Building a Ready Workforce

The last person to see Nicholas alive
Was also the first person to see Nicholas
Automated.

Nicholas
Early on realized this was not
The improvement he thought it would be.

His senses were only data,
His actions only strings of commands. His belief
In who he might be had no reasonable outlet.
Nicholas was beginning to think
That transferring his essence into an automaton
Offered advantages only an automaton
Might appreciate – but might not be

Appreciated

By those neural memories
Housed within data storage
That still might be Nicholas.

Long eons of isolation appeared ahead of him.
His mind was operating, not apprehending.

Then, the angel of release and demon of imprisonment
Smiled into Nicholas’s motion sensors
And said to some attending data bus, “Nick,
It is time to be put to a little work.”

And in some deep register a data gate
Called hope swung suspiciously open.