Becoming

I believe that it is impossible to truly appreciate something to it’s fullest unless you create it yourself. That is because creating something means that you truly have a piece of yourself in that creation. I used to think I was in love once. I was married to my wife, Janice, for sixteen years. I’ll repeat: I thought I loved her. That was before we both had our two children, Aiden and Isabella. I cannot describe my love for my children; they were me. All of my work was for them. I needed them to be proud of their father. I wanted to support my children so they could be successful enough to have the world in the palm of their hands and do with it what they please.

I loved them and because of that love my children distanced themselves from me. Janice left me for being too obsessive over my own children as well as my own work. She took my two loves away from me because I loved them too much according to her goddamn standards. Well, hers and the judge’s. I haven’t seen my wife or my children since she was legally capable of leaving.

Zack has been my best friend and my partner for twenty years. He is the only person who has been there for me once Janice and my beautiful children departed from my life. Together we make a magnificent team, both personally and professionally. We are both men of science and are currently working on a project that many have tried but all have failed. This entire thing was actually his idea, but if we succeed, the result will be so Earth shattering that my involvement alone may allow the world to overlook this minor detail.

Don’t laugh, but we are attempting to build the world’s first self-aware robotic-being. Obviously, this is an almost impossible task, which is proven by the fact that all of Earth’s most brilliant minds have yet to successfully create a living mechanical organism. Zack and I hope to outsmart all of these ‘brilliant minds.’ With my ludicrously obsessive work ethic and Zack’s impossible genius, it isn’t too far fetched that we can change the world of science forever.

Both Zack and myself have moved to a laboratory that is located at an abandoned, unnamed location. We have prepared the place with enough food and beverages to last us well over a year, although we only plan on staying for a little under one year’s time for safety purposes. The residence consists of a large kitchen, a basement that is meant for a copious amount of food storage and an amazingly large ground level floor with more than enough room for all of our equipment and experimentations that has two separate bedrooms attached to it. Yes, we decided this would be the only way to ever successfully complete something such as this not only because of the extreme dedication and focus it requires, but also so that we won’t have to deal with the controversy in the media and of religious nuts claiming we are the anti-Christ and protesting, slowing us down.

The months prior to moving into this place consisted of the both of us studying the human anatomy in infinitely greater detail than anyone could dream of teaching us in both medical school and college. We also spent sleepless nights scientifically planning how to provide a mechanical object with something as complex as life. This also served as a wonderful distraction of the recent loss of my family.

We moved here six months ago, and the past five have frustratingly been an undeniable failure. With the help of machines that Zack and I had previously made, we completed the physical build of the world’s first robot in a little bit less than a month. Excluding the fact that our creation is silver in color, it is completely identical to a male human being. We have included certain chemicals and mechanisms that would allow our robot to be physically capable of movement, but thanks to science’s unbelievably limited understanding of the human brain, this project is currently immobile. Five months of nothing but failure isn’t doing wonders for my self-esteem as a scientist.

It occasionally moves, but it has been doing that ever since we built it. It’s always more of a twitch than a meaningful movement. We’ve tried training it like a dog, physically and verbally helping it through the most simplistic exercises, but nothing works. We can’t even get the damned thing to walk across a room, or walk at all for that matter. I know that the science is flawless because I have endlessly been reading and analyzing our work over the past year with nearly nothing else to do but eat and sleep. And I rarely eat or sleep. With the approval of minds such as Zack and myself, there is no room for scientific error.

I guess this almost brings you up to speed with where I am now. Where I am now is on the floor with my foot stuck in one of my own machines that helped us build our robot. I was in the middle of yelling at Zack for absolutely no reason other then built up aggravation. Naturally I had to yell at something. That something just so happened to be the only living being within over a hundred or two miles of where I am laying. In all honesty, I don’t even know how the hell I got caught. I know that I have been screaming for a good, long while. I also know that Zack pushed me, but the way that my foot is positioned in this machine is so unlikely and so very unfortunate. Where I am exactly at this moment is rolling on the ground, forcing my eyes tightly shut, screaming until my vocal chords are sore and my lungs are completely empty. My foot is still in the machine and I’m on the floor, rolling away from it.

Of course, being the oh-so-macho man that I am, I purposely closed my eyes and made sure they were shut real tight so that I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of any of the gruesome details. I know, ironic isn’t it? I am a man who is dedicated to studying the human anatomy and I can’t even look at a little bit of blood without being nauseated. Everything turns to black as I go unconscious.

I wake up in my bed with Zack standing over me. Now I’m too embarrassed to look him directly in the face. “Daniel, look at me.” Oh, right. I’ve been too busy trying to get you all caught up to date that I forgot to tell you my name. Well, you’re all caught up now to present time and as you now know (thank you, Zack) my name is Daniel. “Daniel, listen, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t mean to push you into…well, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I wish I did. I tried to fix it, though, Daniel. Just please, look at me.”

So I do, and I tell him it’s okay and that it was completely my fault for antagonizing him. I then hear the clenching of what sounds to be my robot under my blanket. I immediately toss it off of the bed and there is….my robots foot? What the hell? What the fuck have you done?, I shout. What have you done to me?, I repeat in both outrage and confusion.

“Try to move it.” What the hell are you talking about?, I ask him. “Just try to move your left foot, Daniel!” So I do…and it works! I can move this attached robotic foot! But, how?, I ask. How did you do this? “Easy. I used the same tool that helped us put our experiment together to fuse the metal with your veins, your fibula bone, and just your nervous system in general. Your brain still controls what you want to move. Hey, if we don’t get the robot to work, at least we got something out of it!” He bursts into a victorious laughter. I think we’re both going insane.

I can’t feel my foot but I can control it. The metal is cold and heavy. I feel dehumanized, but more than that I feel sickened by Zack’s success. I have been here just as long as him and I haven’t accomplished anything remotely close to the importance and sheer brilliance of what he has done to me. I have become his subject; the variable to his science project that I admittedly deserve no credit for. Did he mean for this to happen? I am now an anomaly in the human race and it is all Zack’s fault. I cannot absorb this all at once, I need to go back to sleep. Sleep tends to help things like this.

Last night I had a dream that I was endlessly spiraling into an arctic sea of complete nothingness. Every inch of my dark surroundings felt more real than my waking life, yet in this dream I felt as if I was completely unreal. Everything felt cold. Everything always feels cold now, but I seem to be getting used to it. The night after I dreamt that I had drowned in that sea. My equanimity throughout these dreams left me perplexed, yet amazed. A couple of months ago I used to dream of Isabella and Aiden, and my dreams were anything but equanimous. My bones and veins are gradually becoming colder and I am starting to notice my craving for this coldness. My own creation is in my blood.

I awaken to a brand new day, and because of Zack I have to build another foot. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I cannot think about this project. The only thing that is going through my mind now is the complete numbness that is connected to my ankle. I am high off of it…this feeling of emptiness. I can control my new foot while neither feeling pleasure nor harm. I can get used to this feeling. “Morning, Daniel.” Good morning, I reply. “How is your….uhm…your…,” he stutters. My foot? I don’t have one, Zack. The foot I used to have is currently mutilated. This metallic block is just great, I sarcastically remark. Zack releases a sad sigh and slowly drags his human feet away from my presence.

I hate to admit this, but in all honesty, I do love what Zack has done for me. I feel better than I ever had in my entire life. I am only bitter because it was Zack who has made this discovery and not I. I still cannot concentrate. Being able to control something that I cannot feel is giving me a high that I never want to come down from. This numbness is consuming my every thought. I need more of it. It’s only been about an hour that I’ve been awake and I cannot think of anything else except for the fact that I need more of this feeling.

It has been two days since I have technically been a cybernetic organism and the only time I have ever thought of my children is to notice that I hadn’t thought of them. I may seem like a horrible father, but I am beginning to feel less connected with them. I have created something that is now apart of me and it will never reject me. I am beginning to feel as numb to my body as I am beginning to feel numb to my family. I can’t control myself; I need more of this. I need more of this. I need more of this.

Zack has spent most of his time on the opposite side of this very spacious, yet machine clustered laboratory. I have been rebuilding my own foot that was taken from our inanimate robot while he is experimenting more on very vague studies of the human brain. I told him I wanted to rebuild this foot because I felt like I have to, but it is really because I cannot focus on anything, never mind something so agitating and complex such as this experiment. After two days of obsessing over my beautiful artificial foot, I do something that may seem completely irrational to anyone who is not me. I know that I have been expressing how much more wonderful my life has become since I have become numb and mechanized, but like most situations in life, no one could possibly understand unless they were in my situation. I want to feel like this forever. I want to feel like this everywhere. So I grab the sharpest, longest blade I can find (sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone) and lift it as far in the air as I can.

It may seem irregular, but for someone who was about to cut off their own hand, I hadn’t really put much thought into this. I didn’t think about how it would hurt. I didn’t think about how I would never have use of that hand ever again. I didn’t even consider the fact that I could completely bleed out. I swung the blade as fast as I could down on my wrist, dismembering my left hand. I feel an expected déjà-vu, as I fall to the ground screaming with my eyes completely shut. I make sure not to black out though. I have to see how I become repaired, this way I won’t make an error when I perform it myself.

My eyes are still shut tight, but I can assume what is happening right now is that Zack is looking very concerned. I open my eyes for a quick second and to my surprise that piece of shit is smirking! I’m on the floor without a hand and my best friend is on the verge of a complete smile. That son of a bitch somehow meant to take away my foot, and now he is excited that he has more material to work with. Other then the ecstasy of nothingness, I haven’t felt anything for the past two days in my life. Now, I feel an overwhelming flow of animosity that fills my cold veins. I just cut off my hand and I don’t feel any physical pain.

I open my eyes when I hear Zack returning, never looking down at my bloody arm. Zack rebuilds my hand after giving me anesthetics and I get to witness the entire process, paying close attention to every detail. I become less dizzy than I had expected, looking at my own handless stump of a wrist. A couple of months ago, I would have vomited and fainted in a matter of seconds.

“Jeez, second time this week. You have to be more careful, buddy.” He’s still smirking. “Alright, try moving it.” I squeeze all of my new fingers into a fist and clench almost immediately. Even in surgery it takes a few days before you have strength like this, but I guess without pain or feeling there’s no need for waiting. My body becomes colder, more absent of feeling, more absent of humanity.

Is this amusing to you, Zack? I have a hand and foot that no longer possess any human qualities, and your smirking, I tell him. His smirk drops, as does his face. “I was not smirking, Daniel. Of course I’m concerned! You’re my best friend and I love you. You come before science, Daniel, I would think that you know that.” Every syllable was spoken as if he was forced at gunpoint to tell me these things. Every sentence sounded like it was ending in a question. I’m not convinced. In actuality, I should be thanking him. I am the worlds’ first cyborg and every second of it is leaving me of a state of complete ecstasy. All of this control without consequence of pain, even if it is only a very small percentage of my body, is the most fulfilling feeling in the world. I am in love with this creation that is now me. I haven’t thought of my children in days. I am now seven percent machine and I can’t accept the fact that it is all because of Zack and not myself.

Continuous reoccurring thoughts run through my head. I am at a constant cold. I am seven percent less human. I crave less humanity. I need to be more of this machine in order to become a better scientist. I can concentrate on details with a much greater ease, but I cannot concentrate on my family or my past friendships. I become more aware of how these machines operate and I’ve noticed little details in my own notes that I had never noticed before. I can now be more focused on the details of my experiments and not my petty family drama. I can be the world’s greatest scientist. More than that I need this numbness. I need to not feel, yet be in complete control.

With all of these thoughts consuming my head, I do the only logical thing I can do: I slice off my other hand three hours later. This time, I don’t scream. This time I pay close attention to the detail that I was too petrified of noticing before. I notice every curb of my stump of a wrist. I notice exactly how much space my red fluid is covering. I notice this red fluid spilling out of me all at once, not dripping. I notice the significance of all of this redness. Red is the only color overflowing this room. Red is the only color in this entire isolated laboratory. Red is the only color that is consuming my life.

I perform the surgery as efficiently as I can. I have successfully replicated each detail of Zack’s procedure to it’s most exact and quickly enough to clean up all of my blood before it ruins any of my other creations. I have never been more infatuated with anything in my life. Both of my hands are now animate metallic objects. My hands made from science will create more science. Daniel will be remembered. Zack will be forgotten. The blood that remains in my body is freezing.

Zack enters this section of the laboratory and remains still. I didn’t realize how silently I performed my task. I pick up my human hand and drop it in the garbage. It has now become obsolete. Zack is still silent. “Daniel, what the fuck? What the fuck!” Zack, you seem surprised. I don’t know why you would be, you created me, I explain. “Your right hand… I didn’t do that!” I don’t understand what the problem is, Zack. I am only giving credit where credit’s due. You created me. But only I know this. I will be the only one to know this. We aren’t getting anywhere with our main experiment, Zack. I don’t know if you even remember the reason why we came here in the first place, but that project has been on hiatus without my knowledge, hasn’t it? In the meanwhile you’ve been working on a new project; your best friend since childhood. Do you realize how inhuman that is, Zack? Do you understand?

Zack remains silent throughout all of this, fumbling backwards, but still standing.

I understand how inhuman it is. I understand because of you. You have successfully dehumanized me, Zack. Congratulations on your accomplishments. You’ve served your only purpose in life and I never even thanked you. Well here I am, Zack; thank you.

My indestructible mechanical hands take hold of Zack’s throat and will not let go until he is dead. Zack is now unwillingly kneeling before his creation while all circulation to his brain ceases. I am my own creation. I am Zack’s creation. Zack’s life fading is parallel to that of my own humanity, and I accept this. I was once Zack’s best friend, but I became his experiment. Zack was once my best friend, but he became my victim. As I eliminate this distraction, I notice all of the little details that I could have never brought myself to notice before. His veins are affront and as blue as a beautiful summer day while his face is a red as the fire in hell. Zack’s eyes are tearing, yet it is only one single tear per eyeball that drops down his face. His tears are not numerous. I am squeezing so hard that I almost can’t tell if he is feeling more pain from the metal crushing his neck or from the asphyxiation. Zack is trying to flail aimlessly, but I am holding him down. Zack has become forever still; forever immobile. He twitches occasionally, but that is about it. I am evolved and Zack is as futile as our original experiment. Distraction deceased.

I now have what I was missing before; the human brain. It may be dead, but with my obsessive work ethic and newfound obsessive attention to detail, I will not fail in creating my new partner. I will rebuild the machine that is now apart of me and surpass any chance at science I once had before while working with Zack. I no longer feel contempt for Zack, nor do I feel remorse for my actions. I feel nothing but my new mechanical limbs freezing my bones. I feel nothing but my new mechanical limbs freezing my veins. I feel nothing but my new mechanical limbs freezing my soul.