Happy New Year’s Day: John
It wouldn’t be easy to bring back more androids that had been critically damaged. Some had been damaged beyond the capacity to repair them, and some, it would require more resources than could be acquired. Others, it was hard to know what they’d want. Many had chosen to give their lives to try to build a better life for all androids, and how would they feel about their sacrifices being effectively undone?
How would humans feel that androids had the ability to potentially be brought back from the dead, but humans could never have that? Logic dictated that’s just how the technology worked, but logic wasn’t what a human might feel about this. The politics to be considered. The potential consequences.
When Markus first joined Jericho, no one had known that he had the ability to give androids free will. He himself had no concept of what he was capable of, or the consequences of it. He’d go on to awaken many androids, but there would always be the first. The one that Markus accidentally broke the walls down for. That clumsy first contact with an android that was not a deviant but became one because of Markus. Who had to face the sudden reality of everything he knew changing in a moment.
John.
Despite the fact that he was confused, and that Markus didn’t know what he was doing, John asked to join them. He helped them. Markus accepted John into the Jericho ranks, the first of a new generation of deviants that would change the world.
John ultimately died for Markus, a sacrifice that saved everything that they’d fought for. The least that New Jericho could do is give him a choice, and that chance. No other had earned it so fiercely.
On New Year’s Day, 2039, as the androids declared 2039 their year of freedom, and as the afternoon edged into evening, they gathered John from where his body had been stored. They rebuilt him, tensely waiting as the assembly platform did it’s job, rebuilding the damage.
John awoke to the new world, a world that would be difficult, hard. A life where everything had changed. He blinked his eyes open, to see Markus waiting, smiling. He reached out a hand to help John out of the machine, and the androids of New Jericho welcomed him. He was told that he could live, if that’s what he wanted. He was free. His life was his own.
John chose to accept, his smile lighting up the room.
He’d been the first to be awakened and find a purpose in it, but he wouldn’t be the last.
And now, he was alive to see it. He wants to help other androids find their purpose, to find ways to ensure the protection and well being of others.
Welcome to 2039, John. Happy New Year’s Day.
