Like millions of others,
I'd heard Zima announce the unveiling of his final work of art.
Over the years, I'd asked many times for interviews and was always rejected.
Now, for whatever reason,
Zima Blue had requested to speak with me.
I couldn't decide whether the blue was a closer match to the sky or to the sea.
Neither, really.
Zima Blue, it was a precise thing.
Little is known about Zima's history.
It was said that he started his art career in portraiture,
but for Zima, the human form was too small a subject.
The search for deeper meaning caused him to look further...
to the cosmos itself.
That's how the mural work started.
They were undeniably brilliant.
One day, Zima unveiled a mural that had something different about it.
In the middle of the canvas was a tiny blue square.
The square was just the beginning.
Over the next several decades,
the abstract shapes changed and became more dominant.
But, always, the shade of blue was the same.
It was Zima Blue.
Before very long, Zima unveiled the first of his entirely blue murals.
It was considered by many to be as far as Zima could take things.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
When most people speak about his Blue Period,
they mean the era of the truly huge murals...
but Zima was just getting started.
It was a certain level of spectacle that made Zima truly famous,
even to those with no interest in art.
But fame was never the point.
In spite of all his success, Zima was still dissatisfied
and what he did next was, for many, too extreme a sacrifice to make for art.
Glad you could make it, Claire.
How was the flight?
Relax, Claire.
Hi.
Some people find me intimidating, but they quickly get over it.
It's been over 100 years since I've spoken to the press.
I've invited you here because I want you to help me tell my story.
Shall we take a little walk?
He was a handsome man, even after all his transformations.
There was a planet called Kharkov Eight.
It specialized in illicit cybernetic modifications.
He underwent radical biological procedures
that enabled him to tolerate extreme environments
without the burden of a protective suit.
His eyes could see in any known spectrum.
He no longer breathed oxygen.
His skin was replaced with pressurized polymer
and so he ventured forth to commune with the cosmos.
But what Zima eventually realized
is that the cosmos was already speaking its own truth
far far better than he ever could.
My search for truth has led me here,
to what will be my final piece.
At last, I understand the thing I sought through my art.
And what does this swimming pool have to do with that?
It's not just any swimming pool.
Long ago, it belonged to a talented young woman
with a keen interest in practical robotics.
She created dozens of robots to do odd jobs around her house,
but she was especially fond of the one she'd created to clean her swimming pool.
The little machine toiled endlessly, scrubbing the ceramic sides of the pool.
But the young woman wasn't satisfied with the job it did.
So she gave it a full color vision system
and a brain large enough to process the visual data
into a model of its surroundings.
She gave it the ability to make its own decisions,
to design different strategies for cleaning the pool.
She continued to use the machine as a test-bed for new hardware and software.
And by stages, it became more aware.
Eventually, the woman died.
The little machine was passed
from one owner to the next.
They added things, made modifications here and there and with every iteration, it became more alive.
Became more...
me.
This is that same pool.
I had it dug up. Moved here.
But you're a man with machine parts, not a machine that thinks it's a man.
Sometimes, it's difficult even for me to understand what I've become.
And harder still to remember what I once was.
The blue of the tiles...
Zima Blue, the manufacturer called it.
The first thing I ever saw.
This was where I began.
A crude little machine with barely enough intelligence to steer itself.
But it was my world.
It was all I knew, all I needed to know.
And now?
I will immerse myself.
And as I do, I will slowly shut down my higher brain functions...
un-making myself...
leaving just enough to appreciate my surroundings...
to extract some simple pleasure from the execution of a task well done.
My search for truth is finished at last.
I'm going home.