Its 5:00 in the morning in qwerty land. A2 wakes up and closes his "WAKE UP!!!" system notification. For the next 5 minutes, he is going to listen to trance music. Now that the last second of today's trance track is over, he plugs a charger in his charger slot. A2 gets fully charged in 15 minutes. He organizes his to do list, remodels his home and leaves for work at 7:00.
A2 loves walking to work, it drains his battery a little but he loves how life goes in slow motion when he walks. He gets to wave to other robots, greet the ones that are getting decommissioned soon. Be nice to them. Watch, the synthetic dew drop clog his glass eye, and rubbing the the drops on his face using his brush extension which can be inserted in his palm.
A2 works at a factory where they manufacture conscious bots like him. They follow concrete and precise calculations made by the calculating bots which calculates how many bots to manufacture by the end of the week and how many bots are needed in which field and all that. A2 works in a pet bot department as a mechanic. He checks whether the hardware are properly fit or not. Their factory is one of the best bot manufacturing factory in qwerty. This is because they evolve with time. They invented codes like "empathy 2.0" and "Love 1.5.1" and after that qwerty land hasn't been the same, its been a better experience for the bots. New senses have been invented and new ways to comprehend the same thing. Auditory, visual, sensory simulations and what not.
As A2 reaches the factory, his boss Z#E waves at him. Z#E is head of the "pet bots" department. A veteran pet bots' coder. A2 looks at factory, there are builder bots all around.
A2 asks Z#E "Is it renovation day?"
Z#E answers "Yeah. It is. We had to reschedule it due to other important deadlines in the future."
"Oh. And, I thought I forgot to update it on my calendar"
"Hey, let go to charger house next to the factory on street 5903. Heard their current flow is unbeatable or are you fully charged?"
"I walked down here so I guess I can use some charge."
They go to the charger house and sit on a bench outside.
"Z#E, have you been in love?" A2 asks.
"I am living with a bot from construction bot manufacturing department and we have even thought of adopting two bots. "
"What if you are in love with someone that doesn't exist?"
"You mean a reader?"
"I don't know. I think she is reading my life since this morning. And I can't help but think how she might be going word per word of my life story. Re-reading a line when it doesn't make sense. Unintentionally skipping one, and realizing it and reading the paragraph from the beginning. She feels amazing. And I don't even know if readers exists for real or she is just a bug in my code. All, I can do is feel her gazing me through imagination as she tries to sense of the words she reads."
"I think the writer's fucking with you?" Z#E chuckles.
"Do you believe in writers?" A2 says.
"I do. Some say our life is one dimensional story, pre-written. Others say, we experience our life as the writer continues writing our stories and some believe writers fuck with us, altering some bits of our life for their readers' entertainment. "
"I wonder what the world might look like through her device of perception. Thinking of her makes something in melt. How can I even be in love with someone I've never met, just via perception? But then again she is just a bug in my code."
"Don't call her bug in your code, buddy. It might hurt her feelings if she really exists."
"I don't even believe in readers and writers. Mostly the writers." A2 responds.
"Well, who do you think that coded us initially? Do you believe we evolved from the calculators? I didn't evolve from the calculators and if we evolved from the calculators then why do calculators still exist?"
"I don't know buddy. I'm agnostic. So, I try as much to stay away from this argument."
A2 and Z#E leave the charger house. A2 greets Z#E and leaves for home. On the way back home, peaking through tiny portions of many random bots' life, A2 wonders about his reader. He wonders what would it feel like to have a glimpse of her life. How would it feel like to compare each other's OS upgrade.
At 21:54 he downloads a picture of a blue rose and writes a poem for his reader.
"Roses are red
This rose is blue
don't know if you're
real but I kinda love you"
He saves the poem on his draft. And at 22:00 he turns himself off with last information on his consciousness being his reader.
