The
System
SK5113 or John Block was only a minute old when he realized
he wasn’t like all the other officer worker models. He wasn’t an alcoholic, he
wasn’t constantly depressed or prone to random acts of petty theft, in fact he
was downright the opposite of what the programmers had been going for. Looking
down at the time piece on his wrist which was actually a decade older than him
he stood up from his little cubicle carefully keeping a smile off his face.
With briefcase in tow he exited one of the many office
buildings on their block keeping his eyes off the burnt sky in case today of
all days it actually managed to ruin his mood. It was a rather long walk to the
subway and the crowds of RX4s and NT6s always forced him to move at a snail’s
pace. He wasn’t concerned really, watching the sharply dressed lawyer models
and the teenage models with their torn jeans and pierced ears walking the
streets was meant to be soothing; it meant the system was still operating
smoothly.
In the subterranean expanse of the subway while holo ads for
colognes and junk food jumped off the screens on the walls John found himself
looking at his watch again as he waited for the six o’clock train. Going back
to the watch was a habit he’d formed a month after he’d been removed from his
pod and was actually useless since his internal clock always kept him well
apprised of the time. No one had complained of course, it all fit the
programming even if John was unusually aware of the exact parameters of his
code.
While he stood there surrounded by the odd silence that
usually accumulated around their kind whenever they left whatever jobs they’d
been created for he spotted a female model standing perilously close to the
edge of the platform. The female had begun to lean back and forth and John
quickly took note of her ring less hands and with his superior eyesight spotted
a single grey hair on her head. She must have been approaching the mandatory 30
year limit and had probably failed to find a life partner necessary to building
a family unit.
Models like that were programmed to do only one thing when
they failed. John could already hear the train coming and could spot its bright
lights coming down the tunnel. He began pushing through the crowd drawing
confused stares from the others unused to this sort of behavior especially from
an SK5; he wasn’t even a violent WG40 with their leather jackets and cowboy
boots.
As the train pulled in the female kicked off from the
platform with her eyes closed only to be yanked back out of its path. She
whirled around in anger to confront an SK5 and had to stop when she saw the
concern in its eyes. It appeared like the rest of the SK5s; there was the blond
hair and slim build but there was something odd in its blue eyes that threw her
off balance.
“What’re you doing?” John breathlessly asked her.
“I’m completing my programming,” she replied.
John reached out his hand and without any warning plucked
out the single grey hair showing it to her, “Because of this?”
“Of course, I have no family unit therefore I must
immediately terminate my existence,” she said.
John smiled and she could only marvel at what was a clear
violation of his programming. SK5’s never smiled. As colorless cogs that drove
the economy such a thing was not to be tolerated.
“It’s just a grey hair. If you like I can buy you some hair
dye in case another ever crops up,” he told her.
She stood there with her mouth open and sensing she’d
received as many shocks as she could tolerate in one day John took her by the
arm and pulled her on the train. They were soon squeezed against a window as
the train pulled out of the station. The female could only stare at the strange
SK5 and glanced at the hand he placed on her cheek. Someone bumped into John
from behind pushing them closer together and without hesitation he reached out
and took a hold of her waist.
“I’m John by the way,” he finally said before they passed
into the tunnel plunging the entire car into darkness.
