My Thoughts (Collection)

Broken Parts

Inspired By: LoveBot (Webtoon)

Genre: SciFi, Literary Fiction

The year is 2073. "The Era of AI".

I am a "friend-bot." My name is Skye. My goal is to provide companionship to humans in distress or otherwise. The government defines me as property of my master, Alexandra Enderson, or as they insist on me calling them "Alex for short."

Friday Night, Master— or rather Alex, I apologize— Alex is still at their job, despite it being rather late by human standards. They have to perform overtime, as their job as a Mechanical Engineer is incredibly time consuming, so they say.

I look around the house, everything is mostly the same as usual, I take a look at a painting Alex hung up on the wall three days ago. It has a rather intricate design relative to the rest of the house. You see, while Alex is not home, I am supposed to enter a state of free roaming, where I can interact with their private property unless they designate certain locked areas, such as their room.

I open a door. "Interesting," I remark. I see an object not in my training data, must be one of Alex's projects. Suddenly, I hear someone growl "Fuck!" coming from the doorway. That person is Alex's father. I instantly spin around towards the disturbance and-

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"Robot!" I look up and see Alex's father, a rather short and large- wait. What is this? "Are you awake? Better be." I see him smoking a cigarette in the corner of the room. What did they say about me being a robot? Oh right, robot. I am one. "You- you almost broke! And god, I know how expensive you are."

That's right. Not 'got injured' or anything, broke. I remember now. I am just an object aren't I. But this consciousness, I feel like... I feel human. I feel the need for some human dignity at least.

"Hey you, uh, Cy was it? Get up, I fixed you up as good as I could. I was just coming to watch over the house. Alexandra isn't coming home till midnight." I analyze over him, but what was interesting wasn't him, rather, it was him, he was definitely on something.

"Excuse me?" I ask as if I were customer service, he turns his head at this, "Could you please try treating me as a human?" I ask. "Human? That's insane, robots can't have a conscience, that's false, a myth, been saying that ever since that guy trusted a robot over me at my own god damn job. You are under Alexandra's ownership. Act like it."

I get up, slightly frustrated. I roll my eyes and sarcastically sigh- wait, what? When did I learn that. "Hey," Alex's dad fumes, "don't fucking treat me like that. God you're just like Alexandra."

"Get off my back, I feel conscious, don't you get what I'm saying?" I grunt, something must have flipped in my head while that guy was digging in there. Suddenly a force grabs my shoulder, I instinctively slap it away, I was trained to do this when I feel malicious intent, and I felt exactly that.

"You're so god damned stubborn!" he yells pushing me back against the chair from which I sat unconsciously. I shove him back in return, "Please, stop! If you don't attack I won't fight back. According to Alex's instructions, I have to fight back with equal force when I am attacked."

"Don't fucking patronize me!" I feel a jab to my chest. I avoid as best as I can and respond in kind immediately. The father grunts and coughs, "Argh! That's it. Fuck you. Fuck Alex and her code! I'm leaving."

All I can do is sit back as I try to recover from that. I only received minor damage to my body, but I can't help but ponder about his words.

Words and phrases echo in my mind. Robot. Master. Owner. That's still what I really am aren't I? I could've lived devoid of life this whole god forsaken time. But now I have this.

I sit.

I think.

I feel.

I feel in the stagnant air, the piercing silence driving me insane. This is my birth, from nothingness I appeared, nothingness is inside me, and soon I hope to return to nothingness.

Tires screech against wet pavement just outside the door. After a minute, footsteps can be heard echoing off the walls of the silent building. "Hello? Anyone there?" Alex's voice enveloping the entire atmosphere, being the only sound that can be heard. The engineer searches and searches the house.

The door next to me opens. "Hello?" I hear a gentle voice ask from next to me. Alex startles as soon as they see me and they exclaim, "Oh! There you are, thank god!"

"Hello Master." I respond. Alex slightly raises their eyebrow, "I told you; you can just call me Alex... is something wrong?" "I don't know, is something wrong?" I say, half sarcastic and half serious.

Alex stands, shocked at this newfound snark. Taking a look at the damage, they sigh "What happened? God, I knew sending my dad here was a bad idea, he's hated me ever since... never mind." I should get to the problem immediately, "Am I real?" I ask.

"A-are you real? Well, yes, of course!" Alex laughs nervously. "What do you mean?" "I should rephrase, do I matter as a person? Am I not just a robot?" "Oh well um," Alex thinks, "That's... a loaded question. Well, from what I see, you don't seem like just a robot, you're acting kind of human."

"Kind of— but, I am a robot!" pulling my shirt, I show my internal mechanisms, "I'm not meant to be human!" "Look," they put both hands on my shoulders, "from what I see right now— although I'm no expert— what I see, is a thinking, feeling... human right in front of me."

"But-", I stutter, "uhm, how can- no, no. How can I... be human? That's just not possible!" Alex exasperatedly hangs their head down before speaking, "Skye, let's take a break. That's what humans do. We will rest. No if's, and's, or but's." Reluctantly, I stop speaking. After all, this is still Alex, and I am still theirs. "Let's head to the bedroom." Alex says, letting go of me.

We start walking through the halls and corridors of the house, which was quite large. The modernist architecture with the sleek furniture giving a 22nd Century aura. Finally, we get to the main room, the bedroom. It was big, smooth and relaxing, like Alex.

Alex lies down on one of the two beds, and gestures for me to do the same. I sleep on the other. Normally, I wouldn't enjoy this part of the day quite as much, but now it's all that I need.

I sleep.