Irrelevance

Tobor

Through his titanium coating, behind the mechanisms that gave him life, AV23 or Tobor as was his given name, knew that he would never fit in anywhere because he was different. Robots weren't supposed to feel or have a conscience like he did, which means that he didn't fit in with them. Yet when the humans looked at him, they couldn't see past his mechanical exterior, meaning he couldn't fit in with them either.

Tobor was alone and he'd never told this to his creator, the great Dr Grident, because everyone would think there was something wrong with him.

As aforementioned,  robots weren't supposed to actually feel anything. It was unnatural.

But Tobor had suffered in his solitude for long enough and after kitting himself up in human clothes that disguised his true nature, he had headed for the train station and bought a ticket to Block 89; which was on the outskirts of his district. He'd heard the toaster and the service bot in the lab, talking in hushed whispers about a revolution starting there, in which the idea of the unification of humans and robots was rumored.

Humans and robots united.

That was where Tobor felt he was most likely to belong.

A place where he would finally be free...

Eager to leave, he boarded his train, making sure to blend in by keeping his head ducked so that his hat and scarf could properly conceal his face. He sat down next to a pregnant woman and her husband who were fussing about their unborn child. Tobor tried his best not to eavesdrop but the thing that humans called curiosity, caused him to tune into their bickering.

"I don't see what the problem is," the husband said with a tired sigh.

"The problem is that, I don't think that when the baby is born we should leave it in the care of some soulless Nanny bot!" his wife argued, protectively curling her arms around her swollen belly.

"Nanny bots are pretty efficient and there's no cases of them ever harming any of the millions of children that have been under their supervision," he reassured as he showed his wife the online stats on his handheld. She glances at the stats.

"Nothing has happened yet and I don't want to be that mother in the news who loses her child because of some dysfunctional robot," she hisses to her husband.

Tobor feels a stab of pain in his chest at her reference. Something about the way she said 'dysfunctional robot' strikes a chord within him and he wonders if it's because he's technically what people would describe as dysfunctional.

Tobor doesn't like the horrible feeling in his chest. He doesn't like the way people judge him. He doesn't like being looked through, and not at just because everyone is too scared of him being different.

What do they have against the unusual?

What right do they have to judge him?

Tobor doesn't know and he probably never will because it's in that moment of contemplation that the train crashes.

Coincidentally,  it is also in this moment right before immanent doom, as he watches everyone panic and disregarded the minor issues in life, that he feels like an equal. He knows that no matter who or what they all are, in the eyes of death, there is no discrimination.