"It sounds like you need me for this one," I said, glaring into Gatan's yellow-glowing eye.
He turned. "You are unnecessary to this mission. You will stay here. You will comply." Gatan stood tall over me like the Tower of Mars, his body just as hard and metallic. He was a lean built, steel fortified humanoid robot with a slim head, which yielded one shining yellow light. That light seemed warm and cold at the same time, but it didn't matter; it simply acted as though it was his eye.
"I'm the one who woke you up," I began, "so I'm going. Your stuff's outdated anyway. I'm your only way in."
His face was expressionless in all of its static, robotic glory. "You were not required to wake me. This facility holds many unknown variables. It is within my best interests to keep you out of my way. Does this breach your understanding?"
The patches of greenery fluttered against the wind blowing through the busted walls of the facility. Water dripped from a hole in the roof, permeating a group of what I assumed was inoperable machinery. I shivered as we stood at the entrance; it was a cold and dark place, and I yearned for the warm embrace of a blanket, but I'd subscribed to this life. There wasn't anything that was going to stop me from changing this robot. "That," I said, pointing to a cluster of servers and computers behind a broken wall, "is the core. That's all me."
"You are not to leave this spot." Gatan turned to look at the core, which was probably about one hundred meters away.
I took a step forward towards him. Almost immediately, he brought his hands up to his face defensively, his hands clicking and turning in their sockets, his eye burning colder. "Hey, hey." I lifted my hands a little. "It's okay. It's alright; there's no need to get all clicky fingers." I patted him on the shoulder.
He loosened up as he turned his back to me. "Stay here."
"That there? That was fear," I breathed. Gatan stood still. "You do have emotions, Gatan. I don't know how you can't understand that."
"Your thoughts are misguided," he started in his monotone voice, although I thought I could sense a sad drone in his tone. "As any unknown thing, you are to be treated with caution. I am a machine; I do not have the capabilities to feel emotions." His eye flickered with defiance, or perhaps that's what I wished it was.
The wind blew my hair into my eyes and gave me goosebumps. With a sigh, I said, "Watch for a security system." As he trudged further into the facility, I retrieved my Holocard from my blouse's pocket. It was a slim piece of technology, much like the cellular devices of old, but its functions landed more on the side of a computer with external drive properties. Holocards were how information was extracted from system cores now, so I was the one who needed to get to the core. I caught one final glimpse of Gatan before he disappeared behind a cluster of machinery and rubble, still far off from the core. With his heatblade out, he scanned the area. My heart allowed itself to sink for a moment. Maybe it was true that he didn't have emotions, that perhaps my judgement was clouded by my thirst for interaction, but that wasn't it. He was bitter, so that's how I knew he could feel. Although reluctance still pulled at me, I plunged myself deeper into the building.
I used my Holocard to scour the area for any potential functional parts to scavenge. I heard a gut-wrenching sound come from near the entrance; then I saw Gatan rush towards that area, alert. Content with this new development, I sneaked my way to the core and stuck my Holocard into the system's port.
A new voice came. From an overhead speaker somewhere behind the layers of branches and blooming flowers came a static buzz, then a clear voice. It said, "A foreign entity has been detected. Deploying neurotoxin."
Then, a gas began to emanate from the walls that still stood. "You've gotta be ki- shit." I exhaled, then frantically searching for air. Who in their right mind puts an AI in control of deadly gases? I tried to hold my breath as my Holocard continued the extraction. My head began to pound. It was nauseating; it permeated my skin just as easy as it would've gone into my lungs. The extraction was at 87%. Just a little longer! As I faded, I heard Gatan's voice drone one word.
"Drew."
Just outside the facility, I awoke next to Gatan, who was holding my Holocard. I started to sit up, but my head began to ring.
"Drew. I told you not to follow. You did not comply," Gatan said, facing me.
Holding my head, I began to respond, waving my other hand. "Yeah, yeah. But I got your information, didn't I? Should be all on that card. Feel free to thank me now." He continued to stare blankly at me. "It's okay, you don't have to monologue about how great I am." I paused waiting for a thank you, but it didn't come. "How did ya get the gas out of me, anyway?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Please, do tell."
His yellow light of an eye flickered. "Do you wish to picture yourself as a balloon? No, you do not." He returned his gaze awkwardly to the Holocard, turning it this way and that, struggling to understand how it could possibly work.
I sat there for a bit, flustered. Did he just do what I thought he did? "Gatan, you just made a joke, didn't you?" I jested with him, and it seemed to have struck a chord. It was weird hearing him tell a joke, especially with how terrible of a joke it was, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.
"No," he argued, "you are mistaken."
"No. No no no, you made a joke just now. I told you you could feel emotions!" I felt really excited, but he quickly shot me down.
"Those have no correlation." He turned his head the other way, towards the lights of the next town. "We must go to rest. Humans require sleep to properly function."
I wiped a tear from my eye, saying, "Tomorrow we'll see if I can get you some upgrades. Then, you'll be able to download the info on that card yourself." I felt like we made progress, a step forward. A baby step, yes, but a step nonetheless. He began to walk, and I followed in stride.
