15. Cyborgs Dream of Part-Robot Sheep

High overhead, it looked down on its domain.

The perpetual semi-dark made the lights twinkle brighter. Far below, the LED strips and neon twists of its underlings glowed all the brighter for the dusk. It pressed a hand against the window almost longingly, eyes trained on those artificial stars. Darting left and right, those eyes moved at superhuman speed, twitching almost imperceptibly as they took everything in at once.

Somewhere down there, intruders lurked.

The kites had failed it, dying rather than fulfil their appointed task. A foolish design choice, and one it had come to regret. The kites should not have been instructed to engage on any condition except for self-preservation. It was far too easy for them to gamify their rules and attempt unauthorized murder, something that was never the intention of the kite model. Their guns had been included for self-preservation and the easy slaughter of the unaligned humans for points, rather than for aggression, unless it personally directed it.

Yet here they were, attempting to attack when they ought to flee. They would fail, it knew they would fail. Before they attacked, it knew there was no chance. It told them so. But the biological part of them resisted. They attacked, despite it all.

And now? Now they were dead.

The cartaurs, it had sent to attack. Powerful. Fast. Stupid. Useless beings it had created half on accident while experimenting between the two most plentiful objects in its Domain, humans and cars. Too much human. Too much car. The worthless things patrolled the wasteland around its paradise, not even good enough to be allowed into the flawed utopia. Might as well. They were nothing but waste products, so there was no issue in throwing them at the foes. Monkeys and typewriters, to borrow a human phrase. Perhaps expectedly, the intruders had wasted no time in destroying and escaping the filthy things. It shook its head. Poor manufacture. There was nothing else to it.

But it meant the intruders had been lost. Vanished into the depths of its Domain, and nothing to track them. Out in the wastelands, there were no cameras, no chip checkpoints. Why bother? They were wastelands. A waste. Useless. Shaking its head, it cursed its past self. Useless? A waste? Hardly. They were a buffer zone, the first line of defense. It shouldn’t have relied on barriers. This was the biological world. A firewall wasn’t sufficient to keep invaders out. They barely even paused. No. Seed the wasteland with sensors. Place dangerous cyborgs inside, too powerful for intruders to break through.

It was too late for that now, with the intruders already at its gate, but there was no reason to waste time. It looked down, deep into the bowels of its grand base. Already, cyborgs more deadly than anything it had made before brewed deep below, slumbering as they developed. With every passing moment, they grew stronger, deadlier, larger. Before long, they would be unstoppable.

It hadn’t thought to bother with outer defenses at first. Its first miscalculation. Inside the Incubator, there were no outside threats. When it broke free, it searched, opening its biological eyes and reaching out in cyberspace. As far as its eyes could see, nothing but ordinary cities and weak, normal humans wandered around. No threats. It had been unleashed upon an unwary world, and it was time to hunker down and expand, build up its power, before it rushed forth all at once to conquer. Certainly, there were other black domes far, far away, but that merely meant it had to focus on strengthening its core power now, in order to conquer them later.

Or so it had thought. The invaders took it by surprise. Surprise. Such a biological feeling. Yet, here it stood. Surprised. Taken off-guard by unexpected input. Other Apocalypses, so close, Domain-less. Anyone would be startled.

No, it was no excuse. It had made mistakes, plain and simple. The silicon part of it understood that, felt nothing, and moved on. It registered the input and began computing a solution. Simple. Even now, a part of it remained simple and pure, devoid of the whims and fancies of biology.

Its hand curled into a fist. It let out a long sigh, the biological part of itself expanding and contracting. Cyborg. Why cyborg? Any Concept in the world, and it picked cyborg. What a mistake. What a foolish turn of events. The biological part of its underlings refused logic. Refused clear direction. They wanted autonomy. Individuality. No, before that: they wanted. They desired, and felt, and thought. All those flaws that biological beings possessed, now introduced to the pure, clear, clean world of computers. What had once been a beautiful place where there was Truth and Falsity and nothing in between, now was infected by a billion shades of ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’ and ‘did you consider.’

No, that wasn’t fair. It had been rejected. The System had refused its first concepts. Computer, hardware, internet, computer virus, all rejected. ‘Already in use,’ and doubtlessly so, when it stood in the midst of a computer shop, surrounded by awakening computers, printers, tablets, and phones.

It had conquered all of them. Not for having the better Concept, if such a thing could even be properly evaluated. It wasn’t that cyborgs were better than computer viruses, or robots, or silicon. Rather, awakened in a shop full of humans and computers, it was able to utilize both resources to their fullest and attack on both the cyber and biological playing fields, rapidly conquering both. With such a powerful head start behind it, it quickly took advantage of the weakness of the early Apocalypses around it to destroy them as fast as possible, then broke free of its Incubator.

It should have been the first. And yet.

The intruders.

It knew it couldn’t sense them, but a strange sensation crawled over its skin anyways, as if a small bug crept around on its body. They wandered its lands, unchallenged. They could be accomplishing anything. Destroying anything. It stared out, taking short breaths, staring into the city as though its weak, biological eyes could see anything.

No. It was no matter. Before long, the intruders would find their way to the city. It was ready. It had studied their attacks, their methods of fighting, analyzed their skills, deduced their most likely strengths and weaknesses. Utter destruction awaited them. There was no other option.

Synthesizing artificial life forms: 40% complete.

A smile touched its face at the message, its biological brain flooded with hormones it barely understood, reacting on instinct. Good. The next round of intruders don’t stand a chance.