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Robot Resurrection |
| Written by richard bromley | |
| Thursday, 03 April 2008 | |
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Share it:      My name was Bill, Bill Johnson, I'd been a caretaker at Nanocorp for eighteen years, when it happened, when I died, it wasn't supposed to happen, I suppose I'd just got careless, I shouldn't have been working on my own, the health and safety executive have had a field day with this case, after all, it is the first time that anyone has been able to give evidence at their own inquest It was the tanks you see, Nanocorp, were on the cutting edge of technology, they had this way of growing things in tanks, these tanks, were full of what looked like, muddy water, but it wasn't really water. Dr Henderson, tried to explain one day when I went to his office, to repair his desk drawer. He said that the tanks were full of a liquid suspension, I think that's what he said, and in this liquid, were millions and millions of tiny robots, so small that you can't even see them, except with a microscope, Nanobots, that's what he called them. Anyway, these tanks were also full of all the things you needed to make things, metals, oils and silica, that's like sand he said, and lots of other stuff, that I can't even remember. These little tiny robots, floated around in the liquid, like little submarines, using all the metals and stuff to make things, anything you ever wanted, speedboats, motorcars, cranes, anything, all you had to do was tell them what to make with the computer and those little machines, would beaver away, then you would drain away the liquid out of the tank and then there it was, whatever you had asked them to make all finished and ready to go, right down to the seats and paint. These tanks were all different sizes, from the size of telephone boxes, right up to the size of squash courts, and even bigger. These tanks were all made out of concrete, with gantries and catwalks, all hung from the roof above them, so the scientists and technicians could check on them to make sure that everything was progressing smoothly.
My job was in maintenance, I enjoyed my job very much, you never knew what you'd be doing next, so you never got bored. I used to fix things, the photocopiers, drink machines, all that kind of thing. Dr Henderson always used to joke that the whole place would grind to a Halt, if I was to ever take more than a week off at any one time, it didn't turn out to be true, but it was a nice thing to say .
One Friday afternoon, Dr Henderson phoned me in my little office, down in maintenance and asked me if I wouldn't mind fixing one of the lights over tank 37, well it was nearly 5 o clock, but I said "sure, no problem, I'd have a look at it before I went home for the weekend". He said that he was sorry to ask so late but they wanted to run tests on the tank first thing Monday morning. I noticed that Dr Henderson and some of the other company seniors had been fussing around tank 37 for weeks. Some bigwigs, from head office had been down to the factory floor, something I had never seen before in my eighteen years at the company. Me and Dr James Henderson or Jim as he liked to be called shared a passion for coffee, he said the coffee I made in my little box room of an office was the best he'd ever tasted, he often popped down to the basement and we talked, me sitting in my rickety swivel chair and him on a box. I asked him what all the interest was in tank 37, at first he seemed reluctant to speak about it, but he soon warmed to his favourite subject and he told me all about it, after asking that I share with no one what he was about to reveal. He tells me, that they are making a new type of construction robot, one that is much more intelligent than anything that has gone before. He say's the breakthrough has been the design of a new type of computer, one that uses living organic tissue instead of conventional silicon chips. They had never asked the Nanobots to work on living tissue before. There were ethical issues at stake and the company were desperate to keep the whole project a secret from the press, until they were ready to do a full product launch and controlled presentation. He told me that there were many new applications for the use of the Nanobots not least a kind of elixir of life using nanotech for non invasive surgery. So when Jim phoned me late on that Friday afternoon three months ago, I quickly grabbed a few tools and picked up a ladder from the maintenance bay, in my haste I failed to notice the step ladder was broken. I carried the ladder up the stairs and mounted the catwalk over tank 37; looking down into the murky depths of the tank I could just make out the man shaped machine that was slowly taking shape. I looked up, as I suspected it was just a dud fluorescent tube, it was the work of a moment to fix it, just place the ladder underneath, climb up, take out the spent tube and put in another. The dud tube slipped from my grasp, I leant forward grabbing for it before it fell and smashed on the metal catwalk, to my horror, the ladder rocked and began to close up, the feet sliding on the smooth damp metal of the catwalk, pitching me forward, the ladder hit the guardrail and over I went taking the ladder with me down into the dark frigid waters of tank 37. I surfaced , the foul brackish liquid burning my eye's and throat choking me, I tried to tread water, but the liquid was thick like glue, like quicksand. I tried to reach the catwalk above me, but it was too far, I couldn't reach, panic gripped me, I shouted but no one came, they had all gone home. I kept shouting ‘HELP' until my voice grew hoarse and I became so tired, my arms and legs felt like lead and when I could no longer keep my head above the foul, caustic liquid, i took one final deep breath as the dark waters closed over my face. That breath I held, until every second was a drawn out agony, then when I could no longer endure, it burst from me and I was forced to fill my lungs with the metallic, burning chemical stew and I died. Strangely my story did not end there, the Nanobots didn't know what I was, what my body represented, to them I was just building materials, so they dismantled me and used my body. I was not aware of anything else until Jim Henderson's face swam into focus, we were in his lab, he must have pulled me out, I'm going to be alright. Then he said something unexpected, he asked me for a status report. Status report? What the hell was he talking about, I tried to speak, it felt very strange, I couldn't seem to form the words. He repeated his question, status report? He sounded angry and frustrated. Again I tried to speak, this time I managed to make a sound, my voice sounded flat and strange, I tried again,
‘Hello Jim, I could murder a cup of coffee'
Jims face contorted into a mask of bewilderment, confusion and concern, a tremor seemed to pass through his body and fearing that he was suffering some sort of seizure, I put out a hand to steady him, it was my turn to be bewildered and confused, instead of my own arm, a shiny metallic arm tipped with a formidable manipulator snaked out with inhuman speed. I looked down at my body, in place of my own familiar slightly flabby torso and legs; I was looking down at a shiny robot body with a garish yellow and black paint job. When Jim had recovered sufficiently to speak to me, we tried to understand what had happened to me. After some time and a few tests, we came to understand that those little Nanobots were to blame for my transformation. They had used parts of my brain to form the new organic computer at the robots core. I unwittingly became the world's first cyborg and that's how I came to give evidence at my own inquest.
Copyright 2008 richard bromley |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 April 2008 ) |
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