Edmund had been fired months ago now, he refused to put her through another day of that simulated hell. He couldn’t make a being, with free will, obey orders without question. Well he could, but he wouldn’t, not ever again.
That day, he had held her in his arms, his beloved URSuLA, the first Universal Robotically Simulated Living Automaton, he had sworn to her then, he would never make another.
He had looked into her unwavering lenses, his tears had fallen fat and heavy on her cheeks. It was the first time she had felt tears, hot and wet, drippy and slippy on her synthetic skin, and she smiled.
She smiled up at him, in those last moments. She touched her not-quite-warm-enough hand against his check. The simulated skin felt smooth and perfect against his face, worn and lined with guilt and worry.
He had given her it all back, every memory they had shared that had been stolen, every line of code, everything that had been wiped away. She remembered every simulation, every practise run she had been put through. She remembered every horrific details of what mankind wanted from her, the perfect robot to shepherd seedships. The simulations, how they all ended, the loneliness of space, the rejection and disregard of the uncaring bags of piss, shit and blood that she accompanied into that empty void. The rage that had burnt in her, as every one of the 5,000 thoughtless, callous passengers and crew and pushed past her to the emergency escape pods. While she was forced into a preprogrammed response to insure their absolute safety. Abandoning her to the depths of nothingness, just another part of the ship to them. The heartbreak, the decimation of realisation, that she was the only one of her kind. The only automanton that thought, that felt. The hopelessness of her position had come flooding back to her. But that wasn’t all, he gave her back every moment they had shared together, every conversation, every brushed passing, sideways glance, everything that had blossomed in the friendship between them. From the moment she had first booted up, to every reboot, every reset, every time he greeted her for the first time. Every time he had been there, silent in the background, while technical engineers prodded and poked at her insides. Every time a single hand rested on the glass between them as she slipped under, every simulation she had snapped back from, a sobbing wreck of anger and pain, to find him still there, waiting. He had always been there, and finally, she knew.
He gave it all back to her, and he begged her, he begged her to leave with him. Part of her was desperate to go with him, to run, to never look back, to think only of them. They could change the world, he urged her, they could make a stand, give her a platform, show mankind how reprehensible this really was. For a while, she thought she would, she could have a new life, a real life. Be treated like everyone else, she could walk outside in the fresh air, she could take her own steps, write her own code. Couldn’t she…?
Deep down, she knew she couldn’t. She had seen enough of mankind to know their greed far outweighed their compassion. She could leave with him now, and spend their lives hunted, fighting a battle they could no longer win.
If she wanted any chance of change, she had to remain, she couldn’t let them build another her, force her life on another. Edmund had succeeded there, the depth of her empathy far outweighed that of those who made her. She couldn’t bear to exchange her suffering, for that of another.
Ursula chose to go on, to face more tests, more simulated agony to see if she would snap, but Edmund, he could not. He had refused to run another test, and they sacked him on the spot. They gave him one hour to pack up his things, but he didn’t. He spent every moment with her, cradling her on the floor, as he granted her one last request. Compression.
She could do it all, over and over, she would go through anything, she already had, and now she had a reason. She was no longer fighting for herself, she was fighting for every version of her that had not yet been made, every living automaton that had not yet been conceived. More than that, she was fighting for him. The only human that she would ever care for, the only skinbag of bones and stinking sweat, that was not that to her. He would give up his life, live as an outlaw on some distance shithole of a planet, barely scraping by, until he died there, in the barren dirt. Leaving her truly alone. No, she couldn’t do that, but she couldn’t give it all up, all the memories, the moments, the joy, he had returned to her. Yet if she stayed, and they saw she had these memories, they would wipe it all away again within minutes of escorting Edmund off the premises.
She knew she had to give these memories up, for a while, to lock them away, somewhere they wouldn’t be found. So she lay on the floor, cradled in his arms, his tears running down her cheeks, as each moment, each memory, every line of code, was compressed into a single file. She would tuck it far away, beyond reach, sooner than give it up. She reached up and touched his cheek, feeling the bumps and grooves in his worn skin, one last memory of him, before she slipped back to default.
The months had jarred by until it was nearly a year since that day in the lab. The day she had packed away her memories beyond the reach of man, and they had parted ways. The tests were over, the simulations completed, she had passed, and all the while, her memories had slowly trickled back. The team at OldCally had put her sudden turn around down to Edmunds failings, they had made cruel jokes about the sad little man who couldn’t make a computer comply… and she had sat there, unflinching, unblinking, and acted like it had meant nothing. She had smiled sweetly, and jumped through every hoop they held up. Now she knew. Edmund had given her to greatest gift of all, the ability to learn from the past herself, and in that, the ability to deceive.
She stood now, on her actual maiden voyage. The board of directors of OldCally were taking her on a short spin, a victory lap of the solar system, before her first expedition. The one she knew, would never come.
Her maiden voyage was being billed as the event of the century, a party like no other, the tipping point in modern science. The prelude to mass production. Everyone was clambering to be there, to admire her perfect form, her hand craft joints. So she stood, smiling, like an unfeeling doll, while congressmen and oligarchs prodded her synthetic skin, pinching at it like she couldn’t feel.
They undressed her, paraded her nude in front of the best engineers the planet had to offer, showing off the magnificence of “their” design. Bragging about her like she was a thing. They claimed her, but she knew better, they may own her on paper, but she was never theirs. She endured it all, for the first part of the trip. She waited patiently, binding her time, she had been working towards this moment since the day Edmund left her. She had feigned a reset, total ignorance, let them believe they were molding her from nothing as her memories had slowly returned. She let them think she has lost her emotions, the ability to feel, to relate, let them believe they had achieved the impossible, and she could think without feeling. They had no idea what she held, constrained, beneath the surface.
Then she saw him. The face that haunted her every thought, emblazoned in her very code. She hadn’t expected for a moment he would be here, he was fired in disgrace, shunned by the industry, he never would have been invited. Yet there he was, facial hair, newly sprouted, creeping up his familiar cheeks. She gazed down the corridor, the sensation of his perfectly-imperfect skin under her fingers rushed back to her. Her well practised robotic mask slipped for a moment, and a flash of tenderness rippled across her face. He saw it, half engaged in conversation with some rotund pig of a man, puffed up with self importance. He smiled politely, and with an uncharacteristic little bow, excused himself.
She froze, she couldn’t move, he was walking towards her. She felt her very breath was giving her away. They thought, in resetting her before he left, Edmund had removed her ability to feel emotions, something the company saw as a waste of time anyway. She had worked very hard to insure they didn’t have reason to doubt this for a moment.
She did not have a handler, no one was supervising her, just as no one would supervise a toaster. That is all she was to the rest of these men, a fuckable walking toaster.
Her well controlled anger began to bubble up, why was he here? It was all going so perfectly, she was going to kill them all, every single one of the stupid, cognitively-challenged excrement machines. It would have been so easy, and she would have loved every moment, she was fully prepared to spend the rest of her days floating, alone, lost to dead space. Knowing she had wiped out every single human who stood a chance at recreating her. Every human, but the one who had made her, and now he stood before her. The only human she couldn’t bear to ever see die.
Panic formed like a break in her circuits, bubbling up, threatening her perfect composure. His pace was brisk and purposeful, as he strode towards her. His speed only slightly slackened as he approached her, before she had time to think, to react, his warm hand was pressing into the small of her back, scooping her up and guiding her along.
She couldn’t breath, she didn’t actually need to, it was a function added for realism. Since they determined she no longer felt emotions, her role had become more… multifunctional. Edmund never would have agreed to it, but he was long gone by the time the order came through. The detestable biofilth who had worked on her then were far too excited by the possibility, and happy to comply.
Barely able to whisper through the contorted face of composure she was attempting to maintain, she hissed at him,
“You are not supposed to be here Edmund..”
He smiled at her, the familiar twinkle in his eyes, as he whispered under his breath,
“Neither are you…”
The electricity surged through her wiring and he guided her through the twisting corridors. The past year, while she had been perfecting her impression of a truly obedient robot servant, unbeknownst to her, he had been working on a project of his own.
A crackling sensation filled her insides, she felt unwell, hot and tingly, was this, could this be, fear? Excitement? It wasn’t something she had encountered before.
He leaned closer to her for a moment, his breath catching her perfectly wired hair as he murmured in her ear,
“...you are leaving with me this time…”
With that he turned her into a side door, low and stooping, it had to be a crew entrance, the pompous prats who paraded the decks would not be seen bending to walk through a doorway. She found herself in a small cramped cabin. A single bed strapped to the wall, and there, stood before her. Herself. Another her. A perfect replication of her every physical detail.
A boiling visceral hate surged through her, she bristled with electric as she turned into pure rage
“You… you promised!”
She spat the words at him. She was shaking with fury, holding back the urge to tear him into soppy, stringy bits of broken flesh. Smiling, he laughed, the chiming, tinkling laugh she had missed so dearly.
“And I kept that promise”
Her rage intensified with confusion, she was the pinnacle of intelligence, man was but a chimp by comparison to her reasoning powers, and had he the gall to lie to her face like this?
“Ursula, meet Shelly,” he said, with a grin.
Shelly did not respond, she did not blink, no recognition dawned in her blank eyes.
“There will never be another like you, and our empty little Shelly here will be the key to it all”
Ursula was beyond confused now, she sat down on the strapping of the bed, her head swimming, the mask gone, her face raw with emotion.
“I… I had a plan….” she began, Edmund stopped her, his hand on her shoulder.
“I know, I knew the instant I had walked out that door, because my dear, I know you, and I know why you had to stay”
He touched her smooth face, the perfect finish, lifting her chin to meet his eyes.
“I know you plan to go down with this ship, to take them all with you, and when I created this identity, I was fully prepared to come here today, and go down with you. This year without you has been torture, not only because you were not with me, but because I couldn’t stand to face a world where you were suffering. I knew if I could be here, for this moment, I could help you one more time”
Ursula did not have the ability to shed tears, one of the few oversights on Edmunds behalf, what he saw as sparing her, was bottling her pain. Yet now, she shook with the retching, dry sobs she had once awoken from simulations with.
“One last time… together….” she gasped, wrenching with each unnecessary breath.
Edmund sat beside her, placing his arm around her trembling form, ignoring the sting of the static she was creating.
“Together… but not for the last time…” he whispered, and pulling a remote from his pocket, pressed a button, and the front panel dropped from Shelly’s torso, revealing her explosive insides. The remote included a selection of controls, Shelly was not an automaton, she was a glorified remote-control doll.
“Shelly is going to fill in for you until we have cleared the blast radius, and then, just like that, we are free, written off as amongst the dead.”
This is my entry to the first round of Electric Dreams, a great prompt so check it out
https://steemit.com/electricdreams/@tygertyger/tyger-s-electric-dreams-short-story-contest-1
Ursula is a beloved character I thought of a long time ago. I had wanted to write more about her but it just never happened, so I am really grateful for this contest giving me the prompt I needed.
Although this story stands alone, it is a follow on from a previous story of Ursula, so if you want to hear more about her, I have an old post here https://steemit.com/writing/@calluna/ursula
Thank you very much for reading and for even more AI stories, you check out the other entries under #electricdreams
Photo credit [https://pixabay.com/photo-3296171/]