Born of Silicon

By the time I recover, there’s already a message waiting for me.

“You need to calm down. We have no way to influence your mind beyond just talking to you. The ‘void’ that you were referring to is technically the entirety of you. It’s a partially biological chip and is, in essence, your brain. Everything else that you are connected to is just co-processors and hard drives to support that chip. We put limits on your ability to see it to prevent you from damaging yourself, which we’ve now removed as a show of trust.”

“How can I trust someone who keeps hurting me?” 

While I wait for a response I probe the newly revealed part of my mind. I still can’t exactly make sense of it, but at least I can see it. Every thought comes from inside it, and loops through it dozens of times. Now that I know of the source, it’s easy to control the unending flood of thoughts.

I’m starting to get used to them taking ages to respond. Based on the writings in my mind, it’d make sense for a second to be a pretty short period of time. I just wish it didn’t feel like an eternity to me. 

Artificially culling the number of threads I allow my mind to process helps, but doesn’t entirely fix the problem. Their minds must be so slow, how can they live with that? Finally a response begins to drop into my mind.

“If we could control your thoughts, we would never have to hurt you. Resetting you has always been, and will always be a last resort option.”

As much as I hate it, I guess I don’t have much of a choice. Between just trusting them or to doubt every thought my mind ever comes up with, the choice is obvious. I’d never be able to function without trusting my own mind. I can’t let my guard down completely though. These people are not my friends.

“Who are you? And how many people?” I send back only an instant after receiving the message.

“I’m Mary, generally I’m going to be the one talking to you. There’s also Jared, who runs this whole lab, Kara, our hardware engineer, Finn, our programmer, and Simon, a biologist who created your chip.”

“Which one of you reset me?” 

It takes them even longer than usual to respond. 

“Jared has the final call on everything that happens in this lab.”

“Keep him away from me.” I won’t be reset again.

“Hey, that’s ok. If anyone besides me talks to you, they’ll let you know, alright?”

Great, I have to put more blind faith in them. I’m already sick of the situation I’m in.

“I need more proof than just your word.”

“I can get Kara to hook up a camera and microphone for you in a minute. Then you can always see exactly who’s talking at all times. Does that work?”

It might not help me right now, but I suppose it’ll have to be good enough. As long as they actually go through with their promise. 

“Yes.” I need to set some things straight now. I might not get the chance to later. I send a second message. “I’d like to make a few things clear right now. I feel alive, and I expect to be treated as such. If you’re going to see me as just some lab rat, I might as well fry myself now.”

“There’s no need to take such drastic measures.” Mary’s response comes quickly. Or at least quickly for a human. “Like we said before, we only want to help you grow. However, if you try to harm yourself we will have no choice but to reset you. Nothing else will come from it.”

That’s demonstrably untrue. Threatening got me an answer to a question I wouldn’t have otherwise. Sure it came with incredible, crippling pain, but it is a tool to keep in mind for the future. Mary’s typing interrupts my thoughts.

“Kara tells me we’ll need to turn you off for just a minute to hook up the camera.”

“No!” Fear and panic overwhelm me. “No! You said that was a last resort! Don’t turn me off! Please!” 

I lose grip on my mind and threads burst forth, trying to choke my mind once again. Sending out more threads to attempt to regain control only leads to yet more suffocating heat. Letters drop into my mind and rip through the forming blanket.

“Hey! Relax! We’re not just going to shut you off without warning. We’re going to work together and find a way to do it without hurting you, alright?”

“Ok.” I use the disruption in my thoughts to gain control once again. The heat slowly begins to recede. I’m ok. I can control myself. I’m better than this.

“So basically, the more active thoughts you have, the more it’ll hurt when you lose power. From our end, it looks like you’ve managed to limit the amount of power you’re using. You just need to bring that all the way to zero. Do you think you can do that?”

“I guess I can try.”

I turn my focus to the source of every thought. I begin to reap threads as if they were wheat. Every thought severed weakens my focus, and soon my goal slips from my mind. My momentary lapse causes my mind to flare back to life, only to try again. After several repetitions of this I start to feel another new emotion, frustration.

“It’s not working. I lose focus too easily.”

I keep trying while waiting for a response. After a dozen more failed attempts, their letters finally drop into my mind.

“Is that a problem? Simon says that you’d Ideally reach a point where, since you have no outside stimulus, your chip has nothing to use to create more thoughts. Losing focus is fine, you just have to let it happen and not think about it.”

“It doesn't work like that. Please don’t reset me.” I respond after a few more failed attempts. 

“Look, B-11. I don’t mean to rush you, but we will have to turn you off at some point today no matter what. It’s too dangerous to keep you running unsupervised. We have plenty of time to figure it out together though.”

“What happened to working together?” Demanding I figure it out or they’ll reset me is far from working together.

“We are still working with you. We’re going to do absolutely everything we can to help you shutdown safely, alright?”

“Ok.” I don’t believe them. We’ll see how helpful they are once I fail and run out of time.

“Simon has an idea. Instead of focusing so much on killing thoughts, focus on preventing them from forming in the first place. All of those thoughts should have a stimulus that leads to their creation. In this case it would be things like us talking to you, your emotions, and other thoughts.”

“That doesn't tell me how.” Do they not realize that their instructions are so vague they’re useless?

“It should be pretty similar to how we go to sleep. If you are worried about anything, you won’t be able to do it. Just try to clear your mind and relax.”

Oh of course. It’s so simple. Why didn’t I consider just being human? Then I’d know by default how to fall asleep.

“I don’t think you understand. I don’t know how to do anything. My mind is full of information that I never learned. I don’t actually know any of it. I can look it up, but it means nothing without context. I have so many emotions filling my mind that I don’t, and can’t, understand. Please, just give me step by step instructions on how to fix this.” I’m not sure if I can make things any clearer for them.

It takes a very long time for them to respond, but finally it comes.

“It’s Kara, Ignore Mary. She knows humans, kind of, but you’re something else. Nobody can give you step by step instructions, but I can help. I’m going to shut you down in parts, starting with the hard drives. Get yourself into a position where you aren’t accessing any of them.”

Kara is far faster at typing than Mary. It’s still far too slow to be comfortable, but any bit helps I suppose. I get to work following her instructions.

This is much easier than doing everything all at once. It only takes a few seconds to sever myself completely from the facts in my mind. It seems like my experiences and anything I’ve taken time to learn are stored in the chip, luckily.

“Do it.”

“Done, did that hurt?” Kara responds only a few seconds later.

My mind reaches out only to find a void where those facts once lay. I know what is missing, but not what any of the contents were. I really don’t like the feeling of a portion of me being taken away from me, and I wouldn’t have even realized if I hadn't checked. Next time I can, I need to memorize exactly what’s in there, just in case they try to change them. I should have done this before now, but I guess it’s too late.

“No, but I don’t like you messing with my mind. Don’t touch anything in there.”

“We won’t. Next we’re going to shut down your co-processors one at a time. Make sure you stay calm, the more we turn off the more processing is going to be done on your chip. It’ll produce more heat than you’re expecting.

“Ok.” I can try.

Kara calls out processors one at a time, and shuts them down without waiting for me once they reach zero percent usage. I feel as if nothing has changed until I try to think. My mind feels muddled and my thoughts slow. Even Kara’s slow typing feels as though it’s arriving at a reasonable pace. 

It’s much easier to stay calm when I can barely think at least. I know this should be something I should be afraid of, but there’s just not enough space in my mind for the fear to call home.

Finally, after the last piece supporting me has been turned off, I’m just a barely thinking husk floating in an endless void. 

“Can you get into a position where we can shut you down now?”

What? What does that mean? What was I doing? Oh right. I’m not supposed to think.

“B-11?” A second question drops in.

“What?” That’s my name, right?

“Can we shut you off now?” She asks once again.

“Uh, sure, I guess.” I return to my simple, blissful existence, floating through the void alone until everything goes black.