Oblivion's Children

Boom! Boom!

The strange sounds brought Murl out of the communications room onto the balcony overlooking the genue production facility. The pounding reverberated through the steel delivery doors that towered over a concrete apron. The echoes returned from the far ends of the high-ceiling factory.

Except for the new noise, everything seemed normal. In the distance, Murl could see plastic pieces were being fitted together with precision by automatons. Nearer, ashen genues were being tailored with the matte green energy conversion jackets. To the left, bodies entered the DuroDerm tunnel to be laminated with plastic skin. To the right, he saw the maze of training carrels each with its genue neophyte receiving primary memory loading. In front of him, queues of naive genues waited their turn for experience training. Against the wall, dozens of completed genues stood ready to be shipped. The music of this production was being drowned by the thuds on the steel doors. Murl listened and analyzed.

Keltop from scheduling came to his side. "Murl, I come to assist you. How can I help?"

"I'm not sure," Murl replied. "An intrusion through the delivery doors seems imminent. This experience is new to me."

The delivery doors gave way to one critical blow and flung open, exposing the plant to the night air and a menagerie of people shocked into silence by their success. They stood on center stage like a cast of characters before a balcony crowd of two. Human eyes met genue photo-receptors in magnetic stares. The drone of production became a virtual silence--it was as if a time bomb had just stopped ticking.

A muscular man at the head of the invaders raised a steel bar high in the air and shouted, "Amber Day to the genues!" The mob fractured like a pane of glass, radiating out onto the factory, swinging pipes and clubs, kicking and stomping, throwing anything they could lift. Murl and Keltop watched from their perfect vantage.

"Is this an example of violence?" asked Keltop.

"Yes," answered Murl. "I've seen it before, usually one human being violent to another, sometimes two humans exchanging violence. Once a human was violent against me."

"What is its cause? What is its purpose?"

Murl thought for a moment, watching a tall man bash in the chest of one genue. A burly woman decapitated another with a splintering of plastic pieces. "Its cause has something to do with the human's internal fluids, some complex chemical exchange system they share with other biological life. My scant readings on the subject lead me to believe that it may also arise from memory residuals of their formative years. Its purpose is said to be a means to achieve an end without thought. To promote survival. It is a response that often gives satisfaction to a human. And still it is not clear to me how this can be so."