"I want to be Human..."

Chapter 1

Androidan. A long-standing robotics company that has been the number one marketer for all things related to robots. Just about every household has something robotic in it, and every member of the household knows how to utilize it. And the items all range from simple doorbell cameras to full-sized robots that do the household chores or maintenance. Even stores had robots working for them, mainly as security but some had the robots as cashiers or stockers. But Androidan wants to branch out from just mere robots. They want to make something new, something that humans can relate more to in appearance. Robots are just fine and dandy, but surveys have shown that many humans feel moderately uncomfortable with how robots do not look human. So that got the people behind the engineering of robots thinking. What if they made a new generation of robots called androids? And the androids look like everyday humans? A survey was put out to the public by the marketers of Androidan to see what the public thinks of the idea. The answers were rather positive towards the idea of robots looking like everyday humans. Well, the overwhelming response in favor of the making of androids was all Androidan needed to get started on making up blueprints and designs. But there was just one small problem. They had no way of making synthetic flesh for the androids. The development of synthetic flesh was strictly for medical purposes, such as making replacement limbs for those born without, who lost their limbs to amputations or replacing flesh lost for various reasons. So the manufacturing company had to find another way to make their androids' human appearances. And they did find a way after much research and digging through archives that weren't the most legal to read. The way to give their androids a human appearance was to use the bodies of the deceased. A highly disrespectful and illegal method that Androidan used in secret, with some bribery to keep certain mouths shut and alter data to keep things under wraps. Initially, the plan was to take an unidentified body from a morgue, a body no one would miss or recognize when it would walk around later on. But an unfortunate accident made things much easier. It killed two birds with one stone for the company as they needed a way to gradually get rid of their original robots. A family had been on a drive out to dinner to celebrate their daughter's volunteer work being a huge success to replant an entire park's worth of forest. Their household robot was the one behind the wheel, while the family was chatting about what they were going to order for their meal at the restaurant they had voted on. It was an unfortunate accident, cutting the family's night short along with their lives. 

The news reported the story just the way Androidan wanted them to. An unexpected malfunction occurred in the family robot, causing it to intentionally swerve the car off the road and into a lake. While the robot did call for rescue, it did not arrive in time. The family drowned, trapped in their car with the very robot that had put them into that situation. Rescue arrived on the scene hours after the accident and retrieved the car, the robot, and the mother and father. The daughter's body however was nowhere to be found. It had vanished before the rescue arrived, baffling the rescue team and investigators. Police put out a missing person poster and report to try and find the missing body of the daughter, hoping that it would eventually be found so the girl could be laid to rest with her parents. The robot on the other hand was decommissioned and dismantled after it was declared an error and a danger to the public. The many friends and family of the deceased were mourning after hearing the sad news. Some even defended the robot, saying it couldn't have just malfunctioned in a way to make it harm humans based on the three laws of robotics. The common faces of Androidan put those arguments to rest when they clarified that the robot did not directly harm the victims, merely it had a glitch happen in its programming while it was driving causing it to lose control of the vehicle. However, the glitch still made it a possible danger to the public, and having the bot shut down and dismantled was the safest course of action. The vast majority of the public accepted the closure Androidan gave, falling back into their normal routines to pass day by day. Even the police force eventually closed the missing person case on the daughter of the deceased. The case had gone cold quickly as there were neither leads nor evidence to point investigators in the right direction. It was put away amongst all the other cold cases in the police archives after five years. Cold cases that date back to a time long before robots and technology were as advanced as they are today, a time well over a few centuries ago. The cold case was eventually forgotten along with all the others in the archive. Time went on as though it was never written. The news of the accident was swept aside for bigger world issues, and people eventually forgot all about it. Everyone in the city forgot, all except one detective who just felt that there was far more to the story than what was told to the public. Someone was hiding something and he was determined to find out what it was. Things added up far too easily to what happened to the family of three. As though everything from the robot malfunctioning to the disappearance of the deceased daughter's body, was all planned. The story given by the news and the apology given to the deceased's family and friends had sounded far too scripted for the detective's taste. He has looked at the whole case file over and over again, his gut feeling screaming that something is missing, hidden from everyone. But what was it? 


Meanwhile, after much trial and error over the last five years, Androidan finally had success with its first-ever android. A girl that looked like any other everyday human, her eyes being the only indication that she is anything but. The CEO of Androidan came to observe the activation, smiling as the head roboticist called out the android's serial number. 

"Z626, activate and state your purpose."