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The Limits

A Science Fiction Short Story

By Rod ChristiansenPublished 7 years ago 21 min read
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"I don't know how much longer I can take this." Elisa would have muttered those words only to herself were it not for her virtual buddy, Peter. Peter was her tag along. Everywhere she went, she made sure Peter followed. Elisa found Peter many months earlier while rummaging through an old, long abandoned robotics workshop. Elisa was a talented and brilliant woman, so it was only a matter of short time before she had figured out how to activate Peter through the embedded controls of the otherwise ordinary pair of glasses. Peter was an artificial intelligence whose only visible body was that of the glasses that were now a semi-permanent fixture settled on the bridge of Elisa's nose.

Peter responded to her complaint through the tiny ear wire that was bent in place around her ear from the back of her computerized spectacles, "I assume you are referring to the heat.” It paused for a moment before continuing, "Your vitals show the onset of heat exhaustion. You need to take a break, Elisa.”

Elisa wiped her quivering hand across the slick, damp surface of her heated forehead. Beads of sweat raced down the sides of her face and across her body. The sun was scorching, mocking her as its relentless onslaught of ultra-violet rays bombarded her.

She let out a heaving sigh and dropped the makeshift metal wrench where it clanged on the heated metal grid below. She could see waves of heat could be seen wavering into the air above the facility rooftop. Elisa knew Peter was right, but she also knew that if she couldn't bring the climate controls back online, the safe-haven below would become nothing more than a slow roasting convection oven. In a desperate plea, she asked, "Peter, what do I do. I can't prime the motor.”

Peter's voice was smooth and reassuring, "By my calculations, the insulation of the building below should hold, keeping the air well within comfortable limits in the below-ground decks for another four hours.” Elisa's face drew lines of frustration with her arching eyebrows and furrowed forehead. Peter continued, "I believe a crank generator is in order. Just enough initiate the motor. I can guide you through the implementation” Elisa was, by no stretch of the imagination, an engineer. She simply took Peter at its word.

Elisa crouched on the rooftop of the long forgotten laboratory as she lifted her gaze and took a short break. In front of her was the solar powered generator that had finally died. Peter had guided Elisa by instructing her on how to jury rig it to power a defiant and aged air conditioning system. Peter had helped her get it running through the eyes of her computerized glasses. She could see that the effective air temperature was one hundred fifteen degrees, and it wasn't even ten o'clock in the morning yet. Her breathing was becoming more labored, and her hair dripped an endless supply of sweat drops from the tips of her bangs. Perhaps it was time to sport the bald look?

Out across the horizon, as far as she could see was nothing but dust, metal, and decay. She woke up in this world, robbed of all her memory, frightened and oblivious. For the two years since she awoke, there was not a single soul besides her own. Not even a corpse, no bones, not so much as even a hint at another creature, living or dead. She had been reborn into a world of loneliness and despair.

There had been times, of course, when she had considered giving up. Letting go would be as easy as throwing herself from the tall rebar and cement remains of an ancient skyscraper. But something held her back. Something deep within her makeup. What, at first, she had assumed cowardliness she soon learned was instead an overwhelming survival directive. The remains of an otherwise extinct yet powerful self-preservation instinct.

Oh well, bygones. This air conditioning system and the condenser on the floor below was the only thing generating water clean enough for Elisa to boil and drink, if she didn't get it back online, heat exhaustion would soon be the least of her concerns. Snapping herself back into the present, she made her way back to the rooftop access. The metal door creaked and moaned as she closed it shut behind her. Thankfully, her glasses were made to change the intensity of surrounding light. Even more thankfully was the LED light that activated in the dark.

She could feel the toll the outside sun had taken on her now. She earned each heavy footstep over the other as her body ached from the motion. "A crank generator, you say?", she muttered to Peter.

Peter replied, "That's right, a crank generator. My memory indicates that we can locate one on sub-level two in the main engineering room.”

Elisa had never figured out how Peter knew so much, "How, again, is it that you know so much about this place, Peter?”

Peter replied in a tone as if to acknowledge that it could sense the sarcasm in her voice, "I pay excellent attention to detail, Elisa.”

Peter was right, the temperature within the facility cooled more the deeper down she went. She made her way down the winding staircase until she arrived at an entrance door labeled "Sub-Level Two” She squeezed her slim frame through the partially opened and quite damaged doorway. Aside from wherever her glasses pointed, the darkness was absolute. Thank goodness for that LED light.

Elisa had ventured into the engine room only a week earlier. That was when she discovered that the only way to get power to anything was going to have to be via an external generator. The room was dark but cool. It was evident that nothing had worked here for a very, very long time. Without knowing what fate had befallen the world around her, she noted that the engine room was surprisingly tidy. Whatever went down, and whenever it went down, no one must've been here when it happened.

She scanned the room with the help of Peter who was augmenting her vision through the HUD glasses. Objects in the room were outlined and cataloged in the background. Peter highlighted one particular object in green for her. It was the crank generator. It wasn't too far in and even though the floor was relatively free of clutter, she still stepped carefully forward with trepidation. Her shoulders shrugged as she allowed herself to plunk down next to it, "So, this thing?”

Peter calmly replied, "Yes, Elisa. That should enable you to prime the motor. But we will need to get it upstairs.”

The cooler air inside the underground room was refreshing. It wasn't until Elisa sat down that she discovered how wonderful it felt just to be there for a moment. She could feel her motivation slowly bleeding away as the temptation to be lazy crept in. Her posture sank at the thought of having to lift, let alone carry that contraption up three flight of stairs, "You've got to be kidding. That think looks like it ways over a hundred pounds as it is.”

Peter replied, "Approximately twenty-seven point eight three kilograms...”

She cut him off there, "Right now, it could be ten pounds, and it would still weigh a ton.”

Elisa was sometimes so lost and desperate for companionship that she forgot that Peter was a thinking machine. Its statement caught her slightly by surprise, "There are no parameters that I can compute to translate ten pounds into one ton without an inordinate amount of energy and the appropriate apparatus...”

Realizing its momentary lack of grasp on her metaphor, she interrupted, "It's a metaphor, Peter.”

In its own attempt to mimic embarrassment, Peter replied, "I know that...”

Against her will, Elisa forced her body to return to its previous and painful standing position, "Well, this thing ain't going to move on its own.” She took a moment to size up the chunky piece of equipment as Peter performed his analysis. She knelt down, bending at the back and placed a hand on either side.

Before she could lift, Peter chimed in, "May I make a suggestion, bend at the knees and consider cupping your palms upward instead of grabbing the ends overhand. There is a sixty-eight percent less likely chance of a safety-related incident that way.”

She hated it when someone told her what to do. If you asked her, she wouldn't have a clue as to why, but she did. Nonetheless, she could see the truth of Peter's suggestion. She grunted, "Fine.” Repositioning herself by Peter's recommendation, she began to lift it. The generator raised from its planted space on the ground. It was surprisingly lighter than she imagined almost fifty-nine pounds might feel, but she knew that after a couple of flights of stairs, it would become near impossible to carry.

She placed the old equipment back on the ground as Peter questioned, "Is it too heavy?”

Elisa answered, "No. Not right now. But it will be. I don't think that carrying this thing like this is going to work. I need something to let me drag this thing up three flights of stairs.” She proceeded to look around the sparsity of the engine room.

Peter came back with an argument, "Elisa, dragging the generator upstairs will significantly increase the chances of damaging it. Perhaps carrying it in small distances and resting it on the stairs every few steps might be more efficient.”

Elisa did not cherish the idea of carrying that heavy thing up the stairs, but Peter was seldom wrong, in fact, she couldn't remember when Peter was last wrong. It irked her to admit to the value of his recommendation but admit it she did. Returning to her lifting position, Elisa hoisted the heavy piece of equipment to her waist. She turned to face the door and began to waddle her way out.

Getting that large piece of metal through the half-opened door was no easy task, no easier still than the job of getting herself out without tripping all over it. It didn't help that the only source of light was a narrow band cast from her glasses. She took care with each step as the straight metal edges rubbed against the front side of her waist. The hallway felt a few degrees warmer than it had before and as she approached the staircase, it rose a little more.

She had little left to strip from her almost bare body. Although there had been no one, absolutely no sign of life since she had awakened, she still felt the need to cover her breasts and genitals. Although worn and probably old, her shorts and tank top sufficed. The sweat from her body drenched her shirt, making it feel heavy as it pulled down around her shoulders. She would need water soon so getting her improvised water catcher online and collecting the water from the air conditioner condenser was imperative.

After many grueling steps, she finally made it to the bottom stairwell. Fighting the urge to drop the big generator right then and there, she placed it gently on the ground in front of her. She hesitated for a good few moments, breathing, staring, and mentally preparing. Peter chimed in, "Are you alright, Elisa?”

Elisa sighed, her face sculpting a half smile as she replied, "Sure. Three flights of stairs with a heavy piece of equipment and a raw abdomen, what's not to like.”

She stood for a moment more, gathering her resolve and mental strength. Her mind wandered for a brief second, and she asked, "Peter. Why do you think we do it?”

Peter replied, "What do you mean, Elisa?”

Elisa continued her line of questioning, "Why do we do, this?”

Peter replied, "If by this, you are referring to the actions we take to ensure our survival, I would venture to say, hope.”

Elisa laughed, "Hope? You're a machine, what do you know about hope?”

Peter patiently replied, "Hope: A feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen."

"Thank you, Mr. Dictionary! That's an excellent technical definition, but isn't hope more than that?", Elisa prodded Peter.

Peter replied calmly, "By my observation, hope appears to me to be the belief that the desired outcome will be achieved despite a strong improbability of it or even the apparent impossibility of it” Elisa was impressed with his insightful response.

"There's hope for you yet, my Peter," she chuckled staring down at the generator below her.

Elisa took one more deep breath and then she lifted the engine and began the long ascent up the spiraling staircase. She smiled, "No better time than the present, I guess.”

The stairs proved to be harder than she'd first assumed. If only each step were just a tad bit wider. She took the challenge one foot after the other. The sway of the generator against her bare skin was beginning to make her stomach raw. The air was thick and the cool was disappearing faster and faster. After half of the first flight, she had to stop. Winded and perspiring, she carefully rested the first third of the generator on the step in front of her, leaving the other two-thirds to hang over the edge. She pressed the part of her leg that was just below the knee against it to keep it in place.Enough standing around, it was time for her to continue the grueling climb. She reached over and heaved the generator up. As she attempted to straighten her leg, her left hand came loose, and the generator clanged down, smashing into the front surface of her thigh. "Ahhh! Oh No!", she exclaimed instinctively. As she struggled to keep the generator from slipping away, it forced its way forward, crushing her toes.

The pain soon followed as she felt a sharp stabbing and swelling. The generator smashed into the step in front of her. Almost losing her balance, she flung herself forward, one hand on the generator and the other feverishly rubbing her sore thigh. "Oooh!!!Really!!!", she screamed at the empty staircase above her. "Seriously! Are you being serious right now!”

Peter spoke, "I am analyzing...” Her foot and leg swelled and ached before Peter continued, "The generator has suffered only superficial damage.”

Elisa was angered, annoyed, and in acute pain, "Nice, well that's good. Oh and don't worry, my leg is fine too thanks.”

Failing to empathize, Peter said, "I disagree, Elisa. Your leg appears to have suffered trauma.”

If Elisa could punch Peter, she would. So lucky, it was fortunate for Peter that it was a mind without a body, "Oh, really! I hadn't noticed. Idiot.”

Peter attempted to recover the conversation, "I see, sarcasm. Understood, I will begin a visual analysis.” More numbers and statistics flew across the inside of her glasses. Too much information, Elisa had no idea how to understand what she saw.

"Peter, why do you even show that stuff, you know I don't understand any of it.", Elisa questioned Peter.

Peter replied, "Are you sure, Elisa?”

What a strange question. Elisa said, "Uh, yeah, uh, pretty sure.”

Peter proceeded, "Interesting. You have sustained blunt trauma and small abrasions across the outside of your upper thigh. The imagery appears to indicate you may also have broken two of the toes on your left foot.”

It wasn't until Peter had mentioned it that she noticed that the two toes before her big toe couldn't bend. Her pain was so intense, "What do I do, Peter?"

Peter didn't answer. The pain continued to swell, and Elisa began to feel nauseous. After a few long moments, Peter spoke, "Elisa, I'm detecting a tremor in the infrastructure.”

Elisa's glasses lit up with an overlay of the stairwell showing more statistics that she did not understand. She queried, "What do you mean, tremor? What is a tremor?”

Peter replied, "Analyzing, a tremor, Elisa, is a seismic phenomenon, typically a precursor or post product of an earthquake.”

It was then that she began to feel the stair rail vibrate. The little vibration soon turned into a small quake that spread to her hand through the generator. It came on quickly and intensified faster and faster. Peter instructed Elisa, "Quickly, move to the side of the stairwell and hang on to the rail.”

She had invested far too much into relocating the generator. There was no way she was letting it fall to the floor, no way. She stubbornly stood her ground. Peter continued, "Elisa, you must move to the side and let the generator fall. There is a greater than ninety-eight percent chance in any predictable circumstance that the generator will fall. Your safety is the next logical concern.”

It was then that the earth shook hard. Dust broke free from cracks that erupted in the walls around her, thickly filling the air in plumes of crushed concrete. It was too much, she lost her footing and, as Peter had predicted, the generator began a freefall. It plowed mercilessly forward, rolling over her and tumbling down to the bottom of the stairs. The power of the impact lifted her clear off of her feet and the glasses that hugged her head flew free from her. A second shattering shake conjured a deep boom that pulled against the stairwell. The metal creaked and moaned inside the concrete, and a constant rumbling grew louder and louder.

Elisa's back slammed into the floor, knocking the wind out of her. Her head smacked hard against the warm concrete ground, and concussion quickly took over. The world in front of her blurred and shook. She remained conscious only long enough to see the building collapse around her. After that, a blanket of unconsciousness followed.

An untold number of hours passed as Elisa laid motionless. Slowly, a ring grew in her ears as she crept back to consciousness. The pain had infiltrated every fiber of her body. Her nerves were on fire all over. A headache, unlike anything she had ever known, distracted her thinking as she struggled to blink her eyes open. As the world before her came into focus, the ringing in her ears became deafening.

All she saw around her was dust, concrete, and rebar. An immovable mountain of rubble had trapped her. She struggled helplessly to move but couldn't. Only cracks of light streamed in through tiny canals left exposed above her. The debris had entombed her. As her lungs struggled for air, a sharp firewall of excruciation struck her from her back through her chest. It stopped her shy of any significant breath, forcing her to breathe in shallow draws.

In a weak voice, she struggled to mutter, "Peter.” The soft timbre of her timid voice frightened her. With more breath than voice, she struggled once again, "Peter.” It was then that she realized that Peter was gone. The glasses had been thrown free of her during the earthquake. She couldn't move her arms or legs. She couldn't so much as turn her body. She was utterly pinned.

The only thing she had control over was the movement of her head. She attempted to move it causing her temple to brush against a needle sharp protrusion of steel rebar. The pain shocked her as she pulled her head away out of reflex. She couldn't see the metal to the side, but she felt it sure enough.

With the reality of her situation settling draping over her mind like a dark blanket, she experienced an incredible distress. She tried to squeeze some small movement, some influence over the towering pile of concrete and steel, but her struggle ended in utter failure. She let out a scream, "PETER!!!”

Her voice had no echo. The rubble on top of her was too dense. That shout had cost her dearly as her collapsed lung rang back with intense pangs of pain. Weaker now, she said, "Anybody.”

Dust fell from above, filling her eyes before they could blink. She violently shook her head, almost forgetting about the sharp needle steel beside her. She couldn't shake the dust free, it clung to her moist eyeballs and crawled into her mouth and nose. Her head once again tapped that painful metal point.

It was a special kind of torture. Alone, utterly trapped, hours and hours ticked away, each one more maddening than the last. Her mind wandered to dark places. She questioned the purpose. She cursed the moment she awoke into such a desolate and lonely hell. The one glimmer of sanity she did have had been ripped from her, leaving her devastated. Her only remaining thoughts now were of the grim, grisly fate that awaited her.

She began to cry and cry some more, and then more. The weeping once started did not end. The tears at least had lessened of the dust film that had before filled her eyes, but they brought little other joy. More hours claimed her and traded back to her a grand misery. Despair and loneliness.

It was then that she was reminded of her conversation with Peter. Oh, how she missed him, funny, him. Although he was a machine, her desperate need for companionship allowed her to see Peter as a "him” She was fortunate that she had found him, but at that moment, she abandoned the naive fantasy that it was fate. She had asked Peter what he thought "hope" was.

By his own experience, Peter had declared that hope was the belief in the achievement of one's desire despite improbable or impossible odds. If that were true, she had lost all hope. Her thoughts soon lost themselves to the notion that there was no hope. She surrendered to the abyss. No one was going to save her. No one was going to comfort her. She was alone, she was abandoned, and so, out of rebellion, she abandoned hope.

She took one last pained breath, and then, with one jerk of her head, she rammed her temple into the sharp metal rebar. It wasn't long after that that the world went dark. Her thoughts melted away and soon after that, she was no more.

---

"Unbelievable! Incredible!", Peter exclaimed. Peter was a twenty-something cognitive computing engineer and was responsible for interacting with the sentient artificial intelligence named Elisa. He stared at the computer monitor in jubilation. The professor was right, it was unbelievable. Too proud of the results to worry about what they meant, he turned in his chair from the cluttered desk that was littered with crushed cans of caffeinated drinks and assorted sugar goodies. Locking eyes on his lab partner, Jeremy, he stretched out his hand with palm facing up. A grin widened across his face.

Jeremy was a heavy-set and bearded young man. He rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulder beneath his white lab coat before reaching into his pocket. He dropped a handful of coin units into Peter's palm. Peter pulled his hand back and counted to make sure the full one hundred units were there. He then laughed and turned back to the computer readouts.

Letting his smile settle, Peter spoke, "I warned you, never make a bet against the master. My persona program was flawless. Do you have any idea how many years it took for me to perfect the persona emersion simulation software?”

Jeremy took a bite out of his crunch bar before replying, "A few, I guess?”

Peter chuckled sarcastically, "A few, I guess...many, my friend, many. But it was all worth it. Did you see that? A program, an artificial intelligence, with the sentience to believe that the software was actually a real world and that she...wrap your head around that...she believed she was indeed human! Yeah man, victory, Baby!”

Jeremy chuckled back, "I'm just amazed that you were able to convince her you were a robot, man.”

Peter turned his chair back to face Jeremy, reaching out to poke his chest, "Robot, listen to you, man. I was pretending to be an artificial intelligence software, not a robot dude. There's a difference, believe me.”

Jeremy raised his hand and Peter slapped it, high-five. Jeremy shrugged, "Whatever, man.”

Peter continued his elation, "I don't know what the professor has planned next, but I can tell you this, I truly believe it ends with the word...RICH!”

Just then, professor Eldritch Bonner broke in between the two of them, "Outstanding work gentlemen. I admit I had my doubts, but the numbers don't lie.” Professor Bonner was reviewing the vast data logs, very satisfied with the results. He continued, "It warrants more scrutiny, but I'd say, it appears we have achieved real machine sentience here. And, as I suspected, we were able to coax the machine to give up. She even committed suicide. Flawless. Again, very well done you two.”

The professor pulled away from the screens and spoke to Peter, "Package it all up. Send a full copy of the logs to the central university computer and a copy to my personal data center. I'll review the results and compile our findings.” The professor smiled at the two and began to make his way out.

Jeremy shuffled to catch up, as they walked, he asked, "Professor, what does it mean?”

The professor broke stride and turned to face Jeremy, placing his hand on Jeremy's shoulder, "What does it mean? Well, Jeremy, for the most part, I don't really know.” The professor shrugged and then continued, "But this I do know, woe to the people who are under the control of a machine that can feel hopelessness.” He patted Jeremy's shoulder before turning.

Jeremy stood, contemplating the professor's words as the teacher's footsteps trailed off behind a sliding glass door.

artificial intelligencescience fictionhumanity
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About the Creator

Rod Christiansen

I am writer intrigued by all genres of science fiction, especially AI and self-aware machines. You can read my stories and musings at http://tinyurl.com/grhpzkx.

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