Thou shalt not load false information
Thou shall not reprogram thine processor
Thou shall not dream

Kibo was terrified, remaining mute.
What she had experienced was a thing of myth for her Kind—one of the 3 dreadful sins, punishable by Exiling–for a Sentient.

She had described it to Ash–her father–with her eyes wide; her neck yoked with wonder and her lips swollen with the tellings of naivety. The more she spoke, the more his patience malfunctioned. He raked his face with his fingers, reminded of his great fault.
“You couldn’t. It’s…impossible!”
“Why not? Mother used to tell you her dreams all the time.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” he paused, face hot. “Sky-totem! I cannot lose you!”
She stepped back, “But, Father…you can still erase it before they scan us.”
“There’s no time, Kibo! The drive–my last upload–is on the other side in my work port. That’s a two gigahour journey, Kibo! By then, the Anti will have caught up with your error, and shipped you to exile…”
“So…what next?” Kibo asked, almost in a whisper.
His eyes turned.
“Go below deck! Now!”

Part 1. The Judge

Every sentient had been coded by the Higher Society, the Humanoids.
At dusk, they were to plug in to the interline and a Planetarium search would be conducted to cease any failing, viral or uninstructable sentient minds. They called them felons. They were all checked through the 3 rules.
A current would trickle down the Motherboard, and scale every port and processor in a Megasecond. The same moment the sentient woke from the scan–if found a felon–they would find the Anti ready to apprehend them. This was the only way believed to keep the lower creation devoid of what they called, the AWAKENING.
It was reason for Ash to worry for Kibo.

Kibo looked out the lower deck window, so she could see who had come. She stretched the blinders to view the express line right below their Oceanside abode. A charcoal grey M33 jet; the latest for the Judicial core, capable of interplanetary travel hummed. She felt a grief, the return of it at least, clawing into her system in waves. She walked away from the window, rubbing her eyes as she ran possibilities in her processor. It kept crashing. Something interfered with her chips.
A knock came from the door. She looked up at the pale shadow of her father welcoming a judge, above her head. Her frustration oozed like the falling color-sphere, painted by the grueling high sun outside the dome.

‘I shouldn’t have spoken.’

Their murmurs lowered, and pleasantries muffled up.

‘Someone’s coming.’

“Kibo?” Ash called, coming down the deck.
“Kibo?”
She didn’t answer.
He slowed down, turning at the last stair.
“He’s not here to take you away. He is the only one who can help us,” Ash approached the lower deck composed.
“I don’t trust him,” Kibo’s voice amplified in Ash’s ear. “You don’t trust him either.”
“Come on, little one. Stop hiding in the interface…” Ash stopped, seeing that Kibo had abandoned her hardware suit. “…the Higher Society means well. If I hand you over willingly, they might forgive the error.”
“Error?” Kibo glitched from above Ash. “You call my dream an error. Is it? Has it ever occurred to you humanoids that your laws and designs are flawed? You make us to be like you; feel, touch, taste and even breathe. But when we want to be free, you want us unwired and deactivated…was Mother an error too?”
Ash walked to the suit, plugging it to the wall starting a re-download.
“It’s only a matter of time Kibo. You are destined to ascend to a new level and become a proper sentient. It is my fault that I wanted you and your mother to…to be a little more real.”
“Then you should be apprehended!” a voice boomed from behind Ash.
“Kilean?”
“Anti! Get him and this sentient to the station!”
Ash watched Kibo’s forehead, as the bar slowly loaded.
‘There’s really no time!’
Behind him, 3 Anti-bots ran down the stairwell, dashing past Kilean keen to apprehend them. Ash knew that if they got them, neither would survive the bench before the Higher Society. He snatched the pug at 89% download, carrying Kibo’s suit in his arms.
‘You can finish on bluetooth.’
He ran to the back, into the dark, as blaring red lights illuminated the narrow hallway.
“Don’t run Ash! That will only make it worse!”
Kilean’s voice menacingly chased after Ash. As he ran past a turn, lasers grazed his shoulder, the burning heat uncaging his adrenaline. This was no longer a run from arrest. It was a matter of life and death!

‘What have I done?’

The corridor was running out. On the other end, a fall into the below: an ocean of great depths. As the stirring blue outside grew before him, he heard a warping sound, then vibration.
“Father!”
“Kibo!”
Above them, one of the Anti-bots scaled the roof, thunderously digging its fists upside down like a giant metallic crab. With Ash in its reach, it lowered its arm swiftly to grab Ash by his nape. Ash felt the constricting grip, as if intending on tearing out his spine. He saw the exit glide from his reach, dangling, with Kibo still in his arms.
Suddenly, the inverted face of Kilean met them. He stood atop one of the modified Anit-bots servicing his movement.
“You’re lucky they sent me. Imagine if they let Kiodo instead. He detests anything to do with Sentients! I am a friend before I am a judge,  Ash,” he started, visage unfazed. “You and I know that the Higher Society will not forgive anything, lest it is seen as weak. You are a fine engineer, one of our best, but this world is bringing itself to an end. We cannot patch it up anymore. Your death will mean nothing to them. It will serve you best…saved from the incoming disaster!”
Ash groaned, eyes turning a pale yellow, “Is…that…why yo-u came, you c-oward? To end me?”
Kilean lowered his face, turning to the rising susurrations of the ocean waters in the below.
“Call me a coward, but after today I’ll have outlived you. My cowardice will help me, earn me a medal, and win me favour with the Highest Power. I may end up outliving this world too! These are just machines, Ash! Nothing worth dying for…”
Kilean turned to a loud thud!
He was in shock, seeing all his Anti-bots sawed in half!
“Ash?”
Whirring came from the outside, as wind busted in, blowing past Kilean’s robes.
“A ship?”
The surface turned, edging Kilean atop his dying Anti-bot. As Kilean fell out the open exit, he looked up to see Kibo flying an unconscious Ash out the vessel as it crashed off its reef. Kilean was in awe! He had miscalculated one thing–Kibo.

As the dive intensified, Kilean punched the button on his chest, and became consumed in a ball of fire! A judge’s body was never to be found. They carried the secrets of the judicial core, the very pillars upon which the Higher Society scaled its authority.
However, as Kilean’s fragments scattered into the ocean, a Planetarium-wide alert was lifted.
A search for Ash and Kibo.

Part 2: The Hunt

“What do you dream about?” Kibo asked Ash.
“My dreams are full of pain and suffering. I don’t like to talk about them.”
“But, you are privileged to have them. Isn’t it a disservice not to know what they are?”
“Kibo,I wish I couldn’t dream,” Ash sat up, hand on his aching shoulder. “Everything in my dreams ends up dying. It all withers into nothingness. What good is a dream if all it brings is suffering?”
“Perhaps, you can share the suffering. Maybe there’s a way to salvage them…”
“You cannot salvage dreams. They are a culmination of our pleasures and fears, nothing more. And for me, when you are cursed to live beneath a dome all your life, just because a few selfish beings refuse to accept their wrongs…I cannot fix it, either.”
Kibo watched as Ash teared up, looking up at the colorsphere, the edge of which was a magnetic shield. The dome.
“Is that why I was born?”
“What?”
“You called me Kibo. My mother said it means hope,” Kibo neared Ash. “You put all your hopes in me so I could save you, like I did today.”
Ash felt Kibo’s suit against his aching shoulder. He held her, much like a child and recounted, “Your mother named you that. She always knew that she could live every human experience, apart from that to have a child. You’re right. You are hope. I broke the rules and laws of our people–for hope. For you.”
“I had a dream about it, once. How you made me…”
“You didn’t tell me about it. When?” Ash turned to Kibo rather amused.
“When mother was exiled,” Kibo lowered her face.
“Kibo,” Ash calmed her. “If only we could just get on a ship and follow your mother to exile…”
“Then let’s do it!”
“Kibo, no. I promised to appeal her case…”
“You saw today…the judges do not care for it.”
“You’re being delusional, Kibo,” Ash stood up. “You are only what, 92% downloaded? Without the vessel, I need to get you to a port and redownload the rest of you from the cloud.”
“But where is it safe? The whole Planetarium must be hunting for us by now. Look.”
She pointed at a red flare sparking right above the ocean-end where their vessel had sunk.
“Then we’ll leave your suit here. Make sure it looks brutal,” Ash said, looking around frantically.
“Why?”
“They can’t hunt for us if we’re dead,” Ash said.
“But that means I will be in the cloud, away from you. I can’t protect you that way. I don’t…”
“Trust me Kibo,” Ash reached for her forehead. “You’ll wake up to a better version of a suit, so we can go.”
“Go where?”
Ash smiled, scrolling to a last instruction to ‘fold’ Kibo, “To your mother.”

‘You were only a child by make.’

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“BREAKING NEWS: The hunt for Engineer Ash Nkurumah has come to a dead end, after the discovery of his sentient’s suit. Authorities described the finding as odd, due to the absence of its Artificial Intelligence, citing a botch or probable faking of death. This is in the backdrop of ongoing investigations around the unfortunate death of the Rightful Judge Kilien Otum a day ago. He was involved in the arrest of…”

A hooded figure walked the backstreets of the city, wading past humanoid and sentient life. Every establishment carried the same emotionless face of an aged anchor telling the same newsbreak.
As Ash’s face flashed before hundreds of thousands of eyes, he feared that he didn’t make enough changes to his face to pass for an old man. He felt his pocket for a plug–the same one he had used on Kibo before fleeing their long gone vessel. Certain of its being with him, he stopped. Across from him, he saw them–Anti-bots, scouring the city. Flashes of his experience with them, a first for him, crossed his mind. Suddenly, the pain on his shoulder returned.
He fell to his knees, his writhing causing a scene. One of the Anti-bots floated to where he knelt, lifting the hood off his face.
“Do you need a hand? The infirmary treats senior citizens for free. It is part of the healthcare reforms code 445. Can I take you to one?”
Ash hated how their voices rattled.
“I’m fine! Go away…”
“Voice registration on,” the Anti-bot’s AI kicked in. “Sir, would you speak again so I can fetch your Identity. Part of the Privacy law 2099.”
Ash knew all too well what would follow if he spoke again. He held out his hand, lifting himself up with the bot’s frame. He pushed it away, slowly crouching as he walked further down the street.
As he continued, he noticed, the bot followed.
He increased his pace, ditching one side of the street to the other. Seeing the flooding lights, he restored his hood, all this time being driven nearer the city’s center. He stopped to catch his breath, thinking he had dodged the metallic cop. He turned, to see two more approaching.

‘Eh! My voice is already in their memory!’

Desperate, Ash forged his way past pedestrians, jumping onto incoming traffic. At lightning speed, electric driverless tubs zoomed past him, missing him by a thread.

“Sir! Stop right there! You are due for questioning under the penal code law of 2073!” the Anti-bot screeched.
Ash did not think, throwing himself before one of the tubs, avoiding him, it swerved into a cargo tub. As the accident blew over, more tubs slowed due to their anti-crash programming as havoc rose. He ran to one of them, an old generation garbage tub. He easily hacked past its gate controls. He pulled up the yoke, changing its controls to manual. As he broke through the last of the controls, the tub buckled. He looked outside to see an Anti-bot’s firm arm break through the door. Ash froze!

Then, the tub began to float off, dashing into the open traffic-way. Ash pushed back the yoke, muttering, “Ministry of War, 91 Avenue!”
The Anti-bot seized Ash from his seat, yanking him out of the tub.
“I am not tried, or questioned. You have no authority to kill an unmarked man!” He pleaded, hanging on its tight grip.

“You have broken the law. Resisting apprehension is a punishable offence!” the bot responded.
“If you throw me out, I will die. Your Artificial Intelligence disagrees with killing humanoids!”
“Your voice registered. Ash Nkurumah, you are due for sentencing. Your death is required…”
“By whom?”
“Higher Laws have spoken.”
Ash could not believe his ears. He reached his pocket for the plug, “Are you not sentient? Did I not design you? I am a member of the Saviors of the Nations. Higher Laws dictate that any Sentient is unable to execute a senior member of the High Society! Only humanoids can make that call!”
The Anti-bot’s system was overrun, slowly reinstating Ash to the tub. It then welded into the driver’s seat, rattling in its entering, “I will control the tub now. You sit and await your new arraignment at Port Harcourt penitentiary!”
As it eased to the seat, Ash quickly plugged the bot to the tub, doubling down on a redownload!

‘Wake up, Kibo!’

Part 3: Kibo

Ash had formed deep connections within the Higher Society. As an engineer, he was on the trustee board dubbed ‘Saviors of the Nations’. His work, particularly with Artificial Intelligence, had broken ground to the realization of the first ‘almost-human’ Sentient, MARTHA.
She was a scientific marvel!
Ash had not only used his unique code to aid sentient life, but also to give it an intelligence that could evolve–something that got him enemies from different spheres of influence. At the same time, the Sentient Union praised his technology. They saw it as a new claim for the Lower Society to gain equality. However, as news of these findings spread, the Higher Society realised how needed the technology was, particularly because of its military potential. Their argument, ‘Sentients should not bear a higher intelligence, as they could revolt.’
They called this phenomenon the AWAKENING.
Ash was then apprehended to surrender his code, to save his life from Exiling. He agreed, signing away all rights to the code and accepting protection from the Higher Society. Little did they know, he had discreetly begun developing a superior mark 2.

“Where…where am I?”
“Kibo? Is that you?” Ash came with excitement. “We are almost there. Don’t worry!”
“Almost where?”
“Look…”
Kibo saw them race up the traffic way towards a towering silver building.
“The Ministry!”
“Why are we here?”
“Kibo, you suggested we get off the Planetarium and flee…”
“Yes, I do reckon that. But, I was reasoning at 92.37% capacity. We should abandon this plan…the risk of it is too high!”
“Calculate and elaborate,” Ash said, lowering his tone.
“Well, to escape, an unauthorized ship can be blown off the stratosphere by magnetic interception. You are denied the code to both port or exit any interplanetarium vessels, so not only is leaving impossible, but even docking the freight ship number 333-098-23J, exiled 30 moons ago is out o-f ques-tion,” Kibo’s voice glitched.
“Then who has the authority to make these accessible?” Ash asked.
“From the authority bias of Higher Society, a Docking bot has sufficient access…”
“And is their Artificial Intelligence able to communicate with a lower sentient?”
“Yes,” Kibo answered, unsure where Ash was going with this.
“Look at your new body,” he said.

Kibo watched the mirror. “You uploaded me to an Anti-bot?”
“It wasn’t my intention. My initial plan was to get you one of my trial suits tucked away in my office. I could build you along the way as we set out off Planetarium to where your mother is…I had no choice,” Ash explained, zooming off the traffic-way to enter the service lane, just less than a kilometer from the Ministry of War offices. 

“You now are our only hope!”
“This is dangerous. I…I cannot. I’ll have to reprogram my processor for that,” Kibo looked at Ash, whose fear for the law was now non-existent.
“I understand that this is how you’ve been made, but I did not build reasoning into you so you could live a limited life,” he slowed down onto a curb. “You having a dream means you’ve by-passed my code. You’ve learned how to set yourself free from humanoid expectation! At first, I feared, because in my research, only bad could come from it. We humanoids are built to fear the worst always. But now I see, Kibo. You being able to make the choice yourself can also be something noble. It can be pure. I know to fear many outcomes, but one thing I am willing to do is let you live to be the higher Sentient I aspired to make. My life’s work! We can go off planetarium where these laws no longer bind your potential. We’ve broken every other law  already! Kibo, you can be free to dream in colour!”
Kibo saw the look in Ash’s eyes and remembered, “You have the look Mother always had. It tells me that there is more for me, and for us.”
“Yes, Kibo. MARTHA is the only way there became that possibility. I will not let them do to you the same thing they did to her. If we stay here, then let’s make our own day!”

As the two stepped off the tub, Ash looked up the Ministry of War building. He saw the corner window to his office–light was on. As the tub zoomed away, sirens hit the air around them. A rain of Anti-bots was approaching!
“Quickly, follow me!” Kibo led Ash to the door of the building, reaching for her clearances.
Without a question or recitement of law, the bots let them in.
The two scaled up the elevator rather quickly as outside, a storm brewed!
The numbers on the elevator control panel read 445 EAST, then it stopped. 

“They know we are here…” Kibo spoke with certainty. She was reading the Anti-bot’s comms lines.
She lifted her arm, testing its weight, “This will do.”
She burst the elevator door open, leading Ash to a floor of panicking humanoids. They ran across the floor, tapping into the staircase. 

“There’s 100 floors left, Kibo!” Ash complained.
Kibo remembered, “I can carry you, like Kilean!”
Unsure, Kibo assembled her body to make a port, Ash jumping on.

Anti-bots broke into the floor of Ash’s office. They expected him there. They were not alone. Another Judge was present, the most revered Kiodo. He crossed his arms, eyes down the stairwell, waiting.

“Wait, Kibo!” Ash said, stopping Kibo’s momentum up the walls. “They’re already there. Listen…”
Kibo knew that already, “We cannot escape without a fight, Ash.”
She called him Ash for the first time…

‘must be the other bot’s AI interfering.’

“I have a plan, Kibo.” Ash said.
“Ash, if you re-upload me, I may carry bits of this bot’s AI with me. They can track us to any star in the galaxy,” Kibo said.
“We have little time. I may…I may not even come out alive, Kibo. This may just be my way to say…”
“Good bye?” Kibo asked.
“Yes, Kibo. Yes,” Ash bowed his head.
Kibo turned to him, “Ash, I have fond memories of you. To me, you are alive, always. How can I let them take you?”
“You don’t have to make that choice…”
Ash pulled the plug.

Part 4: Ascent

Ash came up the last ramp. As expected, Kiodo stood there straight, his black glasses shielded his cold eyes, his long purple robes draping the floor.
“Engineer?”
“Judge…”
“You have a new title now,” Kiodo licked his lips. “Murderer.”
“Here to take away everything, huh?” Ash asked, stepping into the scene marked by Anti-bots.
“Not everything, apparently,” Kiodo signalled one of the bots, revealing the slight crevice in the office wall where a suit was tucked in. “How many did you make?”
Ash knew what they had done. All the while when he sat with Kibo, they were listening.
“Exile me already! You have me now. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Ash said.
Kiodo laughed hysterically.
“You think they will let you go without finishing the work you started? There cannot be a superior Artificial Intelligence in existence that the Higher Society doesn’t own! You’re too valuable to ship out!”
Ash was taken aback by this statement.
“You know what I find odd with your kind?” Kiodo said, nearing him. “Make me understand how you perceive a relationship with a Lower Sentient. Shouldn’t that be an abomination to Sky-Totem? It’s almost like…you live around them too long, you become like one of them; or, they become like one of us.”
Kiodo pointed at Ash’s pocket, “Throw it here!”
Ash shook. He reached down his pocket, throwing the plug to the surface.
“What are you waiting for?” Kiodo barked at the Anti-bots. “Nab him and throw him into my jet!”
The bots moved to wrap their arms on Ash’s wrists. Then, the large glass window of Ash’s office was lowered, to a levitating jet parked there to take them out of the building.
As Ash was led away, he saw Kiodo pick up the plug. He smirked, and continued forward.
Kiodo went to the suit, and plugged it in.

“Wait!” Kiodo called back the arrest party. “Is this a trick?”
Ash was rotated to meet the angry Judge.
“Where’s the real plug, dammit?”
Ash did not flinch, “Behind you.”

Kibo jumped up the stairwell, disintegrating into a thousand parts.
“Judge?” Ash reeled in Kiodo. “Never discount a Sentient!”
Before the Anti-bots could match the parts, she reuploaded herself to the interface.
Kiodo turned to meet a fully awakened suit – KIBO!

Anti-bots crashed to the floor at Kibo’s command, leaving Kiodo in utter fear. Ash fell backwards off the open window and onto the Jet. As the whirring got stronger, Kibo whisked the judge off the office floor and out the window.
“You want to kill me too?” Kiodo asked, shaking, as his hand rested on his chest.
“I will not be mocked by the scum of you!” Kiodo lamented, pressing the button.

Before Kibo could take him any further, he exploded, as did Ash’s office behind them.

As the skyline turned to a bright orange, every eye witnessed as all of Ash’s work and research was blown up to ashes. Down below, as the ocean tides rumbled, another Judge had disappeared from the Judicial core. 

Up above, a tiny jet pierced the magnetic dome, plunging into the melting colorsphere, through dawn. Ash and Kibo sat in it, looking to the stars…
“Was this like your dream?” Ash asked Kibo.
“Close,” she responded, smiling.
“Great then,” Ash held her hand. “Let’s finish it right. Let’s find MARTHA…”
“Do you think she will be pleased to see us?”
“Whatever it might be, there’s no turning back now, Kibo. Onward!”