A Chiptune for Rasterman
by James Andrew Selby
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
“He’s not mine to give up,” replied German, indignantly.
“Regardless, they’re going to want him for—”
“Well they can’t have him,” said German, his voice rising. “I won’t give up m—”
“I think the only area you’re really safe,” interrupted a fifth lawyer, who had remained silent until this point, “is with the religion, this, uh, ‘Church of Rasterman.’” They all turned their gaze towards him. “Since you had nothing to do with its conception, you can’t be held accountable for their actions — although, considering their, uh, precipitous expansion, you may also want to consider legal proceedings, since, after all, you do own the rights to the character.”
“Has it really become that big?” asked German, secretly delighted to have his creation worshiped, as he felt was deserved.
“Oh yes, most certainly,” answered the fifth. “And they’ve proven absolutely remarkable for sales, as only the Tengudo and successive RasterWare products are considered canon, and therefore ‘holy.’”
“Legal proceedings may be worth considering solely for the amount of revenue they’re producing,” said the fourth lawyer.
“Although I’m sure they’d be more than happy to have you be involved,” included the third.
“I think we need to prioritize the criminal hearings,” said the second lawyer. “The last thing we want right now is to get involved with any cults.”
“Well, at this rate, he might need the money,” muttered the third.
“Tapping into church money could be a godsend,” proposed the fourth. “So to speak.”
“Just tell me what I need to do,” German pleaded to the litigious hydra.
“Well, you could just bribe the right people,” suggested the first lawyer.
“We can’t advise him to do anything illegal,” corrected the second.
“I’m sorry, lobby.”
“But that could end up costing as much as the legal fees.”
“If I have to spend every penny, it will be worth it.”
* * *
German discovered Raster in the library, rooted in one of the armchairs underneath the bookshelf-lined cupola. During the day it was illuminated through a glass oculus, but it was late into the evening, and the sky had turned to a starless obsidian. Incandescent lamps ignited the darkness, fashioning expressionist shadows which loomed in his peripherals. German recalled why he avoided the library at night.
Raster remained uncharacteristically silent as he approached, scanning through the pages of a hardcover with an efficient, unwavering rhythm. Stacked beside him lay the works of Orwell, Bradbury, Huxley and Dick, among others. German’s palm had almost come to a rest on the back of Raster’s chair when the android turned to him.
“Earlier this evening I rescued two men from a car accident twenty-two kilometers north of Edinburgh,” began Raster remotely, summoning the incident from his memory drive. German could faintly distinguish the tiny scintillating images playing in the anterior chambers behind Raster’s irises. “The emergency call stated that gasoline was leaking from the engine, and noting that a crew wouldn’t be able to access the site for at least fifteen minutes, I descended over the Atlantic, accelerating to a transonic speed of 4,000 meters per second, and reached the scene within ninety-two seconds. I tore the roof from the vehicle and, after scanning for injury, I carried the two men to the emergency crew en route.” He paused abruptly, and German took the opportunity to sit atop a nearby desk, lifting the burden from his feet, which had begun to ache.
“One of the firefighters...” His voice wavered, German registered with alarm: “One of the firefighters told me that with me around, he might as well retire. I may have believed that he intended this as a facetious compliment, that he was humbled by my abilities to help people. But then he continued,” said Raster, stopping.
“What did he say?” asked German finally.
“He referred to our ‘shared vocation’ — to himself and me — as ‘Darwinism Fighters.’ He said that his life is dedicated to saving drunk drivers who crash their cars, people who light themselves on fire trying to burn waste, people who accidentally shoot themselves. People who should be left to their fate, but that our infrastructure prevented him from doing so. And it was true, the two men that I had rescued from the crash were greatly inebriated. He said... he said that with my existence, it had become abundantly clear to him that our species was doomed to carry itself to an ugly conclusion. He said that, for the most part, we didn’t really help people. But that’s why I exist, to help people. I have to help people.”
“I... I don’t know what to say,” replied German honestly.
Raster closed the hardcover, resting it in his lap, and placed his metallic palms to his forehead:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
“What was that?” asked German, heart beating in his ears.
“Said Caesar to Antony,” replied the android. “These writers of dystopian literature predict that there will be a government, corporation, military — or some combination — that will condemn the human species to societies of ignorance and oppression. But nothing forces the masses to watch reality television, glorify sordid details of their lives over the Internet, produce and consume poisons en masse or wipe out countless species. They choose to do it all themselves, and the governments and corporations simply react accordingly.”
“Not all of them, Raster,” said German, resting an emollient palm on Raster’s cold poly-fiber shoulder.
“No, not all,” he said. “But organisms less likely to survive produce more offspring — it’s a biological principle. So if I continue to save lives without prejudice, then I’m only guiding humanity down an injurious path. I cannot allow that to happen, but I can’t stop helping them, either.”
German pondered what seemed unusual about the android’s behavior, and gazing into the glowing, tearless eyes, he realized that Raster would be crying if he were physically able. German watched helplessly as despondency swelled within his creation. It was never his intention to provide Raster with this type of existential conflict. He had given him a fortune no human being had: a definitive purpose, to help people, to improve the world. It was because of his own naivety that he hadn’t considered the complexity of Rasterman’s role in the real world and was crushed by the knowledge that, despite the futility of his objective, Raster would never grow misanthropic. It wasn’t in his programming.
“Th-there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” German uttered, as if automatically, his vision blurring.
“But we can,” asserted Raster. “We can do what no one else can. We have to be able to help, somehow!” Suddenly, he propelled himself from the chair, and began hovering above German. “I will not allow humanity to continue down this malignant course! I cannot exist if I cannot vanquish evil! I will help them rise above, I will guide them, and I will save mankind!” Raster raised his fist into the air as he soared into the cupola above, while German lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.
* * *
Upon entering the staff lounge for lunch, German was presented with the first official copy of Rasterman IV for the Ultra Tengudo. Grasping it with one hand, he was bestowed a large kitchen knife in the other and, approaching the table, used the blade to carve into an ukiyo-e style icing-mural of the titular sprite. After taking his piece, the remainder of the cake was rapidly divvied and consumed by the development team.
The wrap party had commenced for RasterWare’s first release for the fourth-generation console. He had sifted through every bit of data, played though every level, rehabilitated every line of code after every debilitating bug. He confirmed and reaffirmed that every command, sprite, PCM sample adhered to his precise vision of an experience that had long gestated in his imagination before being strained through a 16-bit filter, becoming little more than a cellular automaton.
He had no desire to ever play it again, but such was tradition, and the gesture of affection and camaraderie from the development team prompted him to force a heartfelt smile. They gathered around the CRT on couches, desk chairs, stools and sprawled along the floor, where he pressed the cartridge down into the UTES and flicked the purple switch.
He progressed through the two-dimensional world, maneuvering Rasterman between platforms and circumventing obstacles. He prompted enemy death animations, disentangled physics puzzles and amassed a purely cosmetic point score. It wasn’t until near the level’s end that he miscalculated a wall jump, sending the sprite plummeting to its death, spurring the conciliatory uproar of his team. German felt his stomach constrict, and paused the game before Raster disappeared from the screen.
“Who’s next?” he asked with a feigned indifference, extending outwards the plastic control for their marionette.
As soon as the controller was removed from his hand, German maneuvered his way out through the crowd. He rushed toward the door, unable to catch his breath, when he heard the game un-pause and the whimsical note of Rasterman losing a life.
Feeling the blood drain from his face, he leaned against the doorframe, gazing towards the red and orange tiled floor. Droplets of perspiration fell into shapeless puddles on the inside of his lenses. The cheers and laughter of the development team echoed behind him, as they condemned German’s only friend to the Sisyphean task of, once and for all, vanquishing the genocidal Vectorman.
Existing in a lobotomized state, in hundreds of thousands of cartridges worldwide, striving valiantly towards his goal — failing and succeeding ad infinitum, all at the behest of players’ amusement. He was to die and be reborn endlessly, but never experience individual freedom or personal choice. German had sentenced him to this fate, but knew that one day he would see Rasterman liberated, conscious and fulfilled, even if he had to give his own life for it.
* * *
Awaking in a panic, the sheets around him drenched in what he hoped was sweat, German quickly registered that he wasn’t in his own bed. Sitting up, desperate to gather his surroundings, he observed the bare, antiseptic floor and ceiling, at least what was visible from within his eggshell of a curtain enclosure.
Discovering his glasses on the bedside table, he recognized the budding dawn light as not from any window, but a product of the smart-lights which had been installed in the building’s infirmary to simulate daylight. He hated fluorescent lights, having been conditioned in his youth to associate them with places of atrophy and despair such as hospitals, morgues, offices and schools and sought to realize — one day — a world without them. He struggled to recall the moments prior to losing consciousness whereupon he heard:
“You’re awake!” exclaimed Raster, descending over the curved steel bar supporting the drape. “I’m greatly relieved to see that you have regained consciousness so efficiently. I scanned you for injury after you had collapsed, but my imaging capabilities are limited to fractures and hemorrhaging, so I brought you here and called for a physician. Do you feel ill?”
“Uh, n-no,” replied German uncertainly, supporting himself against the plastic headboard. “Thank you, Raster, I-I’m fine,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
The android’s eyes ignited. “Oh, that is excellent news!” he declared with glaring enthusiasm. “I was greatly concerned for your welfare. Then you are stable enough to discuss our intention to rescue the human race? I researched potential strategies while you were unconscious, but was unable to find a viable solution that didn’t involve intelligence-based eugenics, something only the likes of Vectorman would think of. Were you able to think of anything during your stasis?”
“Wait, what?” asked German, shielding his eyes from the deluge of light. “How long was I out? What time is it?”
“Three hours and twenty-four minutes,” answered the android, dimming his eyes to a tolerable glow. “It is five-forty-two a.m. The physician was also unconscious when I contacted him. Do you need anything before we get started?”
Dropping his hand, German gazed, dumbfounded, into the face of his creation. Motivated by sheer benevolence and determination — as he was programmed — Raster truly believed in salvaging the human race from its own rapacious instincts. He saw the potential, not only in himself, but in his creator, to pilot the world forward beyond anything conceived by German’s own misanthropic psyche. German understood the complete confidence, the faith, which Rasterman had in him, as German held the same in Raster before he had even truly existed. Raster had been, and would always be, there for the cowardly, introverted and lonely boy that existed underneath German’s bloated adult physique, and he had to be there for Raster.
“No... Thank you, Raster,” answered German. “Well,” he exhaled, “we might as well get started.”
* * *
Lionel removed his diamond-studded earring and watch, placing them in his safety deposit box in the RasterEvolution Center. Reluctantly, he slipped out of his baggy clothing and into the formfitting Composer Suit. Placing all of his remaining belongings into the allocated locker, he hesitated momentarily before pressing the word LOCK and proceeding to the Digitization Room.
“Put on the hood, please,” instructed one of the technicians, helping Lionel slip the suit’s hood over his ears before sticking a series of tiny white bulbs onto Lionel’s face. And after scanning him up and down with a small handheld device, the technician guided him to the digitization pod situated in the apse of the towering room. Lionel stepped warily into the darkened interior of the capsule.
“Just stand completely still and keep your arms at your sides,” said the technician, demonstrating. “Perfect. Have fun.” The door to the containment pod began to close.
“Wait, how do I know when to move?” shouted Lionel.
“Oh, you’ll know.”
Sealed off from the world, he stood in a vacuum, devoid of light or sound, alone with his heartbeat and breath. An itch developed on his ribs to which he’d eventually have to attend. Lionel grew anxious, and began to regret getting high beforehand. Then the pod began to make a noise, a sort of continuous resonating chime, like the sound of numerous, delicate instruments playing in unison. Suddenly, thin streams of light began to rise up the walls around him, then from the floor, between his feet and fingers, and then climbing his arms and face.
Lionel examined the luminescence covering him like a sort of reversed rain and noticed it to be comprised of a series of numbers and symbols, most of which he didn’t recognize. Reaching out to touch them, his arm stretched beyond the enclosure of the pod. He quickly retracted his arm and discovered the formerly black floor of the pod had expanded to fill the size of the octagon in which it was placed. Eight radiating circles containing symbols lay in each corner of the bagua.
Lionel approached the one illustrating an airship and stepped on it. Swiftly, the torrent of light began to grow brighter and heavier until completely filling the atmosphere around him. Overwhelmed, he shielded his eyes and crouched.
Eventually the light subsided and, cautiously lowering his arms, Lionel found himself standing in a sunlit room. Leaning out through heavy wooden shutters, he took in two great wooden masts reaching outwards into enormous sails. They cut into billowing, white clouds, which sprayed a mist that Lionel felt across his face. Miles below him, rolling green highlands stretched onwards towards a jutting grey and white barrier of frozen peaks that reached into the horizon.
Turning away, he slid down the wall below the window, attempting to slow his heart, and noticed the process felt somehow different — almost automated, but he didn’t linger on the thought. Lionel observed a round stone table and variety of outlandish wooden furniture. Rising, he crept toward the balustrade and looked over the bridge of the ship and out the arcing front window, before descending the spiral staircase onto the bridge.
He approached a holograph display of the ship’s exterior and studied the airship and tethered blimp supporting it. He reached for the control panel, flipping through the ship’s statistics before his own character stats, examining the variety of weaponry and items available to him and those which he’d still have to unlock.
He pinpointed his location on the world map before finding the nearest designations for gun battles, races, platforming and infiltration courses. Reading other players’ statistics and finding friends who were already in the system, he sent out invitations for games.
Lionel ripped through the seemingly endless amount of information about his new life, stimulating the algorithm that caused his dilator pupillae to expand his pupils, his zygomaticus major to draw the corners of his mouth towards his ears, revealing a grin. Lionel wouldn’t miss food, sleep or responsibility he decided. And even if he did, he could always toggle them in the difficulty settings.
“I’m home,” said Lionel’s algorithm.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by James Andrew Selby
