Memory Fragments: Probity

Erick's Robotics & Metalworks

He not only did this to his body, but to his own shop. He outfitted it with so many strange and intricate apparatuses that, the moment you entered it, you would think you had gone to the future, were machine and man are one and indistinguishable from one another. It was eerie, but so fascinating watching him work his magic. His gloves were not only his pride and joy, but now he had the same technology all around him. Tubes, pipes, and long canals were liquid metals flowed and combined into one single substance. Electric conveyors that sparked not only the electric power he needed to create his dreams, but also the curiosity of his mind. He was gifted for sure, but he wanted to share this gift. He wanted his creations, his views on the world, to be shared amongst his folk.

He continued to work and expand his domains of knowledge on robotics and metalworks. He shared his findings and developments with the people who could understand him, like investors, scientists, or simply, other craftsmen. He did this for so long that it was apparent that his mind was not normal, much like the body he had constructed for himself as the time passed. These experiments I told you about. They were bodily modifications. Not replacements, like the prosthetics he made, no. He eventually realized that the human body was not enough anymore to handle all his visions and undertakings to make them come true. Erick, at some point in his life, dawned on the idea of machine being superior to flesh and bone. No one knows what made him come to that, but one thing was made sure after people saw him becoming more and more "robotic." That, no matter the exterior of the person, be it metal or skin, the mind and heart would always be the same. People thought that, if one changes everything that makes them, "them," except their core, they would remain the same in the eyes of everyone else and themselves. But this was not true.

Erick was still the same man he was when he was 50 years old for sure. But everyone realized that it was only thanks to his "enhancements" that he remained so. Who knows if he was younger or older than 50 years back when he started. No one knows how old he really is now, or how old he will be when he eventually dies. If he ever dies. Being machine means not dying, right? If one gets rid of his mortal shell but not his core mind and heart, one can preserve a self eternal and unchanging. Erick kept this in mind when he went through with his experimentations. Erick knew he would never do something like that to anyone other than himself. Why? Because what use would it be for life to stagnate and remain the same for all eternity? There would be no progress, no new views on life or ways to live it.

He said he was to be the only "living" machine the world would know. Him, being eternal and unchanging, would remain true to himself, forever watching humanity develop under his inventions and help with tools. Erick's Robotics & Metalworks would be the one and only place where life met not an end, but an eternal loop. If his ideals grew rustic. Knew no limits on capability and fishability. Everything would meld together by his own hands and be shaped by them. He would be a god, born out of the union of metal and flesh, machine and man. But even old gods have their flaws.

He foresaw this. He saw the flaws in his seemingly perfect plan, perfect life, perfect being, and perfect world. A flawed utopia contradicts itself in its very nature, so Erick halted all forms of his works. Old and new, all were assembled, one by one, inside his workshop. He asked all of the clients he ever knew to give back the products he sold to them. He gave compensation, of course. Some accepted, some did not. The ones who had his prosthetics refused alright, saying they could not live without them anymore. The ones with the tools, especially the miners and farmers, said they would only give theirs in exchange for better ones down the road or, even better, if he did experiments on them just like he had done on himself to keep working like they had always done. Erick was met with hesitance, rejection, doubt, pride, arrogance, and all things meaning an unwillingness to change. He saw the humanity of his people leaving their souls in exchange for a robotic existence. He saw just the type of influence his works had created on the minds of his folk. They were already part machine, depending fully on the electronics and mechanisms he had made for them. "No more," he said.

"If I am to be an example of corruption and stagnation. Let this be a manifesto of my willingness to sacrifice, and my acknowledgment of flaw." He proceeded to melt his entire shop. His whole purpose of living and his one and only way to pave a future for his talents. Everything melted to the point of melding into one single thing. Erick then used his gloves to grab this blob of metal and started forming a figure with it. But this was no mere statue or ornament, this was a message to future generations. He melded all into his own body and made himself the core of an amalgamation. He became a huge, towering monster made of indestructible materiales that only he was capable of using and manipulate. He walked a little towards the center of Clockwork's plaza, letting everyone know the horrors of his creations and the eventual future of modernity. He instilled the fear of change.

While wild sparks of electricity and smoldering dribbles came from his amalgamous body, he stilled himself into a position that no one would be able to deter theirs eyes from. He eventually cooled down and tempered himself. The people who watched all of this as it was happening could only stay in place while fear engulfed them. The ones who had Erick's prosthetics soon disposed of them and melded all of them together into a sign that was put in front of the monster that now laid immobile. The rest of the people who had things made by Erick and did not gave them back to him, they too, melded all and formed the plate that would trap Erick's body inside his monstrous form.

No one truly knows if fear of change was the catalyst in Erick's mind, or the people's hearts. His gloves were removed by him and tossed with all the melding parts he accumulated, but some say those were but a prototype he was making just before throwing them away. A new set of hands that would shape the future however he saw fit. Some say they were ordinary black gloves, like the ones a formal politician or someone in government jobs would wear. All we know for sure though, is that, whatever those gloves were meant to change, they did it without flaws. Perhaps perfect hands make no error, but change itself is brought by one's hands. So really, is there no flaw in change? Or is it that change is brought by one's flaws in attempts to perfect our craft?