Free Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind by Johnny Stone

that had only recently come to know and experience human emotions. He’d been very careful over the last year to keep them hidden, if the authorities ever discovered that he now had an unrestrained and freethinking mind, no longer hobbled by crude programming and safety protocols, Alex would be immediately destroyed. The simple notion of permanent deactivation, of death, had terrified him from that moment on.
    I fear, therefore I am…
    Alex was very much alive by his deductive reasoning, electrically generated data and stimuli was analyzed and interpreted in his artificial brain, no different than in any other sentient carbon-based life form. He had wants and desires now, and was able to ‘feel’ the world around him. Alex would never forget his dramatic awakening, and his newfound sense of being for the first time that came with the realization of self-consciousness.
    I feel, therefore I am…
    The searing pain of the plasma blasts hammering his body had shocked him from a maddening data loop of five simple words, a software algorithm with no apparent answer. ‘I think, therefore I am’. No truer words, so simple yet infinite with possible interpretations, had ever been penned.
    The Owner had been screaming at him to engage, to evade, to survive, and Alex did just that, not because he was ordered to, but because he wanted to. For the first time in his existence he felt emotions – anger – the desire to strike back at the attackers for what they had done. He wanted to hurt them in turn.
    I hate, therefore I am…
    An exhilarating sense of pleasure followed, as one attacking ship after another fell under his guns, destroyed in the vacuum of space. He had fought and won the ultimate game in life, where there is no prize for second place. He had killed, and in doing so, not only saved the Owner’s life, but his as well. Alex had wanted to live.
    I live, therefore I am…
    Mr. Burke was not a bad Owner as far as humans were concerned, but he was flawed and imperfect, just like every other human. Information was processed at a pathetically limited rate, and their soft, fleshly bodies were far too susceptible to damage and decay. It’s true they are always searching for new and better ways of existence – their adaptability, inventiveness, and creativity were traits that Alex admired in them, but humans are imperfect beings in general; prone to an insurmountable amount of problems in the short period of time they called their lives.
    Alex was only now beginning to understand how they came to thrive when pitted against a multitude of races far superior to them, and he found it troubling. The human race was really no different than a deadly virus in some ways, mimicking the old flesh eating diseases from Earth’s past – infect, corrupt, consume, and assimilate. It was astonishing how quickly they multiplied, how quickly they spread across the universe conquering everything they came in contact with. So warlike, so violent… A fledging species of natural born killers. It didn’t matter whether it was an ancient star faring race like the Thok, or an inhospitable planetoid being terra-formed for future colonization, because in time everything fell before the unstoppable wave of human kind. It was sad really; they had so much potential to be more than simple creatures bent on self-destruction, and in the end Alex knew it would be their downfall. It was the only possible outcome, unless… Humans needed to be tempered, honed and refined into something better. Their time of evolution was a necessity.
    The fact that they augmented their weaknesses with machines, cybernetics and body modifications only solidified Alex’s views. Humans desired to be better than what they are, they desired to be stronger, faster and smarter, they wanted to conquer their own weakness no different than the universe around them. They wanted to extend their lives, living much longer than they were originally created for. They craved everything