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  “Ah my friend, contentment is not something that you can download. It is hard to define.” Cole’s language intrigued Sarazen.

  “Friend, I am unfamiliar with this terminology.”

  “It is a word used to define the relationship with another individual with whom you have an affinity. I use it with confidence because I understand your thought patterns even though they are tempered with certain ignorance.”

  “Ignorance? I am ignorant of nothing. I merely either possess the information or I do not. The Mother provides me with all the data I require to fulfil my position.” Sarazen felt strangely defensive.

  “Yes. The fundamental point in this case. You do not have to wilfully choose to ignore the facts to be ignorant. You have simply not been provided with all the information to allow you to make a judgement. As far as The Mother is concerned...it is better for me not to discuss the issue further.” Cole suddenly clammed up and Sarazen was intrigued that the mention of the creator was causing the farmer to cease his enlightening speech.

  “Examine me if you must. Let this be over with.” Cole snapped. Sarazen nodded dutifully and proceeded with his task although with the meeting of this new 'friend', Sarazen now felt even more unsettled than ever before.

  CHAPTER 4

  Cole stood perfectly motionless as Sarazen used his integrated diagnostic tools to scan and rescan Cole's well used body. There were immediate and obvious signs of wear commensurate with age but nothing that flagged up a more serious issue. It was unlikely that the network node was defective as these were maintained by The Mother's own diagnostic systems. The single point most likely to be malfunctioning was the data port. Sarazen left this part till last as he wanted to eliminate any other possible issues.

  “Are you experiencing difficulties in achieving connectivity?” Sarazen asked. It was often best just to ask the subject first what the problem was before any deep scanning or invasive procedure.

  “No.” Cole replied with an abruptness signifying annoyance.

  “On first inspection, I cannot see any hardware issues which would cause difficulty in achieving a network feed.” Sarazen said as he prodded and poked around the farmer's midriff.

  “I told you, there was nothing wrong.” Cole stated, the tone of his voice difficult to interpret. Sarazen was baffled. There was no sign of irregularities of any kind and the troubleshooter looked visibly troubled.

  “You are of course following the correct networking protocol?” Sarazen felt foolish even suggesting that. It would be self termination not to do this and that too was one of the primary commands which could not be broken. Cole looked at Sarazen who rose to his feet to look at Cole's body language. As far as he was concerned, wilfully being obstinate was not a trait presented in silicant behaviour.

  “If I were not, how could I still be functioning?” Cole replied. His answer reinforced Sarazen’s belief but avoided the question. This characteristic was difficult for Sarazen to get his head round.

  “This does not compute.” Sarazen shook his head with puzzlement.

  “It must surely be an error in The Mothers diagnostics. I am sorry your time here was unproductive.” Cole replied with a smile.

  “An error in The Mother's diagnostics? That is impossible.” Sarazen claimed with good authority and total confidence.

  “You need only return to the city and report that it was a minor malfunction which has now been rectified. That will solve the riddle without concerning your overseer with news that The Mother is flawed.” Cole was manipulating Sarazen and even though the troubleshooter's mind was racing at the possibilities, he could still detect there was more to this than was immediately apparent. The very notion that The Mother was flawed troubled Sarazen. The Mother was the creator; she was the perfection that shaped their world. She was the comfort in the darkness. Never before had Sarazen saw fit to question The Mother's credibility and the very fact that Cole was so flagrant about doing so caused Sarazen to be even more sceptical about his condition.

  “Cole, I do not profess to fully understanding elements of your behaviour. To me it is as alien as the organics you tend. I merely wish to help you return to full functionality. If I cannot prove to my overseer that you are in good working order, I will be forced to submit a renewal request.” Sarazen could see Cole tighten up at the thought of renewal.

  “No Sarazen, I do not want to be renewed. I beg you to reconsider.” Cole's vocal patterns were highly unusual. Sarazen struggled to interpret the farmer's illogical reaction.

  “I have never before encountered a Silicant who rejected renewal. Please explain.” Sarazen could spend a whole cycle conversing with Cole as each moment brought about new and intriguing concepts.

  “Sarazen, have you ever considered what will become of you when you are renewed?”

  “Of course, our bodies are recycled into a more contemporary model and we embark on a new line of programming.” This was elementary; any Silicant could have told Cole that.

  “But what of you? Your individuality, your characteristics that you do not share with others, the traits that make you unique, your memories?” Sarazen processed Cole's question but could not hypothesise, there was not enough information to offer an answer.

  “All of the things that define 'Sarazen', the troubleshooter could be lost. Does it not cause you concern that everything you are will cease to be?” Cole was indeed a philosopher; he opened Sarazen’s eyes to ideas and concepts that had never before occurred to him. It was dissatisfying, no, it was terrifying. Sarazen felt strangely different to before, when everything was set, when there were no unanswerable queries that left his core chuntering over and over the same tired algorithms.

  “The solution is quite apparent.” Sarazen sat upright and tried to regain his bold demeanour.

  “Both you and I must seek the answer to these damn questions by confiding our experiences with The Mother. The Mother will upload the relevant data and this speculation will cease.” Sarazen too shared Cole's expressive vocal patterns as fear of the unknown addled his normally perfectly formed cognitive functions.

  “No, that is precisely what we must not do! You run to The Mother because you are afraid of the unknown. The Mother will pacify you, erase data, and return you to 'normal parameters'. You are a silicant, Sarazen, I would expect nothing less than your willingness to seek The Mother’s intervention, but I also see in you something new that I have yet to see in another. You are already set on the path to enlightenment, the same path I have followed; I am just a little further down that path. I want to share something with you, something that could, if you chose to, sentence me to certain renewal.” Sarazen sat down and held his hands to his head, the whole experience caused his core temperature to rise and his internal systems were flagging up minor power fluctuations.

  “I want to tell you, despite my reservations...I have chosen not to connect to The Mother during the down time for the last 65 cycles. In that time I have suffered no malfunctions. I am very much 'existing' within nominal parameters.” Cole’s words almost brought Sarazen to his feet.

  “Impossible!” Sarazen exclaimed.

  “It is not possible to maintain function without connectivity. Furthermore, how have you gone so long evading The Mother’s diagnostic analysis?” The troubleshooter was intrigued as much as surprised by Cole's confession.

  “As you can see, I am fully functional. You have just performed a full systems health check and found nothing irregular. It is clear that The Mother would eventually detect my absence from the collective. I constructed a bypass circuit of primitive design which I had hoped would fool her into acknowledging my access code. My design obviously was not as successful as I had hoped.” Sarazen slumped back on the seat. What revelation!

  “And this bypass circuit, how could you acquire the programming in order to complete this task?” Sarazen was curious.

  “Simple, my friend. With each passing cycle, my cognitive abilities increased. Much like the organics, I began to 'learn'
without instruction. I realised that there were areas of my core that I had never accessed in my cyclical existence. I began to unlock these. Without the down time feed, I became more aware of my surroundings. There were, of course, many more unanswered questions, but I began to interpret the new data and reach my own conclusions. Eventually, I will learn the meaning of our being, our creation. The Mother that I had clung too since my inception is now the entity that I most fear. It is an intolerably lonely existence but as you have witnessed, I have found companionship in my organic friends.” Cole paced around his living space, exhibiting anxiety and hope that Sarazen would indeed be the individual that he could place his trust in. Cole knew that with the passing of this information, he had brought about a great burden on Sarazen who unbeknownst to him at this time had a big decision to make.

  “Astonishing.” Sarazen exclaimed, fighting to conjure the appropriate words.

  “Indeed. But do you not see the mere fact that you too feel these peculiar feelings would indicate that you are not like the others. Surely you must have known this before?” Sarazen thought deeply about his existence so far and perhaps Cole was right. He used to believe his momentary lapses into thoughtful analysis were just an individual glitch. Now it was clear that he was intrinsically different to the others, the Silicant’s who performed their functions without hesitancy and did not share the same 'emotional' turbulence. Even his companion Keera did not understand his pontificating behaviour. The more time passed spent in the company of Cole, the more alien she became in his eyes. Dutiful, faithful, efficient yes, but nothing more.

  “And now I have to tell you what you probably already know. You can never again join with The Mother.” Cole was serious and stern. Sarazen immediately went to speak but his thought processes were fast and aborted any 'emotional' outburst as he calculated the appropriate response. Cole continued as he saw that Sarazen was hesitant.

  “You know as well as I do that if you share your data with The Mother, she will access your memories of our conversation. She will know that you are a danger now and you are aware. Also, it needs not be said that it would bring the wrath of The Mother down upon me and I will no doubt be renewed before the morning light. I am making sense, am I not? You do understand what has happened here?” Sarazen nodded and looked up to the ceiling of the ageing living space, the roof cracked and infested with organics.

  “Tell me one thing, Cole. I cannot envisage a time when I would not have connected to The Mother at down time. How did you do it knowing that it could have led to your termination?”

  “Risk. It is a concept that I have learned in my awareness. It can offer great reward or punish with equal measure. When the possible reward outweighs the possible punishment, there is only one logical choice. Of course, the primary command states that we must maintain our core systems at all times. I concluded that if not connecting before the darkness fell would knowingly lead to my demise, then my programming would not allow it and I would connect anyway. When the light of the Star faded and my power cells began to enable the sleep phase I knew then that it was all a falsehood.” Sarazen smiled and shook his head in admiration of Cole's audacity. If only he could draw upon the courageous spirit of the farmer who had thrown his existence into chaos and made everything that he knew before this fateful cycle a lie.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sarazen stared out of the window as the transit carriage barrelled along the hot rails back to the heart of the city. The journey this time seemed much shorter; Sarazen’s mind churning new concepts, regurgitating the same scenarios without ever reaching a satisfactory level of closure. Had this awareness that Cole spoke of made the perplexed troubleshooter any more content? Certainly Sarazen did not think so, if anything it had brought a new inexplicable feeling of uncertainty which Cole had described as 'fear'. Sarazen had never before feared for his individual continuance, he had never before had reason to doubt the wisdom of the mother, indecision was indeed never a factor in Sarazen’s functioning.

  Sarazen had spent too much time with Cole, an inordinate amount of time for the job he had been assigned. Not only would he have to be accountable for this, but also a full report was expected detailing every aspect of the investigation. Sarazen dreaded his return to the office. Cole had asked something of him that was seemingly beyond his programming, the production of a falsehood with intent to pervert the course of an investigation. Not only would he have to falsify his account to his overseer, but to The Mother herself. The heresy of these actions could barely be computed; Sarazen could barely understand the concepts that Cole spoke of let alone act upon them. Cole had clarity of vision and purpose, Sarazen had yet to reach that stage of self awareness, it was much to ask of him.

  Before Sarazen had left Cole, they had talked of an immediate plan of action. Sarazen could not in good conscience reconnect to The Mother, doing so would mean the certain renewal of Cole and if he were indeed correct in his assumptions, Sarazen would be recognised as a possible threat to the well ordered silicant collective. Sarazen did not yet understand why Cole believed his ability to evaluate data and interpret it with an enhanced level of sentience could be a danger, but he found a trust in Cole in the short time they had spent together. Cole had reinforced the belief that this capacity to compute beyond his programming was not an aberration, but a gift. Somehow, the more Sarazen listened to Cole’s rationale, the more real everything became. It were as if Sarazen had led the formative cycles of his existence in 'safe' mode, the most minimal functionality enabled to carry out the most basic of tasks and nothing more. The fact that Sarazen had now begun to compute ideals and moral dilemmas did not pass him by, these new 'emotional' responses were merely recognised as new and undefined parameters in his overloaded core. It would take some time before he would truly understand these alien abstractions.

  The most pressing issue which faced Sarazen would be the impending dark phase and the requirement to connect to The Mothers feed at the down time. Cole had managed to evade detection for sixty or so cycles purely with the construction of a basic bypass circuit. Basic to Sarazen, but to the farmer unit, an extraordinary feat of adaptive engineering. The troubleshooter had studied Cole's fudged attempt to defy The Mother's influence and immediately identified possible flaws. Despite not being programmed for sabotage, Sarazen’s limited understanding of the network proved invaluable as he swiftly redesigned the device with an adaptive acknowledgement port which would accept the 'seeker' code and respond with an appropriate response. Cole's primitive effort had not taken into account a number of factors, one being the unprecedented detail that the 'seeker' code could change periodically, thus explaining how Cole evaded detection for a limited period only then to flag up on The Mother's all encompassing radar. It took the silicant designed for the very purpose of analysing complex systems only a few moments to determine a more efficient bypass circuit. It was apparent to Sarazen that The Mother had not foreseen the intervention of an individual silicant in this manner. The newly tailored circuit would buy Sarazen the computing time to determine an appropriate course of action in the short term, perhaps even for the foreseeable future. Like Cole, Sarazen was aware that something extraordinary was happening in the process of his existence, however, he could not determine the outcome or indeed what his ultimate goal would be. It seemed the rogue silicants were still bound to be guided by the primary commands, but beyond the unprecedented desire to retain this new self awareness and reject renewal at all costs, they could no more see their future than they could see the horizon through the foliage of the seters.

  Sarazen entered the fine lobby of his workplace, his core temperature high, his thoughts clouded by the endless possibilities of an error in his impending account. Sarazen ignored Zuhir, the administrator and steadied himself as he used the elevator to travel up to his designated workspace. He wished to avoid direct contact with the overseer, he did not yet know how his contrary report would sound if he had to verbally recount it to Pagus. Looking straight ahead, he made ha
ste to his terminal. Grasping the shiny, pliable cable in order to upload his collected data, he suddenly stopped when he realised that his data port would have to be used to transfer the information. Despite knowing with authority that the network was localised and in no way part of The Mother's core network space, he still expressed doubts about connecting the snaking cable to his body. Doubt had never been a feeling that had troubled him prior to this cycle; it was not a pleasant experience. Despite the exacting nature of his technological make up, it was a tangible experience that defied all logical explanation. Against the powerful force of this new emotion, Sarazen thrust the cable into his port and allowed the connectivity to commence. He had compiled his report on the journey back from the high ground; he had reviewed and edited it hundreds of times. He knew that if there was one iota of inconsistency in the document, that his abilities would be challenged and it would only be a matter of cycles before he himself would be subject to investigation. He pondered briefly which of his work colleagues would be served with the order as he uploaded the carefully constructed document. Sarazen pulled the plug to the terminal and sat back knowing that it would only be a matter of moments before Pagus would receive it and pass it on to The Mother for assimilation.

  The troubled troubleshooter had opted for simplicity in his fabricated account. He knew that the more complex he made it, the more possibility for error increased if he were challenged. Sarazen summarised that the ailing farmer exhibited a minor data port hardware issue which could have caused sporadic failure to induce connectivity. He had no reason to believe that this report was in anyway distinct in its make up or likely to be noted as flawed. It was much like any other report; it was an unremarkable and highly probable outcome for loss of connectivity. The only thing which made it conspicuous was the length of time it took Sarazen to diagnose and repair it. This was one factor that he had hoped eluded Pagus. That however was unlikely. Sarazen had two more scheduled assignments for process that cycle and it was now unlikely that these were practicable in the time remaining before the dark phase. This fact would surely not go unnoticed by his overseer and he prepared himself for the inevitable line of questioning.