Glitched

3. A Fault in Function

Isolde made her way down the row of scarcely occupied workbenches to find the chair still set before the singular machine with its glowing interface.

She had only just reached the chair when the machine's screen glowed dimly at her.

"Good afternoon, Isolde," Z's accented, life-like voice greeted her.

Her hands fisted the chair's backrest as she nodded at him. "Good afternoon, Z. How do you feel?" The manor of which she asked him was deliberate.

Much like yesterday, this seemed to give him pause. "I feel..." his mechanical humming stirred around them. "I feel much the same as last we spoke, I suppose."

Slowly, Isolde rounded the chair to sit before him, racking her brain for their next, most unobtrusive topic point, but once again, it was Z who spoke first.

"I am hoping our discussion yesterday was to your satisfaction," he said, and she almost laughed.

"I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it, if I'm being honest."

A few minor clicks sounded from the stationary machine. "Why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

She couldn't believe that in less than a handful of seconds, Isolde was already divulging matters of a personal affair.

"I've never had an AI of my own," she admitted, smiling in spite of herself. "I'm not entirely sure how to speak to one. I mean—aside from the basic commands I've seen managers give their androids at a restaurant...or, like, on TV or something."

She inwardly cringed at her rambling words, grateful that she couldn't read his expression at all, seeing as how his computerized framework lacked a face.

"You needn't try so hard." Z's voice was kind, unruffled by her rushed explanations. "It is quite...peculiar."

"What is?" she asked quickly, feeling inexplicably self-conscious.

Z hesitated before answering, "I have been on the completely coherent scale for only several months, but in that time frame, quite a few of Professor Mercer's colleagues have conversed with me, and not one of them have ever seemed quite so...conflicted about it."

A searing tingle shot across Isolde's ears. "W—well," she stuttered, "it's a different case with you, isn't it? My conversations are supposed to be far more concise with you than with the standard AI. And like I said, I'm out of practice." She tried not sounding quite so petulant, but was unable to refute the temptation entirely.

She wanted to kick herself. To think she would get this riled up over anything an AI was saying.

"Forgive me, please," Z was quick to amend. "I meant no disrespect. I am only attempting to decode the rationale behind your approach."

Isolde crossed a leg over her knee, reining in her wits about her. "Is there something wrong with the way I speak to you?" she asked.

Z was momentarily quiet, as if processing her question. "Not at all, Isolde," he said, unknowingly relieving her of her nerves.

"How do the lab technicians converse with you?" she asked.

"In as a straight-forward and practical manner as possible. Nothing at all like you. It is far more complicated learning anything new from them. Though I suppose it does help having the time to chat like we do, they have always been rather..."

"Stolid?" Isolde tried, and Z's computing humming started up again.

"Stolid. Yes. Not that I noticed before I had a comparison to draw from."