A Tale

TALE OF A HUMANOID ©



Call Me X-11 O-7. I am a humanoid. Something went wrong at the assembly line: so I end up as a humanoid with an attitude. Nothing more than a grudge. But that will do.
Consider my Batch number. X-11. That shows I am to work in tandem with X-10. His name among us humanoids is Smith. An O.K guy who lets me throws up a tantrum or two. He says while I was being assembled my boss pushed a wrong button or something. ( I had a sneaking suspicion why I was cut up about my boss from the very start.)
Ergo. I am a humanoid. X-10. The emotional One.
The star from where we conduct our research has opened a file on homo sapiens. Pretty routine stuff. Just as separate files for each species elsewhere. The X-series is totally fitted with artificial intelligence to keep track of mankind. (My proficiency in understanding the species is indicated by O-7 tag.) I am pretty taken up with my elective subject. Some love pottering away with humus and mulch. Some study newts. And I study humans. So what?
The way my boss tries to trip me up each time is pathetic. Like the day he called me to his office; “Urgent!” Liquid Crystal Display of my Memo Pad showed.
At that moment I was on the shop-floor getting my timer fixed. It tended to go a nanosecond or two out of sync. But I dropped everything and went to him. Number One had a deck of cards. Without a word in greeting he flashed one and said,”What do you see here?” He expected me to show my level of proficiency. I was game. So I said, ”homo sapiens, male of the species, Adam, a cipher, John Doe or Mr.Smith. He showed another card. Instantly I trotted my reply, “Female of the species, Eve, Mother, sister, daughter..”Number One chortled and with a smug look he put the cards away. He said triumphantly,” You are wrong!” Pointing to the card he explained,”This also is a man!” Thoroughly enjoying my discomfiture he said,” a transvestite or cross-dresser.”
I was so angry that I was at loss for words. He added nastily, ”Your level is not satisfactory. You have a lot of catching up to do.” He ordered me to leave for the earth right then and there. He had already set my Memo Pad with instructions with the click of a switch. Before I could say ‘digital’ I was literally kicked down the stairs.

When the lights flickered on my LCD panel the first instructions came through in malevolent colors:’ You are before the homo erectus. Check him out.”’
Quickly I scanned my Personal Data File for cross reference under Homo Erectus. It sure came handy to transform myself a copy of the prototype. There under a purple sky in the savannah I spotted him as large as life. “ Whew, this is the patriarch of human race!” I said with admiration. It thrilled me to see that my disguise matched his whisker for whisker and scab for scab. Loping towards him my gait was just as his was.
Mine may be Artificial Intelligence, but it was quite a smart piece of wiring, to scan his electrochemical surge, which my sudden appearance had caused in him. My inputs into my e-page came up with result. So he had a reason: Jealousy. He was jealous that I came there as a competitor. In a series of grunts and growls he said,” This savannah cannot hold two of us together. Either one of us gotta go before the sun breaks tomorrow.” I nodded.
That night I slept hardly. I got away before the dawn broke through.
I found to my dismay that my timer mechanism again showed up erratic. A difference of nano seconds had cut a wide swath now to show difference of days and then months and years. My next assignment was to check out a wonderful star over Bethlehem. House of Bread, my PDF quoted :’ Bread for all and Peace on Earth’ It sounded nonsense to me. It was left to me to check out.
It was on an upbeat mood that I left for Israel. The star had come and gone. Instead there were terrible scenes of mayhem and cruelty. As I careened towards the City of Peace, there was large commotion outside its gates. Some said,” Crucify him!” A few said “ We have no King but Caesar.”
I made myself into a Syrian. I walked over to a Jew who looked sad. Engaging him into a conversation was as trying as getting him to stick to the topic on hand. His mind wandered. He said that he was a fisherman and yet he said he was leaving for Rome. I wondered why a fisherman would want to leave his livelihood for a city where fishing was hardly possible. ‘My master showed me a sign and asked, Quo Vadis?’ He said in bad Latin.
Was he obstinate! So peculiar he was that he served the Prince of Peace. Yet he was hardly in peace with himself. He had some grudge against someone named Paulus. So I let him alone.
My next command was an assignment to which I took with great excitement. I was to meet some Pilgrim Fathers arriving at the Promised Land. So I checked my PDF and would have gone to Plymouth Rock. Instead I landed in Washington DC where I saw the President. Boy oh boy! He was impossible just as the fisherman who was all for fishing in Rome! Obstinate and woolly headed. He was for ridding the world of a tyrant by putting to torch some thousands of innocent civilians all across Iraq.
Finally mulling over evidences on hand, I turned in my report.
Even as I was pulled out of my assignments and found myself once again before my boss, I could sense a storm; I braced myself for it. Going over my workpage he read it loud enunciating each word slowly.’ Homo sapiens. A misguided and miserable species who will not mind cutting their nose to spite their face.’
‘ Neat uh?’ I asked hopefully.
For the next ten minutes Number One let out his anger, and decided my report showed a bad attitude. Besides he took exception to my timing.’ I asked you to check the appearance of a comet and what do I get?”He breathed fury. ” Instead of a scientific analysis I get a load of religion and some trivial pieces of man’s stupidity. What I expected was exobiology and not theology!”
I cried all the way to my workplace. Smith came up to me and said,’ There you need not take it too hard.’
I took hold of myself to say, “ I had half a mind to tick him off. At one point he said,’ Worth of your report is no more than a pinhead. Almost I said,’ It is all that your pea-sized brain could contain.”
“ No, you did not say that!” Smith was aghast.
“ I said , Almost.”
“ It was a good one for a retort. Wasn’t it? That reminds me, my timer is out of sync!” I could not help laughing and I observed,” I suppose I am a wit of the downstairs.”
The End