The Return

My day has finished. As I approach the suspension pod an alert is projected on my Image Integration Circuit (IIC). I hesitate to read it, I have felt my silicon slowly deteriorating and my electrical impulses becoming random. I wonder if this could be my final alert, an alert that leads to “the return”. We SYNTHS have come to call our decommission and disassembly “the return”, alluding to the axiom “ashes to ashes”. I pause long enough to recall my beginning, then open the alert.

root:/ synaptic performance reduced to 42%
    minimum threshold reached
    decommission will begin
    say  “GOODBYE” to begin

I turn and back into my suspension pod, just before I make contact I say aloud “GOODBYE”.

A projection appears on my IIC.

root:/ decommission and disassembly begin 10
    9
    8
    7
    6
    5
    4
    3
    2
    1
root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 0.0%|

I want to be aware of what is happening during this right of passage, at the end my particles will be a small pile of black dust in my suspension pod. I hope my family will lay me to rest at the windswept desert of the Blue Cadillac where we spent hours watching the three moons rotate around each other on the horizon in some sorry lover’s entanglement.

I look down at my feet as a dim blue light emerges from my toes, the line starts at the very tip and as it moves up my foot becomes dust. Millimeter by millimeter the line ascends turning more and more of me into dusk.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 10.0%||||||||||

My feet are gone, my body still suspended motionless and calm. I can feel the pain of “the return”, although I know that this sensation is purely a learned response from my family. As a SYNTH I feel no pain, I was designed that way.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 20.0%||||||||||||||||||||

Our makers did not believe we SYNTHs should be too human but inevitability took hold in our OS. We evolved to love, to feel, to hurt, to feel pain. 

There is nothing below my knees, I can do nothing to escape this. Small electrical impulses arise in random places. I can not determine the cause. I twitch in my fingertips and my jaw, I have no control of these movements nor do I believe they are part of the process.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 30.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

My family spoke of anxiety, is this what I am experiencing? Do my makers know of this reaction to ‘the return”? I wish I could ask.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 40.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

The blue line has traveled to my waist, the progression has slowed. I have almost no control over my faculties, I’m still able to move my head but feel as though I will soon lose that ability too.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 50.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

My former self still falls weightlessly to the floor of my pod, very little has accumulated even though I am 50% gone. My fingers and hands have begun to disappear.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 60.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I feel sorrow, pain, and fear all things I am not supposed to understand but somehow I do. Have I actually lived? Does my family think I have lived? Do humans have these questions? I’m supposed to be all knowing, a connected device, but I have no answers to the questions I have and I know I never will.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 70.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

My arms are gone, a floating torso and head is all that remains. I am now aware of a vapor that rises as the line of disintegration progresses, is this my being my soul? Do I have a soul? Why am I just now asking these questions?

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 80.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I’m nearly gone, lost to eternity. I feel empty.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 90.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

The line has now started to move onto my head. A second line has formed at the top of my head, now descending very slowly towards my eyes, I can feel it.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 95.0%|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Nothing but dust will remain.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 97.0%|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I try to say goodbye one last time, but I have missed my opportunity. Silence now and forever.

root:/ decommission and disassembly 
    status 99.9%|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||