Project S.H.A.R.D.- Day 2

DAY #2 of S.H.A.R.D. Interrogation

"Where was, shall we say, your 'birthplace'?"

He nodded his head back and forth. "You wouldn't catch me in some rust bucket junk store," he said, "no siree. I was created in an abandoned warehouse by an independent scientist, built with love and care. You might know her. Just a hunch." He held up a picture of a Newsdata article, and immediately, the one in the picture caught my eye.

"Dr. Maia Bradley? " I said. "She was one of the world's leading roboticists! She was part of the team who paved the way for the next generation of cyberkinetic androids across the country! Of course I know her!"

"Of course you do," he replied in the most sarcastic tone I've heard from a robot, "and I suppose you knew what color her house was, or what her favorite flower was, or how she loved skipping around in the long grass on long Sunday evenings."

"Err… I really don't know how to answer that. I guess you were quite close to her, then."
"I loved her, I really did. Not in a creepy way, almost like a mother/son relationship. This makes sense, because she created me. I don't really think you humans can understand that kind of bond, can you?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I guess it's quite similar to childbirth… only less painful and much more practical," I joked. I guess I was trying to lighten the mood. I failed miserably.
"It is nothing like human birth," he said sternly and pulled himself a little closer to me. "Nothing. You literally have to watch yourself being built. If it's from the head down, at least, that's how she did it for me. Not painful or anything, just unsettling."
"I… I see. So, when you were born…"

"Built."

"Right, built. Um, when you were built, you looked pretty much the same as you do now, but you behaved quite different. You were special because you actually adapted to your environment as you aged in years, much like how a human child learns in early age."
His circuits whirred in a strange way. "It wasn't just that. You see, earlier on I was the test subject for a special type of maturity core, that allowed a user to learn from their experiences and change as a human might grow. Maia wanted to try that on me first, because I was the most advanced android system she had built. Turns out it worked great in my system, so she decided to keep it in me."

"Did you ever do something you regretted, I mean, something you weren't supposed to?" I asked in earnest.

"Yeah, so I wasn't the smartest thing around the workshop. I kept stumbling around and breaking things because I wasn't so used to walking yet. I guess it was funny to her, because she always started laughing. I liked making her laugh." His glowing eyes looked off into the distance. "Except when I played around with her experiments. She didn't like that one bit. She scolded me big-time the day I accidentally fired her Plasma Buster at the neighborhood dog. The family next door didn't take it too well, either."

"Also, I didn't understand any idioms or phrases; those were made by humans, so I couldn't comprehend them at the time. One day, Maia said something about 'killing two birds with one stone.' Well, just to make her happy, I took out at least 7 of the winged creatures with one stone, shot from a hyper-charged arm cannon, and all I got was a harsh scolding. I wasn't sure what I did wrong, I thought was following orders," he said and made a strange high-pitched sound (I interpreted it later as a form of robot laughter.)

It was fascinating, but it wasn't really why I came here, so I knew I had to stop Shard from reminiscing so much he would lead the conversation off topic. I coughed into my hands, "Well, not that your childhood wasn't fascinating, but let's continue with the questions…"

His circuits were practically steaming, and his eyes suddenly turned red and focused on me. "Number one, would you stop comparing me to your human customs. I had no childhood. I was built. Second of all, you wanted an in-depth experience of life as a robot, and you're getting it. Any more interruptions and you're basically getting in the way of your own work. Third of all, you know, I still have that Plasma Buster installed in my system and can use it whenever I want."

Any argument or retort I had planned immediately vanished without a trace, and I stuttered a quick "Yes, sir." For a user-friendly machine, this guy certainly made things difficult.

"So, what else do you want to know?" he repeated skeptically.

"W-well, I'm sure you're aware of the robot discrimination that's occurring these days, and I thought perhaps I could have a little insight on your experience firsthand…"

"These days? These days?! Give me a break, Telkata! These days a few robots get tossed around, that's nothing. 20 years ago, the streets were filled with gangs ready to tear a robot to pieces just for walking into a human place. There was even a patrol whose job was to find any robots that were out after curfew hour and destroy them. It was a machine massacre! Nowadays, things have calmed down a bit, but what a slaughterhouse it used to be."

"I see," I replied. I knew nothing about what the old days of robot discrimination were like at the time, and I had to admit, I was curious. "Any personal stories of first-hand discrimination, perhaps from your experience?"

"Gee, where do I begin? I've been picked on so many times that I can't even count them all. I've been called the most derogatory names anyone could think of, and I've even been beaten up a few times. But Maia… she was always there to look after me." He straightened up and clicked his tongue up and down.

"One day, I got wrecked pretty badly and I stumbled back to the lab, my legs ready to give in at any second. She asked what the heck happened to me, and all I could say was 'deadline expired, activating emergency shutdown,' when I really wanted to say, 'I've been beaten to a pulp by protectors of greed and selfishness.' Well, then she went crazy for a while, man, she called up the numbers of the people whose files I downloaded and yelled explicative after explicative at them, she promised I wouldn't have to suffer once she was done with them. I told her after I was reconstructed that I was grateful, but they wouldn't fall back just because she told them to. I said darling, three quarters of the country is doing this, and that's the way it's going to be. That's the facts. They had the upper hand, and we were decreasing in numbers.

"Well, she cried for a while after that, and I let her lay her head on my shoulder, even though it was metallic and not too comfortable. I felt safe, knowing Maia was at an arm's length away. I felt really safe." He gave a mechanical sigh, and sat back in his chair.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something small and wet come out of his left eye socket, but it might have been my imagination. Anyway, I could tell he was too emotionally exhausted to go on.

"Hey, kid! Time to go, you've got to sleep sometime!" yelled the warden from another hallway.

"I should go," I told the robot. "It was very nice to hear from you, Shard, you've been a great help in my cause. Shall we continue tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Okay, let's do that. I'm feeling better, actually, talking about this to another person. It feels... good," he said. It surprised me how upbeat he sounded all of a sudden.
As I turned to leave, I thought about giving Shard a hug for some reason. I put it past my mind, though, and wandered out of the prison hallway as if in a daze. I had learned many things today, and I would only continue to for the next 2 days.

Late that night, I couldn't stop thinking about the pale grey robot in that lab, and his roboticist mistress clutching his shoulder. I kept thinking about what kind of things robots think or feel when they go to sleep at nights. Then I knew I was being silly, and finally slipped into a slumber.

It was filled with dreams about robots fighting humans. A never-ending conflict, an internal self-struggle.

A war.