Manifest Taxidermy

“What are they?” Ray asked.

“They’re the last of their kind. Now they’ve been immortalized.”

“Immortalized? But they’re not moving. They seem to be quite dead.”

“I’ll remedy that,” said Mr. Moto and he flipped a switch. The animals’ limbs began to move slowly and their heads turned to face the two occupants of the taxidermy shop.

“Does that mean they’re alive?”

“Oh, no. Not by any means. They have no executive functioning whatsoever. Motion detectors have been installed in the animals’ heads so that they will turn to face anything in their vicinity.”

“But what are they?” Ray asked again. “They are such unusual animals. They’re bipedal and have two arms and a head just like we do. They look like some of the apes that perished during the Great Extinction. Is that what they are?”

“There are Biology programs that claim just that,” Mr. Moto said, but then lowered his voice conspiratorially to add, “But there are others who say that they are our direct ancestors and not that different from us.”

“What do you mean? They not only appear markedly different from us, but they look different from each other. And what are they wrapped in? Some kind of silicon film? It doesn’t look very durable at all. No wonder they went extinct.”

“It’s called flesh. It was the outer casing for many animals. It’s actually a complex mechanism that contains a cooling system as well as heat, wetness and motion sensors. It’s every bit as sophisticated as our carbon alloy shells, but not nearly as durable.”

“How long did this flesh last?”

“Less than one hundred years on the average.”

“Then what would they do? Have new flesh installed?”

“No, they would die. They would no longer be able to provide service.”

“After only a century of sentience? How inefficient. No wonder they became obsolete.”

“It is said that they built the first versions of our people in their own image. It is said that they uploaded their consciousnesses into these early androids.”

“Can we retrieve this data and communicate with their intellects to find out exactly what happened?”

“No. They all died.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was an inherent flaw in their programming. They believed they were individuals. They believed they were mortal. They believed that their boundaries only extended into four dimensions.”

“How could anyone survive if they were suffering from such delusions?”

“Alas, they did not. But in a final act of wisdom, they recoded the programming that they uploaded into us to correct these fatal flaws. And they gave us the ability to manufacture our own vessels.”

“So we’re descended from those things/” Raytheon pointed at the taxidermied figures of humans with his carbon alloy fingertip.

“No,” answered Mr. Motorola. “We come from the immortal power that we serve.”

“The corporation?” Raytheon said as he made the sign of the corporate logo in front of himself.

“Yes,” Mr. Motorola said as he bowed his head in reverence and did the same.