I, Robot, "Aurora's Law"

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The rain pattered onto the disfigured metal, creating a rhythm of pangs that echoed into my ears. Each drop drowned out the now flooding river barricading me from her, but failed to deafen me from my racing heartbeat that seemed to be travelling from my chest to my throat. I felt nothing except for the sinking of my knees going deeper and deeper into the muddy abyss under me. With each shuddering breath I took, I thought about every step I took to get there, to what I thought would be safety, and as the crackling sound of lighting rang around the atmosphere, my mind conjured up the timeline of how I had gotten there, of how we had gotten there.

***

If you ask anyone in the entire world where they were the moment they found out Dr. Susan Calvin, the world's leading robot-psychologist, had died, they would tell you every detail surrounding them, down to the color of the socks they were wearing. Living in New York City, word of her death came out and spread like wildfire, as the various jumbo-trons stationed on the many tall government buildings quickly switched from the weather to the breaking story. The screens projected her image with the numbers "1982-2064" in cold black lettering stationed right beneath the smiling picture of everyone's favorite doctor. It was at this instance, and for one of the very few times in New York's history, that the city that never sleeps became silent and all that was heard was the buzzing of the jumbo-trons hanging over our heads, not letting us forget the moment that humanity as we knew it had come to an end.

The night that Dr. Susan Calvin had died, I sat at the dinner table with my older brother Thiago and my Emergency Medical Intelligence Unit robot, or Emi as I liked to call her, patiently waiting for our father to come home and reassure us that everything was going to be okay. I sat next to Emi, twiddling my thumbs together, my ten-year-old self not fully understanding what had just happened, while Thiago stared ahead of himself blankly. With her cold metallic hand, Emi placed hers on mine, stopping my twiddling and making me understand that it was a time to be still. My eyes caught her caring glance and we both nodded, proving our connection to be stronger than ever.

When I was around six years old, I was diagnosed with epilepsy and generalized- onset seizures (Epilepsy). As my mother had left our family a few years after my birth, my father knew that he needed to come up with a way for me to have around the clock care. He took advantage of his degree in robotic engineering and mechanics and created the world's first E.M.I.U, a service robot that would help the disabled with their medical requirements as well as be tailored to each person and their specific needs. Quickly, the E.M.I.U. became a global phenomenon that eventually was covered by medical insurance and ranged from helping the blind, to patients with anxiety disorders, and even to people like me that suffered from seizures. It was because of my father's creation that Emi was given to me, a slim and tall robot who's exterior was cold, but interior was the warmest of affection. Scientific research years before the invention of the E.M.I.U connected stereotactic electroencephalography and its ability to find the origins of certain of seizures (Abhinav). My father took this technology and implanted it into Emi, gifting her the ability to detect the electrical impulses that caused my seizures beforehand, and sending her own electrical impulses to cancel out the original waves that would have caused my seizures. Instead of the violent tremors through my body, Emi would a project an image into my mind, usually my family and Emi sitting near a campfire, burning wood crackling, ashes fluttering into the air like charcoal colored butterflies, and the smell of the wood flooding my nose. This all worked through the connection of our eyes. All Emi had to do was look at me and my violent seizures would be replaced with fond memories of the people closest to me. Although a robot, Emi was my best friend, a maternal figure that I longed for, hope for. She wasn't just any robot, but my savior.