The Jeager Project

ANOTHER SIDE "ADAM"

The more I know, the less I understand. The more I research, the more misguided I am. Humans are a species filled with mysteries and inconsistencies. To begin with, humans and Machines are remarkably different in the ways they live. While living as a group, humans are not connected by a network. At first glance they seem to favor living for the self, but at the same time, they seem to lack an attachment to the self. A striking example is self-duplication. Their self-duplication process is faulty and inconsistent. It's not like they didn't have the technology to perform perfect self-duplication. It was possible, but they weren't willing to use the technology. Instead, they were committed to an imperfect system of self-duplication called reproduction. Furthermore, they didn't consider the original and the copy as the same individual. They saw them as distinct identities: the original was called a "parent" and the copy was called a "child." Rather than an original and a copy, this relationship was closer to a creator and a creation. Since humans already had androids, which were their creations, there was really no need to degrade their own self-duplicate as a "creation." I don't understand. It's a mystery. On the other hand, our creators did not leave a trace of mystery. They were a worthless bunch; they were flimsy, had no diversity, and did not have a shred of creativity. In comparison, how glorious the mystery of humans was. No matter how much I studied and studied and studied and studied, I could not study enough.

"Hey big brother, why are you reading a book?" "Knowledge makes a person rich." "Can't you just transfer the data?" "If I don't read it myself, it won't speak to my heart." "Okay, I see."

The written characters that humans left behind—with only a few dozen combinations of them, humans were surprisingly able to create intricate worlds and write about them. They didn't just write down information. The stories were small worlds in themselves. By reading the combinations of characters, humans were able to absorb part of the world. It was something that a data transfer could never accomplish. I believe a large part of human diversity was due to the power of books. While zealously reading books, I came upon a realization. There was a recurring concept that provided a basis for human action and choice. It was death. Humans loved to reuse phrases like: "for dear life," "about to die," "going to die," and "rather than die." There were even whole books written on the topic of death. This was particularly common in the genre of philosophy. Death. It was a concept that was hard to grasp for us Machines. We, who are connected to a network, never die. If our core runs out of energy or we're destroyed, we will stop functioning. But a reboot is always possible. A Machine malfunction that can be rebooted is apparently different from death. Humans were able to create many things from their fear of death. They tried to overcome death, but couldn't. While they had the technology, in the end they coexisted with death. Was death really something so difficult to let go of? Was it full of irresistible splendor? If I, a Machine, were to one day understand death, would I understand humans? Perhaps it was a curse that we Machines yearned to understand humans. In addition to myself, my brethren also mimicked humans. They mimicked their words, their actions, their emotions, their aesthetics, their relationships...

Why? Why do we have such an obsession over humans?

"Hey big brother, can I break this?" "No, you can't. If you break it, it'll be useless." "But it did some bad things to big brother, right?" "That's right. But don't break it." "Fine."

There didn't have to be a reason for our feud with androids. Besides, it was never a fight to the death. Both sides could regenerate as many times as necessary. But would she and I be able to fight to the death if she was given a reason to fight?

"Big brother, let's play." "I'm busy." "Let's play human." "Later, okay?" "When can we play?" "After I finish my business." "Okay. I'll wait until you finish your business." "That's right. Wait here." "Here?" "Can you wait by yourself?" "If I wait here, will you play with me?" "All right." "Then I'll wait." "Good boy." "I'll wait until big brother comes back."

I certainly couldn't take Eve along. He would immediately revive me. A Machine malfunction that can be resolved via reboot is different from death. I want to understand. I want to get to the bottom of humanity. When that happens, I will be freed from the ghosts of my creators.