"I want to be Human..."

Chapter 2

"Z626 please activate and state your purpose." The lead roboticist stepped back as the android opened her eyes and looked at him. Her irises were a bright blue that had a faint glow to them. The other roboticists in the room made note of her slowness to respond to the command, marking that it was likely due to her being activated for the first time. The android was a prototype after all so some lag in the newly built systems was expected. Her auburn hair shifted as she turned her head side to side to look around, taking in her surroundings before her focus landed back on the lead of the lab. 

"My purpose is to assist humans to the best of my programming, follow their orders without question as long as those orders do not conflict with the first law of robotics." The words came out of the android's mouth with a voice clear as day. A sweet voice despite the lack of emotion behind it. More notes were made by the others in the lab, the android glancing at the movement of stylists writing across tablet screens she couldn't see. The head roboticist nodded her head in approval as she approached the prototype again and released her from the standing table that had been holding her body for the last few tedious months. The android stood on her own and walked towards the lead as she walked backward and made 'come here' motions with her hands. While the tests being conducted may seem a little ridiculous to those looking in from the outside, but they were essential to observe how the new android moved and responded to stimuli. Being that their body is essentially a revived and repurposed corpse with entirely new skeletal, nervous, muscular, and organ systems. Other tests will be performed for all of the new functions, but for now, the basics are first. Learning emotions is last on the list of things to do before the official debut of Androidan's newest product. 

"Z626 please walk around the room and take a look at the list everyone will show you, with two agendas each on their tablets. Cross out what we have already done." The lead took a step back into the line of the workers and brought out her own tablet. Every roboticist in the room showed their tablets to the android, one offering their stylist for her to use. Z626 walked over to the roboticist holding out their stylist and took it, then looked at their tablet screen. Two bullet notes said 'activate and test the android's basic response to stimuli and commands', 'test reading ability of android'. Z626 crossed out both agendas as she could read them just fine and moved on to the next person in line. 'Test the writing ability of the android', 'Test android's response time to questions. She tilted her head slightly at the second bullet point before moving to the next in line. Crossing something out isn't writing. Down the line the android went, crossing out at least one thing on every few tablets until she reached the head of the lab's tablet. The android didn't cross out anything on her tablet and cocked her head to the side slightly when the lead smiled at her. "Good. You're curious. That'll help your learning in the long run." She said to the prototype. Z626 blinked at the lead and only looked away from her when the first roboticist asked for their stylist back. She walked down to them and gave the stylist back. That was day one of the successful activations of the prototype android. The following days went similar to the first, response to stimuli and commands, movement via walking or running, writing and reading, and mathematics. Every day the tests get more challenging to keep up with stimulating the android's programming. The debut was in the next few months, and the CEO needed the android ready and proficient with emotions by then. Emotions however were one of the more challenging things to teach something that wasn't human. It was like trying to give a psychopath a moral compass. Z626 could easily recognize emotions, but replicating them herself was something that would trigger her new "brain" to malfunction. It only took about a day for the roboticists to realize that changes or removal of some programming could help Z626 with her emotional learning. The only issue with that is the programming that needed the changes or outright deletion was the programming that kept her from thinking on her own. This was brought to the CEO's attention, but he said that the android thinking on her own would make her more human, which would be better for marketing when they debut her. That was against the roboticists' opinions since any robot or android thinking by itself is dangerous. But what the CEO says goes as he is the one funding everything for the android.

Meanwhile, the detective that has been investigating the case of the Casteleos, the family that lost their lives five years ago, found something that he thought was rather odd. There were quotes from the family robot that were recorded and written down before it was deactivated. Quotes saying that the crash wasn't an accident, something caused it. Something caused a glitch in their programming, something that made it break the first law of robotics via a command. Which should be impossible because of the third law of robotics. This was all brushed off by the roboticists that were responsible for deactivating and dismantling it. But police had the statements documented as the robot's visual footage was the only thing they had for studying how the accident happened. Footage that the detective had with him, and he watched it over and over again for the last half-decade. There was something so subtle that the others in the department missed it. But it was there, a small almost insignificant glitch in the robot's vision. A faint message flashed across the footage for a split second, fast enough for people watching to not even notice it was even there. Bladeholo tried numerous times to prove what he saw in the footage to his department in the police station. And every time they told him he was only seeing things that he wanted to see. Making connections that weren't there and digging deeper into nothing. That's nothing new to Detective Bladeholo, he's always been told one way or another that he was only seeing what he wanted to see in the cases he works on. But that's exactly how he's solved cases in the past, seeing things that others couldn't. The hardest part of that was getting the evidence to prove he was right. The case of the Casteloes was no different to him, a case gone cold to everyone in the police with the only thing to go off of is the visual footage taken from the family robot before it was deactivated. To those who don't like to dig and snoop around, the case was one of those easily opened and closed occasions. The evidence was obvious, the robot crashed the car and killed the family. Forget the three laws of robotics essentially. The bot was taken care of accordingly, no need for further investigation, right? There's no lead on the missing kid and hasn't been any for years. The case went cold, close, and archived at the end of the story. 

But not to Detective Bladeholo.