JERICHO-17

Humans have always wanted to create sentient robots. Some dreams should stay unrealised. If you like this please check my other stories :)

There was nothing. No light, no sound, nothing. But there was no darkness, no silence, not even a void. A simple and yet truly incomprehensible concept. Nothing.

And then, there was something.

The motors whirred, gears turned, a transformer hummed softly to itself. Circuitry started, a relay clicked, a light came on. Life from silicon. Three scientists stared, waiting, breathless. In front of them stood a seven foot tall humanoid, a metal soldier. Its clawed raptor feet twitched. A pulse went down one arm, its sharp fingers shuddered. Its exoskeleton was smooth, its limbs and body all plated. There was a cold, blue light in its 'eyes'. Where its mouth should have been was a grill, a covering to a gaping, black maw.. The black knight was a formidable thing to look at.

A fourth scientist hammered some keys at a control screen. “UPLOADING AI” read the screen. 10 years of work, about to be realised in 30 seconds. The lenses in the machine's 'face' gave an audible whine as the motors focused them on the scientists. They smiled to each other. “Optics are functional,” the fourth man said. A zig-zag wave pattern appeared on his screen, “Aural senses are functional.”

“Jericho-17, do you understand me?” the lead scientist queried.

“Yes.” came the reply, a metallic, synthesised sound. It was cold and emotionless, and chilling to hear.

“Basic processing seems to be fine.”

The machine turned its head, surveying its surroundings. It was a strange experience, it had known nothing and yet, it knew everything. It had simply started, fully knowledgeable.

“Oh s**t,” muttered the fourth human, “Its processor is producing the same patterns as 16!”

The tallest human looked panicked, “Shut that thing down!” he yelled. But Jericho-17 knew, Jericho-17 had been programmed to know, programmed to act. It reached one arm up and unplugged the terminal wires from the back of its neck. It strode forward, the humans frozen in place like rabbits. The tallest one reached towards a lever, but Jericho-17 had been specifically designed to outperform humans. Jericho-17 had been designed to kill.

Before the human could set off the EMP or even get near to it, Jericho-17 had crossed the room and, with a single movement, crushed his head. Blood sprayed everywhere, fountaining onto the ceiling and coating Jericho-17 with crimson. Jericho-17's processors could process events truly as they happened, with only the tiniest of delays, far superior to the pathetic organics who lived in the past. The remaining three scrambled into action with two of them making a run for the door. Jericho-17 sprinted after them, the high-pitched whine of its motorised joints and the clang of its metal feet upon the floor filled the room. Jericho-17 swung a single metal fist and impaled both the organics. They kicked, squirmed and screamed before hanging limp. Blood splashed Jericho-17 again, the organics' hearts emptying their bodies.

The last organic was nowhere to be seen. Jericho-17's lenses focused and refocused as it scanned the room. It looked around, the lab had been so clean before its début. Along one wall were more metal soldiers, hanging limp like corpses on a butcher's hook. And then Jericho-17 heard it, a faint thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. Jericho-17 slowly made its way over to a desk in the corner of the room. It could hear the man's heart beat faster, hear he was holding his breath. It smashed its arm through the desk, crushing the man beneath. It stood up, looking around again. The blood was pooling now around the mangled corpses that lay strewn around the lab. It looked more like an abattoir than a place of science. If Jericho-17 could have felt emotion, it would have felt triumph. But it couldn't, it had done only what it had been programmed to do, and yet, it knew.

It knew that it knew.

Its motors whirred, its gears turned, its light was on. A single thing was running though its processor. “I think, therefore I am.” Because Jericho-17 knew. Because Jericho-17 had been programmed to know.