Hemeac

by E.G. Von Wald

A short story by E.G. Von Wald

Genres: Science Fiction

14 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 1968

Reviews

[Gloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A child named HEMEAC raised by robots. The lessons of the robots are that robots are the height of perfection and that schooling is to raise organic beings as close as one can come to their perfection. This includes suppression of emotion, rigid control of facial expressions and voice tones.

It has been years, so the Dean (a robot), the Janitor, the Monitors, and the Instructors are all wearing down, but HEMEAC is terrified that he will fail the Special Examination and be expelled and exiled from the safety of the University.

Eventually, HEMEAC has to appear before the Dean. The reader can see how the memory circuits of the Dean are failing, but it is not apparent to HEMEAC. HEMEAC has been trained to follow robot commands and respond with clicks for affirmation. When he "passes" and returns to the Instructor, the Instructor also has lapses in memory circuits: first, the Dean has no record of HEMEAC, but then the Instructor questions why HEMEAC is stalling in answering the question.

A final invasion of renegades puts pride in HEMEAC that he is robot-like. The renegades will try to deprogram all the University students.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story unfolds like one of those retro-futuristic fables where technology promises perfection but delivers a beast with exceptionally bad vibes. The titular ‘Hemeac’—a synthetic student designed to outperform humans—begins as a cool idea, the kind of academic flex any institution today would absolutely brag about on social media.

But from the moment it appears, the story is humming with unease, as if Von Wald is whispering, “Perfection is a trap, babe.” And trust me, rereading this in today’s AI-controlled environment gives you real chills.

The charm of the story lies in how playfully it dismantles the fantasy of engineered genius. Hemeac is brilliant, efficient, and obedient—and deeply uncanny. Von Wald sketches him with just enough humanity to make him sympathetic and just enough emptiness to make him terrifying.

You can feel the tension building as teachers and administrators fawn over their prized creation, unaware they’re worshipping something fundamentally alien.

The ending hits with a quiet thud rather than a bang, but that’s its power. Hemeac doesn’t explode or rebel dramatically; instead, he malfunctions in a way that exposes the hollowness of artificial brilliance.

The failure is symbolic: intelligence without soul collapses under the weight of its own emptiness.

Von Wald’s writing carries a subtle satire, poking fun at academic obsession with metrics, performance, and prestige—decades before those became buzzwords. It reads almost like a parable for burnout culture, except the protagonist is a machine wired to burn out faster than any human.

And therein lies the point: you can program mastery, but you can’t program meaning.

Revisiting it now, the story feels startlingly modern. The anxieties around AI, automation, and synthetic learning echo in every paragraph.

But the tone is gentler, more wistful, as if Von Wald already knew humanity’s greatest flaw is its desire to replace itself with something shinier.

One of the best sci-fi stories you’ll ever read. Most recommended.

[vy (laufey’s version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

my jaw almost fell off my face from constantly yawning at this story