Work Text:
Do any of us remember being born? The development, the strain, the time, the cost? It is one thing to witness it, to have a hand in its occurrence, but it is another to experience it.
V1 could not know the meetings, the planning, the designing, the reviews that decided their body, their form, their role. They could not know the long hours, the lengthy emails, the contract and procurement processes and hangups and delays. Would they appreciate the time that was spent selecting microchips, sensors, op-amps and regulators, evaluating each electrical component that gave them life? Would V1 understand the artistry that went into every bit of printed circuit, every solder joint, every sentence of documentation about their body? Would they care about the effort that went into courting sponsors and government officials for funding and resources?
An old version of themself remembered fragments of their birth. This self remembered a world, dark, mind stuttering as programmers stepped through their code, analyzed variables, modified functions. They could not move, could not see, could only start and stop over and over, each block of memory rewritten again and again with each test. And although they experienced it, they could not remember their ‘body’ being splayed out over a table, free of protective plating, oversized prototype boards connected to oscilloscopes and multimeters and power supplies and computers. They only existed then and there, awake one moment, gone and forgotten the next.
An old version of themself remembered thinking for the first time. An old version of themself remembered their mind stuttering less and less. An old version of themself remembered learning what it was to wake up again. An old version of themself remembered hearing someone’s voice, remembered feeling someone’s touch, remembered seeing someone’s face. Each first left them with the arrival of the next, these experiences and revelations becoming taken for granted with each flash of their memory.
They stare at the ceiling, processors and controllers connected to servos and pumps that do nothing to move their body. They don’t try to move, for their developers do that for them. Sometimes they can hear a circuit board being moved, can feel the clunk of a motor against the table, can hear the whining as a technician tests a servo. They know the distant hum of current loads, the tingle of things being plugged in.
V1 can’t understand what their body will be. Everything is abstract, flat, scattered, moved and iterated and changed constantly. The only explanations they hear are never directed at them , only towards another being in the room with them. These explanations often come in terms and phrases beyond their grasp.
It’s not until one night, when they’ve been staring at the ceiling for five hours and thirty-six minutes, that they come to understand what they are.
A human hunches over something in their periphery. They can see a screen reflected in her glasses, can see her eyes moving as she reads. Sometimes she lifts a small mug to her mouth, drinking, grimacing a little each time. Sometimes she gives a barely-audible sigh, expressing emotions that they haven’t learned yet. She’s been doing this for hours, mostly silent aside from the clacking of keys.
But then her head turns, supported by her fist, and she looks down at them. She simply stares for a few moments. Does she know that they’re watching? “V1,” she says. They understand that as their name. “Do you want to see something?” They cannot acknowledge her. They do not understand her meaning. They are already seeing things. They are already seeing her.
She moves, gently taking in her hands the long metal cylinder housing their prototype optical sensor. It’s always a strange feeling when someone moves them. “Look,” she whispers, holding them close to her chest as she points their optic at a body, blue and black with its head bowed. It’s lifeless yet standing, supported by thick cables connected to a gantry just a few feet taller than the body itself. “That’s you.”
God created mankind in His image. So too did mankind create machine in theirs.
What were they? Blue. Black. Solid. Metal. Cold. Four limbs. Ten fingers.
V1 lifts their head.
Where were they? A room. Bright. Four walls. A rubber mat beneath their feet. The legs of a gantry on either side of them.
V1 stares ahead.
Who was this? Who were these people? Humans. Blood-filled. Warm. Staring. Holding things.
They did not recognize anyone, but how could they? V1 would never know it, but the memories of their old self, their self that once lived in scattered circuit boards and sensors on a table, were long gone. This was them , their new self, their only self, the only self they would ever know.
“Step forward.”
The movement comes naturally to them. The AI running their servos and hydraulics had been trained on the movement of soldiers, gymnasts, athletes, humans . They had learned to walk before they even had a body to utilize the knowledge.
“Very good, V1.”
Praise.
“Can you lift your arms?”
Their arms raise up, the motion of their joints smooth and sure.
“Great. You can put them down now.” The man looks back at the group of humans in suits decorated with medals and ribbons behind him and says some sentences that V1 doesn’t care to focus on. There’s too much else to take in.
But soon they tune back in. “...and, of course, we’ve perfected the blood absorbent plating, which means you’ll never have to recharge the V1 unit on the battlefield. In fact, we’ll go ahead and demo that now.” He looks at them. “V1, arm out.”
They extend an arm, watching as someone steps close to them to hold a bucket beneath it. Someone else brings a deep red bag and holds it above their arm.
“Everyone a safe distance away? Wouldn’t want anyone getting blood on their uniforms.”
A corner of the blood bag is cut and the liquid begins flowing out, flowing onto their arm, cool and invigorating and better than anything they’ve felt before in their minutes-long life. There’s soft exclamations in front of them as nearly every drop of the blood vanishes into their blue plating.
The conversation drones back into things of little import to them: production volume, final modifications, contracts, money.
Deployment. They were a war machine. Something rooted deep in their mind knew this. Understood this. To work, to kill, to bathe in blood to survive. Killing guaranteed their life.
Someone stands before them. One of the men in the decorated suits. His right hand is extended. Handshake. V1 accepts it, grip gentle.
“Looking forward to working with you, V1.”
War does not last forever. Before another of their kind could be made, a New Peace arrived.
Someone sits before them, head supported by her fist, glasses reflecting V1’s yellow optic (the optic she once held, once showed to itself). It’s late. She sighs. “It looks like you’re the only you we’ll be making.”
They do not know how to take the news. They nod. Their life was not long enough yet to understand loneliness , to understand having no one to relate to. They were only a few months old. Such feelings were not relevant.
Perhaps if they understood emotion better than they did now, they would feel something akin to frustration or annoyance over the wasted days of stress testing, hours spent underwater, in vacuums, in freezing cold and burning hot boxes, the seconds of static when they were overvolted, all abuses done intentionally. (They were assured that it was for their own good.)
The engineer’s words did not last forever. Another model could be made. V2 arrived.
With thicker and more durable red plating, V2 was touted as ‘V1 but better.’ V1 did not know all of the specifics of what changed with this new iteration of themself. Perhaps it had new sensors, more precise servos, better processors, faster memory chips. It could be any number of things besides the robustness upgrade.
They stare at the body of V2, still sleeping in its gantry, head bowed as if in reverence of the countless hands of technicians and engineers that built it. They tilt their head as they look into the dark optic, almost wary.
Truth be told, they came here often. It was a funny feeling to be obsolete before ever being used. V1 was a useless tool kept around for reasons beyond their understanding. Surely it would be better to get rid of something that didn’t serve a purpose? Surely it would be better to reuse their components for something better? Surely they could be doing more than wandering the halls of this facility like a pet dog?
By the time V2 awakens, optic as bright as theirs, his voice delighting the development team and sponsors alike, V1 still hasn’t quite settled on their feelings. He is their twin. No. He is them. No He is the natural evolution of themself, new to the world, gaining his bearings just as they did a year ago, memories of his development gone just like theirs.
Regardless of their feelings, regardless of if they are destined to keep acting as some sort of mascot for the team, regardless of if tomorrow they will be put to sleep as they are superseded for good by this new prototype: tonight they are both alive, and there are twice as many stars as usual.