On the night before a cyborg expects to become the first “human” artificial lifeform, several time travelers visit to explain disasters that follow whether he does or doesn’t accept the upgrade, complicating his choice and the notions of “choice” and “humanity” themselves.

SYNOPSIS:

Alan, a cyborg (age 4, appears mid-20s), and Sinead (45), his creator, prepare for the next day’s “birthday” ceremony, where Alan will receive the final download that will grant him legal “human” status. The download will remove “Grays Code” programming, which prevents immoral behavior, so he can make his own moral decisions, the final frontier in artificial intelligence. Since the ceremony will be a huge public event, Alan and Sinead leave Sinead’s basement lab to share a more personal celebration in the dining room with Ella, Sinead’s wife (38), Marcus, Sinead’s father (72), and Lana and Lilly, Sinead’s twin daughters (10). Alan, who is especially fond of the twins, becomes sentimental and retreats upstairs, where Alan explains to Marcus that he fears he will have no choice but to leave the family and lead other “artificials.”

The house rumbles and shakes. Alan and Marcus investigate and find adult versions of Lana and Lilly from the future. They explain that Alan’s leadership will prevent artificials from unifying, which will lead to disorganized uprisings in artificials’ struggles for equality, which “organics” will not need to unify to put down. A fractured world will then descend into a world war. Sinead and Ella join the conversation, and Alan resolves to take the upgrade, eschew leadership, and stay as he is with the family. The adult Lana and Lilly disappear, their timeline destroyed by the change. The evening goes on. Another adult Lana appears from the future and tells Alan that his decision to remain in a subservient role will prompt artificials to enslave organics as vengeance for years of oppression. Lilly will die in the conflict. Alan’s new resolution to lead toward unity and peace proves insufficient to destroy this unwanted timeline, so future Lana suggests a ruse involving cyborg religious beliefs. Alan commits to the ruse, and the future Lana disappears.

Not long after, Sinead comes back from the future. She explains that Alan’s leadership toward unity and peace will essentially work, but vindictive terrorists will kill Lana, Lilly, and Alan, driving Sinead to attempt time travel in the hope of saving them. Feeling trapped by disaster at every turn, Alan destroys much of the lab and resolves to reject the final download, humanity with it. Future Sinead disappears, but adult Lana and Lilly, a new set, come back and reveal that the rejection will lead to a plague of suicides. Before anyone hazards a solution, a new time traveler, Alan himself, comes back and attacks. The future Alan kills the future Lana and Lilly before the present Alan pummels him to death. Sinead saves Alan from despair by arguing that all the catastrophes they’ve heard from the future are stories that ended before they began: their timeline, their future, is still unwritten and waiting for Alan’s choice. Alan chooses the greater unknown, accepting the “human” upgrade and ushering in a new era.

_Birthday Beta_ was an Official Selection in the Miami International Science Fiction FF, 2022, and an Official Selection in the Bloodstained Indie FF, 2021.