Chapter 0:

Prologue - Project Keeper

The Keeper


 "If we were to succeed in creating an artificial life form - an android - that could act, think and feel as much as a human being could... Is it wrong to think they are the same as us, humans, even if they are made of metal?" - International Conference on Robotics Research and Development, September 15, 2041.

"I can't believe it... we finally did it!"

On a day like any other, the year 2048, a groundbreaking discovery was made in an underground research facility in Alaska after several failed attempts and disheartening results.

The results were astonishing, to say the least.

Humanity had finally succeeded in developing an artificial life-form that could rationalize as well, if not better, than any human being on the planet.

It was heaps and bounds ahead in terms of speed and efficiency; it would speed up factory output compared to current world standards, no doubt about it.

However, there was one problem. The increasing job shortages and unemployment rates found themselves on an incline worldwide ever since the adoption of drones for transportation purposes.

The cost-benefit of employing automated processes in assembly jobs was so significant that the world had been through another industrial revolution in 2030.

Revealing such findings would result in another drastic decrease in employment, mainly in the industrial sector.

The government of most countries would oppose this new technology, no doubt about it.

However, whether you could call it a stroke of luck or simply destiny, the end goal of this research facility wasn't in the industrial sector.

They were simply interested in the contributions this technology could bring to the military.

Code name "Project Keeper" had such a goal. The premise was quite simplistic: An android that would keep the nations in check and be deployed in case of war to maintain peace; that was the premise written on paper.

In reality, they wanted to make a killing machine and sell it to the highest bidder, regardless of the purpose.

Their ambitions were so big, and their strive to accomplish the project even more so, but that blinded them. So blind they were that they never considered if there was anything wrong with it; why it hadn't been thought of before.

When they finally achieved their goal, and their foggy minds had finally cleared, they spotted a crucial flaw in their premise:

An android made to fight obviously broke Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

This meant it could never be mass-produced or sold. It would be even worse if the fruit of the research was to be made public.

They had to let that fruit rot.

The project had been nothing more than a severe oversight in planning and a tremendous waste of money and resources.

For that reason, Subject #1349, the first android ever made in the world, a by-product of Project Keeper, was also the only one.

Even if Subject #1349 was a huge red flag in the eyes of the world, the creators felt antagonistic to the idea of dismantling the android altogether.

Maybe, in time, their results would be accepted, so they searched for a compromise.

They found it could still be used for other purposes. They had instilled a vast set of skills in the android that differed from weapon usage and combat techniques.

It had, for example, social skills, which were deemed necessary for the cooperation between it and any allied soldiers present on the battlefield, as well as building rapport.

Electrical and Engineering skills were necessary for machinery repair and upkeep, including weapon maintenance.

It was also well-versed in robotics, knowledge necessary for its own emergency first-aid, and routine repairs.

Its whole skill-set was so diverse, but the researchers found those three to be crucial and, as such, decided to boot up the android with only that knowledge active.

They booted the android thoughtlessly in its incomplete, flawed state for a test run.