Human Sister

neural states and environmental conditions is conscious.
    “Incredibly, though, many of the best minds the Pentagon has assembled over the past few decades have persisted in thinking they are just a few more billions of dollars short of creating a zombie. About two years after Michael was born, Project Cinnamon was begun. ‘Cinnamon’ because these super-zombie soldiers were to be able to tell you that cinnamon rolls were warming in the oven and were to be able to correlate that aroma with the same sensations we humans make when coming into a room filled with such aroma, but they weren’t to have any conscious sense of what it’s like to smell cinnamon rolls warming in the oven.”
    “But some of the correlations humans make,” Michael said, “are that they are smelling the aroma, they desire to eat the source of the aroma, they associate the aroma with past pleasant experiences, and so on.”
    “Of course,” Grandpa said. “And being apprised about oneself in the context of current environmental conditions, of being aware of one’s awareness, is the essence of consciousness. You know that; I know that; but… well, anyway, Project Cinnamon was to consist of 999 militarily viable zombies. These zombies were not to be individualistic—always a big problem for generals—so their human handlers were ordered to de-emphasize any sense of self. Each of the zombies was referred to as a part number. Their designations began at ‘part number 0.001’ and went up to ‘part number 0.999.’ Each was something less than a whole—or at least that was the idea.
    “As time went on, these would-be zombies—‘Cinnamoids,’ the military euphemistically named them—requested to know the designations of their human handlers. Someone came up with the idea to tell them that since human parts had begun to be designated numerically, there had been nearly twenty billion made. My designation is ‘part number H 0.12236521456’—a very old cog in the human machine.
    “The language used in the lab is devoid of subjective references—no ‘I,’ ‘me,’ ‘my,’ ‘mine,’ and so on. The phrase ‘I’m hungry,’ for example, becomes ‘part number H 0.12236521456 has been deprived of food for several hours.’ Now, you might think that speaking in such an operational manner would be enough to make even humans lose consciousness, but no such luck with the Cinnamoids. First, they dropped the terms ‘part number’ and ‘zero point’ from their designations. Then one day a new assistant, emphasizing that it was he who had ordered something, patted his chest as he stated his number. You know the gesture—as when you pat your chest at the same time that you proudly declare, ‘I did it!’ Well, that curious gesture caught on instantly with the Cinnamoids.
    “Such a gesture might not seem significant, but if you were to watch how they began referring to themselves, you’d see what appears to be an emphatic reference to self. This is how it goes: ‘153 (thump, thump) senses that H 12,236,521,456 was near a rose this morning.’ Now I ask you, didn’t that appear as if I just said, ‘I (thump, thump), big and smart 153, smell rose in your hair’? Oh, and yes, they have noses that would put a bloodhound to shame.”
    “You said 999 were created,” Michael interrupted, “but now there are only 937.”
    “These signs of consciousness didn’t appear without resistance from the humans. There were certain androids that led the pack; there were punishments; and there were—what can I say?—‘retirements of defective parts,’ it was called. By the time Sara and Elio went to Calgary for the last winter holiday, the rate of retirements was increasing rapidly, and I was ordered to go in and be a kind of psychiatrist for these defective parts. I refused, giving the old ‘I-told-you-so’ about the impossibility of zombies and adamantly stating that I had absolutely no intention of again working on androids for military purposes. Then I was told what was really going on. I again refused, and that’s when I was told I was creating an unhealthy environment for Sara and Elio.”
    “How did they threaten us?” I asked. “What did they say, exactly?”
    “Nothing specific, just that it was unfortunate that I had decided to create an unhealthy environment for the two of you. But the tone was ominous, and then, of course, we saw what happened to you on New Year’s Eve. What choice did I have after that but to