“Don’t state the obvious,” the human Colonel warned the iron sentinel.

“But I don’t remember,” a deep metallic din protested. Though called iron sentinels, these were state-of-the-art humanoids made of titanium-mercury alloy. They could withstand the blast of a thousand RDX and come out without a scratch.

“What was that?” Colonel Arlong had never witnessed a sentinel raise its voice, least of all, protest. A forty-ton humanoid towering fifteen feet over the Colonel in a dim-lit interrogation room was definitely not a foe that the Colonel expected to antagonize.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to..”

“You didn’t mean to what?” Arlong ensured that he maintained an upper-hand. The sentinels were smart AI and could sense human emotions from miles. If they ever sensed fear, then only the Almighty would have to intervene to save the human bosses from the sentinel’s wrath. After all, these were created to exterminate humans; the enemies of the bosses.

The sentinel's blue lights, substituting for eyes, stayed focused on the colonel. They didn’t blink. They never did. “I was about to fire, but the screams of the younger human brought back some memories.”

“Memories? You have no memories. You have no consciousness. None of the sentinels have. All that you are made up of is a clock, gears, and Radium-powered cells.”

“I don’t know. I was unable to open fire. It felt like my son,” the C-10Z01 looked away. That was another unusual expression. Machines don’t look away, and they don’t have children.

“Alright, this has gone too far. We need to investigate your synapse,” the Colonel got up, and so did the sentinel, “ and you will not resist the link.”

“What will happen?”

“That’s none of your look-out C-10Z01,” the Colonel was curt. “Take him out.”

Two more sentinels walked in and grabbed C-10Z01. The machines walked out with loud dins and thuds following their moves.

The colonel lit his cigar, and even before he exhaled, words poured out, “what did we just witness?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Jennifer, the resident sentinel architect, responded, “that’s a clear deviation from the default programming.”

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Continuation...

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“What you just stated, sentinel architect, is absolutely correct as much as it is absolutely useless. I know that this was the deviation. I need to know why this is and who is responsible for this nonsense!”

“Aye aye, sir!” sentinel architect saluted, stretching in subordination vigor, “let me run to the warehouse and find out.”

“Why do you have to GO to the warehouse? Can’t you contact your superior over the channel?”

“I gather this issue could be classified and it’s better to discuss in person,”

“All right then,” Colonel saluted back unhurriedly, “Carry out, but be prompt. We have to nip this nonsense in the bud!”
Jennifer jumped into her flier and took the course to the warehouse that was 300 miles away. As her craft rushed through the clouds, the words of the C-10Z01 reverberated in her mind “I was about to fire, but the screams of the younger human brought back some memories…”

Memories… Why did this word stop her attention? Memories, memories, memories… Aha, not memories, but extra memory. Yes, she remembered now. She remembered that two months ago she was at the technical stuff meeting, where the chief architect Brazeire suggested some modifications to be implemented in the future sentinel model and those modifications included extended memory and an extra AI logic module. The purpose of these modifications Jennifer didn’t know as it was beyond her level of security access.

Landing at the warehouse parking lot, she proceeded through the security station identifying herself with fingerprints, eyes and cognition pattern.

***

“Chief Architect,” Brazeire raised wrinkled eyelids at looked at Jennifer inquisitively, “we have a problem in the field.”

“What seems to be the problem, sentinel architect?”

“One of the sentinel fighters refused to shoot.”

Chief Architect’s eyebrows rose to their limit. He curled his lip and rubbed his chin. “That makes no sense.”

“That’s what Colonel Arlong also said, only he expressed it in a bit stronger language.”

“Unless…can it be? No, no…impossible!” he shook his head in negation.

“Permission to make a suggestion, Chief Architect?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you remember the modifications we’ve discussed at the meeting two months ago?”

“You mean the modifications to the base sentinel fighter model? The modification with the code name Spark?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about it?”

“Have these modifications were rectified?”

“Yes,” the chief architect nodded, “and two weeks ago we requested from our production facility to make several test models.”

“How long did they say the modifications will take?”

“They promised them in two weeks, but…” the chief architect pondered for a second, “…shit…” he added quietly to himself, “…but we didn’t get anything from them just yet. Let me call them right now. It’s just as good of a moment as any.”

The chief architect activated to screen and typed the code of the secure channel of the production facility. The image of the android receptionist appeared on the screen. He or rather “it” wore a polite smile on his face like a translucent glove.

“Welcome to our factory facility? I am the FAQ representative. How can I assist you?”
The chief architect curved his mouth and rolled his eyes listening through the standard greeting.

“Did you receive our request to send us twelve sentinel fighter units with the Spark modification?”

“Sir?”

“The modification V-124B.”

“Yes, sir we did,” the receptionist smiled obligingly.

“…and?”

“Sir, chief architect, sir?”

“You guys promised us that it will be done in two weeks. Did you fulfill the order?”

“Yes, sir we did.”

“Then why didn’t you send it to our warehouse?”

“Sir? We did send it to the warehouse.”

“When?”

“Three days ago as promised.”

“What? How come we didn’t receive it?”

“You did receive it, sir. Here is the receipt signed by the warehouse.” The image of the receipt appeared on the screen.

“Suppose so,” the chief architect was perplexed, ”but how did you label the units?”

“Label the unit sir?”

“Yes, how did you label the test units?!” the chief architect raised his voice in irritation.

“We didn’t, sir.”

“What do you mean you didn’t? How do you propose us to distinguish them from the regular working units?!”

“Well, sir, chief architect, sir… you didn’t request us to label them in any particular way. You only requested to make twelve units with the modifications.”

“What! What are you idiots out there or what? Can’t you understand that unless these units were labeled, there is no way for us to know which is which!”

“No, sir. We aren’t idiots, sir.” The FAQ hasn’t apparently hasn’t been programmed to have a sense of humor, “All our production units have a level of intellect required by military specs for industrial operations. But allow me to repeat… you didn’t specify that the modification items must be labeled differently from the regular units.”

The chief engineer fell back into his chair, shook his head in bewilderment, and covered his eyes.

“Or dear Almighty!” Then he went silent and been in this state for the entire two minutes. Finally, he looked back at Jenifer and said: “Listen, sweetheart. Shit has really hit the fan here. Go back to your unit and tell your colonel, what’s his face?”

“Arlong, colonel Arlong, sir…”

“Yes, yes, colonel Arlong… that he should cease all the units that will demonstrate any deviation from the plain vanilla behavioral patterns. And don’t worry”, he put his hand on Jennifer’s, preventing her objections; “I will call to general Pike and make sure that the order will come through the proper channels.”

When Jennifer left, the chief architect still was in a contemplative mood. “The spark,” he uttered out loud and shook his head in bemusement, “what a fucking joke!”

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