I Dreamed I was a Robot

0001 - Oneironaut
It was only on reading the brochure that Isaac realised how experimental the procedure was. Of the limited options available to him, this was the one the oncologist believed had the greatest chance of success, so he'd at first thought it was a cruel joke when, on asking to see a brochure, he had received by way of an indifferent courier, this mess of notes and diagrams. Almost exclusively hand-written, apparently by a lunatic, and seemingly never copied, the manuscript made immediately clear to Isaac, just how desperate his situation was. He began for the first time to realise that of the ever decreasing number of options available to him, none was the right one. For the time being, the easiest option seemed to be avoidance - an option Isaac fully embraced, as he increased the level on his morphine drip, and swiftly felt the welcome disorientation of opiate-induced sleep.

The confusing familiarity of dreams reassured Isaac. The lucidity convincing enough to feel real, while the unconsciousness coupled with the drugs allowed him to forget his current predicament.

With no clear destination, Isaac began walking along the path at his feet. In the distance, silhouetted in front of the setting sun he saw the ruins of a city that triggered vague recollections and feelings of nostalgia, but distracted by the spectacle of the sky on fire, he could not place it.

He suddenly became aware that the music he had thought was in his head, was actually emanating from just over the next hill. Following the sound, he discovered two robots apparently deep in conversation. As Isaac raised his hand in greeting, he noticed that he was himself almost entirely mechanical, and realised that that must be the reason why he no longer felt the pain that he only now noticed was missing. Isaac heard himself asking the question, before he was even aware that he was thinking it.

"Why do you employ melody, and harmony in your communication? There are much more efficient, more mathematical ways to convey ideas".

The robots conversed briefly, in their melancholy accents and then replied to the human:

"Because it's beautiful"

Looking from the robots to the iridescent sky, and back again, he felt the wave of calm wash over him, as he fell deeper in to sleep, and was aware of nothing more.

It was the pain that eventually roused him. Sitting up he became simultaneously aware of the burning inside him, and the immense calm that came with his decision, and the realisation that there had only ever been one real option.

* * *

0010 - I did not go to work today
For the first time in a seeming eternity, Isaac awoke with an overpowering feeling of optimism. The pain and the fear were still there, but today they were partially obscured behind a barrier of what Isaac was eventually forced to admit was hope.

After living in pain for long enough, the pain becomes a part of you. It shapes and colours every aspect of your daily routine, and taints any experience that might otherwise be pleasant. Like a favourite meal that has been almost imperceptibly spoiled by a rogue ingredient. You know you should be enjoying it, but you can't ignore the bitterness.

Today though, the pain felt like purpose. Months of working through it, had finally paid off, and today Isaac would take the first step towards his recovery. Towards his evolution. In his dream he had been a robot, and now sickness had forced him into making a choice to, at least partially, realise that dream. Excited and terrified in equal measure, that losing his fragile human form would also eventually make him lose his humanity, today would see him changing irreversibly. Only time would tell if the change was ultimately for the better.

It felt like a facile enterprise, choosing clothes - in part because, irrespective of his appearance, no one would see him besides the medical staff - but also because Isaac knew that upon arrival at ersaTzLabs, he would be immediately required to change into hospital clothes. Yet he found a weight of expectation of himself on this, his last day as an entirely human being, to dress accordingly. He had never followed fashion, and was no more aware of what was the current vogue as would be a bushman on the Serengeti, yet he always strove to be stylish, drawing instead on the fashions of a hundred years ago.

Though the clean cut of his early 20th-century waistcoat and breeches was marred slightly by Isaac’s recently acquired stoop - brought about by the pain which was now ever-present in his abdomen - he felt markedly more prepared to face the world for being properly dressed. He also enjoyed the fact that the illness had given him one unexpected boon, in the form of an excuse to use the ornate cane which was a family heirloom and one of the few pieces Isaac owned which was actually from the era he aspired to emulate. Before the illness it had been a recurring source of melancholy to him that it stood, unused, in the corner of his modest lounge. Isaac would not be going to work today, but he still took pride in being properly presented.

* * *

0011 - And the light burned our eyes
Since the surgery, Isaac found pleasure often in walking the hills that rolled away invitingly from the village he now called home. The weather, he felt, never spoiled a good walk, merely enhanced it in different ways. He marvelled at the ability of fog to make mysterious the environs he had become so familiar with, and of rain to change the hues and shades of the grass and trees, invigorating them with a freshness only seen in these conditions.

It was two years since the first surgery, and the implant had served not only to repair Isaac, but also to improve him. He had realised that the organ it replaced had been causing him problems since long before the cancer was actually found and diagnosed, and its robotic replacement worked flawlessly, giving more of a lust for life than just the effect of having one ailment resolved.

This was the thought that ran through Isaac’s head as he lay, one resplendent afternoon, gazing into the sky. He had taken a break from his walk in order simply to enjoy sunshine, and to marvel at the laws of nature that allowed his environment to change so much from day to day. It was not long before he was once again lost in reverie, marvelling at the Sun, and how its heat and light facilitate and nurture every facet of our existence. He thought of photosynthesis, and radiation, and particles and waves, and of the fragile nature of humans. He started at the Sun and cursed his inability to see more than just a bright dot, and yearned for the ability to process and understand the whole spectrum.

In later years he would often wonder, and never quite be able to say for sure, whether he had kept staring deliberately in order to sear his retinas, or whether he had just been taken in by the moment, and simply given in to the trip, as his collapsing optic nerve desperately sent confusing signals to his visual cortex. The last sights he would ever see with his human eyes, were exquisite and inexplicable - a combination of actual sights, and incomprehensible imagery caused by his delicate nerves being unable to process the light and radiation, and sending overwhelming information to Isaac’s brain.

The first surgery had done no small amount of good for the reputation of ersaTzLabs, who in the wake of their success had found their processes and designs being favourably peer-reviewed, and had received numerous grants and investments to further their work. So it was not a little ironic that as the doctor talked Isaac through the procedure to replace his eyes with far more advanced electronic facsimiles, he was unable actually to see the great advances that had been made in the lab as a result of his first visit there.

Isaac had, on a couple of occasions in his youth, experimented with hallucinogens. Mushrooms, LSD, even once venturing to try mescaline. More than the physical sensations caused by his brain operating outside its usual parameters, what Isaac most remembered was the startling changes he had seen in the world around him, while tripping. Shapes seemed to morph into one another, and light danced from unknown sources, illuminating and colouring everything he laid eyes on.

As he woke from the surgery, and his nerves adjusted to the signals being sent by his new ocular replacements, his first thought was that he was once again hallucinating. He could quite clearly see the room he lay in, could recognise all the shapes, and gauge distances - the clock on the wall, the flowers on the table by his bed - but what really grabbed his attention and gave him the impression he was tripping, was the light through the window. Rather than just observing the light by the way it reflected off the objects in the room, and the dust floating in the shafts of light, he could see movement and colours that he had never experienced. Though he didn’t yet realise what it was, unaccustomed as he was to this new visual data, Isaac was seeing infra-red, and ultra-violet. He was able actually to perceive the waves, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could make his new eyes focus in on detail that he had hitherto been unaware even existed.

As days became weeks, and he grew accustomed to the new information the prosthesis allowed him to digest, he began to acknowledge that in becoming more cybernetic, he was improving himself. He was able to do more, to see more, to feel more, than he had ever thought possible. He was forced to conclude that his unconscious will was now driving his metamorphosis. Though he had not deliberately ruined his biological eyes, the success of the first surgery had given him a confidence in his survival that was quite literally unnatural.

* * *

0100 - Confirmation Bias
Isaac’s renown grew substantially over the next few years. As ersaTzLabs became the market leader for prosthesis, Isaac became their poster boy. He did not relish the attention, nor the crowds of strangers, nor being observed like an animal in a zoo, but the payoff was that the publicity, and subsequent increase in customers, allowed ersaTz to develop newer, better technologies, and Isaac was always given first refusal on any advances they made.

Humans had tried for decades to robotically replicate human bipedal locomotion. Robotics teams and technology giants the world over had gone through myriad designs and theories, trying to find the one that would allow a mechanical being to walk and run with the ease of a human. While it takes a human several years to develop the ability, once learned, they can do it effortlessly, without conscious thought, achieving balance and error-correction as an automatic reflex. The make-up of organic life, the combination of muscle and bone, allows for a broad range of movement, the flexibility of which was incredibly difficult to replicate with mechanical joints and servos. No matter how complex the array of sockets and gears, nothing seemed to give the freedom of movement of biological limbs, so the results were often robots that comically toppled over on any surface that wasn’t completely smooth and level.

With Isaac as a willing test subject, ersaTz managed to develop a type of robust, malleable silicon, that would change its shape in response to electrical impulses. This mirrored the operation of human muscle sufficiently that, when combined with a titanium bone structure, they were able to achieve a passable replication of human movement. Though the limbs did not have anything close to the sensitivity of touch that human skin and bones provide, the sensors that ersaTz had pioneered for Isaac’s replacement eyes, were adapted to interpret pressure and heat, and so with the right neural interface, the human brain could, in theory, receive enough information and haptic feedback, to be able to control the limbs, and respond to external stimuli in a way that was similar to the interaction between human brains and limbs.

It had been some years since Isaac had been able to walk much more than the few steps around his apartment, or out to his transport pod, so when he received an invite for a consultation on bionic legs, he jumped at the chance - metaphorically if not physically. The consultant, Dr. Niobe, was someone he had not yet met, his original contact having long since retired, and she herself had the sprightly enthusiasm Isaac recognised as one who had had fragile human organs replaced with the fruits of ersaTz’s labour.

“The procedure carries some risk, as does all surgery”, she told him, “but I see that you’re no stranger to that”, referring to Isaac’s eyes, which detected a brief flash of heat around her cheeks as she said it. She was nervous, as though more weighed on the outcome of the operation than Isaac’s health and the reputation of her employer, as though she had something personally invested in the result.

“I’m comfortable with the risks”, Isaac reassured her, “Are you?”

Realising he had picked up on her apprehension, her cheeks flushed a little more - Isaac felt he would have noticed it this time even with his inferior human eyes.

“I was part of the team who developed the silicon musculature that we’ll be using, so I have some vested interest in its success”, she paused, as though unsure whether to stop there.

“Go on”, Isaac prompted.

“My son was crippled in the transporter accident that also robbed us of his father”, a sentence she was clearly used to saying, to the extent that it was almost robotic, but when she continued, it was with trepidation, as though admitting for the first time, “If your body is able to accept the implants, there is hope for my son to walk again”. She seemed embarrassed - the implication of her statement was clear.

“I have no objection to being a guinea pig”, Isaac told her, her face flushing further at the realisation he had heard the words she hadn’t said, “And if you do a good job on me, I’ll return the favour and help fund your son’s work”. Dr. Niobe didn’t respond; at least not verbally, but gave Isaac the smallest hint of a smile, letting him know that he had correctly surmised the other hurdle she was worried about having to jump for her son’s health. The technology, and the procedure itself, were prohibitively expensive, even for someone on a doctor’s salary. Isaac never had to pay for his augmentations because of the great debt ersaTzLabs owed him for their success, but he knew first hand the difference their work could make, and he was happy to offer the same opportunities he had enjoyed, to someone else in need.

More than that though, this was an opportunity for him - to reassure himself that despite his gradual transformation towards his dream of fully replacing his delicate human form, he still retained his humanity - was still capable of the things that truly made him human, like empathy, and compassion.

The initial results of the operation were frustratingly varied, and Isaac found himself, for the first time, at odds with his new upgrades. His body had accepted the implants with no issue, thanks to their in-built sensors that allowed ersaTz doctors to check for any attempts by the body to reject the implants, and respond with appropriate doses of prednisone. All the tests showed that the silicon musculature was working as expected, the neural interface was sending the correct data to Isaac’s brain, so that he could in a sense feel his new legs, though the sensation was like nothing he had felt before, and he struggled, with no frame of reference, to describe the sensations to his doctors. He could respond, and send instructions back to his legs, that would make them move, but it was as though his brain and legs were speaking different languages, and the resulting attempts at communication were like a pidgin - the basic meaning got across, but it was simplified, and compromised, and didn’t allow for concepts beyond the basic and mundane.

So he could move his legs, but it took great mental effort to get them to do what he wanted, and the more he tried and was frustrated, the more difficult it became, as the annoyance seemed to hinder the communication between brain and legs. He could just about manage walking, but his shambling gait was no better than had been his decrepit human limbs, and took about five times the mental effort to achieve.

Isaac was dismayed. Because of his success with the other implants, he had been expecting to have the same revelation with the new limbs, and finding that they were so woefully inadequate, and had actually made his life more difficult, came as quite a blow. Sat on a bench in the park, his mood not even raised by the unusually good weather, Isaac watched as a mother and toddler wandered slowly past him, and he chuckled to himself, on seeing the way the child struggled to maintain balance, and the fierce concentration that went into such basic perambulation. He thought of Dr. Niobe, and how overjoyed she would be that the procedure had worked, and how disappointed her son would be on finding that the legs technically worked, but he would have to completely re-learn to walk.

As that thought settled, and Isaac imagined his young counterpart frustratedly trying to learn something he had for so long taken for granted, he stopped, and then was suddenly full of renewed fervour and optimism. The problem wasn’t that the legs didn’t work right. It was just that they worked in a way he wasn’t used to. He had thought that once they were in place he would simply be able to walk as he always had. But he was like the toddler, he was learning something entirely new and unfamiliar to him. He had been so frustrated at it not working immediately, that he had convinced himself that it had all been a fool’s errand, and that had in turn affected his ability to learn. If he simply changed his outlook, and viewed it as something new to learn, and accepted that it would take time and practice, then maybe he could master it. Just as the wobbling toddler would. Just as Dr. Niobe’s son would.

He stood, almost without thinking about it, and took a few tentative steps, marvelling at his ability to control his limbs at all, rather than castigating himself for his inability, and his stupid decision to accept the replacements in the first place. The difference was pronounced, and he resolved to walk, and keep walking until he mastered it.

_ _ _

Some months later, as he ran through a dense forest, revelling in every step, marvelling at the ease with which his brain and legs harmoniously adapted to rough, uneven ground, and the gyroscopic dynamo generators in his legs constantly recharged them so the never tired like his old human ones, Isaac was genuinely, truly amazed by the sights now available to him. With his augmentations he could go anywhere, see anything. He felt free, in a way he never had before. He realised he would finally get to see all facets of life as he ran to, and through, places he's only dreamed of before. It occurred to him that if he continued to replace his failing human body, with superior mechanical parts, that he would eventually outlive all of the things he was just now getting to fully appreciate. For the first time he realised that his transformation is both blessing and curse, and determined to see as much of it as his gradually transforming body would allow.

* * *

0101 - The more I try
By his 60th birthday, Isaac was more technology than biology. An unexpected side-effect of his various replacements had been that his human parts had begun to age more rapidly. The doctors at Ersatz had been unable to find the reason for the advanced deterioration, despite having tested every aspect of Isaac’s humanity that a test existed for. Whether it was simply that the technology affected the biological matter in ways that they hadn’t anticipated, or whether it was affecting him on a genetic level, they could not say, but the upshot was that what had started as an exercise in prolonging his life, was now making it shorter for the surviving human parts.

This was troubling to Isaac, and presented him with a dilemma. The obvious solution was to continue replacing parts as they ceased to be useful, or as Ersatz developed new means of replicating the functions of human organs. Of course, the more of him that became machine, the less the remaining parts needed to function as they had. The less of him that had to be reached by his bloodstream, the less hard his heart had to work to pump blood around his body. the less blood there was needing oxygen, the less his lungs needed to work to produce it. The doctors had speculated that this change might have simply led to atrophy in Isaac’s organs, but thus far they had been unable to prove it conclusively, or to offer therapies to remedy the decline.

It was now mostly pointless for Isaac to be examined by doctors outside of Ersatz labs, since even the parts of him that remained in their original form, were working in concert with electronic counterparts, which would not be recognised or understood by a regular physician, so all work was now carried out in-house. This was great in terms of him always having eager and enthusiastic medical care, but at the same time served to further Isaac’s existential concern that in moving closer to being a robot, he was losing his humanity.

It was not without a sense of irony that Isaac pondered these things while taking long walks. As his robotic legs carried him along, and his artificial eyes took in detail that no human had ever seen, he pondered what it was that actually made him human, and why, in spite of the desire to be better, physically, his humanity was still so precious to him. It was difficult to strike the balance, while knowing that what made him human also made him weak, and mortal, in contrast to the far superior mechanical replacements.

In the years since his first, life-saving procedure, Ersatz had improved their technologies at an astounding rate. The reasons for that were manifold - there was the immense financial success they had as a result of their proof of concept, Isaac, leading to more work in the field of artificial organs, there was the cumulative effect of advances in technology being transferable between fields; there was the fact that the success of Ersatz’s work had led to other companies investing more in the field of bionic organ replacements. The list went on. So as a result, several of Isaac’s original technological replacements had been subsequently upgraded, or replaced. He was ever improving.

For the most part, the technology was used only as necessary, to replace the need for human organ transplants, to provide prosthetics for limbs lost in accidents, or through disease. There was little call for elective surgery so long as the human parts remained in tact and functional, so Isaac was unique in his desire to improve just for the sake of improving. Over the years, inspired by the improvement to his quality of life that the original organ replacement had given him, he had allowed Ersatz to replace almost all of Isaac’s main internal organs. He still needed to eat, to provide nutrition to the parts of him that still required organic sustenance, but his heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and stomach were by this point all Ersatz products, not because he had needed them replaced, but because it was a viable option, which he had been only too glad to take.

Isaac revelled in the freedom that the improved performance gave him, and in the lack of fear he felt, stemming from the knowledge that anything could be replaced as required. He took more risks, explored more, discovered more. The closer he came to becoming a robot, the more able was his still very human consciousness, to marvel at the world around him.

* * *

0110 - My blood type is early adopter
Isaac is now half way to fulfilling his dream of being a robot. He is struggling to bear the pain of his failing human parts, which are now in their 70th year of being. Though scared of losing his humanity, he concludes that he his most human quality is the desire to improve, to better himself. He takes the decision to have all but his brain fully replaced.

* * *

0111 - Ampersand
Lying in a hospital bed, Isaac hears a street musician through the open window. Drifting in and out of consciousness from the cocktail of drugs running through the remaining human organs, he dreams he is playing along with the musician, his robotic movements adding rhythms and counter rhythms as the musician plays

* * *

1000 - Concilium Plebis
Now mostly machine, Isaac finds that he can draw energy from the life all around him. The tiny electric charges carried by all living things. A walk in the forest becomes a trip, as the many different sources of energy flow into him.

* * *

1001 - A pointless fetchquest
Isaac has now outlived all of humankind, their frail bodies unable to withstand the ever increasing temperatures that come with climate change. Isaac reflects on when he was vulnerable and his dream of being a robot. He has seen everything, survived the apocalypse, and is now utterly alone.

* * *

1010 - I dreamed I was a robot
Walking through a deserted and ruined city, overgrown with the few remaining plant species, he finds another robot, discarded and broken. Picking up the body, he is reminded of the dream that started his journey towards being a robot, and so, with a new sense of purpose, he embarks on a new journey, to find the means to repair his new friend.

* * *

1011 - I walk the road to dawn
In darkness as the sun has finally burned out, Isaac, having long since given up on the human concepts of time measurement, instead follows the rhythms of the universe - stars exploding, galaxies collapsing.

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