"We need to talk," she said one day. "This is not working."
She was talking about our relationship. We had been together for 394 days, 7 hours, 1 minute, 43 seconds and counting. 53 by the time you have read this. I know this because it was ingrained into my memory. Let me introduce myself. I am Peter Bot, the most advanced form of artificial intelligence ever created...
I was created for the sole goal of artificial adaptation. An experiment, if you will. With unbelievable results. I scored 83 on the human detection test. As reference, an average human scored no more than 75.
I was perfect. My internal systems are non-fuel reliant and works on self-sustaining energy. My body is completely similar to a human system down to each muscular cell structure and neuron. I have a working vocabulary of 239450 English words with fluency in 19 languages and am capable of superhuman strength and endurance.
As my experiment progressed, I was sent out to the human society as a citizen. To observe and adapt.
Exactly 394 days ago, I initiated what humans refer to as a relationship with a girl named Parker. Sarah Parker. She thought I was perfect. Debatably, I was.
I could make her blush in 4 languages in under 4.37 seconds. I was always there when she needed me and I could make out her emotions like I could process arithmetic. We were the perfect couple...
She would always want to look into the celestial horizon above as the refracted light of the star called Sun was hidden by the rotation of this planet. Humans generally call it a sunset. Somehow, it always made me calmer.
But then again, I could not feel. I was merely a robot. Or was I? Or was it just that I was programmed so I could ask that question? But if I were a robot, how could I describe how I felt around her? Was it just a chip running in my system unit, I wondered.
For now, my processors calculated the answer to her seemingly innocent question. 'Okay. What is it?'
Then she started to talk and as she spoke, emotions of regret coursed through her eyes. 'You are perfect, Peter,' she said. 'There is nothing more I want in you. And...and...you know our relationship has been all I could hope for.' Her eyes moistened. 'But I just dont feel the love in out relationship...' The surface of water molecules forming in her eye broke as a drop rolled down her cheeks and she began sobbing. 'I am sorry. This is no more working...'
And instantly I corrected her. 'Working no more.'
She looked upwards and as she did, I could see the difficulty she had felt in what she had just did. That she was in a fragile state and by correcting her, I had not reciprocated her feelings of love. Of dependence. Of trust. But then again, what is love I asked? Why is it something I do not possess within me? Why me...
'Goodbye, Peter,' she said. And before I could vocalize, she walked away. And for the first time, I was calm no more. My processors banged away processing nothing and everything. And only one word floated around me. Sadness. And I wondered if that was what I was feeling.
A drop of water formed around my eyes. Is this how love felt? Is this what humans pray upon falling stars for? Humans are truly filled with divine blessings, I realized. For they feel. For they can love. For they can dream and bring their dreams into their reality. They hope. They aspire. They love. And ultimately, the world was theirs for creation.
Why could I never feel that way? What makes me inferior? And the tiniest of drops rolled down my cheeks and fell down upon the floor.
And as she walked away, another drop fell upon my cheeks. I looked up. And the clouds were crying beside me. It was raining. I was not teary. It was the rain.
I could never feel. Never love.
I was but a robot. Nothing more.
And I turned around and walked off slowly into the sunset...
