A Computer Carol
By Mia Darien
Copyright 2011 Mia Darien
Smashwords Edition
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This short story is dedicated to Charles Dickens, naturally. He gave us so many wonderful tales and put a face on Christmas that has been told over and over again, yet that never gets old. My little tale here doesn't do the original justice, but it's written with appreciation for its originator, with joy for the Christmas season and with a sense of fun. I hope that you enjoy it!
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Let's make sure that we are perfectly clear about the following statement: Unit 231dS7, also known as Marley, was dead. His primary memory core had burnt out and was not repairable, so 231dS7 had been disassembled. The recyclable parts had been returned to the factories for refurbishment and those parts that had made 231dS7 into Marley were destroyed.
In other words, Marley was dead.
He had been deceased for two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five days, thirteen hours and thirty-two minutes.
The night was known as Christmas Eve. It was the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month and although it was a ritual considered by some more 'enlightened' creations to be silly, it was still often observed by the older models and younger constructs alike as an amusing diversion from day to day operations.
Unit 585eV9, also known as Scrooge, was at work that night. It was late evening, but as far as he was concerned, business still needed to be conducted, even when many were ceasing their duties early for this Christmas business. While others were cavorting in their irresponsibility, Scrooge and his assistant - Unit 587eU7, also known as Cratchit - were entering data into the computers of the financial institution that Scrooge owned.
"Sir," Cratchit suddenly began. "I wanted to reiterate yesterday's request to be permitted tomorrow free of duty to spend it with my wife."
The mention of one's compatible female counter-part was a reminder that would have further dented Scrooge's primary function motor, had it not already been as (symbolically) dented as it was. His features moved in a pattern to show irritation for Cratchit's sentimentality. Still, the factual data about Cratchit's otherwise hard work was impossible to ignore.
"If you insist," Scrooge relented. "One day."
"Thank you, sir," Cratchit replied unnecessarily. "How will you be recognizing the holiday, if I might inquire?"
Scrooge made a noise of irritation at the question. "I shall be working, of course. It is an irrelevant pursuit to do anything else just because it is said that it is a special day. It is a day like any other."
For a moment, Cratchit didn't say anything else and Scrooge thought that the moment was over, but Cratchit went on, "I was under the impression that you had familial units."
"I do," Scrooge said. "They will be celebrating the day, I am sure, when they should be working."
This seemed to prevent any further conversation from Cratchit. They completed their data entry and subsequent calculations in silence before each departed for the night. Scrooge headed to his silent, dark living quarters. The sound of his metallic footsteps echoed through the hall as he headed straight to his regeneration chamber to plug in for a night's worth of recharging.
Something interrupted his regeneration cycle.
Scrooge wasn't aware of what it was, initially. He only knew that it was not the scheduled time for him to regain consciousness. Irritably, he surveyed the inside of the room and he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Instead, he heard something.
From the other end of the corridor he heard beeping and whirring unlike anything that he had ever heard. Was there someone in his apartment? Who could this intruder be? Yet, if there was, why hadn't the alarms gone off? They were programmed to initiate as soon as he entered his cycle, but the alarms had not been what had woken him.
Scrooge unhooked the connections between him and his regeneration unit and then walked down the corridor.
"Hello?" he called out.
There was no response. Emotional subroutines initiated.
"Hello?" he tried again.
"Scrooge."
The voice came from behind him. He spun around and saw...
"Marley!"
No, there had to be a problem with his eyes. He'd run a diagnostic. There had to be a malfunction in the machinery, because Marley had been disassembled and recycled seven years previous. Scrooge had himself signed the documentation, because they had been in business together for several years leading up to the irreparable shut-down of Marley's primary core. Yet he was seeing Marley standing before him.
"You must alter your standard operating procedure," Marley said, pointing at Scrooge.
"How is this possible?" Scrooge asked. "I saw your disassembling!"
"You did. There is no malfunction in any of your sensory features, I assure you. I have come this night only to give you a chance to avoid my fate, which is where you are headed," Marley went on.
Scrooge did not comprehend. "Do you mean my primary memory core is in danger?"
The sensory glitch, or mental function lapse, calling itself Marley shook its head. There was a creaking noise as it did, like metal in need of proper lubrication, and the groaning of aged and disused materials. It made Scrooge want to shut off auditory and perception functions.
"No, I mean that you are in danger. You could end up like I am now, forever trapped without components yet aware of the bad choices I have made and the lack of good will towards my fellow robots," Marley went on. "I have appeared to you to tell you that you are being given a chance to avoid this."
Marley stepped forward with more creaking and groaning, and Scrooge could now see the wealth of numbers and equations that were denting every inch of his metallic skin! There was no a portion of metal that was not badly deformed by the imprint of these numbers and equations, which were all very familiar to Scrooge's business.
"Tonight, you will be visited by three ghosts."
"Ghosts?" Scrooge asked doubtfully.
Marley again pointed a number covered finger at his former partner and the noise of a circuit popping echoed through the narrow corridor. "Three ghosts!" Marley shouted, his voice function raising so many levels that internal sensors in Scrooge's brain forced his auditory receptors to automatically lower receptiveness. "Expect the first one at midnight."
Suddenly, Scrooge was alone in his apartment. He was processing internal diagnostics almost immediately as he hurried back to his regeneration chamber, deciding that this had to have been one of those regeneration 'dreams' that he had heard about, when mental functions do not entirely shut down during the cycle.
That had to be it. Marley was dead, after all.
It was the beeping that woke him again.
This time when he woke so abruptly from the cycle, Scrooge automatically knew what it was that had caused the noise. Right in front of him he could see two computers, ancient creatures from a time long past: two towers and two monitors, connected to one another by cables of ghastly size.
On the screen of one ran a sequence of ones and zeroes.
"Binary!" Scrooge whispered in horror at the archaic language, watching and listening as fans whirred and the two machines beeped and words appeared on the other screen.
'We are the Ghosts of Christmas Past,' the screen read. 'We are here to show you how the operations of the past have formed the robot you have become today.'
Certain as he was that this was another malfunction, or dream, Scrooge didn't reply.
The first screen went blank, and then turned blue, and then a small clock icon appeared and persisted for several minutes before images came alive, each one appearing to have been directly pulled from Scrooge's memory banks.
He recognized the first as belonging to many years ago, when he was a unit that was far newer than he was now. Scrooge - in the images on the screen - was next to the female unit he knew as his sister. She was his older sister, for she had been constructed by his parents several years before him. The image on the screen was from many years after their parents had been disassembled and it was just the two of them.
They were sitting in a room that Scrooge could see decorated with items of the holiday season. Fanny, as the female unit was known as, was passing a box to Scrooge. Her features were showing a happy smile, and his were as well.
"Why are you showing me this?" he asked warily, unable to remove his gaze from the screen.
'To show you that you have not always been as you are.'
Scrooge did not like what he was seeing. He did not like the emotion and memory subroutines that suddenly started running when he looked at this, thinking about the family that he had left alive and how long it had been since he had seen them last.
The image blurred, flickered, and a new one appeared.
He liked this one even less.
It showed a night several years ago, also in the holiday season. Scrooge had been walking with a female unit known as Belle that he had grown very close to. All of her personality features were wonderful. Her parental units had done an exceptional job of putting her together.
"Scrooge," she said and he could recognize vocal tones of strong unhappy emotion when she said it. "I think that we should... terminate our relationship," she had told him, refusing to meet his eyes.
Scrooge recalled being crushed. His emotion circuits had almost threatened to short out.
"You spend too much time at work. I cannot seem to access you any longer," she went on and the emotional tones were still running high. "I have tried repeatedly, but your emotional state seems to be stronger for your work than for me. I cannot exist like that any longer. I'm sorry, Scrooge."
She had turned and walked away, leaving him bereft and with bitter memories for this time of the year, with nothing but his work operations to turn to.
"And why show me this one?" he asked angrily.
The computers whirred and beeped. Binary replaced the image and then words appeared on the other screen again. 'To show you what you have become has already cost you.'
"I don't want to see anymore! Terminate this!" Scrooge suddenly shouted at the two computers and then watched as their screens flickered, then went out.
Scrooge's memory functions failed when he tried to remember reconnecting to his regeneration unit, but when he was awakened, again, he knew that he must have done so.
This time there had been no beeping that had woken him, and when he looked around to find the cause of this fresh new irritation, he couldn't find anything to blame. He had been unsettled by the strange visit, but his return to 'sleep' had eased him back out of it again and into a feeling that was far more familiar to him: annoyance.
No one and nothing else was in the room with him, but he had a sense that his apartment was not devoid of intruders. His internal clock told him that it was one in the morning, one hour after the appearance of the previous 'ghost'.
Walking down the hallway, Scrooge could see a light coming from the door of the only other room in the apartment. The door was normally closed, but now it was open and the light from it fell into the hallway. Scrooge walked closer, feeling trepidation settle on his subroutines and slow his steps, but he pushed forward.
He turned the corner and instantly saw the robot sitting on the floor on the other side of the room. The other male unit seemed well constructed with features put together to appear forever jovial, but his outer skin was unlike anything Scrooge had ever seen before. It was a myriad of colors and the light of the room seemed to reflect off each one and cast pinpoints of color on each wall and machine in the room.
"Are you the second ghost?" Scrooge asked uncertainly, standing in the doorway.
"I am," he replied with warm vocal tones. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. I am here to show you the things all around you that you choose not to see." He lifted a hand and held it out to Scrooge, who was stepping forward and reaching out to take it, before his consciousness circuits were even aware he was doing it.
As his hand touched the other, the entirety of the room vanished from around them and they were in the street, which was empty. As they began to walk, they passed by houses. Lights shone out of the windows, and through most, Scrooge could see gatherings of familial units. There were decorations and colorful lights, happy expressions and warm vocal tones that could be heard even from where Scrooge was.
"Why show me this?" Scrooge asked.
"I did not bring you to show you these," the Ghost explained just as he arrived at another window, but he stopped at this one. "I wanted to show you this."
Scrooge walked up to the window and looked inside. He saw his employee, Cratchit, and the female unit that was his wife. There were others, but the one that drew attention was a male unit sitting in the corner. His metallic skin held enough shine to show how young he was, at least younger than the rest, but upon closer inspection, Scrooge could see that he was missing components.
Even so, there was an expression of sweetness formed by his facial features as he talked with family units, laughing warmly and even singing gaily with the female unit who was his mother when she walked over to him. The facial features on both of them seemed to glow with the complex emotional function of love.
"What's wrong with him?" Scrooge asked, his features forming a frown.
"That is Unit 806fS9, known as Timmy. He had several components damaged and their relays infected by a virus that forced the removal of other parts to prevent it from reaching the more vital components of his operating. They fear the virus may be in other hardware, but they cannot remove those without replacing them. The Cratchits cannot afford to replace them. They love him very much. He is the only child unit they have ever been able to afford. They saved funds for more than a year to purchase the pieces required."
"Cratchit never said anything," Scrooge said, uncertain of what emotion was being created in him now when he thought of how Timmy managed to seem so happy in the face of the problems before him.
The Ghost smiled knowingly. "Why would he? He knows your love of money, just like everyone else."
Scrooge didn't know what to say to that one, so he asked, "What will happen to him?"
"It is more than likely that he will soon have to be disassembled, if his parts are not replaced and hardware is not cleaned soon. It won't be long before remnants of the virus will reach his primary memory core and that will be the end," the Ghost answered. "Come along." He started walking again, gesturing for Scrooge to follow.
Scrooge lingered in front of the window for a moment more before hurrying to keep up with the Ghost as they continued down the street. They turned around corners and walked down other streets, occasionally passing other robots but none seemed to notice them.
In time, Scrooge came to recognize where they were. He knew the window they stopped in front of next and recognized the male unit that his sister, long disassembled now, had constructed and called Fred. He was the only family that Scrooge had, really. Fred was gathered with others.
"I knew he wouldn't be here," the female unit that was Fred's wife said, resting her hand on Fred's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I wish you wouldn't try so hard, because you only get your emotion circuits damaged. You keep trying and he never tries at all."
"He still could be here tomorrow," Fred pointed out. In that instant, the vocal inflections sounded a lot like Fanny.
The female unit that Scrooge had only met once, and could not find the name of in his memory banks, smiled slightly. "Optimist," she said, but her vocal tones were warm.
"They're talking about you," the Ghost pointed out.
"I know," Scrooge said and his tone was clipped, angry. "You are a cruel unit to show me this."
The Ghost of Christmas Present laughed. "It is a strange thing to have said by you," he pointed out. "I do not show this to you to be cruel, however, but to show you what is." He paused. "I am not the one that you should be concerned over."
Suddenly, the ghost was gone and Scrooge was left alone in the street...
...but not for long.
Scrooge became aware of a presence behind him. He turned around quickly and saw something shift in the darkness, stepping forward slowly. It was another robot, who looked almost like Scrooge, but the alloy of his skin was blacker than black and he blended almost completely into the night sky behind him.
"Who are you?" Scrooge asked, although he already knew the answer. His emotional subroutines were over-heating with the fear function.
The Ghost of Christmas Future did not answer in words. A light flickered in his eyes and then suddenly shot out, projecting images in the air between Scrooge and the ghost.
Scrooge watched the images, transfixed and terrified. He again saw the small room with Cratchit and his other familial units, all with expressions of great sadness, and without Timmy anywhere in evidence.
Even Scrooge was moved by the thought of that cheerful young robot dead and his family bereft of his presence.
The projection shimmered and changed. It showed a room that Scrooge recognized as a disassembling chamber and there was a body, a male unit, laid out on the table as the workers moved around him and prepared for the work. The projection's view moved and shimmered slowly, going around workers to eventually show the face on the robot.
It was Scrooge.
Before he could scream or react in any way, Scrooge was inside the projection, inside the unit.
He watched as the workers moved towards him, beginning to disconnect and loosen components. "I'm not dead!" Scrooge screamed, but it had no effect. They did not seem able to hear him. "Don't disassemble me! I'm not dead!" They continued to work, unaffected.
The evening as it had taken place flashed through his memories and Marley's words came back to him. He knew what he needed to do. It was a sudden piece of information that lodged far back in his mental processes.
"I'll change! I promise that I will. I don't want to be disassembled yet! I'm not ready! I'm not ready! I can change and I can make things better!" He continued shouting and screaming, and it was all to no affect. The workers continued with their duty, disassembling him until they reached deep inside and took his primary memory core off-line...
"I'll change! I can change!" Scrooge shouted in to the empty confines of his regeneration chamber before he realized where he was. His awareness clicked in and he looked around. The relief that he felt was so great that he thought he was going to short circuit as he bolted from the alcove.
"I'm alive!" he screamed, turning and rushing to the window. He saw that there were others milling around the street and the decorations he had been complaining about all season were still up and he knew that he hadn't missed Christmas Day. He still had time!
Scrooge rushed out of his front door, not caring how it appeared to those walking past him as he moved quickly down the street, shouting occasionally about his gratefulness over being alive, in one piece, and wishing everyone he saw a Merry Christmas.
His first stop was his own place of business, but his stop there was quick and he hurried to the home of the Cratchits. He knocked on the door.
"Sir," Cratchit said with great surprise as he opened the door. "I thought that you said I did not have to come in today."
Scrooge forced his features to remain looking stern, even though every emotion circuit and subroutine was buzzing with joy. "It seems that I miscalculated, Cratchit," he began with a firm tone.
Cratchit looked worried. "Sir?"
"Yes," Scrooge agreed, but then allowed himself a smile. "Take the whole week off and spend it with your familial units! And here," he went on, pressing an envelope of financial credits in to Cratchit's hand. "A Christmas bonus. Take care of your son," he said, watching with merriment at the shock that overtook Cratchit's features. Scrooge would have liked to have stayed longer, but he had other places to be. "Merry Christmas!" he said, hurrying away from the house with a wave.
"Merry Christmas," he heard Cratchit say behind him, before turning back in to the house and telling the others. Scrooge heard the happy exclamations just before getting out of auditory range as he walked down the street, following the path that he and the Ghost of Christmas Present had followed the night before.
The next door that Scrooge arrived at caused him some trepidation, hoping that his nephew would forgive him for being as he was for all those years. He couldn't depart now however, and he pressed the door buzzer. Fred was standing behind it when it opened a few moments later.
"Uncle Scrooge?" Fred asked, almost as surprised as Cratchit had been.
"I was hoping that the invitation you had given me for Christmas dinner was still open," Scrooge explained. "I want to spend the day with you and your family, and maybe make up for the ones I've missed."
Fred's expression turned into a smile. "Of course, of course," Fred said with enthusiasm in his tone, stepping back and waving his uncle inside, where they spent an enjoyable and warm day, wrapped up in the 'silly' and 'sentimental' Christmas tradition. It was an emotional subroutine that Scrooge would make sure was fully functional for the rest of his days, so that his internal programming would never revert back to what it had been.
Scrooge thought that Marley would be pleased, even if he had been disassembled two thousand, five hundred and fifty-six days, three hours and seventeen minutes ago.
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About the Author:
Mia Darien has lived in New England all of her life and knows that no matter where she goes from here, New England is always going to live in her. Presently, she still lives in the land of snow and fast talkers, with her husband, her son and her pets. She writes a bit of everything genre fiction (horror, romance, mystery, fantasy and science fiction) and thinks it sounds like an odd joke: a unicorn, a space monster, and a pair of zombie lovers walk into a murder investigation...
Other Works by Mia Darien at Smashwords:
Anniversary - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91168
Descent - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83622
Apathetically Ever After - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/95958
The Price - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106345
Connect with Me Online:
My Site: http://www.miadarien.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MiaDarien
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/author.miadarien
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/mia_darien