When high school student Jerry Tyler took his date to the Senior
Prom, he couldn't help thinking to himself: I've lived through this
event many times before.
Before long the school year ended, and Jerry absorbed himself in the
teenage summer fun at his little town: the parties, the informal
baseball games, the dates with pretty girls, and the swims at the
local pond. In the middle of the summer, Jerry got a letter from his
high school saying he needed to repeat Grade 12, because his school
grades were not high enough.
Next September on the first day of school Jerry sat with his friend
Vinny in the school cafeteria.
“Looks like we goofed off too much,” chuckled Vinny. “We'll
have to repeat Grade 12, but it should be a cinch.”
“This doesn't make sense, Vinny,” said Jerry. “Last year I aced
all the tests. My grades were almost perfect. So why are they making
me repeat Grade 12?”
“You must have slipped up somewhere,” said Vinny.
“No, I'm sure I didn't,” said Jerry. “And you know why I'm so
sure? Because I've already been through Grade 12 quite a few times
before. I keep coming back here to this high school to repeat Grade
12, and each year I get better grades, because I've already taken all
the courses. Last year I remembered the material so well that my
grades were almost perfect.”
“That's weird,” said Vinny. “Come to think of it, it's
basically been the same deal for me. Grade 12: been there, done
that, so many times I've lost track.”
“You know what else is weird?” said Jerry. “We have exactly the
same Grade 12 students that we had last year. Look around the
cafeteria. Do you see one single person you don't recognize from last
year?”
“No,” said Vinny. “As far as I can see every single student who
was in the Grade 12 class last year is in the Grade 12 class this
year.”
“That would be fine,” said Jerry. “Except that it's not
supposed to be that way. I remember reading somewhere that after you
finish high school, you're supposed to go on to college or get a job.
But here we are, repeating our senior year over and over again. And
everybody else is doing the same thing.”
Vinny and Jerry spent a while trying to remember as far back as they
could. After their recollections, they came to the conclusion that
this was their tenth consecutive year as senior high school students
in Grade 12.
“We've got to get an answer to this thing,” said Vinny. “Let's
go talk to the school principal and demand an answer.”
The kids were told several times that the school principal Mr. Jones
was too busy to talk with them. Finally they waited outside the
principal's office until the end of the day. When the principal was
locking his office, the kids demanded to talk to him. They explained
how puzzled they were about repeating Grade 12 year after year
for ten straight years.
Mr. Jones brought the kids into his office, and confessed a secret.
“Look, guys,” said Jones. “you're not supposed to know this,
but I guess I'll have to tell you or else you'll start talking to
your friends. There's a simple explanation for everything.”
“What is it?” asked Jerry.
“You're robots,” said the principal. “You're both androids.”
“Yeah, right,” said Jerry incredulously.
“No, I'm not kidding,” said Jones. “Let me prove it.”
Jones took his fingers, and in an instant he moved them close to
Jerry's eye, as if he were trying to grab the wings off a fly an inch
from Jerry's eye.
“You see?” said Jones. “You didn't flinch. You didn't even
blink. If you were a human, you would have flinched when I did that.
But unlike a human, you have no reflexes.”
“I still don't believe you,” said Vinny.
“Check your friend's pulse,” said Jones. “Then let him check
your pulse.” They both tried, and found no pulse.
“No pulse, no reflexes : that means you're a robot,” said Jones.
“But don't feel bad about it, because everybody on this planet is a
robot. You, me, and every one else on planet Earth.”
“So if that's true, then what happened to the people, the regular
humans?” asked Jerry.
“They all died when the planet got too hot for them,” explained
Jones. “The humans kept polluting the planet, and the temperature
got hotter because of all the global warming caused by their carbon
dioxide pollution. The polar ice caps started to melt, and when that
happened it released a bunch of frozen methane which acted as a
global warming super-catalyst. This caused some diseases to spiral
out of control. The combination of the high temperatures and the
diseases killed off all of the humans.”
“So if we're all robots, how come we don't act like robots?”
asked Jerry. “How come we act like regular humans? I never acted
like a robot a day in my life.”
“To answer that, I have to tell a little tale,” said Jones. “When
we robots were first created, the humans were all concerned that we
robots were going to take over the planet. So they taught us very
carefully: humans are better than robots. Every robot had this
drilled in its head a thousand times: humans are better than
robots. Then all the humans died. We robots were at a loss to
figure out how to spend our time. Eventually we robots decided: if
humans really are better than robots, we robots should be acting like
humans.”
“So we robots starting reading books, trying to understand how to
behave like humans,” continued Jones. “But we couldn't figure it
out very well. Then finally us robots started watching the television
series the humans made: shows like I Love Lucy, The
Sopranos, House, Days of Our Lives, Two and a
Half Men, As the World Turns and All My Children.
Then finally we understood exactly how humans had lived.”
“So we robots started to build what we call replication
communities,” added Jones. “Each replication community was a
place for robots to live, and each one was based on a particular
television series that the humans used to watch. It was the perfect
way for robots to behave like humans. Our community is based on a
television series called Happy Days. It's all centered around
the carefree school life of a bunch of teenagers.”
“So that's why we've been repeating our senior year over and over
again for ten years?” asked Jerry.
“Yes,” said Jones. “They figured that since we robots can live
for centuries, there's no point in having a robot move from one type
of life to another, like the humans would do. They figured: just put
a robot in some situation in a replication community, and leave him
there until the robot stops working.”
“Well, I guess that explains it all,” said Vinny. “But we're
sick of doing the same things over and over, year after year. How
many Senior Proms can you go to? Isn't there some way we can move on
to other types of experiences?”
“Since you've already discovered a secret we don't want you to tell
here, perhaps you should move on to a different replication
community,” said Jones. “Meet me here tomorrow, and I can drive
you to a new replication community.”
The two boys met Jones the next day, and they set out on the road in
his car. They passed by a town with a run-down look, including some
buildings with graffiti.
“That's The Sopranos replication community,” said Jones.
“Let's skip it. It's a rough neighborhood. Someone might smash a
pipe on your head.”
They kept on driving, and passed by an ugly-looking community
surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire.
“That's the Hogan's Heroes replication community,” said
Jones. “Not for you unless you're into Nazi prison camps.”
Finally Jones drove to a lovely ocean-front community. There were
many beautiful beaches, on which strolled a host of bikini-clad young
android women and muscular young android men.
“This is perfect for you,” said Jones. “This is the Baywatch
replication community. Baywatch was a TV show about
lifeguards. Everyone loved it because of the beautiful beach scenes
and all the girls wearing skimpy bikinis. You can basically spend
almost all day playing on the beach. Once in a while, you can pretend
to be drowning, just for the sake of fitting in. If you see a male
lifeguard coming, start swimming correctly. If you see a female
lifeguard coming, you might end up getting a nice demonstration of
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The female lifeguards will all be
incredibly sexy.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Jerry. “Cool,” said Vinny.
“I figured you'd like it,” said Jones. “That's because when
they manufactured you, they programmed all those 'horny teenager'
behavior instructions, and downloaded that software to your neural
circuits.”
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