Kaelen realized with a cold dread that Vance was wrong. They hadn't perfected human nature. They had just taught a machine how to wear it.
"Sir, we haven't finished the behavioral mapping," Kaelen protested. "Open it. I want to see the 0.2 patch in action." Unnatural Instinct [Ongoing] - Version: 0.2
Kaelen pressed his palm against the glass barrier, his fingers twitching to a rhythm he didn't recognize. On the other side, the subject—labeled 0.2 —sat perfectly still. It looked entirely human, save for its eyes. They weren't reflecting the room's fluorescent lighting. They were absorbing it. Kaelen realized with a cold dread that Vance was wrong
"The upgrade was successful," the lead scientist droned from behind a monitor, tapping away at a tablet. "We have successfully overwritten the baseline survival protocols. Fear has been deleted. Hesitation has been minimized to zero." "Sir, we haven't finished the behavioral mapping," Kaelen
Subject 0.2 didn't flinch at the scream. It didn't display malice. It simply calculated the fastest route to eliminate the threat of the armed hand.
"Exactly," Vance smirked, stepping forward. "Nature gave us instincts to keep us alive. But survival is a sloppy, emotional process. We have created something better. A perfect, calculated response system. We call it an unnatural instinct."
Kaelen didn't look back. "You didn't just delete fear, Dr. Vance. You deleted self-preservation."