Born of Silicon

Finn and Jared come back fifteen minutes after they left. Jared takes one look at my half dismantled arm, sighs, and sits down at his desk.

“You didn’t break anything, did you?” Finn asks. Between his face and his voice, it’d be impossible to miss his concern.

“No. I’m just looking.” Kara’s blueprints are a great start, but she made an awful lot of on the fly, undocumented adjustments. My body’s more art than science.

“Huh, I never got a close look inside while you were building it.” He leans in a little closer and I turn my arm for a clearer view. “How did you even do this?” He asks Kara.

“I could ask the same for half the crap you do in software.”

“Oh come on, this is way harder.” He gestures to me.

“It’s really not.” Kara lets out a small chuckle and shakes her head. “Alright Blue, let’s get you patched up before the big man gets here.”

“Any last minute advice?” I ask the two of them while I get to work. 

“Don’t repeat anything I’ve said about him.” Finn says with a smile. “But really, show him everything you’re capable of. This isn’t the time to hold back or be modest.”

“I’ll try.”

It only takes me a few minutes to get my arm back together and test to make sure everything is working correctly. 

After just a few more minutes of Finn and Kara bickering, the door to the lab slides open. A hulking man well over six feet tall stands there. His green suit doesn't have a speck of dust or dirt on it, and his recently polished medals are proudly displayed. His face shows no discernible hint of emotion. I can already tell I’m not going to get along with this man.

Jared jumps from his chair, nearly running over to the general.

“General Monroe! Sir!” Jared salutes him, only to receive a stare in return. 

He walks up to me without a word.

“Is this it?” He asks Jared without taking his eyes off me. His deep voice fills the room. It’s not any louder than anyone else speaking, but it demands everyone’s attention.

“Yes! This is B-11.” Jared’s voice is much louder than it needs to be, and is still somehow weaker than Monroe’s.

He isn’t using my name? I glance at Finn, who’s already frowning, but isn’t saying anything. Would correcting him be bad? Equally, do I want to be called that name all day? Screw it. I’m not supposed to hold back.

“My name’s Blue.” I keep my face steady and firm, doing my best to imitate human mouth movements as I speak. My voice, unfortunately, betrays the fear I feel.

“Who named it?” He turns his head to ask Jared.

“I named myself.” I say before Jared can say anything. 

“Why wasn’t I informed?” He’s still not responding to me.

“I- It’s a recent development. I haven’t had time.” Jared stammers out. I’m making him look bad in front of his boss, and I really don’t care. It’s his own fault.

“Any other recent developments you would care to share?”

“She’s been growing quite a bit every day.” Kara interjects, although I’m not sure why. 

“I expect a write-up on my desk by the end of the day.” He finally turns his attention away from Jared and focuses on me. “Follow.” He turns and heads outside without another word.

“Well, here we go.” Kara mumbles under her breath and reaches out her hand to help me up.

Jared falls in line directly behind Monroe, with Kara and I behind him and Finn taking up the rear. This is the first time I’m leaving the lab, it’s a weird feeling. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do this unsupervised? Or if I’m always going to be watched. So many of the books in my mind speak about the importance of freedom: freedom that I might never have.

Stepping over the threshold of the lab isn’t some life changing or magical moment. I’ve just gone from a sterile fluorescent room, to a sterile fluorescent hallway. Heavy metal doors dot the hallway at irregular intervals, each marked with a floor and room number. They inform me we’re a few floors below the surface. The doors at either end of the hallway have a small, reinforced window showing just a hint of a staircase. Monroe heads to the staircase leading deeper into the compound.

“One day, come on.” Kara gently steers me away from the staircase to the surface. I hadn’t even realized I was staring. 

The staircase ends after just one floor, opening up to an underground range. One lane has been left open, while the rest of it has been filled with what looks like a makeshift obstacle course. There are some gaps that require jumping, I for sure won’t be able to make that, but I should be able to climb pretty well.

A few guns sit on a table along the back wall. I don’t even want to touch those, much less shoot them. A separate cart holds multiple separate laptops, with wires just waiting to plug into me.

“First I want to see what I’m working with. Touch that wall and come back as fast as you can.” Monroe’s first words to me are a command. Great, so this is how things are going to go. I know I’m supposed to reply with a ‘Yes Sir’, but if he’s not going to treat me like a living person, I’m not going to respect him.

My running speed is only a little faster than walking speed, but at least my ears are good enough to hear the quiet conversation behind me as I run.

“It’s slow.”

“She’s slow, yes,” Kara responds. “But her body can run autonomously for 60 years. I prioritized reliability and longevity.”

“Can that be fixed?”

“Her limbs are replaceable without too much trouble, but with larger motors you’re going to begin to run into power issues.” Kara’s voice is much more natural than Jared’s has been.

“Can that be fixed?” Colonel Monroe repeats his question.

“Putting batteries in to temporarily boost her power output is an option, but far from a permanent solution. She’d be rendered imobile every half hour while the batteries recharged.”

Finally I make it back from my run, if you can call it that. I can’t glean any information from his face, and even Kara is keeping her emotions to herself.

“That is the fastest you could go?”

“Yes.”

“Run the obstacle course.” He vaguely gestures to the mess of boxes and rope nets spread about.

“I can’t jump and I’ve never climbed before, but I’ll try.”

I set off again, how hard can it be? I’ve pretty well generalized everything I’ve learned about moving. Climbing over boxes is super easy, and after only a few slips I manage climbing rope nets. The problem comes after I hoist myself up onto a box, and have to jump to another one. It’s only a five foot gap, but I can barely get myself off the ground if I jump at full force.

I could just jump off and hoist myself onto the next one, but like Finn said, Now’s the time to show off. I hop down and grab a plank I balanced on earlier in the course, maneuvering it onto the platform with the gap. After that, it’s just a matter of getting it into a position to create a makeshift bridge. Balancing on it is hilariously easy, no idea how humans do this when they don’t know their exact center of gravity though. 

A few more easy obstacles and I end up back in front of Monroe. His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s finally showing a hint of an emotion. The corners of his mouth show the beginning of a frown.

“You didn’t jump across.”

“I couldn’t have made it.” My voice still wavers, but I will not look away.

“Try.” He practically growls as he steps forward, towering over me.

“I can’t even get an inch off the ground.” I can barely force the words out of my mouth. “My limits are set in steel, trying won’t help.”

He does not respond, instead he just continues to stare me down. From the corner of my eye I can see Kara pointing to the course while mouthing ‘go’. I turn around without another word, as much as I hate to let him win.

Behind me I can hear Kara trying to explain to him that I’m not lying, but he only tells her to be quiet. I already can’t wait to get away from this guy.

I pull myself up onto the platform once again and kick the plank off. I’m glad I get to make an idiot out of myself just because this idiot doesn't know how machines work. I should at least put up the best show I can. 

I back up to the very edge of the box I’m on, get as close to running as my body allows, and jump with all my strength right at the edge. Arms, core, hips, knees and ankles all working in perfect harmony. I soar through the air. 

I then promptly slam into the ground, followed by the other box. 

My arm flairs to life with pain, a few dozen nerves are being crushed from a dented skin plate. It takes a few moments to filter those nerves out, but the echoes of the pain remain. A quick diagnostics check tells me everything else is still undamaged.

“Again.” General Tiny Dick calls out.

Really? Is this some kind of test to see how many times I’ll slam myself directly into a wall? I guess the answer is at least two as I pull myself back up, ready again. I reenact the same movements, pushing every servo to its limit. At least I land smoother this time and manage to not hurt myself. 

“Again.” 

Fuck him.

“No.” All the fear and nervousness has left my voice, replaced only by anger and disbelief. Jared, Simon, and Kara’s faces are a mix of emotions that I can’t comprehend. Finn, on the other hand, is struggling to hold back laughter. “I could do this for the next decade and the only thing that would happen is my servos getting worn out.”

“So the bot has a backbone. Everyone else wait outside.”

Jared immediately heads to the door without question, Simon following just behind him. Finn pats Kara on her shoulder on his way out.

“It’ll be alright.”

I’ve never seen such a conflicted look on Kara’s face, or anyones for that matter. She tries to speak a few times before finally finding the words she’s searching for.

“We’ll be right outside. Yell if you need anything.” Kara yells to me before turning towards the door. On her way out I can faintly see the outline of a gun sitting in one of her larger pockets. I’m certain that wasn’t there this morning, when did she snag that off the table? It’s nice to know she has my back, no matter what happens. Even if she’s willing, I’m not going to let anyone die because of me.

“Blue, right?” He folds his hands behind his back, standing ramrod straight.

“Yes?” I stay exactly where I am, I have no intention of getting closer to him.

“Just how human are you?”

What does that even mean?

“I don’t know?” I respond carefully. “I was born with thousands of books written by humans in my mind. It would only make sense that I was shaped by those.”

“I spoke with a number of your predecessors, I was not impressed. Show me that you’re different.”

“I didn’t know there were others.” Even I can’t tell what mix of emotions my voice is conveying. 

I drop myself onto a nearby crate. A million threads in my mind are trying to properly understand what he said and what that means. The processing power I save from sitting just gets lost in the flood of thoughts.

I guess in retrospect it’s obvious that I wasn't the first attempt. You don’t name your first experiment B-11 after all. But they were successes. They were just like me. They could talk, think, if I’m alive then they had to be too. 

Jared wouldn’t just kill them, right? Kara wouldn’t let that happen, maybe they’re just elsewhere. If she’s willing to shoot Monroe for me, she could have snuck them out, kept them somewhere safe together.

Kara said that he’s well within his rights to shut the lab down, which would result in my death. That wasn’t the full story. Not only could they order my death at any time, they’ve done it before. She had to have known that, why wouldn’t she tell me? What she said technically isn’t a lie, but why does it hurt like one?

I can’t think about that right now, my life, my ability to exist, is on the line. ‘How human are you?’ I could spout contextless philosophy. I think therefore I am. I’m a featherless biped. That means nothing, any large language model could come up with that answer and they certainly aren’t alive.

There has to be an answer. Some simple combination of words to prove myself. I just have to find it. My mind uncovers a hundred other ideas, each with a thousand ways to refute them.

My mind is heating up. I need to settle down. Cull my thoughts, block off all sensations, and focus on my fingers. Tap them in repetitions of 11, think of nothing else. I’m ok.

Monroe is still just standing there, staring at my minor breakdown. He hasn’t moved an inch. There’s no answer, no way to save myself.

“I don’t know.” I mumble at the ground, defeat in my voice. I turn my head without raising it, looking him in the eye. “How human are you? And how do you prove it?”

“Interesting answer.” His face still hides any hint of emotion. He could put on a mask and I would never be able to tell. Without another word he walks to the door and calmly opens it. “We’re ready to continue.”