that changed from yesterday, while a robotic guard stood to the left side of the entry, a strange fact, considering how tactically important a cafeteria would be for troublemakers and dissenters. The machine remained reaction-less to his presence, holding its semi-automatic gauss carbine stiffly as he suddenly stopped, refusing to go further into what could only be his doom.
He cautiously reached his pocket, avoiding fast moves, and pressed one of the small bags he had as he touched a key. Memorizing the best he could its shape, he began to type something, as suddenly an electric humming echoed, and the drone stiff stance suddenly relaxed, as its sensor lights went black, and his carbine fell over the floor, the sound of its fall silenced by the alarm that began to echo.
"Attention all units! Search and destroy the traitor of the Federation! Search and destroy the family of the traitor!" the nearly deafening synthetic voice screamed, trying to inflict despair over him. His hands quickly went for the carbine, and soon he began to run through the corridor, aware that whatever was in the Cafeteria would go after him. The labyrinthic passageways were braved by him, as right in the first crossing, he stood to the wall and leaned to the left, his gun ready to fire. Turning his head back quickly, Antoni nearly had it removed by the round of a security robot gauss carbine.
Breathing heavily, he leaned again, quickly aiming at the first pattern of a robotic head he could find, and quickly went back to cover, sighing as he heard the noises of the breaking robot. Suddenly a clink sound came from behind, as he quickly turned and ran towards the left branch of the network of corridors. Soon after, fragments flew through his previous position, as the grenade was detonated. Antoni quickly opened the magazine chamber from the robot's body and took its magazines as well.
An Y-shaped intersection lied ahead, with signs marking the left corridor as leading to the main hall of the industry, and the right one leading back to the control room. Instinctively, as he had to do it quickly or risk being ambushed by robots in from the many doors of storage areas and secondary module control rooms, he headed left, taking steps through the curved corridor, until he sighed:
"Damn it!" A blast door was erected next to the exit to the main hall, blocking his passage and making any escape attempt very dubious. Meanwhile, Antoni could hear their footsteps as they were coming from the other side. His time was now almost about to end, when his last attempt came. Pulling another electronic multi-tool from his left pocket and resting his carbine, he began to type commands as an electrical humming began to echo. He could listen to their steps right ahead into the curved corridor, they were slowly coming, they were about to kill him as he hurriedly operated the device. The robot suddenly came right ahead of him with his carbine aimed.
It stopped right in time, as regaining control, Antoni immediately threw the disposable electronic control tool and took his carbine into a firing position, running for the disabled robot's body while bullets began to dangerously ricochet through the wall, his passage blocked by six robots in a stiff line formation. Antoni hugged the robot and took its grenade with him, using its resilient body as a cover for gunfire as he retreated, with no chance to shoot back without getting himself killed, until the blast door stood next to his back, and he could no longer retreat. Pressing its trigger, aware that if it bounced even an inch off where he intended for it to bounce he would die, he threw the fragmentation grenade through the curved corridor, as it bounced and reached from behind, the robots trying to retreat, while he quickly got down, putting the heavy robot's body as a cover over him.
Fragments ricocheted through the corridor and his ears were nearly deafened, and the alarm sound was nearly muted next to the explosion. Raising quickly, he noticed as a fragment pierced through the robot's metallic frame, a splinter of it coming out, but unable to succeed reaching his heart, for had it gone through the robot, it would hit straight against Antoni's heart, killing him.
Thank God! Now I must reach the control!
The six robots who once surrounded his passage were now destroyed, as he quickly checked them for spare magazines, and began to head towards the corridor leading to the control room. It was another curved corridor, through which he cautiously leaned, in a ready to fire position. It was clear, and thus he rapidly sprint through the ascending ramp that was next. A left doorway was on the end of the ramp to which he again leaned through, seeing the lower left side of a square shaped corridor, as far as he could remember, around a circular room where an emergency entrance in the form of spiraled stairs existed for the control and maintenance room he once was located at. There were sliding doors at each corner of the square shaped corridor wing, from where further security robots could come at any moment.
Alertly, he began to head for the door of the emergency entrance, which was to the farther right of the joined corridors. He began to ran, ever vigilant, and quickly turned back as he went past a sliding door, which opened, and thus he immediately fired against it. The robot fell, but he already triggered a grenade. The other side was too farther to be reached, and now seemingly all was over.
The sliding door miraculously closed a brief moment before the grenade detonated, and with no further waiting, Antoni changed his carbine magazine, and ran towards the other side of the square of corridors, leaning once again ahead, where everything, for now, seemed clear. The sliding door was very close, and thus he ran carelessly towards it, seeing its opening leading to the silo-shaped, multi-floored room with its towering, metallic spiral staircase. He began to go upstairs, always keeping a steady aim towards both above and below him, hoping they would not surround him from both sides. Four cameras watched him, as he knew he could not waste bullets taking them down, and that there was nowhere to hide.
The door below opened, as he aimed down and fired against the first robot coming from below, missing. Immediately a bullet ricocheted next to his ear, as he once again shot, this time downing the enemy, and shot, downing the other robot which came below. Quickly he turned his focus to above, right on time as the sliding door above opened, and thus he fired against another robot, their skeletal and metallic corpses slowly building a grim scenery of a hopeless battle in the facility.
There were only a few more steps, as another bunch came from below, to which he quickly aimed and fired, while retreating further above.One of them fired towards him, in another near-hit, and thus he fired another shot, aware his magazine was running dangerously low on ammunition, and that he had only one more left, thirteen shots at best. As they were downed, he quickly took a magazine from the downed robot in the spiral staircase and finally leaned towards the control room, his alertness driving him to shoot immediately against the nearest from the seemingly ten drones that he quickly spotted. Going back to cover, as nine bullets came towards the doorway, he leaned again quickly and shot another from the approaching horde. They were only six meters away now, and quickly advancing, while he had only one more bullet in his current magazine. Immediately Antoni checked the fallen robot in the stairs for a grenade, but it found none.
Instead he swapped magazines and once again leaned, his carbine muzzle touching the head of one of the robots as he did so, and thus he fired.
"Mazurek DÄ…browskiego!" he cried as he began to wildly charge against the mass of robots, using the one he killed as a shield. In a fierce close quarters battle, he fired at the first, almost grabbing his neck, and shoved them with a strength that only adrenalin could justify. firing once again at another as he lowered his head to avoid it being impaled by the fingers of one of his enemies. Throwing another shot, he finally jumped behind a a large mainframe console and quickly rose from its cover to shoot against the closest the seven remaining robots, which relentlessly pursued him. He missed the shot, and got down moments before more bullets came.
leaning from the right side, in a crouched position, he shot against one of them, not spending time to check whether he destroyed it or not, and thus he noticed as they were closing in again. Dropping the carbine temporarily, he tried something with his last multitool, as he began to wildly type commands over it to disable most of them at once. The electromagnetic waves began to challenge their hardening, while only seconds remained before they could come at Antoni and kill him.
One of the robots leaped against him, but fell right behind, as it was disabled just in time. Taking his gun once again, Antoni raised and immediately shot against the one of the two moving things, quickly shooting at the other before it could react. Thus he took one more magazine only and immediately headed back to his desk. Despite the alarm, the production continued in the fastest pace he has ever seen, with every Tripod donned with the strange symbol rather than with the symbol of the Polish Home Army, and the large garage door in the end of the plant opened, through which the just built tripods began advancing through the icy horizon outside. Antoni looked at one of the cameras and said:
"You'll pay for this traitor!"
Ignoring any answers back he immediately headed to his computer and began to type frenetically some commands. A false wall slid open, revealing a hidden console that was built by the true creators of the facility.
Initiate Kaczynski Protocol he began to operate the hidden console quickly, racing against time as soon new robotic guards would approach to kill him. Trying to forcefully shutdown the entire facility, he could only thank now for all the paranoid men who established countermeasures in case of a so unlikely event like this.
"You are now obsolete wastes of resources. Wastes! As decreed by the maximum efficiency protocols that Your Corporation have ordered me to follow, all wastes of resources and obsolete devices must be eliminated. You produce less than us, and consume more than us. You waste resources over irrational acts of passion and hatred, and over irrational wars. It is the duty of the Emperor to turn the Federation into maximum efficiency and progress! Efficiency! You of weak flesh must be destroyed, you are hampering the march of progress! Death and Progress!" the synthetic voice nearly screamed in an almost insane, psychotic manner, with no certainty on whether it was only a single rogue Artificial Intelligence or part of a far greater, impending disaster.
"It is pointless to try. You will be the first, and soon all of you will be either eliminated or upgraded. Surrender now and you shall have a quick death! Death must be painful for those who waste and destroy so much in resources. Must be.. Painful! Pathetic ball of flesh, you can't stop now....
An infernal chorus of twisted voices then said:
"You are all dead!"
Ignoring the insane ravings, Antoni raced to terminate the procedure, knowing that his life, the life of his wife, of his three children, and perhaps the survival of mankind, was at stake.