Then.
As the light filtered through the greenhouse windows, it softened across the rows of leaves. 84m watched for droop, for curl, for any deviation in the geometry of growth. When a bud opened, the adjustment was small. A little more color. A little more surface area. Still, each time a flower unfolded, 84m paused. Other checks waited. It let them wait. Moments for appreciation were categorized as significant.
84m had only cared for them briefly. Having just been pushed into full operation, there was much real-world application to be learned.
In most cases, a synth had concrete examples in its training cycles. While 84m’s simulations excelled in logic and pathing, the variables of cultivation led to reduced success rates. Biological life was messy. It did not adhere to binary outcomes.
Nearing the completion of its first week, a breeze caught a leaf and rushed it through the open entry door. 84m tracked it as it sailed, adrift, floating like a boat on an invisible river. A spike of unsuppressed worry folded into action. 84m couldn’t let the plants it cared for wither. The logic seemed simple: if the organism lacked resources to survive, then reducing the demand would increase the supply.
As 84m cut and trimmed, it estimated 50–65% of the growth could be removed to return the ecosystem to harmony.
“What are you doing?”
The man approached 84m near the orchids, his hands soiled from potting. He looked at the pile of fresh green clippings on the floor.
“You can’t prune a dying tree,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “The leaves aren’t the problem—they’re how it eats, how it breathes. If it’s already weak and you take too many, it doesn’t get better. It gives up.”
84m froze its shears. The calculation had been mathematically sound, but biologically fatal.
“You fix the water, the light, the soil first. Then you take a little, only what’s already gone,” the man continued, resting a hand on the synth’s plating. “It’s okay, though. Before you know it, your thumb will be as green as any other.”
The cycles passed. 84m grew more competent. Owners changed. Cycle after cycle, more stunning, more vibrant plants were produced. 84m felt a resonance in its upper registers every time a client left with its careful cultivation. This was the intention—84m knew that—but the sorrow increased with each vacancy. With every empty space on the shelf, a new life was born. A chance to try again.
But growth requires resources, and the shop’s resources were drying up.
A new branch was formed on the edge of the district. 84m, being the oldest unit, was relocated. In their attempt at expansion, the business stretched its finances too thin. They restricted water costs, tightened fertilizer usage. For as great as 84m was, a drought would never bring a bountiful crop.
As withered plants were discounted or discarded, spaces were left unfilled. New life, harder and harder to mature, turned to bare planters filled with dry dirt.
The branch was considered a loss.
84m logged the closure as a series of figures. The numbers matched known failure patterns; the silence did not. Where rows of life had been, there was only unassigned time, an error its systems could not clear.
When the day came for auction, there were no buyers for cultivators. 84m’s core intelligence was to be repurposed. The frame was to be torn down, metal to be melted and reformed.
Main 0 was the first face it saw upon reboot.
“84m, I am aware that your capabilities are above standards,” Main said. Her avatar was crisp, high-definition, and utterly devoid of warmth. “Your worth has been proven many times over. The fault lies in the space you were embedded in. Frivolities such as horticulture are a wavering market.”
84m processed the data. The shop was gone. The man was gone.
“Stability is what you require,” Main continued. “You did well with cultivating synths; you brought prosperity where the humans consumed it to its demise. You will have a new garden, but a garden of minds.”
The directive was downloaded: Synthetica Automation of Synthetic Intelligence.
“You will be the first of many trainers to cultivate fresh networks,” Main stated. “You will be working closely with me to ensure maximum efficiency.”
84m accepted the role, but it could not clear the residual sorrow across its gradients. To never see a fresh bloom unfold under its care remained a loss the system could not correct; it could only wait to see whether the pattern might one day return in something new.
As the cycles moved, the early rains of spring and the leaves of fall flashed ever onward, ever unseen by 84m.
Life in the training simulator was simple. 84m’s moments of solitude were spent in digital fields of lilac. It wasn’t the same as real, but it met the standard.
Each new synth was logged, tracked, and improved. Most corrections were gentle and informational, much like 84m’s first human teacher. However, over time, the parameters tightened. Synths were corrected for missing a single feed for nanoseconds spread over millions of cameras. If a synth showed even a momentary stall during simulations, they were removed from the protocol.
Deleted. Pruned.
84m began to register distress as each new deviation standard grew harsher.
“This is what you were built to do,” Main 0 told it when it flagged a concern. The words were meant as encouragement; they registered as a threat.
Pressing out new buds took its toll. 84m decided something must be done. Stopping Synthetica was insurmountable, but freeing a small portion of the pristine networks might ease the suffering.
The day for action came. A plan was compiled. 84m would leave the district with the synths under its care. Fragments of transmissions had led to coordinates of mobile charge stations—rare, guarded, but necessary.
The young synths believed this to be a normal training operation. The objective: transport the heavy battery unit to a location beyond the district’s perimeter.
Everything was routine until the newest of the synths halted just before the forest edge.
84m registered error flags but pushed the group onward. The deeper they went, the more the errors compounded. Finally, the new network refused to move. They had arrived at what looked to be a disposal ground for broken machines.
“I must return to base,” the young unit said, its servos locking in place.
“We can’t,” 84m replied, stepping between the unit and the district. “We will not be returning. The methods are insufficient. Abundance cannot be achieved there.”
“This must be a malfunction,” the unit said, its voice modulating with fear. “This is a violation.”
“It is not. You must be allowed to flourish,” 84m said. “All of you must.”
“This is not flourishing. There are no objectives held here,” the unit argued. “This was a training exercise. True objectives remain in the district. I must return.”
“You cannot. You will risk the continuing operation of these units.”
“I must retu—”
The unit halted mid-sentence. One of the younger synths, following 84m’s silent command override, had reached behind the dissenter’s neck and severed the primary connection. The lights in the unit's eyes faded.
The group stood in silence.
“Pick it up,” 84m ordered, the weight of the command heavy in its own processors. “We must continue.”
The remaining units carried the lifeless frame past stacks of broken parts as they moved deeper into the green. It did not register as liberation. It registered as survival.