Author's Note:
This chapter in my master document used a formatting trick to separate two concurrent "points of view." Wattpad doesn't provide me those same formatting options, so I've elected to separate these sections using the symbol: "---."
If that symbol doesn't make it clear enough when the chapter has swapped "points of view," then please let me know.
-[|]-
Silence has weight.
Though it doesn't begin as heavy as one expects, it grows. It pounds against the mind. It weighs thought as heavy as every word unspoken, every word waiting, every word trapped in hollow quiet. The stillness grows uncomfortable with every second the two spend working. It lingers overhead in the same manner a table with uneven footing rests on the ground.
Both hesitate to speak.
Amelia drives her tool into Henry's severed motor, scraping away the last bit of coffee she can find. She drops the android's knee on the coffee table and cringes watching him push the blade a concerning distance into his leg. Scraping metal fills the otherwise still room.
Henry sets the knife down upon shattering the final coffee-gem; he snaps his inner workings together along the fasteners built into his skeleton.
"Don't worry about anything else," the android wakes the silence, "You've done enough."
He takes the motor in soft hands
More silence.
The android, to Amelia's dismay, pulls the knee out of his opposite leg. His work blooms with noise. The blade as it chews the module latches against shards of solid coffee, and occasionally fires out of the unit in a concerning direction. Henry spends an uncomfortable amount of time in silence examining the motor for any gems he may have missed. Once he knows the knee is clean, he sets the knife on the coffee table and balls up the towel beneath his legs.
"Thank you."
Amelia nods. She takes the knife to the kitchen and places it in the general vicinity of its proper place. The android has pulled the coffee table to its original position.
His legs squeak as he lowers them onto the floor, "That reminds me," he remarks, "Do you have any cooking spray, or oil, or something?"
"Yeah, hold on," replies Amelia.
She heads into the kitchen. Various cans and spices threaten to fall out of the cupboard, a few caught on their way to the ground. Amelia returns to find Henry with his knees in his lap. He takes the cooking spray and douses them both in an unnecessary amount of oil.
"Do you feel anything when your legs are open like that?," Amelia's question seems to cling to her throat.
Henry steals a glance at the organic, he shrugs, "Not particularly, no."
"But didn't it hurt when you stabbed yourself?"
"More or less."
"More or less?," Amy implores.
"Well of course I need to feel some pain when something's gone wrong," the android fastens his left knee, "But when I'm willingly stabbing myself, there probably isn't anything wrong. There's likely something worse that's wrong, which I need to dig to find. If I didn't feel that, how else would I know?"
"Couldn't an alert or something flash in front of your eyes, like to let you know?," Amy says, missing the rhetorical question.
"It's much easier to program a localised feeling than a visual notification for every cord and tube in my body. Plus, imagine not being able to see what's right in front of your face because you stubbed your toe," he gestures, "If I were to blind myself, it would be deliberate."
YOU ARE READING
The Book of All
Science Fiction"Knowledge is power," most say, but power corrupts all the same. See, knowledge exists as a pyramid. Very many things know nothing, but only one knows everything. To climb the pyramid isn't difficult, up to some point. The climb can be a taxing thin...
