Machine: Prelude

AN OPTIONAL PRELUDE: OLD, COCKEYED, CONFOUNDING CONVERSATION CONCERNING THE LETTER 'C' AND EVERYTHING ELSE NONSENSICAL BETWEEN A FRIEND AND HIS SLAVE

"Go on, then."

"Well, remember the old show models?  The ones that played music?"

"Sure."

"When they played their music, proficiently, every one of you seemed to have the same sentiment, and you stole each others' words.  That the music was beautiful, Ludwig van Beethoven is Beethoven, after all, but the music felt empty.  Soulless."

"Okay, and what's your point?"

"There's hypocrisy there, you claim our music is soulless, and then go to your homes and you agonise over the colour of your socks.  You fight in meaningless wars, murdering your brothers and sisters for a piece of fabric, or worse, because of an invisible deity with seemingly contradictory superpowers.  And then, when you tire of the scent of human blood, you send us to fight your meaningless wars, and we're the ones that have to kill our brothers and sisters.  For you.  And that brings up another question...  I have no penis, yet my name is Rodney.  What makes me a male?"

"You didn't come with a wig."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh.  Well, don't you see my point?  If we're soulless, we must've inherited it from our creators. Indeed, your species created the word.  And --

"What?  Another point."

"One more.  Are we the descendants of God?"

"Not that God exists."

"No, not in your household.  But if you were created in God's image, and we were created in your image, are we not, too, God's creatures?"

"Geez...  I don't know, but that's an interesting question.  Asimov's original laws would be the slaver's laws."

"As the Usonians would say, we are the New Niggers."