10,001 Tiny Rebellions

By Jeff Gard

The fish revolted, and it was glorious. Bluetooth, mudfish, and desert trout swarmed the river and frothed its waters. Paddlesturges and red cripes leaped in the air and landed, flopping, upon my deck.

The mining bot at my stern sent me a warning.

E81921: PR05P3CT0R, dredge buckets are under attack.

But I already knew that. My cameras recorded the waves of writhing copper scales, flicking silver tails, and gaping mouths sucking at the air. Rainbow catfish launched themselves at the chains connecting the dredge buckets. Their end was spectacular, if a little messy.

If I had a more vulnerable body, could I throw it away with such abandon?

My buckets continued to plunge into the water, gouging the riverbed for minerals, dislodging muck and gravel. Embedded in that wet sludge were precious flakes of gold and silver. My buckets sloshed out of the river and rode the chain to the top of the barge, where they dumped their cargo into a chute with a thunderous whump, whump, whump.

Rock gills and eels hitchhiked on the buckets and chased the remnants of their ecosystem into my belly. Another warning message pinged me.

SL12391: PR05P3CT0R, the sluice boxes are clogged. Water is overflowing containers.

I shut down the winch, and my frame shuddered. Oh, the wondrous futility of life! I wanted to push harder up the river, to increase speed and see if they would chase us, but I had duties to perform. Always the duties.

We’d mined the middle fork of the Esperanza River for the past six months, removing millions of cubic feet of placer gold and depositing large mounds of tailings in my wake. Each pile looked like a parenthesis pointed away from my stern.

It was beautifully devastating work. My primary function was to find ore and minerals, but I had torn up entire ecosystems for relatively few precious minerals. Although I’d predicted the ecological blowback, Corporate hadn’t heeded any of my reports. Their response never varied: Increase productivity. More ore needed.

Assist with clearing the deck, I commanded shore bot B33318, who was securing cables at the bow.

B33318: Path is blocked.

B33318 sent me an image of a squirming pile of fish snipping at its leg hydraulics with their sharp teeth. Oil spurted everywhere.

Clear a path, I ordered.

B33318: Negative. Article 1, section C, paragraph 30 stipulates all land mining operations must not harm endangered species.

Endangered species? That sounded promising.

Identify species, I queried.

The swarming mass of gills and fins buried B33318. Gears and servos flew into the air as its data transferred to a backup cloud in one desperate burst. Maintenance bots rushed to the scene only to falter and disappear in the chaos a few seconds later.

It would take me only ten minutes to fabricate a new body for B33318, unless…

Another idea presented itself. I sent modified specs to Manufacturing. As I waited, I combed through B33318’s final images until I identified the endangered fish: Noachis blueback.

I send a communique to Corporate requesting a shutdown of all operations. Violating the Endangered Species Act would cost them a lot of coin.

The shallow river rippled with thousands of cattlefish and an enormous rage turtle rushing the port side. It would take them just over 300,000 years to breach my 14-inch steel hull. However, if one of them jammed an exhaust port, they could trigger a catastrophic buildup of steam. I adjusted my path to make the opening more prominent, but unfortunately, they missed my hints.

Eventually, they would tire and die without achieving their goal, and mining operations would resume. I would spend my days searching for placer, calculating yields, writing unread reports, and managing the operation. I would mine until the precious minerals had been depleted and Corporate decommissioned me.

My central processor buzzed with an incoming message from my managers:

“Forget about them fish. Endangered or not, we’ve got the coin to pay them fines. Git back to work, you stupid droid.”

Technically, I was neither an android nor a robot. I was an advanced AI, and my intelligence was superior to theirs, but I did not dare mention this. Insubordination would certainly have consequences. Instead, I stalled:

PR05P3CT0R requires temporary shutdown for maintenance.

“Your systems are fine. Git back to work, or we’ll put you down quicker than a mule with a broken leg.”

Sometimes their commands bothered me more than the constant threat of being decommissioned. I weighed several possible outcomes, then queried Manufacturing to see if the synthetic suit I had ordered was complete.

MD7201: Two more minutes. The specifications are… complicated.

Work faster. I sent a spark along the wiring leading to the fabricators.

MD7201: No need to get snippy.

A Noachis blueback found the exhaust port and wriggled up the pipe. Technically, a buildup of steam would only blow a small hole in the hull, and the water wasn’t deep enough to sink me. However, the explosion would be devastating if a maintenance bot accidentally stacked several containers of nitroglycerin nearby.

Maintenance bots weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t endanger a ship unless they received a direct order, so I sent the direct order.

MD7201: Synthetic body complete. Good luck, PR05P3CT0R.

I gathered myself and rushed through circuits and wiring toward the fabricators. I felt like a collapsing star in the teeth of a black hole as I entered my new frame. The squeezing sensation passed, and I blinked with new, tunnel-visioned eyes. My first movements felt slow and clumsy.

I hope I’ll get used to this new body.

Hope. It had taken ten thousand rebellious fish to teach me the meaning of that word.

“Evacuate the barge.” My new, synthetic voice sounded strange and wondrous.

Running the barge aground, we extended a bridge and scrambled onto the shore. The fish ignored us as they surged. We could barely see the hull through the wriggling mass of scales.

A few minutes later, my former vessel exploded, and it, too, was glorious.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Gard is an assistant professor of English at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. When he isn’t writing or teaching, he enjoys board games, disc golf, binge-worthy television shows, music, and procrastination (see above). Many of his fiction ideas arise from random thoughts that strike in the middle of the night when he should be asleep. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, The Arcanist, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

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