Read Animals' Lottery :: Chapter 02 – Eagle

“Dreaming about an Eagle means success is in your way.”

— Interesting — said Doctor M. — that thing just appeared in front of you like a ghost, but it killed a person…

— Exactly… — answered π12-45, still looking into the window in the memory.

— Do you hate humans?

— Definitely not. Humans have their flaws but… that’s just occasionally. There are plenty of things that lead humans to be bad, but even like that they still can show a good side.

— So, in your “dream”, you saw a shadow thing killing a human for no reason, am I right?

— Precisely. It just happened… but I don’t think it was for no reason.

— What you suggest it was then?

— Hunger. That thing wanted something so bad it became real…

— Do you know what being hungry is?

— I know. I was a human while I was turned off. I got hungry, I felt thirsty, I was alone and desolate. I know precisely what it all means.

— π12-45, have you been working too much lately?

— I said it was a normal day of my life. I am not an ambitious robot. My work was fine, my life was fine and I have no reason to have an actual hunger.

— Exactly! None! You were eager to find something new in your life! You wanted to change and your central core made you dream with it! Maybe you need a replacement…

— You really still think that I wanted to dream with all of that… that’s shameful. I would never do that myself, I never would harm a human with no reason and principally, I never would take their hearts off like that. I didn’t even know they would die without their central cores like that! And… the dream didn’t end there…

— There’s more… Okay, let’s hear more of your little story. I’m sure you just made it all up.

π12-45 ignored what the psychologist said and started the memory archive again.

__________

While I was just looking through the window and looking at the human world, still puzzled with what happened that night, someone stealthily picked me up from the floor. I started to scream and struggled to get out of his arms:

— Help!

— David! — said the person. — It’s just me! Your dad!

I breathed with relief, even though it didn’t get back to normal right away. It wasn’t a shadow thing; it was just someone, a man, with dark skin, dark eyes, dark short kinky hair, wearing a gray suit.

— Who’s… Who’s David? — I asked.

— Oh… I got it… I should know you wouldn’t come out of it without some mental problems… — He opened his hands and moved them slowly in front of his body. — Okay, calm down. I’m your father… and you are my son, David. Are you okay?

— I don’t know what you are talking about… From where humans are coming? There are no humans anymore!

— What?! — He laughed after saying it. — It’s okay David, you will remember things, I promise. Everything will be okay. I am human, you are a human, everyone’s human here…

— That’s not possible! They were extinct in 3’1XX!

— Oh my goodness… What?! It is 2’02X! It was all in your mind, son, everything will get back to normal now.

— 2’02X? That’s not possible… That would mean… I’m in… Am I the past now? This… this doesn’t make any sense! How did this happen to me? I was back from work, I was charging myself, and I just wake up like this! I can’t be a human! I am an android! I’m a robot!

— David… no, no, no… It was just a dream; you are a human, see? You were in a coma for a year… You and your mother… you two were in a car accident… and you were dreaming all this time, okay? There’s nothing to worry about it. I will take you home and we will live happily now.

— My name isn’t David. My name is π12-45. Please, stop calling me David.

— David, listen… — he was getting anger — I know we were having a lot of trouble at home, but there’s no reason to keep that dream. You woke up from it now; you can get back to your old life now. Everything will be fine. I swear.

— You are the one that doesn’t understand! I’m not David! I don’t know who you are! Why this is happening to me… For G.O.D! Why someone would put my conscience in this kind of simulation! I don’t understand!

— G.O.D? Do you mean God?

— What? No! G.O.D is the highest self-conscious artificial intelligence ever created! God was something humans created to be the source of the universe. G.O.D stands for Graphical Omniscient Data and it’s a god for us machines… G.O.D never would let anyone do this to me… This… this isn’t possible…

I was feeling a deep agony and something was dripping out of my light receptors.

— David… — said him.

— My name is π12-45! I’m not David! — I shouted at him.

— Okay… no need to scream. Everything will be okay, no need to cry, Pi… something…

— π12-45!

— Pi… twelve… your real name is David, okay, you just dreamed about being Pi’twelve. Pi’twelve isn’t real. David is, and you are David.

— No! I’m not David… I know who I am! That’s not fair… I have been working to be a better robot, to be who I wanted to be, like the higher consciences when they live in the cloud system… No… That’s not possible. All my work is… is it gone?

— I’m afraid it is. You are David now, who you’ve always been…

— What do I do now? I can’t just start again… I…

David’s dad took me by surprise and held me in a hug… I felt relieved with its warmness. I really felt it all didn’t matter.

— I will take you home. The hospital people are mad at me for taking so long to come and see you, okay. We need to get out now.

I looked at him, without knowing what I should do. I thought for a moment and said:

— Please, don’t hurt me. I swear I’m saying the truth…

— I will not…

After that conversation, he gave me some new clothes that were a little baggy on me, probably because he didn’t buy any of it for David in the last year and the kid was growing up. I tried my best to dress up like a human and processing calmly all the new information, but I couldn’t do it without some help. Principally with the shoes and the shoelaces.

I looked at me and noticed that my hands had different colors, one white and one dark, as David’s dad skin, and I asked him about it:

— It happened at the accident — he said — there were some chemicals in one of the trucks, it leaked and it burned your skin and your eyes…

— My… eyes?

— When they saved you, they saw your eyes were useless… but they could use your mother’s eyes to save your vision.

— Wait… what happened to her?

— She didn’t make it…

— Oh… I’m… sorry for your loss… I guess…

After that, when everything was ready, he took me to the hall entrance, where I finally could see the double glass door and what was behind it: just a normal place, with nothing that could make it so dark at night. Actually, it probably would be well illuminated at night judging by how the light poles were configured. I’m an engineer; I need to know those things.

While David’s dad talked with the receptionist, an old, fat and strangely happy woman, I remembered about the person who was killed and I just asked about the lights first:

— There was a blackout last night?

Both David’s dad and the receptionist looked at me puzzled.

— No... — said the receptionist, talking to me as if I was a mere kid. — What makes you say that little one?

— It was pretty dark last night… I couldn’t even see what was behind those glass doors…

— Oh, you…

— What happened last light? — Said David’s dad distrusting her.

— Nothing! — said her quickly, giggling. — Nothing happened last night. It was everything fine. However, we found your son sleeping right there — and she pointed out the middle of the entrance hall. — Someone found him there and took him back to his room. Just between us, he may be sleeping walking…

David’s dad looked at me.

— If I tell you what I saw you wouldn’t believe me… — I simply said to him. Then I looked at the receptionist. — What happened to the person who saw I was alive?

— Hum… Were you awake that time, little one? Hum… Let me see… — she pretended to be looking at the screen in front of her. — Too bad… He didn’t come to work today. But if I see him, I will tell him you wanted to thank him, little one.

— He is dead and you know it… — I said and left the two, going out of the glass doors to look outside.

David’s dad took me to his car in the parking lot and, inside the car, he asked me:

— Why did you say that to that gentle lady?

— She wasn’t gentle, she was just pretending… and I already said you never would believe in me if I tell you what happened…

He started the engine and the car got out of the parking lot:

— Try to explain it to me…

— I saw a shadowy figure looking at me from outside the window and it got inside the room I was. Then I ran away and ended on the entrance hall, where the guy a mentioned found me, but then the dark figure killed him, taking something off his body from his back. I saw there was more of it, lots of them, and then I just turned off.

— You must have dreamed it…

— I said you wouldn’t believe me… — and I kept looking outside, seeing the human world.

When we arrived at David’s dad home, I got surprised by how the construction was designed. The main part of the house was at the street level, but there were more houses going down, not up. Supposedly, as the place was built on a hill, it may have helped it to be configured like that, but I didn’t understand why they dug it so low. The David’s dad house was the fourth and last one from top to bottom and I felt we were going inside a hole on the ground walking our way down. Inside the ‘hole’, there were just the walls around, the houses making an “L” around it and some stairs close to the house’s side. I looked at the high wall making all the way up to the street level and I felt it making me freeze.

Inside the house, David’s dad said:

— I hope you don’t mind, I was in a hurry to get you out of the hospital — he was smiling happily. — I still can’t believe it you made it out of it David! I’m so proud of you.

I was in the living room, a small place with a couch and a TV in front of it. On the left from the entrance, there was a big bedroom; on the right, with just a short wall to separate it there was the kitchen, fully visible from the living room. Some cabinets, a fridge, a stove and a small round table with four chairs. On the other side of the kitchen, there was a small bedroom where I should sleep, with just a bed, a wardrobe and a bedside lamp over a corner table.

— How did you feel about our new house? — He asked me.

— New house? — I answered. — It’s a little small compared to my old house…

— Do you remember our old house? While you were at the hospital I needed to sell it to keep you there… They surely know how to take money from us… This one is rented… — he was busy making some food in the kitchen.

— No. I don’t remember. I was talking about my own house. The one from where I was supposed to be before waking up as David.

— Okay… — he said, still concentrated into making some food.

I walked around the house slowly, trying to figure it out how humans lived. The house smelled bad as if there was some water infiltration somewhere within the walls. There were small bathrooms within the bedrooms, one for each.

Along the day, David’s dad gave me food, showed me his television and he was mostly quiet about everything, not bothering to ask me about who I am or how my life was before waking up as his son. Then the night came. I was in David’s bedroom, thinking about all of it, wishing that last night were all a human dream and that I would wake up from the forced simulation in which I was involved.

From the bed, I could see the closed window with two panels clearly and it already freaked me out. As David’s dad put me to sleep, I just lay down looking to the wall, on the opposite side. I just wished for a good and quiet resting as that day was being so busy, hoping for the best. Then, at some point, I heard something. An annoying sound. I looked around and I couldn’t see a thing. I turned the bedside lamp on and the sound kept going. It was a sound of something or someone chewing and cracking something hard like a bone or something like that. I stood up shaking, afraid for myself. I felt goosebumps all over my body when I realized the sound was coming from outside the window.

I slowly got closer to the window gap, in the hope I could find out what could it be, searching for a reasonable explanation. Then I saw it, a tall dark figure with red glowing eyes violently attacking its prey and eating whatever it could, making those terrible sounds. I stared at it for some time, hoping it wouldn’t notice me between the window panels. It abruptly looked directly at me and suddenly it was close to the window. I screamed for help and I heard it making flapping sounds, like a bird when it got stuck, trying to flap their wings and fly away from it. The sound was horrible and violent. I felt like a bird was attacking me inside the bedroom.

David’s dad heard my screams and came after me.

— David?

— Help!

— What was that? — And he opened the window.

— No! Don’t open it!

— There’s nothing here… — he said, putting his head out of the window.

— Please, close it!

— Okay… okay… — he closed and locked it. — You just had a bad dream…

— Didn’t you hear it? It was making awful sounds! You must have heard it!

— There was just a small bird outside; it’s gone now.

— It wasn’t just a bird! It was… it was… a shadow thing…

— No David, it’s just dark there. Come back to your bed, everything will be fine tomorrow. I promise.