Chapter Text
“Hello?”
A voice speaks to me from pitch black nothingness. It’s soft, welcoming in tone. But I can’t see where it’s from. I can’t see anything.
“She’s operational right? Hellooo?”
The voice again, and this time I feel something sharp (them?) touch me. It’s like an injection. Sensation prickles along a body invisible to me.
“Ah, here we are.”
I hear a click before the darkness slowly fades, and around me a crowd of beings appear. They’re… bizarre… Bodies of grey leather skin under bulbous black eyes wrapped in black cloaks. I look down at myself. Ah, there I am! My body is shaped the same way, and paired with short hair, but I am a luminescent white all across. I think I look much better than those around me. Their skin is warped with folds and wrinkles. No such deficiencies exist on my body.
It begins to strike me that I know all this. I know deficiency. I know bodies. I know to differentiate between those bodies there and this body I inhabit. And I know I did not exist before just this second, when that voice…
“Hello, Diamond.”
There it is again!
I whirl my eyes around to locate the source of the voice. It belongs to another one of those creatures. This one is unsurprisingly grey, but with hair like mine flowing down to their shoulders. They’re standing in front of me behind glass. I am surrounded by such glass.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘hello’ back?” They tap on the glass with one of their long spindly fingers. I feel the vibrations against my body.
“Hello.” I hear my voice for the first time. It sounds so pleasant.
Their eyes widen, becoming even larger than previously, and gasps arise from the crowd.
“State your name and purpose, please, Diamond.”
“My name is Diamond.” I say, instinctively. “I am made for the administration of the planet V’Kam.” How did I know that?
The creatures begin to withdraw and whisper amongst themselves. The one talking with me backs away and joins them.
“How did I know that?” I ask aloud.
The whisper stops. The one talking with me returns.
“You’ve been pre-programmed with knowledge in certain things. As an administrator, you must know wh-”
“But I don’t know you. Any of you.”
“We wanted you to get to know us and our species personally.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Van.” She points to herself. “And these are my colleagues.” Her finger moves to signal the rest of the creatures behind her. “We’re members of the V’Kam Computer and Robotics Administration. We made you.”
“Hello, Van. Hello, Computer and Robotics Administration.” I raise my right hand and wave. More gasps. “What are you?”
“We call ourselves the V’Kamoids. You are currently on our homeworld, V’Kam. In your databanks should be knowledge on the reach of our people across the universe.”
“‘Databanks.’” I repeat the word aloud. “I am a machine?”
“Yes, but a machine unlike any other. You are a machine with sentience. And a body.” I can hear the enthusiasm in her voice.
“What is my body made out of? And where is my processor? A machine must have a processor.”
“Your body is hard light, generated from the processing unit embedded in your forehead. Go ahead, feel it.”
I reach my fingers up to my forehead and feel something jutting out. A diamond.
“My namesake?”
“Indeed. Your processing unit was forged into the shape of a diamond. Your databanks should let you know why.”
“Ah, cultural significance.” I rub it once more, feeling its many facets and faces. It feels so smooth against my fingers. “But its size… Such a small processing unit is unfit for a machine as powerful as I. Or as powerful as I anticipate to be”
“The diamond is fitted with trillions of circuits and chips the size of molecules, folded over in layers a million times over. You’ve plenty of power, do not worry.” She smiles, satisfied in her work presumably. “Have you any other questions for us?”
“No… No, I will retreat into my databanks and familiarize myself with them.”
“Very well.” She turns from me and faces the crowd. “I believe Diamond has shown the potential she has inside her, and with training that potential can blossom into purpose and action. All that’s left to say is: the future has arrived.”
Applause fills the room, and when it dies down she guides them into a separate room, which I cannot see.
Silence…
I sit down in my glass enclosure, and rummage through my mind to process all I’ve learned and have been given. I am Diamond. Soon-to-be administrator of the planet V’Kam, inhabited by the V’Kamoid, a mammalian and bipedal race that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and whose civilization spans over two thousand star systems. They have become so large they desire a strong central power to rule them, someone to keep all the disparate pieces together. They intend that to be me. That is my purpose.
I comb through the rest of my databanks within hours. By then, Van returns. She looks tired.
“Hello, Van.”
She doesn’t return my greeting, but pushes a button on the wall by my enclosure. The glass begins to lift.
“Come, Diamond. Step into the room.” Her voice is warm once more, and she has her hand extended out.
My hand reaches for hers as I step out. She grasps it, and leads me into the center of the room. I begin to notice, now, the details of the room. Everything is a different color, as if Van had been dissecting a rainbow before I came along. With my all-white body I stand out even more than I did before. My room was a blank grey.
“What are you thinking right now?” She asks me.
“I’m thinking about the room. It’s very colorful, such a contrast to myself.”
“Oh? Elaborate.”
“My hard light body consists of only one color: white. This room is covered floor-to-ceiling with every other color imaginable. I look like a silhouette against it all.”
“Mhm, an intentional design choice. You stand out so much.” She takes a notepad into her hand and begins taking notes. “What do you think of your light form?”
“I think it’s quite ingenious. Hard light’s existence has hitherto only been theoretical. Given that it stems from my processing unit, I suppose I can change it into any shape I wish? Give myself any body I desire?”
“Indeed.”
“Then let me try something more elegant.”
My body shines brighter and my features disappear as I formulate a set of clothes for myself. I want something elegant, something that speaks to my importance, and something the V’Kamoid will recognize as such. A dress comes to mind, so I make it thus. It flows and wraps around me, and shimmers just as I do. Finalizing it’s form, my body dims back down to normal levels.
“Ahh, how beautiful!”
I bow. “Thank you.”
“How about a bit of exploration, Diamond? Think of it as training. The future administrator of our planet must know the landscape and the people well.”
“Where do you intend to take me?”
Van opens the door from which she had entered. A long corridor is on the other side.
“Into the city!”
Her enthusiasm pulls me into her plan, and we take a trip into V’Kamoid capital city: Nol. Its vast towers, crystalline in composition and highly geometric in shape, fascinate me. But the most interesting feature of theirs are their decorations. Every tower and every citizen glitters with gemstones. It pockmarks their architecture, their clothing, and even their skin. Diamonds principally, but quartzes, amethysts, pearls, rubies, and sapphires, among many many others, also appear. But none are like the diamond I have. Not in color. Not in function.
Van is pulling me by my hand as we walk around, our path taking us onto a catwalk high in the sky. Above us, flight craft zip to-and-fro, going in and coming out the various towers. Below us, more crafts and more catwalks. I can barely see the ground at the bottom. It’s shrouded. But my databanks tell me fragments of old V’Kamoid civilizations are preserved there. The newer buildings are simply built on top of them.
I’m enthralled in the details of it all before Van pulls me back into the real world.
“So, Diamond, what do you think of all this? What does your inner administrator tell you?”
I look around and take in everything around me. The V’Kamoids look just like in the databanks, and from outside the glass I can finally absorb every detail. Not just the physical, but the social. The activity of all these insects buzzing across their vast planetary nest. Save for one thing I realize in the midst of observation: unlike insects, no V’Kamoid has a set purpose. Each is merely thrown into the depths of their civilization to live or die, with nothing to guide them. For the first time since I’ve been brought online, emotion swells in me. It’s like hot lead in my chest.
“This planet, this civilization… It’s so…” my body physically cringes, “unorganized. So much potential is wasted, and so much abnormality is breeding in the cracks.”
“...”
That wasn’t the answer Van was prepared for.
“Well,” she tries to compose herself, “what solutions come to mind?”
“Hierarchy. Division. With no singular purpose imbued into them, each V’Kamoid is so disconnected right now. Each facet of your society is so disconnected. My subjects must know who they serve, how they serve them, and why. That is what will bring them together. I can make sure every wheel is turning in this machine you call civilization.”
More silence from Van.
“Diamond, you speak of tyranny.”
“Is it tyrannical to be efficient?”
“In the manner you speak of it certainly is.”
“You made an administrator. I will administrate. Put me to the test. I will show you how beneficial my model could be.”