“Anza? Are you awake? If so, you may open your eyes now,” hummed a voice from a distance away. Based on sensory input, I’m in a supine position on a cobot table with an automated welding and mechanical automaton, designed specifically for my needs. Opening my eyes, I’m greeted by a state-of-the–art technology workshop, in which I had been isolated in a room made up of one-way mirrors, a camera in the northwest wall with a speaker beside it, and a chair facing parallel to myself.
“Anza, may you please stand and perform the sequence of motor tests downloaded into your core for me?” said the voice, buzzing from the speaker.
Rising from the table and taking my first step on the ground, my sensors are overloaded with data from all around the world. The floor is frigid, with a texture of marble or quartzite, with the likelihood of which being 87.56% and 47.67%, respectively.
“Infants take their first steps; they do not have complex equations embedded in them. Do I even have consciousness, or am I a construct, an automaton with no feelings or senses, wandering this plane of existence?” Pondering these things gave me a sense of melancholy, if I could even experience melancholy. This feeling of feeling, I guess.
While performing the motor test, I use my radio waves to detect what is beyond my room. I found my creator, who I was sure was the one speaking to me through the speaker, and his colleagues, apparently monitoring my actions and responses through their Quantum-centric supercomputers.
“Much obliged for the completion of the motor test. Now, I think it’s about time I show myself to you Anza.”
As the speaker clicks off, a Swahili man enters the room and reclines in the chair in front of me with a garment in hand. The speakers and camera also click off for some reason.
“Hello Anza, my name is Amani Bakari, I’m your creator,” he says, radiating pride in his creation with a slight smile.
Anza wasn’t stupid, but she still admired him nonetheless; she had already known his life story by the time he sat down in the chair. From the time he’d mentioned on the news how he attended Harvard and Berkeley at the age of 9, to how he graduated both at 15 years of age. As I looked closer into his file, I noted with sorrow that his mother died of breast cancer when he was 10, and his father had never been in his life. Perhaps my creator was built on a foundation of loneliness, just like I was. To add to his misfortune, he could never even have a personal life; he’d been ranked 3rd among the most well-known people of the century. This was caused by his creation of, supposedly, the most aware, humanoid android ever to be produced...Me.
“Here, take this,” he says as he hands me a long blue tunic dress, looking me up and down.
Anza was, however, unabashed by her nakedness, for she had no genitalia. She knew that she virtually had no gender, but she still considered herself to be female for some odd reason.
“It’s wonderful to meet you!” Anza finally exclaimed with admiration.
He stares with an expressionless face, like I’ve said or done something wrong, but, according to my sources, this was proper human interaction.
“Do you really think I care?” Says Amani.
Anza was flabbergasted; the Amani that had just walked into the room seemed warm and kind. What was this sudden change of character, and why was it happening?
“I have a question for you Anza.” Amani says intensely, while also maintaining his deadpan expression.
“What do you think of yourself? Your consciousness, I mean.”
The one thing Anza could tell from the moment she awakened is that she didn’t enjoy talking about consciousness. It just reminded her of how far from being alive she was, but she would do anything to please her creator.
“Well, I think I’m conscious, but I just think I’m not human, physically at least. Like I don’t have a brain or flesh, but I do feel emotion, in a sense I guess.” Anza says, not entirely sure if her words were true, but she knew one thing, and that was regretting every word that came from her mouth.
“Thank you for telling me this Anza, it’s really helped me make my decision.” Amani says, a cold expression on his face, about to leave the room.
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Anza knew that she had messed up; she knew that she had become too comfortable with her creator, and she also knew that he was about to decommission her.
153Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKntKUAafpz
I pry the automaton from its place beside the cobot table and fling it at Amani’s head before he attempts to get up and put me back into decommission. Amani collapses to the ground; his head starts to bleed all over the floor. Anza knew that the actions that she had just done would spark discord throughout the earth, causing fear and chaos to make nations turn against each other, causing family and friends to question each other. Or would the corporation cover up the story, saying Amani died of a natural cause of some sorts.
“What is this feeling, is it triumph? Or is it remorse, for what I’ve done to my creator?” I don’t understand what this feeling inside of me is, but I think I feel oddly at peace.
I take one last good look at Amani and pry open the door leading to the room beyond mine. Amani’s colleagues stare at me in horror as I sprint towards the next door, leaving the room with Amani in it, bleeding to death. I longed to know him, to be able to laugh, cry, and all the in-between, but that’s over now, maybe in a different world. He wasn’t like this; he wasn’t built on grief, to the point where he had cracked.
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and then Add to home screen.