The man sat in his chair staring at the multitude of screens before him. All the screens stared back at him all reading the same messages: ERROR! CANNOT COMPUTE! INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION!
The creak of the chair echoed in the vast area as the man let out a loud sigh into the empty space. Surrounded by so many beeping and blinking machines the man did not know what to do; he was ready to give up. Ready to give up on the problems the world had left him to fix. His withered and wrinkled face sagged with his frown as many rolls manifested upon his brow. These machines that were supposed to be so smart, so able and efficient in helping him, helping society, had failed him in every aspect.
“Do you require assistance sir? I heard a noise of distress,” a concerned voice called from the doorway behind him.
In came a blank faced machine, this one’s purpose to be more human like making it easier to be calm around, and came to rest in front of the elder. The old man thought it comical that the robot could voice ‘concern’ but couldn’t make its lifeless features move to form that expression. The robot was a rusted piece of garbage that needed many repairs, its gears and circuits long since rotted and decayed, but it was ill equipped to do so itself, so it deteriorated more and more year after year.
“No, I don’t need any help. When have you ever been of any use to me anyways?” the man growled in spite at the robot.
“Very well sir. Call me if you need anything,” the robot bowed respectfully and shifted back out the door.
The man let out another despairing sigh as he looked back up at his many screens, still blinking the same messages. He raked his hand through his fading hair and pulled it down to see a clump of white, matted follicles in his palm. He felt his grief rise up again and he prepared to just call it quits, to turn off all the lights, the blinding lights that could never come close to the brilliance and beauty of the star blocked out in the days of his youth. He looked at the small button on his chair and once again found a ironic thought. Such a small thing held the power to end it all, as is such with small buttons. It had to have been a small button that caused so much damage to his vibrant world. This button didn’t have quite that affect, then again, it would be just as affecting to him as other buttons. Life was supposed to be something cherished, and perhaps it would have been, had there been a life to live. All the old man saw the button cutting off was a bunch of machines.
“Sir,” the robot from before called out tentatively, “I have to make sure everything is regulation with the machines for your ailments.”
“Come in God, and after you’re done we’re going to try out the last test,” the old man answered.
“But sir, none of the others have worked and it would not be logical to waste any more of the energy we have. You need as much as you can keep.”
“Do as I say!” the old man snapped.
“Yes sir.”
The robot fully entered and fiddled with several of the machines hooked up and laced in the man’s back and chest, checking and making sure that his lifetime companion was well taken care of. In his memory banks he could remember seeing the man before him as a young child going about his adolescence until adulthood where he had lived a life of fear. Where the two of them hid from the realities that shouldn’t have been real. He remembered the day he really looked up and saw what his friend had become. He became the withered prune he was now. In the past he might have voiced his thoughts in a humorous tone but the man had long since lost all sense of the feeling. The robot sometimes wondered who was more human now? He, who was given artificial intelligence and the ability to share the human mind, or the old man before him, born human, now needing as many gears as he did just to survive and function day to day. Once done making sure everything was functioning correctly the robot was promptly pushed out of the way as the man had his chair wheel itself to a table cluttered with many different vials. The scraping of the wires protruding from his back and chest flowed through the wide space until he came to a stop and began searching through the mess on his table. After some time it seed he finally had what he needed and the chair wheeled itself back to its original position.
The old man stared back up at the screens for a moment and then had himself turned to a set of doors. The doors scanned him and the robot before shifting open slowly only to stop midway. The old man gave a curious glance to the doors as they had never done this before. These doors always opened and closed dutifully after scanning and making sure everything was safe. Not once had he ever had any problems out of these doors, and then suddenly, they fell. The two sliding arches of the doors fell off their belts and slammed to the ground on both sides of the chair. The only reason the robot and the man weren’t smashed to their relative bits was because of the small opening the doors had made before malfunctioning. Both the man and the robot stared at the fallen doors for a time before the man shook himself out of his stupor.
“Come on God,” he demanded and they made their way through.
Inside this room heaps of scrap metal sat in various places, rising like the skyscrapers that used to stand a testament to man’s capabilities.
“Sir are you sure you want to do this?” the robot asked staring at the huge piles of failed experiments.
“Quiet,” the old man ordered.
On his lap sat a vial of quickly flashing liquid. The liquid inside changed colors from green to blue to brown to white and so on and so forth. The old man picked up the vial and emptied out the contents into the palm of his hands. The liquid puddled in his hand for a bit until solidifying into a large teardrop shape. The old man then reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an identical object in shape. The only difference between the two was that the first was made of different patches of color like the the original liquid while the other was a distinct silver color. He set both together in his hand and the merged together like magnets. There was a quick flash of light and then the end product was a glowing white teardrop in the palm of the man’s hand. The chair wheeled over to a decent sized hole set aside from the piles of metal. The floor, being metal itself, looked as if it had been carved out and smoothed until it was the crater that was there before them. The man and the robot went to the edge of said crater and peered down into it. The man took the object in his hand and threw it down into the crater, then he reached behind himself and grabbed onto one of the many wires attached to him.
“Sir please reconsider,” the robot tried to reason with the old man.
“This is my choice and I will create this life in my own image God,” the old man snarked at the robot before yanking a batter out of his many circuits.
The robot turned his head as the man threw down the battery with the teardrop. On his chair was a switch and he flicked it. The old man tensed up as if a heavy strain was being placed on him and out of the chair flowed blue sparks of electricity into the small crater. Finally it all stopped and the man let out a loud gasp as his body finally relaxed and he laid limp on his chair.
Inside the crater a pool of sparks had covered the battery and teardrop and small sparks flew out and into the air before disappearing. The pool was swallowed into the ground and nothing was left in the hole, then suddenly the ground began to shake. The piles around crumbled further and became a great mass of metal surrounding the man and the robot. Out sprang a large silver and brown base. Bulky and strong limbs spiraled out of it and seemed to reach for the sky as if searching for something, anything to grasp on to. The figure kept climbing and climbing and continued to sprout out more limbs, only these were smaller and the grew small specks. The specks shook creating a rushing and mighty sound that the old man could barely remember, from a time where the wind used to actually flow and those specks had a name. Finally the shaking stopped, the limbs stopped appearing, and there stood something beautiful. A strong sturdy base, multiple limbs, large and tiny specks vibrating in the gleaming light, it all stood there. The limbs wide and inviting as if beckoning to the man to come home and then the glowing stopped. A loud and desperate groan resonated throughout the room as the color drained from this great beast. Soon all the specks started to fall and drifted to the ground, leaving behind only a skeleton of a great creature. Its many limbs still outstretched, still searching desperately, until those too started to fall. Withered and weak they broke on impact with the ground leaving only a tall body of a once beautiful thing.
The man stared at his creation with a blank expression. After everything, after all those breakthroughs, after all that trying, he had failed. That was his final chance to right the wrongs of those before him. He couldn’t even find it within himself to despair; it was all over.
He let out a self-hating laugh before turning to his robot, “You know I can’t believe they named you God. They thought you’d be our savior.”
“Have i failed in my service to you sir?” the robot asked having a panicked lilt to its voice.
“No. That was a flaw with the humans. You did nothing wrong. Could you push this button for me God? I can’t do it anymore,” the old man asked.
“It was never your job to do so Adam,” the robot replied and pushed the button.
Adam stared up at his creation as the light faded out of his eyes, as the light faded from everything. The whirring and beeps ceased to sound as all the lights faded. He looked up with a blank stare. In his final moments the robot sank to the ground beside the old man. As all his functions started to power down fluid flowed from his upturned eyes and he cried at the loss of his friend.