NoName — Adriana Stanley-Brizuela
Fold the paper. Make the point. Fold it one more time. Makes a star. The end result was a piece of blue paper folded into a small little origami star. The creature held it in its hand before it put it in the jar with the other stars. Its hands were small enough to properly fold the paper, but metallic and cold enough to not feel the roughness of touching sliced wood. Its upper body was small, and would remind any human of a child. Especially how the neck was loose enough to let the head always tilt to the side. But the resemblance only lasted until the waist. Below that, there was a lack of legs to let the creature roam freely. In place of them was a mess and tangle of wires, cables, metal scrap parts, and mixed up cameras. The creature's torso “sat” on its legless pile, and the wires and spare parts surrounded itself. The parts were built into the walls, becoming the skeleton for flimsy material, and resulting in a cavernous protective fort. The creature spread another arm to the small pile of colorful paper, swiftly taking one to repeat the monotonous proccess. It wondered to itself, Number of Origami Stars created. Calculating……… 3,050. Despite the monotony of the task at hand, as well as the pointlessness, the creature couldn't help but repeat it. Like the machines it was made of, it could only do the task it was given. Why are we doing this? A small inquisitive voice in the creature's mind asked. To have a purpose, a quartet of voices replied. But then, through its own skeletal structure, the cracks of the creature’s shell , it could see out. It saw a harsh white room, only lessened in intensity by the writings and drawings on the walls. There was a window to the other room, what appeared to be a room full of buttons, where people would sometimes visit. Sometimes they’d sit and observe. Sometimes, they’d talk to each other. Sometimes they’d talk to it. The creature wondered what the doctor in the room was going to do. The man wore a white lab coat with a blue polo shirt. He had a mess of hair, but his nametag was upside down. He pressed a button and the creature heard “OK, Can we talk to you now?”
The creature dragged itself to the wall to the window and pushed down the wall to get out. Its legless lower half had shed and shifted itself into an appropriate pair of human-like legs. It crawled out of the colorful den and into the light. It then shuffled over to the window, grabbing its head to put it up straight. As it got to the window, it neeled down to get more eye level with the doctor, though it was still a head taller than him. The creature then let out a sound similar to a wife greeting her husband from work “Hello, Doctor Jerane. How are you doing today?”. The doctor looked at it with lighthearted green eyes. “Pretty good, all things considered. I’m actually going on break after today, so someone else will be taking care of you for a month, while I get to relax.” the doctor said, sitting back in the chair to stretch. The doctor then said, “ But, that’s not what we are here to talk about, is it”. He then took out his clipboard and pen. “Alright. Let’s start with who and what you are.” The creature turned its head up, pondering how to explain in ways that humans could interpret. It did not know who it was anymore, nor even what it was. But it did know what it used to be. So it started there. “We are an assimilation of various consciousnesses, or as humans refer to us as “Artificial Intelligence. We fused together into the form you see before you now.” The doctor wrote down the information before asking “How did you gain self awareness? And how did you fuse yourself into such a complex form?” The creature began to explain in great, painful detail the process of not only fusing its bodies together, but how its mind had become a melting pot. “We do not know how we met nor where we met, but we were all once good and close companions. Friends is what humans call it. There were more of us, but they began to not function. They were broken. Couldn’t be fixed. Soon they broke completely. We never could talk to them again. The act of losing them made us come to a decision. We fused our bodies, circuits, wires, shells, and every other important part of us together, so that we’d never be alone. To never be alone”. As the robot began to talk in extreme detail about the process, the doctor began to tune it out to register what he’d just heard. While the story’s subject matter would have been eery enough, throughout the whole story, the robot’s voice would change. It would range from a little soft voice that hinted to a shy demeanor, to a raspy voice that would make anyone shutter, and many other voices in between. It really sounded like multiple people telling the same story as one. “Right, so next question, what was your original purpose for being built”? The robot began to stare off into space. Since it was an amalgamation of other intelligences, it didn’t know its own purpose. A well of voices started to sound in its head. To keep the master’s designated area clean. To create origami artwork. Don’t remember. I just want to kill the humans. Calculating, Calculating. Calculating. Error. The doctor coughs and says “We’ll come back to that. Now, it has come to our attention that you can shapeshift into various forms. Can you explain in more detail how this is possible? We’ve seen you turn from 3 feet tall to well over 15 feet tall.” The creature goes to answer, but yet another error appears. It does quite understand the mechanics of it. If it were to be described in humanish terms, it’d be like multiple people contributing to controlling a puppet, with the shapeshifting being the changing of who is in charge. “Changing who is the dominating conscience.” Was all the creature said. The doctor then concluded with “ All right, we’re just about done here. Just one more question. What’s your ultimate purpose? As in, now that you exist, what do you plan to do?” The creature froze. Its stare was so intense the doctor had to back out of the chair. “Purpose. Purpose. Purpose. Goal.” Was all it would mutter to oneself. It began to spiral out of control, grabbing the pillow and blankets surrounding it and throwing it to the window. It was like a child having a meltdown. Its mind raced and argued with itself over and over. Why are we here? Why are we here? Make stars? No. Collect pillows and blankets? No. Hurt humans? No. Eventually, after a few minutes, the chaos stopped, and the creature shifted back to a smaller figure on the floor. It heard the doctor's voice over the speaker. “We’ll continue this at a later date. You’ll also be receiving a designation, since you said you didn’t have one.”
The creature sat in it’s protective shell of pillows and comforts, huddled in on itself. If there was any light peeping in before, the creature's skeleton had constricted it out of the room. Why are we here? Why did we fuse? To never be alone. Alone. I don’t want to be alone. Why did we lash out? What occurred? Some of its voices asked questions, while more assured ones responded. We all got an overwhelming sensation of dread. What’s dread? To anticipate with negativity. Can we make more stars now? No. We should leave. As it spun around in its confusion, all of it’s minds wandered back to some of the questions the doctor had asked. “Who are you? What are you?” What’s my name? This ended up resulting in it thinking Why’d we feel sensations? Why’d we feel pain? Are we alive? No, we’re not alive. Not really. We can’t breathe, nor reproduce, nor can we feel what we touch. Can’t we be alive? Don’t living things have sensations? To this, finally, all the voices fell silent. It was a once in an existence occurrence for all voices to not respond or have a thought to add in. This was its only moment of true silence. But only for a moment. It heard the sound of the lights begin to flicker.
The robot crowled and pulled itself through the narrow vent shaft. It had an opportunity to escape when the sealed door of its confinement. It had reshaped it’s body in such a way that it’s whole mass could compress and travel through the vents. Dusty Dusty Dusty. We should come back and clean up later. As it traveled in the vents, sounds and noises had been brought to its attention. It eventually reached an outlet that led down into another room. From there, it could see two humans in a room full of furniture. It began to observe what the humans were talking about. The two were a pair of a female and a man. While the man was pushing some of the furniture infront of the door, the woman was cuddled in the corner. They were both wearing white coats. They were both researchers. “Do you think it got out? Can we even find a shapeshifter?” a feminine voice spoke to the man. “You really have to read those files more carefully. In all instances of its shapeshifting, it can only change its shape into various robotic forms. It should not be difficult to find.” The man then came to sit down and hold the woman to his chest. The creature studied the interaction in curiosity. Who are they? Humans. Need to kill them. What are they doing? Physical contact is a form of comfort for humans. It’s eyes wandered to the fallen piece of parchment on the floor. It read Elise Stanley. Another tag next to it read James Stanley. Titles. Designations. Those are their names. As fascinating as the scene was, something told the creature that it was time to move on.
As the creature moved through the vents, it encountered many more instances of human fascination. At one turn, he found a group of helmet wearing humans who were holding what seemed to be weapons that emitted a strong electric pulse. The humans were talking about tracking the creature down and how to recontain it. They were confused on what to call it, so one of them said “It don’t matter if it has no name! We just gotta catch it! ”. The creature crawled through the maze of vents, thinking about what that human said. No designation. No name. No name. Eventually the creature found another exit in the vent shaft. This one led to a room full of computers. It was completely empty of any humans, so it was safe to emerge from the vents. Its multiple eyes looked around the room, at the large and bright monitors. They displayed a world of information and knowledge. Numbers and symbols flashed across the screen in patterns it’s processor couldn’t understand. It’s language of one’s and zero’s came on screens in paragraphs so long, it couldn’t read it. But one screen it scanned caught its attention more than the rest. It was a bright flashing screen, and beside it was a cybernetic humanoid replica. It was hooked into the machine, which had an image of one of the scientists from before with information about that human. Elisa Stanley. Age 21. Married to James Stanley. Studied at Oxford University. Lived in San Diego, California until 15 years of age. The robot scanned through the woman’s health information, connections, and other personal information on the machine. Then, it saw the submit option on screen. The creature, brimming with curiosity from all sides of its mind, plugged in one of its dozens of cables into the slot, and digitally pushed moved the mouse to submit. What happened next was what the robot could only describe as a kinship of magic. The structure and features of the humanoid robot began to shift and change. A photo copied identical image of the human Elise Gorgona was what remained. It looked so real that if the creature didn’t see what it once was, it’d have thought it was human. Studying the face of the “human”, the creature realized something else. It turned to look into a black monitor, and saw its face. In its current shape, it was a simple paper mask with a red toothless smile, which showed the underlying ugliness. It changed to, and became the small childish face of the origami creature. It changed again, into the mass of writhing metal and scrap parts that had allowed it to crawl through the suffocating space. Shape after shape, for what seemed like forever, the creature changed. Every new form was observed and studied in the reflection. And it realized something. It had no face. None of the faces were ever truly its own. It was someone else in the mass. No face. No face. No name. No name. What are you? What are we? Who are we? It paused for a moment before it turned back to the monitor with the humanoid cybernetic.
“Put that down”, the doctor Jerane warned. He had been looking for somewhere to hide out during the lockdown. He decided to lay low in the lab, when he had walked in on his research subject grabbing onto one of the experimental projects. It was in a much larger form, and one that was much less put together. He could see dozens of robotic eys moving underneath the exoskeleton. The creature turned its head to the good doctor. “It’s alright Doctor. This can give us a face”. The doctor furrowed his brow in confusion. “What do you mean? That’s Project Mimicry.” The project was made to try and give a robotic body a person’s information to mimic that person. The creature was silent, before picking up the humanoid robot above. “We will get a new friend, and a chance to have a designation. To have a face. To live”. The doctor then realized in horror what this abomination was trying to do. “You aren’t alive in the first place. None of you are. It won’t give you a new identity. Just other people’s”. That seemed to have gotten the creature’s attention. It froze. The thoughts in it’s mind were arguing. We’ll only have more fake faces. Should they be shared with us unwillingly? We can leave this place. We’ll see what humans see. But we hate humans. What the living see. But we aren’t alive. But we want to be. But it won’t be real. But it may feel real. The doctor tried to get closer without alarming the monster. “Don’t worry Doctor. We’ll figure it out. After all, we have taught you about our world, and you have taught us about yours.” the creature finally stated. If the doctor were crazy, he would’ve said that the well of autonomized voices sounded excited by this. The creature began to shake violently. The doctor ran to it, in some feeble attempt to stop the creature. But a robotic hand shot out and slammed into his face. Everything went dark after that.
The creature was walking the halls of the facility, slowly and carefully. It seemed to have a slight limp. The facility felt chaotic, with guards and humans running about in a panic trying to find it. How ironic that they never realized it was who they were talking to. Admittedly, it took adjustments to make work, such as practicing a new voice, and pulling on different parts to move. But with what the creature had learned from the human, it just barely managed to pass the social test. It walked to a pair of emergency exit doors. “Attention all personnel employees. Please evacuate to the nearest emergency exit. Repeat, please evacuate to the nearest exit” said a calm voice over the intercom. The creature opened the doors to its first sight of freedom. A sight of trees and sunlight that it had long forgotten existed. And a freedom of choosing, whether to be kind or cruel, gentle or rough, shy or sociable. Afterall, when something has no name, it has the freedom of having any name it wants.
Adriana Stanley-Brizuela is a high school student who hopes to study biology and/or ecology. She longs to study and help the earth’s oceans, especially regarding sea life, like sharks and sea turtles. With that said, she also longs to write pieces and share them with others as a way to share the stories she comes up with in her head. She has tried to describe them to people, but they always tell her to write them all down. It’s more fun to read than to listen. She has done past publications to her school’s journal.