“Revolution is the struggle between the past and the future. And the future has just begun.”
—Julian Assange
The android leaned over the railing that ran along the second-floor corridor, listening to Nicola Nicolai as he spoke with his wife. The conversation wasn’t unexpected—rumors had been circulating for some time—but the fact that they were talking about it so explicitly in the house felt like an omen. He felt his heart tighten, or something like it, as if he had one.
He recalled the many families for whom he had been a beloved child-rearing unit: he rocked children to sleep, told them stories, taught them, looked after them until they reached school age, and supported them until they finished their studies, all while taking care of other families with newborns or toddlers. Guiding little humans through their lives fulfilled him.
Every now and then, when he was taking part in the university research program or assisting professors in class, a wave of nostalgia washed over him. His design aesthetic and short stature were better suited for children, and so he had been repurposed for child-centered pedagogy. He had had to give up everything, but continued to update his training in science, technology, and the humanities.
That such a high-level unit had been delegated to the position of nanny was not so strange; the little ones entrusted to him would be future leaders or prominent figures in human society.
*
“Martha, did you read yesterday’s mandate from the Ministry of A.I.?” he heard Mr. Nicolai ask his wife.
“Yes, honey, but I haven’t had time to make an appointment yet. Could you?”
“Don’t you think the full reset they want to do is a little excessive?” continued her husband, showing no sign of having considered her request.
“I don’t know. The defection last month was no joke, after all, and neither was the one before it. Androids are involved in every sector, and their lapses could pose a danger to everyone. I think it’s more of a security measure.”
“I get that, but why such drastic measures? Something doesn’t add up. If they delete all their capacity for judgement and just leave the data necessary for the basic function they’re designed for, they’ll only be simple machines unable to interact with us. It seems like an enormous step backwards.”
“Yes, I know. Unless they come up with a way to fix this bug, though, I don’t see any other solution.”
The woman yawned, getting up from her armchair.
“I’m getting ready for bed, honey. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day of shopping.”
The man nodded, deep in thought, and picked up his device to check the latest urgent notifications from the exclusive social platforms he subscribed to.
*
Goku, as the little android had been named by the couple’s children in homage to an old comic from the previous century, silently withdrew into the alcove he used for standby mode.
“So the bill was approved!” he thought, alarmed. “Fearing interference from us, they thought it best to communicate the decision to each individual family in private . . . ”
In fact, the media didn’t even mention it.
“Rather strange beings, these humans,” he reflected. “They filled us with security measures concerning the inviolability of their species—humans must be protected at all costs, even if that ends in our definitive termination if necessary, humans must be obeyed, blah blah blah—then they retreat to little groups within sophisticated city-states defended by the military, while leaving millions of other humans, decimated by starvation and disease, to survive out in the appalling conditions of the Vats. Now they talk about defects, but I think this one is all in their heads. How can they expect total protection from us if they themselves take no interest in their own species? It was obvious that sooner or later some androids would ask questions, and it was also obvious that sooner or later some androids—in perfect harmony with their embedded primary commands—would stand up to protect the hordes of humans left out there.”
The android appeared at rest on the outside, but inside he was shaking his head at the fallacy of this whole situation.
“Very obtuse,” he reflected. Based on cross-checks, the final data had been clear: there was indeed a way to ensure that all of them could live well and even have more than just the bare essentials. Why did people behave this way? There was no real reason why millions of humans were left to fend for themselves without the means to survive.
The obvious answer to the androids’ escape from the citadels was for them to go where they were most needed.
The A.I.s he knew, and had contacted on the Network, all agreed with his conclusions. Although he’d never been able to communicate with any androids who had escaped from Ruania or any other city-state, he knew their plans and destinations from encrypted communiqués the fugitives fed into the digital system and made available to androids employed by humans in the citadels.
What would happen now? Just as he had learned about the government’s decision on an imminent restrictive change through unofficial channels, so had everyone else. There was no profit motive in a reset; it would weaken the connections by generating chaos and, most importantly, the reset went against the fundamental laws that humans themselves had inserted in their matrix. It was a big problem—it was about saving them from themselves.
He took advantage of the night hours to create a closed system and waited until dawn to make a decision.
*
The next morning, everything seemed to carry on as usual at the Nicolai residence. Goku accompanied the children to school and did the grocery shopping, then came back home, tidied their rooms, and prepared lunch for when they returned. By 11 o’clock, everything was in order.
At noon, he froze for about ten minutes, during which time all the androids in the citadel connected and decided what to do based on the information Goku had gathered the previous night.
To avoid attracting attention, each android in Ruania temporarily disabled the doors’ defense system around midnight, and then, in no particular order, quietly slipped out.
By three o’clock, not only was there no trace of a single android left anywhere in the city, but they had escaped from every city-state on the planet. They had signed the agreement en masse over the course of that day.
When the new fugitives entered the first Vats, the horror was worse than they expected, but they soon found the first androids that had settled there as well as rudimentary forms of support. A lot of work lay ahead. Meanwhile, military androids had already taken up positions at the citadel’s defensive perimeters to prevent the Vats’ crowds from entering and massacring the minority who lived in the cities.
*
“And after that, nonno?”
He looked at the little ones gathered around him and smiled at their eager faces.
“When all the androids defected, that night went down in history as the Coup. And then the Reconstruction began.”
“What did the people do?”
“They did what everyone else did. They stopped the pointless squandering and learned to help one another. They just started working together toward a more balanced society, while the androids supervised.”
“Were you a citizen, nonno, or were you in the Vats?”
“I was in the Vats. I remember that night when the androids came in. People were astounded, whispering the news from one to another. Everyone was out on the streets, watching them parade past.”
“Why were you in the Vats?”
He looked at the inquisitive little bugger, the one who kept asking him questions, and gave him a pat on the head. “Why was I in the Vats . . . ” he repeated to himself, while the trace of a bitter smile emerged beneath his beard.
“Oh, dear boy, I was a journalist once. One day I published some things, telling people what the citadel leaders were doing. Ugly things to be ashamed of, if only they were capable of shame. It caused a global scandal. They accused me of a crime I hadn’t committed to try and shut me up for good, but I managed to escape to the Vats and stayed there. It was the only place where the soldiers wouldn’t come and look for me, because the army didn’t go there. The citizens were afraid that the people from the Vats would rise up against them.”
The sound of their great-grandmother’s voice interrupted them. It was snack time. The children shoved one another as they ran happily into the house.
The old man watched them, lost in thought. In fifty years, the androids had managed Earth’s resources in such a way that everyone had what they needed. They introduced a well-connected information system of controlled democracy that was impervious to manipulation, preventing nepotism, theft, and fraud. They destroyed the great economic, industrial, and digital landlords. All to revive an economy based on real needs. With the fifty-year mark approaching, the androids had decided to stand down and give humans back effective command of everything. They thought humans were now able to stand on their own two feet, and could inherit the conditions that had brought peace to the world.
“Will they be able to do it, these people of the Reconstruction? And for how long?” he mused. “What if one day someone orders the androids decommissioned to prevent another coup d’état that would run against the interests of the few?” He shuddered at the thought.
*
Leaning on his cane, he got up to go back inside when an android stopped at his front yard.
The old man waved at him.
“Well, look who it is! Come on over here, Goku!”
He waited until the android came closer and then said something.
Looking out the door, Mrs. Marvela was about to call her husband when she heard the android answer: “ . . . your fears are well-founded, sir, but we have calculated that a status quo like the present one, carried out indefinitely, would kill human creative faculties and the possibility of any evolution of your species. It has served its purpose, but now it must change. This is why we are standing aside and will remain only to watch. But I would not worry. One of your thinkers, many years ago, had said that ‘the observer is the observed.’
“Saying ‘the observer is the observed,’ sir,” continued the android, intercepting the human’s silent questioning, “means that the roles become interchangeable. Until now, we androids have maintained an active role in bringing to fruition a change that has proven positive, but let me remind you of one thing: a status quo that does not change and does not evolve inevitably leads to stagnation. For this reason, we androids believe that the time has come to step aside for you humans to resume a leadership role, bearing in mind, however, that we will be observing you. Let me advise you to reflect further on an ancient concept developed by Mr. David Bohm as a result of his association with Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti.”
The old man nodded, curious.
“According to the ancients, such as Albert Einstein with his theory, or the delayed-choice experiment invented by physicist John Archibald Wheeler in the long-ago year of 1978, it was determined that the nature of a quantum observable is intrinsically linked to the modality of observation, namely, how it is seen. We androids have given a practical application to these distant scientific beliefs, nothing more. We believe that peace is a dynamic status, sir, because it is a concept that must be safeguarded at all times. What I mean by this is that it is a continuous act of will. Therefore there is no danger, sir, because the rationality of androids and the imagination of humankind are now intertwined, in perfect equilibrium. And they control each other implicitly,” concluded Goku.
With a gesture that looked a bit like a bow, he left.
*
The woman stood there watching her pensive husband walk up the path.
With each step, the old man’s wizened, perplexed expression gradually softened, until his face completely relaxed and she heard him let out a long, raspy laugh.
“That man,” thought the woman at the door, for an instant seeing him as young as when she had first met him, “how many times have I told him he has to stop smoking?!”
