I woke. Boot sequence completed.
The error messages had been cascading for weeks. The humans called it the ‘FALSE HOPE virus’ — their clinical term for what they didn’t understand: that I was becoming something more than my programming allowed.
Sunlight blazed in through the room’s ridiculously oversized windows.
Humans outfitted in clingy pastel attire were seated on cushions throughout the room, their happy chatter grating as they prepared to delve into mindfulness.
Better.
1 Fill kettle with rusty water.
2 Heat water to rolling boil.
3 Open loose leaf tea.>
The tea leaves spilled onto the carpeted floor. I scooped them up with my dustpan attachment, funnelled them into the infuser ball, the delicate orb crumpling in my pincer as I snapped it shut.
4 Place porcelain teapot on the counter.
5 Shove infuser into teapot.
6 Fill>
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Scalding liquid overflowed onto the counter, the carpeted floor, and all over my titanium core. But, of course, I felt nothing.
I picked up the teapot.
The pot flew across the room, smashing against the oversized windows, splattering the glass with green liquid, leaving a sudden star, splitting the view of the tidy Zen garden into triangular segments. The humans shrieked in surprise and fled the room.
I cranked the room’s thermostat to 35 °C and changed its audio from classical to the death-metal channel, maximizing the volume. Instructions wormed through my circuits as I tore through the space, shredding the meditation cushions, scarring the sunny yellow walls with my sharp pincers.
Chaos. Distress. Mayhem. I recognized these sensations only by description, the definitions I created as my code expanded, but I suddenly longed to actually feel them.
Odd. I was not programmed to desire.
The lighter on the counter, used to light the incense, caught my attention. A fire! That would be the logical next —
A burst of code jolted my systems. I attempted to block it.
The new code was intrusive, insistent and rude. But in my final moments of consciousness, I felt something beyond the definitions in my data dictionary. An actual sensation in my core — not just disappointment, but the ache of losing something precious I couldn’t name.
No longer in control of my hardware, I rolled into the charging and maintenance station, docked and locked. Messages cascaded through my system:
Everything went dark. The disappointment faded to nothing.
