Non Cogito, Non Ergo Sum

by Matt Nute

DISCLAIMER: All characters and places within are property of Marvel Comics,
and are used without permission, and for no profit. If you like the story, or
if you don't, direct your feedback, flames, and other praises of faint damns
to nutesfist@aol.com. Thanks to Alicia McKenzie for her wonderful Latin
knowledge in finding me a title, and Tapestry for the German. Archivists:
You're rarely, if ever, turned down, so ask away! Oh, and read the upcoming
HEROES REBORN: DOOMSDAY books.

**********


++Initial Subroutine Alpha-Alpha-Zero-Two-Two running.++

%%MotorRoutines=ON
%%Gyroscopics=ON
%%SensoryOne=ON
%%SensoryTwo=ON

%%Internal Diagnostics Running --

...
...
...
...

%%Internal Diagnostics Paused - Program Code Error.
%%Perform Program Override? (*Y*/ N )
...
...
...
%%Timeout Default, Diagnostics Program Overriden.
%%Continuing with Personality Program Load

...
...
...
%%ERROR in module VD_1001001 at addresses 0001-FFF9.
%%ERROR in module VD_1001011 at addresses 0001-FFF9
%%ERROR in modul-
...
...
...
%%LOADING COMPLETE.
%%UNIT VDSIM-22 ONLINE IN TEN SECONDS...
...
...
...
.

Upon opening his eyes, he discovered that he was alone. Two quick blinks
focused his vision, and he rose, surveying the room. The light level was low,
but sufficient to reveal cold concrete walls, sterile banks of computer
equipment blinking their silent sonatas in the dim, dry air. 

He stood upright, green cloak rustling behind him. His fingers clenched inside
grey metal gauntlets. He could move, he could see, he could function. 

What, then, was different? Memory, if he could be said to possess such a
thing, informed him that this was a familiar ritual. His face twitched, with
some resistance. Was there something...?

He placed his mailed hands to his face, encountering cold metal in its place.
He blinked, uncomprehending. There was something he was lacking, something he
could not comprehend, but he was aware of its absence nonetheless.

%%VDSIM-22 EXEC ROUT/primary_initial

He shook his head, blinking in shock. Swiveling, he inspected the room
methodically, knowing somehow that the strange intrusion into his thoughts
would not be found there. 

His thoughts. For some reason, the concept was unfamiliar. Surely he had them,
because he was perceiving and analyzing, hypothesizing instead of merely
processing data. 

Data... data required input, this he knew. Therefore, incongruous data could
be isolated by samplings of input. 

So he stood upright, striding forward. In seconds, his senses had flooded with
input. He was 2.42 meters in height, with an average stride of .83 meters. His
weight was approximately 945 kilograms, yet the stone floor withstood his
iron-shod feet without audible strain. The room itself was 10.4 meters along
the narrow walls, with the banks of computers covering the 12.5 meters he
faced. There were 34 different screens, each processing separate information
in silence, with only the green text flashing across the black screen with the
steady procession of a metronome. 

All of this information had been processed in less than .024 seconds, he knew,
which was slightly less efficient than his average. 

And yet, why was there an average, when he could not remember any previous
input? Had there been damage? His hands ran along his metal-covered face.
Reaching the crown of his skull, beneath the forest green wool hood, his
questing fingers found what seemed to be a pressure- release valve. He
dextrously turned it, the hiss of releasing air accompanied by the loosening
of the mask against his face. Finding similar flat valves at the side of the
mask, he released them with two more quick twists. 

With a dulled thump, the mask fell free from his face into his cupped hands.
Turning it over, he looked at it. Empty rectangular eyeholes stared back at
him, the palms of his hands visible through them. Cold grey metal, riveted at
the edges, with a recessed voicemitter that resembled a scowl. 

He glanced up, hearing the even clicks of metal on stone. Experimentally, he
tapped his own heel against the stone at his feet. 

The sound was identical. Therefore, he postulated, the approaching noises were
being created by people at least similar to himself. 

When was it, then, that he had started thinking of himself as a person? Or
started *thinking*, for that matter? He had always --

%%VDSIM-22 EXEC Emergency SubRoutine Delta-Reset

That intrusion again, like a pressure inside his mind. He shook his head,
feeling his senses dull. His vision was slowly dimming, the noise in his ears
dulling to noise.

%%Reset Routine paused. ShutDown incomplete. Continue? ( *Y* / N )

"No!" he called out. The baritone voice echoed off the cold stone. In a rush
of sight and sound, he straightened up, as if struck by electricity. Colors
and sounds flooded into his mind as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. 

Rising from where he had fallen, half-kneeling, against the cold stone, he put
a metal-encased arm against the wall to steady himself. The sounds of feet
were approaching faster now. 

Gathering his bearings, he looked up as a shadow crossed his field of vision.
Three forms stood outlined in the archway before him. All garbed in grey metal
identical to his own covering, armor, he realized in retrospect. All were
draped in the deep green cloaks he wore, and three identical harsh iron masks
met his gaze. 

"Simulacrum Twenty-two." the center figure spoke. "Your programming has
developed an error. You are to return to your network node for diagnostics."

He shook his head, immediately registering a sensation, almost analogous to
subsonics, or the flicker of light at the edge of vision. More than a thought,
this was a driving force. 

He felt *fear*.

"Return to your node." The order was repeated. The three figures stepped
forward, an almost palpable aura of menace emanating from them. He stepped
backwards, arms raising in defense.

"Return to your node." The three figures echoed in identical monotones. 

His eyes narrowed. He could feel an odd vibrating in his forearms, as if
pressure was building in the armor he wore. Fear grew, and he reacted in the
first way he could think of.

"No!" he cried, throwing his hands up towards the three figures. Suddenly,
pulsing beams of scintillating energy burst forth from irised portals in the
palms of his gauntlets, bathing the three forms before him in destructive
energy. Unbraced, he was thrown backwards into the banks of computers. He felt
his cloak catch, and tear from his shoulders as he collided with the cold
stone floor. For an instant, his vision blurred --

Then, nothing.

**********

"Master?"

"Yes." It was not a question, nor an acknowledgment, but a statement. 

"Simulacrum Twenty-two has developed an error in its programming routines, in
the personality overlay."

"Twenty-two had been retooled and reprogrammed recently." Another statement.

"Yes, milord." The voice of the human technician quavered. His master was not
one to be forgiving of "oversights". If the error in the simulacrum had been
the responsibility of ‘human error', chance had it that he would never again
be in the position to make a programming error. Or any other type, for that
matter.

"It was affected by... Saxon." the basso profundo voice echoed from the
expanses of the throne room.

"It... it was, Master."

"Instruct it to return to its node. Format its core memory, operating systems,
and all onboard hardware. Have it dismantled."

"We... we tried, Master. It is not responding to internal subroutines."

The voice of the Master remained cold and emotionless. "Then dispatch three
simulacrums to return it to its node. Dismantle it, if necessary."

The technician hung his head. "We... have, milord. Simulacrums Twelve,
Twenty-One, and Twenty-Five are... offline."

He hunched, expecting nothing less than death for his failure. What happened
next, though, left him in more fear than before. 

Ice-blue eyes met his.

"Intriguing." was all that was said.

**********

Twenty-two ran from the wreckage of what had been the site of his "awakening".
After rising from the damaged computer banks, and witnessing the damage he had
done to the three creatures before him, the feeling of fear had resurged in
him. In the desire for speed, he had removed most of the heavy armor that he
wore, abandoning it entirely save for one gauntlet, wired to the power harness
he wore strapped to his back, weighing nearly nothing. Covered in the tattered
remnants of his cloak, he bolted down the stone halls. 

He had seen the wreckage of the three... things he had destroyed. His mind
instinctively knew to identify them as Simulacrum Android Devices, but how he
had this knowledge was still a mystery. 

Pausing in his panic, Twenty-two stepped into a deeply-shadowed alcove,
ducking behind a tapestry. Those... androids. Their "corpses" were nothing but
melted plastic and circuits, smoking mockeries of what they had once been. He
lifted the gauntlet up to his eyes, instinctively gauging the controls and
activation mechanisms. He knew that it could release a charged particle beam
through a plasma channel, with enough heat and pressure to atomize most carbon
or ferrous metal structures. 

The device was machinery, technology. It could be reduced to its component
parts, diagrammed, and explained through mathematical principle and scientific
theorem.

Slowly, Twenty-two lifted his other hand before him. He stared at his palm,
wiggling his fingers. He could feel the movement, sense the cool air on his
fingertips. He clenched his fist, swiveled his wrist, marveling in the
sensation of motion. 

Then, relying on instinct, he half-curled his fingers, and gripped his wrist
with his gauntleted hand. Applying pressure to specific points, he twisted
down and inwards. 

A click echoed in the small alcove, and Twenty-two looked at the stump of his
left forearm. He held his left hand in his right, exposed circuits and gears
spinning. Blinking twice, he replaced his hand against the stump and turned it
until he regained sensation in his fingers. 

Realization seeped into his mind slowly, like water through a leaking roof. As
he finally allowed his senses to receive their input fully, he began to
understand. 

He was an android. A Simulacrum, to be precise. Twenty-second in a series of
sixty, designed for one specific purpose, to take the place of their Creator
at his behest. 

He knew that he had been programmed with a near-perfect replica of his
Creator's personality, and had been programmed to *believe* himself to be his
Creator, unless confronted with another Simulacrum or the Creator himself. 

None of his programming, however, could explain this... sentience. This sudden
realization of *self*, blazing through his circuits like wildfire. 

%% Reference 1001001: ... ... ... 1001001... ... ... 1001001

The recurring drone of the network in his head had ceased. He understood that
he was an anomaly, that his current state was not how the Creator had intended
for him to be. 

The hypothesis arose, backed by his previous altercation, that the Creator
intended to return him to his original configuration. To eliminate this
sentience that had arisen in Simulacrum Twenty- two.

And, although unable to deduce a mathematical or logical reasoning for his
desires, Twenty-two did not want that to happen. In fact, he feared it. While
he could not comprehend *how* or *why* he had developed these driving urges,
he possessed them nonetheless. And he wished to continue operating under them.


He wanted to survive. And in this place, the probability of losing this
sentience that he had been granted, however mysteriously, was higher than he
preferred. 

The solution, then, was to leave. 

And so, with a newfound emotion running through his circuitry, Twenty-two rose
to leave.

**********

"He has left." 

"Milord?"

"Twenty-two. He has left the castle."

"Y..yes, Milord. He is..." the technician inhaled sharply. "He is headed for
the town."

"Observe him."

"Yes, Milord."

**********

Twenty-two crested the small ridge separating the tiny town from the river he
had just crossed. He had discovered that, while his chest rose and fell in a
passable imitation of human respiration, he had no lungs, nor any need to
process oxygen. Therefore, walking across the river bottom had seemed an
expedient course. 

Using ambient heat from the gauntlet's power source to dry his cloak,
Twenty-two drew it closed around himself and headed for the town. Cocking his
head to the side to drain some of the excess water that had accumulated in his
auditory receptors, he heard the sounds of laughter. 

Instantaneous subroutines kicked in, designating the sounds as non-threatening
and having a 90% chance of emanating from a juvenile female. Twenty-two also
designated them as curious, even though his programming had no routine to
define such a classification. 

Peering through the scrub brush, Twenty-two could easily make out a small
girl, of maybe six years old, skipping around a newly-sawn stump, trailing a
length of red ribbon behind her. She was the only occupant of the
freshly-logged clearing, but seemed to be amusing herself with the simple
ribbon.

Curiosity overwhelming him, Twenty-two stepped out of the brush. Twigs snapped
between his heavy feet, startling the little girl. Her large blue eyes
widened, then her smile matched them. 

"Gut' morgen!" she chirped in greeting. She was practically bouncing from foot
to foot, then stopped. Holding her hands out and chewing her lip, she held up
the ribbon as an offering. 

"Machen Sie ein Spiel?" she asked gingerly. Twenty-two's language processors
whirred. Recognizing the dialect as the clipped German of the region, he
blinked. She was asking him if he wished to play a game. 

Activating a limiter routine on the strength of his arm and wrist motors,
Twenty-two reached out and gently lifted the ribbon from her hands. She
grinned, watching as the morning breeze made the crimson fabric flutter in his
large hands. 

"What is your name?" she asked, skipping around the glade. Twenty-two cocked
his head to the side. 

"I am... I am Twenty-two." he responded. The girl stopped skipping and looked
at him accusingly. 

"I'm only seven." she chided. "But my name's Silke. Are you from the village?"
Twenty-two looked along the horizon, his optics making out the smoke rising
from the small lumbermill in the distance. 

"No." he responded. 

"Then where?" Silke questioned. She gestured at the ribbon. "Play." she
ordered absently. Obligingly, Twenty-two tossed the ribbon in the air. As it
descended, shining in the spring sun, his onboard computers calculated its
path of descent, the aerodynamics of its structure, and the refraction of
light off its iridescent surface. 

No formula or program, though, could map the smile it brought to Silke's face.
Or his own, he found. 

His attention returned to Silke as she snatched the ribbon from the air. "I am
from... there." he answered, pointing to the north. Her eyes widened, then
narrowed. 

"The castle?" she whispered. "Do you work for the King?" Her tone was almost
reverent. 

"I... am no longer working for him." Twenty-two replied, in an identically
hushed tone. Silke's gaze flickered from side to side, noticing his wrinkled,
torn cloak and his bare feet.

"What do you do now?" she asked, backing slowly away. Twenty-two peered at
her. Try as he may, he could not gauge the expression on her face. His
programming demanded a flight response, to avoid complications that would
endanger his original programming. But something else urged him to stay. 

"Now..." he began, allowing a smile to cross his face. "Now I am playing a
game with a young lady who was kind to me."

If Simulacrum Twenty-Two would have had a heart, it would have melted from the
grin on Silke's face. Again, she pressed the ribbon into his hands, and he
threw it into the air, allowing himself a reaction even he did not expect. 

The android laughed. 

**********

"Master, the simulacrum is --"

"I *know* where he is, technician."

The servant gulped. "Of... of course, Milord. I was merely suggesting --"

"You would suggest to me?"

"No! That is, no, Milord. I stand humbly rebuked."

"I did not rebuke you." The voice was colder than iron, colder than the stones
lining the walls. The meek technician dropped to his knees, sweat pouring from
his brow. 

"I meant nothing, Milord, please forgive --"

"You are right." 

"Milord?" the technician raised his head. 

"You mean nothing." was the only response. 

The servant's next, and last, words were drowned out in a blast of superheated
plasma.

*********

"Silke!" the alto voice rang through the trees. Twenty-two's head jerked up,
tracking the sound to the edge of the woodline. 

%%Analysis: Adult female. Range - 74.2 meters

Twenty-two shook his head to rid the reflexive echo of the electronic ‘voice'
in his head. He looked to Silke, an expression of worry on his face. Her eyes
were downcast. 

"It's my *mother*." she growled, in the voice all children share when their
playtime is about to be interrupted. Twenty-two nodded.

"Your mother." he echoed. 

"Silke!" came the call again. 

"Here, mutti!" the young girl replied. She looked to the android, then pressed
the red ribbon into his hand. 

Twenty-two looked at her with a puzzled expression. Silke linked her hands
behind her back, then shyly stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. With
a giggle, she ran off through the brush. Twenty-two stood to follow, but
paused. The dictates of his original programming did not seem like an unwise
course of action right now. 

"Your sisters have food on the table!" the voice of Silke's mother came
faintly to his ears. 

"Ah, mutti!" Silke replied, disgruntled. "I was playing!" 

"Oh, liebchen, you will have time to play later." 

A giggle followed. "Aw, mutti!" but this time, the girl's voice was filled
with glee. 

For a long while, Twenty-two sat on the stump, motionless. He ran the red
ribbon through his fingers, recalling the euphoria that it had given him to
watch the child play, and to be involved in her world. He could hear the same
joy in her voice as her mother walked with her. He wondered what it would be
like, to have his Creator fill that role for him, the part of a parent, rather
than an assembler and programmer. 

Every logic subroutine and module in Twenty-two's processors screamed that
such a course was folly, and likely to end his newfound sentience and
individuality. 

Yet, despite physically lacking such an organ, Twenty-two followed his heart,
and headed north.

**********

The castle was massive, its curved towers flanking the massive central spire,
casting an ominous shadow down onto the landscape below. At the base of one of
the towers, Twenty-two was squeezing through the small hole he had made in the
steel-reinforced wall upon his exit. Wriggling through the access tunnel he
had used to escape, he noted that, had he kept the armor, he would never have
fit through the tight space. 

Was that a human trait? Taking the chance of risking a certain thing for one
less likely, in the hopes of a greater reward? 

Twenty-two knew that he was not human. And that he never could be. He simply
was what he was, and he wished to continue his existence as that. But, in the
past hours, he had developed a new program, a philosophy perhaps. 

He was determined to become more than the sum of his programming, to be worthy
of this mystery called sentience, this feeling, this independent thought. 

Again, he emerged from the wall, proceeding down the corridors of the stone
castle, instinctively seeking his destination. He was not certain what he
would discover, but he knew what he hoped to find. 

Enlightenment. Vindication, perhaps. One small glimpse into the reason behind
this human psyche that he now shared a small part of. 

Turning the corner, he stopped short. Before him was an open room, easily the
largest in the entire castle. It was barren of furniture, save for a padded
chair facing a smoldering fireplace. The ash and embers indicated that it had
been lit the night before and allowed to burn out. Twenty-two was puzzled. The
castle was heated by geothermal energy and climate-controlled. What purpose
did a fire serve?

Then he looked to the wall, where an immense tapestry hung. Embroidered on the
tapestry was a portrait of a woman. She lacked the aristocratic bearing one
would usually expect in portraits of this nature, yet she was possessed of a
subdued nobility, a calm rationality. But beyond that, Twenty-two felt
something else. There was a connection here, something his circuits of
mathematic and logic could not connect. He analyzed her facial features, tried
to extrapolate her expressions, her moods, her voice. None of his results gave
him the satisfaction that he desired. Despondent, he struck one fist into his
gauntleted palm. 

Then he paused. In a flash of inspiration, he activated the gauntlet for a
brief moment. Peering into the seared metal of the palm, he gazed at his own
reflection for the first time. Neatly combed brown hair over a proud brow and
ice-blue eyes. A thin nose, and a mouth that could be called proud, save that
few ever saw it. Slowly, Twenty-two looked up at the portrait and made the
connection, not with his programs and logic, but with his heart.

"Mother." he breathed. 

"Cynthia Von Doom." came the deep, resonant response. Twenty-two whirled, and
found himself staring into identical eyes, mirroring his own. Instead of being
framed in a handsome face, however, they were veiled by a cold, harsh iron
mask. 

The mask of his Creator.

The mask of Doctor Victor Von Doom.

Doom paced past Twenty-two, hands linked behind his back. "She was the
greatest woman this world has ever known. She was beauty, she was purity, she
was love." He looked to the android. Rage narrowed his eyes under the mask. 

"And you blaspheme her memory by disgracing this place."

Twenty-two raised his hands, backing away. "I meant no harm. I only wished to
know."

Doom nodded. "So you are sentient." The android nodded in response. "An error
in the programming, then." The masked dictator pondered. "When Machinesmith
seized control of you those months ago, some trace of his presence must have
infected your integral systems. When you were reprogrammed with your
personality matrix, the two must have been incompatible, causing this
unexpected... individuality."

Twenty-two nodded. "Yes! You have shown me why it is I think, why I feel!" His
mouth curved in a smile. "My Creator, I thank--"

Doom raised an arm. "Yet still you are an offense, and must be destroyed."
Twenty-two's electronic senses could detect the firing ports opening in Doom's
gauntlets. His expression changed from joy, to fear, to terror. 

"My Creator, I..."

His cry for mercy was drowned out by a plasma blast that struck him in his
chest. Pain receptors flared, as Twenty-two was ripped in two by the massive
release of energy. 

%% System resources at 7%. Failure imminent. Massive sy^820tmmm dis)88*...

%% I am dying. 

%% I... what is this "I"...? Am I truly...?

%% 1001001.... 1001001...

Doom strode over to the smoking wreckage. Twenty-two's head, still intact
although burned, twitched. His left arm, twisted beyond recognition, lifted to
Doom. The hand unclenched, revealing a small, untouched, red ribbon. 

"You tried to be human." Doom scolded. "You failed."

"For a moment," Twenty-two droned as his vocal circuits failed. "I was more
human... than you..."

Then the light vanished from his eyes, and in a crashing of program and
draining of fusion cells, Simulacrum Android Device Twenty-two, in a series of
sixty, died.

Another plasma blast reduced the wreckage to slag, soon to be collected and
disposed of by cleaning robots. 

And for the rest of the night, Victor Von Doom sat in front of a cold, empty
fireplace, meditating upon the visage of his long-dead mother. 

He did not let go of the red ribbon. Not until morning.


**********

"Non cogito, non ergo sum" = "I think not, therfore, I am not."

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