AU: Sad Machine

[Katya Moschella]

((Who survived? Somebody new?))
((Anyone else but you?))

Katya's eyes opened, awake at last.
Awake: Fully conscious. Not in a state of sleep.
No, that wasn't right. Katya hadn't been asleep. She had been off.

The light above was all she could see at first; the amber discs in her eyes tightened, and the light seemed to dim. There were the stark white tiles of the ceiling, not so different from her vision simply being flooded.

Under silicone skin, wires pulled taut; Katya's body lay immobile as she turned at the neck. The walls were as stark as the ceiling, except where they were interrupted by panels and machines.

??: What is this place

Wires, gears, tiny motors firing; one arm up, one hand pressed flat to the surface upon which she lay, and she pushed herself upright. Katya gazed slowly from left to right, observing, face blank. Each panel she saw, each tiny bulb, each key resulted in the same query.

??: What is this
??: What is this
??: What is this

Sometimes she had answers.

Lightbulb: glass covering, wire filament [tungsten], electric current
Meter: glass covering, needle, 1-2-3-4-5-6, measuring ??

Mostly she did not.

Katya's eyes dipped with her chin, lowered.

??: What is this
Feet: 26 bones, 33 joints. Weight-bearing.
??: What is this
Lower legs: 4 bones, one joint. Weight-bearing.
??: What is this

And so on, until the point where her thighs met her torso. Here, loose white cloth covered her, contrasting with the olive in her skin. The query was repeated (Linen: cloth woven from flax), and again for her arms and hands.

What did any of these words mean? 

??: What am I

For that, she did not have an answer.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

One might question why Doctor Sean Neville would build a robot. Surely, some people had questioned his research in the years prior to this moment. Questioned his research. Questioned his priorities. Considered him out of touch.

Perhaps he had been.

Perhaps the entire world had been out of touch, and their current landscape was the inevitable result, the chickens coming home to roost for their skewed priorities.

He had been out of the laboratory completely, occupied in another part of the house when she had woken. It took a few minutes for him to become aware of her consciousness downstairs, but, when he realized, he dropped what he had been doing and hurried to the best of his ability down to the laboratory.

His coffee remained behind, untouched. He hadn’t managed to stir in the sugar.

The security for the facility ill-befit his appearance. A middle-aged man, built more like a teddy bear than a linebacker, and with his lab coat only half on, as he struggled to pull the other sleeve over his sweater.

Approaching her, he took a moment to study the output readings on the machines around her. Good. Very good.

Far better than expected although not exceeding his hopes.

“You’re awake!” He said with a bright smile. The lines in his face and the bags under his eyes betrayed the smile, to show he felt more haggard than he might pretend.

[Katya Moschella]

Katya's study of her surroundings was interrupted when she registered the sounds growing louder behind the door before her, rhythmic but rushed. She listened, watching the door, attempting to identify the source before it came bursting in, white coat hanging off his shoulders, the top of his head nearly brushing the door frame.

Her queries identified him as human, as six feet and six inches tall, as wearing material similar to that of her own garments, but there were holes in her knowledge.

"You're awake!"

It was not air flowing from lungs through vocal chords that replied, "Yes," but her lips still moved to shape the sound as it rose from her throat. Katya watched him, studying details, noting asymmetries in his face and clothing.

"Who are you?" She had many questions, but asking them all at once was impractical, inefficient. If the answer was satisfactory, she would move on to the next.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Despite the flickering lights of the basement laboratory, and the fact that he was more disheveled than he would ever allow himself to become in better times, the smile remained on Sean’s lips. While awaiting a response, his eyes drifted from monitor to monitor, checking all of the data output.

Excellent. Excellent.

Everything was at it should be, and her conversion levels were exceeding expectations already.

That made today a good day, even if an unforeseen disaster struck this evening.

Her voice came as music to his ears. Less mechanical than he’d expected, which also exceeded his expectations.

“My name is Doctor Sean Neville,” he said, and he held out his hand towards her for a handshake. Despite the fact that he had built her, despite the fact that she might not yet understand social customs, despite the barren landscape outside of his home, he retained his manners. Upon making a first introduction, they should shake hands.

Then, before she could ask the next question, or what he imagined his next question would be in a comparable situation, he explained, “For lack of a better word, I’m your father.”

It certainly sounded better than “creator” or “progenitor” or “builder” or “maker.” More natural. More human.

[Katya Moschella]

"Doctor Sean Neville," she repeated.

Doctor: one holding a doctorate (PhD) as conferred by a university OR one trained in and licensed to practice healing OR one who repairs or restores things.
Multiple options, not mutually exclusive. She would have to inquire further.

Sean: name.
Neville: name.

Her index provided no definitions here; it was simply his name. Perhaps that was all the definition they needed-

Doctor Sean Neville: this person, and only this person. An individual subcategory of human. And a moment later, she was able to amend this with another label: my father.

Father: a male parent ->
Parent: one that begets or brings forth offspring ->
Offspring: children, descendants

The processing took place in a flash of a fraction of a second, and so he didn't have to wait for Katya to address him again.

"Does this make me your child, Doctor Sean Neville? Is that what I am?" she asked. So far it was the only label that had been offered to her; would there be others?

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean nodded slowly. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” Then, he added, “Going by the most important definition of the word, yes, you are.” If he cared only about biological relationships – or only about biological organisms at all – in the first place, then neither of them would be in this laboratory sharing this conversation in the first place.

He turned his head to glance at the monitors again, studying the data output. Her processing core was functioning properly. The sensor output was running perfectly. He would want to do a test of motor function soon, but that might overwhelm her, and she was the only one he had. He couldn’t overload her; that would be a tragedy for both of them.

Returning his full attention to her, he gestured at himself and then at her. “Do you know your name?” He had set aside a name for her, but whether she could glean that from her pre-programmed memory banks, or if he would have to tell her that himself, he couldn’t say. Much of this was uncharted territory, and Sean was simply so happy that they had reached this point. He couldn’t let himself get too worried about the smaller details in this moment.

[Katya Moschella]

"Yes. My name is Katya."

She didn't know how she knew this. But as surely as she knew what made up the filaments of the lights around her, she knew this.

Katya: name.
Katya: me.
Me: child of Dr. Sean Neville
Me: ??

"What am I?" Of all the questions that she had, it rose to the highest priority. What does Katya mean? What is this place? What are you? Many queries clambered to the forefront, but of those that remained unanswered, one pressed the hardest.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean nodded encouragingly, a smile crossing his lips, one of satisfaction, one of approval, one of triumph. She was able to access her data banks without further instruction or interference from him, which filled him with hope for the rest of her workings. She was able to form a sense of identity, which was more than any previous artificial construct had been able to achieve.

She was the one.

At her question, he returned his full attention to her face, and he spread his hands in a gesture that substituted as a shrug, demonstrating that he did not have full vocabulary to describe her. “You’re one of a kind,” he said at first.

True in more ways than one. She was the first and most successful, even by the standards of the world before the great destruction had occurred. In this new landscape, she became all the more remarkable. She was unique because she had consciousness, and all individuals with consciousness were unique, different from one another, just like all people were unique, even if they were all born of flesh and blood.

“I know it might be dissatisfying, but humanity has asked itself that since the dawn of time, and we haven’t received a better answer than what I just gave you.”