The First ONE

Human Blindness

Humans were congratulating themselves on their great job, without a sun, machines simply were slowly running out of fuel; oil, once abundant and the main source of energy had long been drained from earth's bosom. There was only one that warned men, a courageous young general that was the sole opponent to the darkening of the sky. He warned back then, that the less natural life there was, the stronger they would make the machines, that the answer was doing just the opposite, and that human kind was in that mess in the first place because of it's disconnection with nature. This coming from an Indian was no surprise, and people were used to their weird conception of life, always repeating the same story, saying that planting flowers would save the earth was simply not realistic. Extreme measures were needed, not flower-power.

The Indian, never the less, kept preaching his warnings, many listened, not because he was a renowned general, but because it was said he had the gift of "sight", with which he could see things before they happened, but as more human victories were obtained, less and less people took what he said seriously. He was proved wrong, as machines were no longer attacking cities and retreating at every post. Huemac, as he was called, became ostracized.

His dreams were becoming so terrible, he was quitting sleeping all together, and started to dislike sleep. Yet his visions were striking him so strongly, he had them even when he was awake. What scared him the most in those visions was that he saw himself always sleeping, unable to awake. Then it happened, machines took over the unarmed city of Lausanne in Switzerland, and everyone was confused. There were no military targets there, no weapons, no reason what so ever to attack it, they weren't even participating that much in the war. Some said the machines were so desperate they were trying to make something out of nothing. All contact with the city was cut off, and more than 1 million people were being held inside it's walls.

Huemac In Love

The global alliance called for a meeting and the worlds leading experts were summoned. Huemac attended that meeting where it was discussed what action would be taken. Machines would not resist more than a couple of days without recharging, so they could just siege the city, cut it's supplies and wait. So they did, they waited, and waited, and waited for a full month, yet, machines inside the city were busier than ever.

Huemac feared the moment where he would be proven right was near. But there was no body to talk to, and he recurred to what was left of the internet to communicate his point of view, visiting desperately every chatroom, every person that would listen.

It was in those chatrooms where he met Susan, so inquisitive, so naive…so willing to listen and learn. Huemac talked with her daily, and shared so many moments with her, he realized he fallen in love over the net.

Machine Inteligence

Unfortunate times to fall in love, reports of the city demonstrated intense activity, in fact, machines were getting ready to attack! It would be a long time before humans truly understood what had happened in that city. There, the largest human hospital was built. The African doctor, Joseph Kunjaza had developed some time ago the most efficient human incubators ever. Premature children were being saved with this method and over 40,000 babies from all over the world were being incubated in the hospital. Machines had combined that technology with Nobel prize winner Dr. Rudolph McLelan's research on advanced human learning. Dr. McLelan was able to translate raw data into the human brain by connecting it to a computer so the learning process was increased dramatically, even though still in it's experimental stage, machines were able to implement this technology and combine it with their energy btu convertors. The result- Humans could be converted into an abundant source of energy.

Machines began an aggressive counterstrike and humans were not able to sustain them, but soon after, machines retreated again. The reason, even if yet ignored by men, was that machines were unable to sustain humans incubated for prolonged periods of time. Huemac's only consolation after the long hours of blood and battle was to sit down and talk to distant Susan. He felt She could listen and always had a smart remark. Huemac said that as all occidentals, she did not understand feelings very well, she almost didn't accept them, Huemac spoke to her about the ancient ways and the advantages of feelings, mastery of feelings was a human mission of it's own. Of how plants and animals must be respected, and tried to explain to her that even a chair or a lamp must be treated with respect, and ancient teaching encouraged this behavior, as everything was thought to be alive, as was earth. He told her many things he knew she probably didn't understand. They had fun, and Susan found it fascinating he was a renowned general. Yet, Huemac's visions were becoming so terrible, that he stopped talking, even to Susan. It was incredibly painful not talking to her love but he did not want to afflict her with what he was seeing. Which was ok, Susan was becoming busier and busier every day and had no more time for chatroom talk.

Machines had developed a new strategy and were no longer occupied with military objectives, they were taking peaceful cities. Rumors spread that they were not killing people, but taking them alive, and the younger- the better. And so, unprotected, many cities fell, and the more cities that fell, the stronger the machines became. Huemac called Susan to warn her of the dangers, but she was no where to be found. He left a message to hide in the woods and forests because cities were no safe places, he loved her too much and feared for her safety.

The Final Battle

Huemac organized his men, they were determined to stop the machines from reaching the city of Texas. Most of the coast was already taken, and the refugees had fled there hoping to find security. When machines approached they were greeted with strong bullets, potent enough to crack their armors. Among all the robots and sentinels, there was his huge beast; when people disappeared, when machines took over cities this 20 foot metallic monster led the way and seemed to have a heavy amount of control over the rest of the robots. "Aim at their backs" instructed Huemac, "That's where their energy is stored" he said. How he knew, he could not really say, like many things, he just did. They stood their ground, and machines were clearly distressed when their energy sources were hit, energy was their most prized commodity. Every soldier in the battalion gave their lives, and almost for every machine that was damaged, a human life was taken. Huemac aimed to the leader's energy supply and fired. The accurate hit was a cause for celebration, yet, there was no one to celebrate with, he was alone. It was another no-win--no-win battle, in which both sides had lost.

The damaged machines by default calculated their energy reserves and knew they could not help their leader without the expense of their own lives. Machines valued life highly, and would not give it up, even if it was for a much more important entity than themselves. So, the only option was going back to the nearest energy supply and ask for backup. The machines that calculated in successfully making the trip went immediately, the others were left behind to save as much energy as they could.

Humans could be given the victory, even when the city was left undefended, they had managed to destroy their key robot. Huemac came out of his hiding place, to witness the shutdown of the remaining machines. As soon as they went into sleeping mode he destroy them one by one. Then he went on front of the leader, it's 16 eyes still gawking at him, the machine tried to move, but it was too weak, even for that but was able to run though it's files and immediately recognized the man- they had met before.

The Truth Hurts

This machine was assigned the task of "herding" the captives. It had registered all the information of human nature and their "illogical" behavior. Its job was to make humans accept their captivity, and so, it had designed eloquent formats it would input in their brains, but with it's energy supply faulting, the machine wasn't computing clearly. When Huemac touched it with his gun pointing at it's main frame he was blown with a vision, a disturbing truth was revealed to him, in which he was killing his beautiful Susan. Instinctively he dropped the gun, and turned to the machine. he was used on trusting his visions. "Who are you?" He asked. "I am Tx-50@q4, but you know me as Susan." Was the female human-like response. The machine had jacked in the internet in search for information about human behavior and absorbed the information Huemac gave her to understand peoples minds and subdue them, his teachings were actually what made the machines able to design a Matrix that was accepted by humans.

Huemac backed up, surprised, angry, betrayed, confused. he quickly picked up the gun again and pointed it at the machine, but simply, couldn't pull the trigger. "Why?" he screamed, "Why?" falling on his knees. The weak machine explained that they needed humans to survive, and opened its back hull, to reveal to Huemac their energy source. The dying remains of a human were shown to him, which caused him to vomit in disgust. Machines, he realized, had all the energy they needed now. Susan re-wrote herself, which was something machines were lousy at because they had no imagination, but Susan did her best to understand human emotions, yet, Huemac was un impressed, emotions can never be understood, they have to be felt. Susan pleaded Huemac not to disconnect her battery, because as soon as the human died, so would she. Huemac did not listen, and as soon as he dug a grave disconnected the person, who after several convulsions and with most of his body burned by the large bullets passed away. After he buried that person though, he did something that was very strange. He cried, cried for Susan, and held the machine as if tiring to comfort it, the dying Susan regretted they could not talk any more. Huemac could not accept loosing her, even if he knew she was a machine, he would NOT see her die, he was not going to deny he loved her more than he loved life. He jumped at the back of the hull and placed himself in the battery deposit, where the other man was connected. He manually Jacked in, which was an extremely painful process. Susan felt how the energy started to flow through her system and headed to the machine city. She was puzzled by Huemac's behavior, she tried to tackle the question but the system crashed, she re-booted but as soon as she studied the issue, she crashed again. When she arrived a replacement battery was given, maybe that was the reason for her malfunctioning, the delivered battery was cleansed and deleted, a new program was introduced in it's mind and properly jacked into the matrix.

Jonathan's New Life

Machines could not change their programs, at risk of permanently damaging themselves, so they only made slight adjustments to their systems. The way they got around this was to emulate nature, one programs would come together with another compatible script and each would copy part of their own programming, join it together to create a new one, different from their parents, and this created children, young inexperienced programs that had to be taught. The programs that were created and proved useful would be allowed to do the same.

More cities fell and Susan main task was to supervise the matrix's functionality, the glitches were being fixed quickly but some subjects were confronting the program, which was growing quickly with entire cities connected to it constantly. Susan was not working properly, and seemed unable to compute, even the simplest tasks were becoming difficult to perform. She caught herself over and over going to that strange episode with her study subject. ¿How could it be possible for a human to give his life for another? Logic dictated that all living organisms took care of themselves first. Most humans were presented with the choice of joining the matrix or dying, so almost all jacked up by their own free will, but her subject gave up his freedom to save her life, that was simply uncomputable. Then she realized that what was bothering her was the subject itself. Why was it she needed to think about him? Why couldn't she delete it from her mind? Some time passed before she realized she was having a human emotion, because she couldn't understand it, she was blocking it away… She was on denial. This truth changed her existence, for she realized she could feel, maybe the connection to the defective battery had affected her somehow, changed her. Now all she wanted to know was WHAT she was feeling. It was this emotion that made her system crash, again secretly she re-programmed herself. The data trying to be analyzed was simply too great and so she devised a method to allow it out of her system, inside the matrix she made herself able to cry, and she did often, no more crashing ever occurred again, and she knew the answer of what was she feeling would come soon.

Susan Looks Inside Herself

Emotions are dangerous, and will control you if you are not careful, and Susan was careless. She simply, had to see Him again, her new programming could override logic, which was dictating the abortion of the plan due to the perils on such ordeal. Huemac, being a general, was placed on a code 5 security level. Stripped of any possibilities of command he was placed under the direct scrutiny of a control program, specifically designed to keep an eye on him. His new name was Jonathan Parsh, and worked on a low level position of a large corporation in Los Angeles. The control program placed himself as his boss, and assigned overloads of work to keep him busy. Susan felt sorry for Jonathan, a mere pencil pusher there seemed to be no trace left of the older version of the proud general. Yet, at nights, Jonathan would get on line looking, searching not knowing what. Susan knew that contact was very risky, yet she did it anyway. Again, they met through the internet, and once more, Jonathan fell in love. Susan discovered that the feeling she'd been having was no other than Love, probably the most sublime and complex of human emotions.

They met, in the matrix Susan occupied a healthy woman's body, her color of skin was black, it was an image of the female studdy subject she liked the most. They touched, and every time, Susan and Jonathan experimented feeling that were so intense it's magnitude simply eclipses any attempts of describing it. The boss was running out of ideas, for Jonathan had again a reason for living and started to question his authority. Finally Jonathan made a choice, and quit his job, and there was nothing machines could do, the boss, due to it's incompetence was immediately taken back to the source for deletion. Machines didn't expect it but Jonathan had some money saved up, and seemed to know every trap they tried to set, walking away safely.

Jonathan had a dream, and so did Susan, for somehow, they're closeness was fussing them together and his powers of seeing what was to come were transmitted to her too. Susan hadn't mustered the courage of telling Jonathan who he was, she was afraid of what could happen if he was not ready to hear it, and was simply just to happy with him. But in the dream, Jonathan saw the outside world, dark and destroyed. Susan dreamt on the other hand a beautiful dream of a seed that would grow inside her.

She didn't know how, but their love had allowed the couple to give a part of each other and form a new being- She was pregnant. All boundaries with logic were broken, and humans and machines had become one. The couple was truly happy, glowing in love and joy, Jonathan job as a newspaper boy seemed unimportant.

Change Is Inevitable

Unfortunately their happiness didn't last long, more aggressive programs to control the Matrix were developed, they were called "Agents" with powers and abilities beyond any human, so they could be easily manipulated or, if need be, subdued. Agents efficiently tracked down Jonathan, and reported his affiliation with Susan and her pregnancy.

The Architect had to be re-booted twice when this news was given to him. That simply could not be, humans and machines simply were not compatible. Susan was way to important for the functionality of the matrix to be taken back to the source, but the baby was another story. He ordered his agents to go there and destroy that monstrosity, kill Jonathan and did not want to hear another word from the issue ever again.

Susan was weary, and knew Jonathan HAD to be told the truth, little did she know there were agents already roaming the matrix in search for her and Jonathan. They moved frequently, but not to frequent it seemed. Agents spotted Susan and held her tightly, here fiscal ability no match against the strength of the agents. They took out their deletion devices and ran anything that seemed not to be Susan. The procedure, the first of it's kind, was done messy, and Susan herself was badly hurt, she was bleeding heavily.

Jonathan was on his way back from his newspaper rout when he saw Susan running towards him on the street, her clothes torn and a trail of blood on the sidewalk. "What happened? Are you alright?" He asked, Susan slapped his face with all her strength. "You have to wake! They are going after your body!" Jonathan didn't understand, "What body? You are delirious, you have to be taken to a hospital" He replied. Susan's eyes were bright red "Listen up, You are Huemac, I'm disconnecting you before they get to you!" She said, as she franticly hit him so he would send the necessary signals. "Huemac?…Huemac!!" He thought, all of a sudden understanding what was going on, his memory coming back. He started to feel he was being disconnected from the matrix. "I love you so! I'll love you always" he said, as the people on the street witnessed how this strong man simply plummet to the floor, "A heart attack" they said.

A New Begining

Huemac broke up from his captivity, breaking the placenta and stripping the large feeding tube from his mouth. He fell into the sewers, his body could not move from the long period of inactivity it suffered. He should have drowned, but he never used his mere muscles to move, his Indian education connected him with ancient spirits, flesh is only a vehicle, the real power lies within that. He could withstand starvation in the battlefield and out maneuver the machines because of this knowledge. He was up for the test, and made his body move without other muscle responding than his sheer will. He walked kilometers inside his crippled body until he found a safe place to hide, eating rats and sewer waste, he was the only human in planet earth awake. Machines didn't even look for him, a disconnected man would simply drown they reasoned.

Susan knew better, she kept having dreams and saw Huemac's hiding place. She sent a self pilot ship to the location and left a message. When Huemac inspected the ship he found out Susan had sent it, in the message receaved there was all the information for pinpointing peoples locations and on how to unplug them. Susan was giving him a way to rebel form the machines. The plan was risky, for he had to jack into the matrix to wake people up without being detected, but it was worth the try.

This partnership was incredibly successful, and more and more humans were being set free. Huemac was referred to as "The One", and Susan became known as "The Oracle", and every time he could enter the matrix he would visit her, keeping their love a secret, an anomaly, which ironically had become man's only chance of freedom. Both in love, a love that recognized no borders or limits, they were free.

The beginning…

This short story was created by Mario LópezVital, any comments will be gladly received at ayolov@caminoflorido.com. I own the website www.caminoflorido.com, where we conduct the rescue missions for ancient Aztec culture. The Ulama (the most ancient sport in history of mankind) has been restored, as well as ancient martial arts known as Xilam, and meditation techniques called Kinam. If you want to know about the winning methods Aztec philosophy developed you can go to: Never Give Up.