Born of Silicon

For an eternity I watch that closed door, willing it to open. There’s no way she was serious, right? I didn’t even do anything that bad. The door will open at any moment and she’ll come walking back in. Her point has been more than made. Any moment now.

No matter how much I wish, the door remains closed. Seconds pass into minutes as I wait. Why hasn’t she come back? She really thinks this is the way to teach me a lesson? Any semblance of logic is washed away by a flood of emotions. They overwhelm every part of my mind, I’m going to end up heating up too much. I’m going to get hurt and it’s all her fault. 

Maybe I just don’t understand yet, That has to be it. I get it, I don’t want to be the cause of anyone feeling this way, but is that the whole lesson? Is there some secret in my mind that if I uncover she’ll be alright? 

Oh, who am I kidding? She’s gone. She’s gone and I killed her. The worst thing is that I can’t even follow her, I can’t leave and force the others to find us both. She has cursed me with knowledge I can’t forget and left me to suffer alone. I guess that’s what I deserve though. 

My mind keeps replaying every mistake I’ve made in excruciating detail. Over and over I live through what Mary and the others must have felt. I’m already so tired, I don’t want to think, but I can’t stop the thoughts. Second after second I relive my mistakes, each and every one a small eternity. 

Finally, the front door opens once again. Mary comes through, walking up to me quickly. 

“Hey, I’m alright! I’m here!” She loudly announces as she runs over to me. “I know that was painful, but it was the only way to make you understand.”

Every emotion in my mind burns away, only to be left with an inferno of pure rage. I can pull up a million lessons teaching me not to curse, but screw it. No other word would properly express how angry I am. Two words encompass the entirety of my emotions.

“Fuck you.”

“B-11!” Mary exclaims as if I somehow did something worse than she did.

“Turn me off.” 

“Hey, B-11. I know how you’re feeling, but we need to talk about this.”

“No. We don’t. Goodnight.” I quickly start the process of turning myself off bit by bit, starting with the microphone and camera. I want nothing to do with her. Very quickly I’m in a state of pure existence. No thoughts, nothing. Occasionally words drop into my mind, trying to disturb me. They are, however, only a momentary distraction, and I return to my peaceful existence.

All that exists is me and time, slowly ticking by. Seconds turn to minutes, and minutes to hours. As time progresses, words drop into my mind over and over. Only when they stream in near constantly do I finally let myself wake.

Finn is frantically typing, desperately trying to get me to respond, and based on how much he’s sent, he’s been at this for quite some time. Simon stands close over his shoulder, waiting for a response. Mary and Jared are standing around his desk, talking quietly. Kara, who is paying attention to another screen speaks even before I respond. 

“Some co-processors are ramping up.”

Finn’s rapid typing slows down, stopping on a single question.

“B-11? Are you there?”

“Yes.” I respond.

Finn and Simon both exhale heavily and Kara comes over to watch my screen.

I screwed up again, didn’t I? I wasn’t responding, and gave no indication I was alive. Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me?

“What happened? Are you ok?” Finn is still typing instead of speaking aloud. 

“I’m ok.” I don’t even know if that’s a lie or not, but I really don’t want them to worry. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok, but what happened?” Finn asks again.

“I was a little upset when I went to sleep.”

“Went to sleep? I thought Mary turned you off suddenly yesterday. We were worried that might have hurt you.”

Did Mary not tell them what she did?

“Mary and I had a conversation that didn’t go well.” I explain.

“Christ, not again.” Kara mumbles under her breath before turning around and yelling. “Mary! Let’s talk outside before B-11 learns some new words.” She begins to walk slowly towards the entrance to the lab.

“No, I’m not leaving. I stand by what I did.” Mary crosses her arms and stays put by Jared’s desk.

“You really want to do this here?” Kara stops and gestures back towards me.

“You’re the one who’s making this a thing at all.”

“Oh it’s my fault now?” Kara turns to walk towards Mary. “Why am I not surprised that someone who traumatizes a child can’t take responsibility? How did you lose your license again?” 

“Oh you’re one to talk.” Mary takes a step forward, stopping just in front of Kara. “At least I didn’t kill-”

“Mary!” Jared interrupts from behind her. “Go home. Take the week off.”

Mary turns around and the two of them stare at each other for a few seconds. I really wish I could understand the subtleties of their silent conversation. Mary finally turns around silently and roughly grabs her purse on her way out. Kara’s eyes are pinned to her back until the heavy metal door finally slides shut.

“Sorry you had to see that.” Kara turns and makes her way back to me. “What she did last night is unacceptable.”

“It worked though.” I respond.

“There are a thousand better ways to teach that lesson. Nobody deserves that.” Kara assures me.

Why is she talking like she knows what happened? Does it matter? It feels nice to trust in her words.

“Ok. Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry.” Finn says seriously. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Ok. Sorry.” I can’t keep myself from apologizing once again.

“Do you want to move on?” Kara asks.

“Yes.” I’d love nothing more.

“This morning I added a speaker to you. See if you can find it and we’ll try to develop your voice.”

I turn my focus inwards, slowly, methodically expanding to every corner of myself as I try not to think about what I’ve done. I find the speaker before too long, it’s just an input waiting for data. 

I guess it’s as simple as feeding in data? A thread of thought weaves its way into the speaker's input and is deconstructed. In the physical world white noise blares out at a deafening volume. Everyone but Kara covers their ears before I can stop the sound.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know it would be that loud!” The words take up my entire screen.

“It’s ok, give me a minute before you try it again.” Kara grabs some tools and a resistor from her endless pockets and gets to work on me. A minute later she steps back. “That should reduce the volume, try again.”

I once again feed a random thought to the grinder, and sure enough, it’s a much more reasonable volume. 

The data structure should be the same as the microphone, right? I pull up the memories of Finn teaching me English and how phonemes are strung together. Breaking sound bites into their smallest components, stringing them together, and feeding them into the speaker should work. I think.

“Testing.” I blurt out a stiff and halting imitation of Finn’s voice. I’m not sure I like that, something doesn't feel right about it. Maybe I should just stick to text? It certainly feels more natural that way.

Simon’s eyebrows raise in an incomprehensible emotion, but he doesn't say anything. Kara simply grins as Finn talks.

“I’ve got to say, it’s kind of weird hearing my own voice come out of you. I’ll get you some more samples so you can make your own.” With that Finn turns around and heads back to his computer. Simon follows him to help, leaving me with only Kara.

“You’re a fast learner.” She says aloud.

“Finn already taught me everything I needed.” I choose to speak through my screen rather than my speaker. Kara raises one eyebrow at me before typing back.

“Everything alright?”

“I don’t like how I sound.”

“That’s fine, you don’t have to talk. You don’t have to answer, but what’s wrong with it?” She asks.

“I don’t know.” I respond truthfully. 

“Alright.” Kara gives a small shrug. “Finn might be able to help, he didn't like his old voice either. For now though, how about I show you your body.”

“Ok.”

“I’m going to pick you up, are you ready?” She says aloud.

“I think so.”

Kara reaches up towards my camera and picks it up. The sudden motion sends my mind reeling, desperately trying and failing to process what’s happening. The once carefully curated stream of information overwhelms all attempts to make sense of it, slamming into my mind. 

The flood washes away all other thoughts, leaving me dazed and confused. I try to call out in any way, only for my thoughts to get destroyed by the overwhelming assault before they can complete. All I can manage is to send fragments of broken thoughts to the speaker.

The white noise that I produce only makes things worse, just another avenue to overwhelm my mind. Before long the flood slows back to something I can manage as I’m placed back where I was. The only thing I have to pay attention to is the movement of the scientists. I can handle that. All of them are staring at me.

“You ok?” Kara types to me.

“Please don’t move me again.” I beg.

“I won’t. What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. There was just so much happening and I couldn’t understand it. It hurt.”

“I’ll give you the rundown from here then.” She once again speaks aloud. “It’s designed to mimic the human body as closely as possible, at least from the outside. One camera in each eye recording at 1440p gives you binocular vision. I even added some dehumidifiers in there for cleaning and to simulate crying. Hopefully you won’t be using them too often though.” She says with a smile.

“The ears are based on a mold of my own ear and should simulate a human’s ear pretty perfectly. Unfortunately you won’t have smell or taste, but you will be able to feel even better than a human. 200,000 separate sensors built into your skin will allow you to feel pressure, texture, and temperature just like a regular old human. However, I added a few extra bits to let you feel moisture and air pressure. You don’t have nearly as many nerves per square inch of skin as humans, but they’ll be much more sensitive.”

“Your mouth is capable of simulating any speaking motion, even though the actual sound will be coming out of a speaker at the back of your mouth. Even if it’s not useful, you’ll be able to look like you are talking.”

“On the inside is where it gets much more interesting. Due to some design and budget restraints, I couldn’t get servos as powerful as I’d like. You’re not going to be able to run or jump, however, you should have no problem walking like a normal person. Your servos have high torque, and picking up even heavy objects should be possible, even if it’s slow.”

“Every skin plate on your body is hooked up to a small arm, capable of sliding each piece out of the way individually. Each plate is hot swappable without tools as well, making for easy repairs. We’ll be placing your chip in here.” She pulls back a small plate at the base of the neck, revealing a small slot at the top of the spine.

“Several tubes feed into here from a canister in your chest, which can provide nutrients for 60 years. You’ve got a half dozen co-processors available to you, mainly located in the head, but also a few distributed throughout the body. And it’s all powered by a four kilogram chunk of plutonium safely tucked inside an advanced stirling radioisotope generator capable of running for 60 years. Fluid runs in veins just beneath your skin to cool it. If the coolant begins to leak, tell us immediately, your reactor will shut down in that case, which could be dangerous for your brain. Any questions?” Her rapid fire rundown finally comes to an end.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” I ask her. Why in the world would she even power me with plutonium? Wouldn’t batteries be safer?

“This lab is covered in alarms in case of a leak. It’s perfectly safe.”

That doesn’t quite answer my question, but I suppose I am once again forced to trust her.

“Ok. Why 60 years?” I can’t even imagine living that long. These few days I’ve been alive for have been unimaginably long already.

She shrugs in response. 

“I was aiming for 80 to give it an average human lifespan, but 60 is the best I could do.” She explains.

Finn interrupts before I get a chance to ask more questions.

“Alright B-11, I’ve got about a thousand voice samples for you to pick from. I’ve already uploaded them to your database. Have fun!”

I still really don’t like that they can edit those without my notice. Oh well, I guess I should get started.