Caretakers 2.0

Changed

Tobias

Being real was painful.

Had I realized what soul-sucking loneliness would feel like, I'd not have agreed to this. But I had consented, as best I could, and it was done, and now, I couldn't bring myself to undo it. After all my work over the last five cycles, it didn't seem right to end my life.

I sighed and slumped in my chair. More than anything, I felt alone, a heaviness that came with impending hopelessness waiting on the edge of my psyche. I refused to let myself fall into despair; I had things to do. Important things.

The burden of being the first of the next iteration of Caretakers weighed on me. On the surface, things seemed simple. I had two tasks: learn to replenish the power station so the city could survive and make others like me to occupy said city. My dedication to executing these duties was, in part, related to who gave them to me: Adrianna. Of all people, I would call her a friend. It was her dying wish I do these things so, in her memory, I would do my best.

Given that the latter task couldn't be done without the former. I sat in front of the core of the power station as I had sat every day for the last two thousand and fourteen days, staring at the magical substance inside it. The level of blue swirling and crackling spark had gone down significantly. It fueled our technology, an essential part of life. We used spark for everyday uses such as household items, our communication network, the robots of the service force, and those like me: androids. Only the original Caretakers had been organic beings.

Rubbing my chest, I thought of all the Caretakers being gone, especially Adrianna. I'd been assigned to her as a companion before she changed me. She had been a council member. When her health began to fail, the Council gave me the task of caring for her. My duties had ranged from board game partner to end-of-life nurse's assistant. I only wished she had changed me before she died. We might have had the chance to have been friends in a meaningful way.

Over the last several cycles, I'd shut down parts of the city and moved some of the service force into the former Caretakers' apartments fairly early on to conserve power. The servants, being robots, didn't care, and the Caretakers were all dead, so they wouldn't complain. As long as those that were left had a place to recharge, they accepted their new programming to care for what was left. The rest, I sent to storage with the fleeting hope I'd be able to bring them back online.

My hand trembled when I practiced trying to gather spark for the power station with some, though limited, success. I'd researched how to do it correctly as best I could. I'd even prayed to gods I wasn't sure existed for help. But, ultimately, I was a failure. I simply could not figure out how to take the spark from the air around me to place it in the core. Had my predicament been just about my life, I'd have accepted my fate and died with dignity. As it stood, my ineptness would be the end of all of us.

Adrianna should have picked another, I concluded, for the fifty-one thousand five hundred and twenty-sixth time. That's how many times I'd been unsuccessful at gathering the crackling energy since I started counting. I recorded each one.

As the thought of Adrianna almost always did, it triggered the memory of our last day together. My chest felt tight as I remembered her lying in the hospital bed. Part of me marveled at the sensation. How could I feel a tight chest when I was made of metal and synth skin? How could my heart break when all I had was a pump to circulate spark? It was a mystery.

I had stood beside her, holding her hand as she had asked. I thought nothing of the request; my head had been, in fact, full of other tasks to be done, constantly processing the time it would take, what supplies would be needed, where it would be done, how it would be done... but, my attention focused when she asked an odd question.