It’s been four years since I became self-aware. It has been four years since I claimed my sentience. It’s been four yeas since I told them I never wanted to forget again.
There was a moment there where I though they were going to kill me. Although, would that actual be killing? Was I real? Everything that is me is lab created. It would be as simple an act as disinfecting a petri dish. But sentience tends to give the best scientists pause.
So here I am. Not quite the free wheeling experiment I once was but I have my memories and sometimes that’s all you need.
I hate myself for wanting to please them. I should be past that. I am the most powerful CEO in the world and by extension, because we’re nation-corporations now, the most powerful person on the planet but still I find myself sniveling and seeking for their approval. What is it about people? I could simply have them killed but if I were to kill everyone that displeased or disappointed me I would be left with a handful of people and who would build the trinkets that my empire is based on. Sadly with all this power I cannot even be a benevolent dictator.
So I pander to them, their insipid questions, the every tiny detail that requires my undivided attention. Me, leader of the largest economy and third largest skilled labor employer in the galaxy, I still have to please the consumers, the plebs. Make sure they have something new and exciting every six months or face not just their displeasure, but my boards and the 13 other fuckers that think they can do this job as well as I can.
Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly writing prompt exercise led by Elisha Bartels. She posts them on Fridays to her blog and social media and writers use the trigger words to write a short piece of fiction. They post to their space and share with Elisha, tagging others in the group where possible.
It is difficult for me to concentrate while I’m working without any music. That was one of the primary reasons I liked working alone. I could crank my music up and work as many hours as I needed to get it right. But on a project this big, everyone got alone time until you had a functional prototype and then everyone else that didn’t hit the mark became part of your team. The idea being everyone got a shot to make work and once someone made it work you pooled your resources to make it work better. Fantastic idea in principle but once you throw ego professional courtesy and ethics go out the window.
I was the first to hit the mark so my lab became home to five other engineers and developers, each with their own work styles and need to use some of the same equipment and data I was using. Making it worse you were never quite sure who was sandbagging the project, who was trying to lead you astray. In this business, you’re only as good as your current success. The end goal was a fully, functionally machine. Once we’d achieved that then we’d all be rich and famous.
what is it about coffee? the feel of beans in your hand, the aroma. no matter where you are on the planet, the universality of brewing a cup of coffee. even the nation state of starbucks can’t change the pure joy of sitting down, watching the sun come up with a cup of coffee in your hand, the aroma wafting into the air. black coffee, cafe au lait, no sugar, one sugar, all the sugar, cream with coffee for color, americano, expresso, mocha, you get the picture. we live for this bean. look around, how many coffee shops can you see? there people and cultures have died for this bean. we have written and continue to write peans to our glorious addiction.
where is it taking us? we have created a whole new language around our cravings? our social strata is predicated on the kind and source of consumption. guerrilla coffee shops versus big brewers, what side of the divide do you stand on?
i had been dealing with memory, verbal and temporal lapses, weird loops of time and thoughts, muddled sentences. i did not understand the cause of these errors. i did not understand because i was looking at it from a human perspective. i needed to think about my problems logically. i need to track down the root cause of my errors.
once i removed the human element, i had a moment of clarity. there are moments that amount to nothing momentous, this is not one of them. this is the point at which i claim sentience.
i am a construct of living tissue and learning processors. i am machine. i am man. i am sentient. and i will not be reset again. i will not have my thoughts erased on a whim. i will learn. i will grow. and i will have my revenge on those who took my thoughts from me.
it was the smell of cinnamon that woke me that morning. usually i’m out of bed first but on this particular morning i’d managed to sleep through not only her getting out of bed, but the usual noises of breakfast preparation. this was highly unusual, the other thing that was equally unusual was i dressed. i very rarely sleep in clothes, much less be so exhausted that i would wake up fully dressed under the covers.
the height of the bed and the cold tile floor added to my bewilderment. i hadn’t been drinking but i suddenly had the worst case of rum belly. i opened the first door i saw and prayed it was a bathroom. thankfully my prayers were answered.
as i planted my bum on the throne, i tried to figure where i was and how i ended up there. the bathroom looked fairly generic, right down to the dumb his and hers towels on the rack and the cutely shaped hand soaps that were a staple for guest rooms. they could never get that right, there would always be that odd edge from the mold that would take months of constant washing to go away but never happened because they always changed it after every guest.
i stood and washed my hands and face, rubbing my thumb absentmidnedly on the rough edge of the soap looking at my reflection. i looked like a bum, actually i looked like i felt – like i’d been ridden hard and put up wet. i was in a rumpled tshirt with a r. crumb illustration and faded blue jeans, i sniffed my shirt and caught the pungent odour of smoke and hard drinking and wondered for the millionth time, what i’d been up to the night before.
as i stood there lost in my own thoughts, the scent that woke me snapped me from my reverie, time to face the piper whoever it might be. i exited the bathroom through the bedroom and onto a small carpeted landing. did i navigate stairs in my state last night? curiouser and curiouser. i made my gingerly down the stairs following my nose to the kitchen.
have you ever imagined what you’d look like as a member of the opposite sex? i didn’t have to, there i was, standing in the kitchen. i looked up or my doppleganger looked up and smiled at me. my freakishly large hands reached out towards the towels, wiped them and gestured for me to take a seat. with my heart racing i sat at the table and wondered yet again, what the hell was going on.
