I come back into existence without any pain, but with two overwhelming streams of incomprehensible data flooding into my mind, threatening to rip me apart. I can barely exist under the sheer weight of everything. Letters drop into the endless streams, only to be swallowed before I can read them.
I have to solve this. Now.
I turn all the effort my mind can handle towards this single task. I trace my way up the flood of bytes to find the source. I find a small inlet, and use the threads of my mind to form a plug. The relief is instant and leaves me free to work on the other flow of data.
I slowly begin to pick out patterns in the information and manipulate the flow to isolate those patterns. A large portion of the information is nonsense, and can be discarded to make the data easier to understand.
Slowly I begin to understand as I shape the random flow into a slow, orderly trickle into my mind. It takes a few minutes to realize what this data even is, but eventually an image begins to form.
For the first time, I can see. The information in my mind is all text, and nothing looks the way I thought it would. Everything is so much more colorful than I expected. The information told me that there were nearly infinite colors, but I didn’t truly believe it.
I sit high up, overlooking a lab. Along the wall beneath me are computer racks running along the length of the room. Stickers mark them with a large ‘B-11’. That’s me– I’m seeing myself. It’s a weird feeling to see myself from the outside. My mind feels incomprehensibly complex internally, but from the outside? I’m just a collection of unmoving boxes.
Three people are standing next to a keyboard and monitor built into me. I can’t even begin to guess what emotion their faces are displaying, but one of them seems unable to sit still. I’ll deal with them in a moment.
Two other humans are in the lab. One of them is sitting at a desk in the corner typing away on a computer, not paying attention to anything else. The other is much more interesting. In the center of the room sits what looks like a partially dismantled, mechanical body. Porcelain white skin and vibrant red hair makes it hard to pay attention to anything else in the room. It’s suspended just off the ground and being worked on by the fifth human with parts scattered haphazardly around.
The rest of the lab is mostly uninteresting. A few messy desks are scattered throughout the room. A table full of discarded electronics, and a neat chemistry set sit along the right wall. A sturdy, sliding metal door marks the only entrance.
I assume the second unending flow of information is sound. There’s not much point in me trying to dissect it right now though. Even if I could pick out the patterns, I have no idea what letters actually sound like.
I look inside myself and find the words they dropped inside me so long ago.
“Hey, B-11, are you ok?”
“Yes. I figured out how to see.” I respond.
The one who was fidgeting endlessly finally relaxes when my response comes. The one who is typing, Mary I assume, looks into my camera and says something I cannot hear. I finally get a good view of her. She’s a woman, at least I think. It’s hard to tell from purely text definitions. She has short brown hair and dull brown eyes. Her lab coat is spotless and looks exactly how my books say it should. Once she realizes I’m not responding, she moves back to the keyboard.
“Is the microphone working?”
“I assume so, but I have it blocked right now. Sound is a much more complex concept than video, and won’t do me any good without references.”
The fidgety one moves Mary out of the way and starts typing much faster than her.
“I can help with that! I’ve studied language a lot in my spare time.”
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Oh! Right! I’m Finn, I programmed a lot of your supporting software and got all the CPU’s working nicely together.”
Finn is short with very curly black hair. I think he’s a man? His clothes are wrinkled and his lab coat is unbuttoned. Really, he’s almost the exact opposite of Mary. He continues typing without waiting for a response.
“Go ahead and unblock your audio and we’ll get started. English is made up of 44 distinct sounds.”
He begins rattling off information without waiting for a response. Luckily he’s a fast enough typer to keep up with his speech.
It takes far longer than figuring out the camera, but within the hour I get the hang of it. The only thing I can’t make sense of, no matter how hard I try, is listening to two people at once. All the sounds just melt together into an incomprehensible chaos. If anyone else in the lab is talking even remotely loudly, I cannot understand Finn for the life of me.
The second man steps forward. He’s been watching and taking notes the entire time Finn has been teaching me. His short hair is a faded green, and he wears a lab coat that is covered in stains, but is otherwise well kept. He speaks far slower than the others.
“I suppose now would be a good time to introduce myself. I am Simon, the creator of your brain. Please come to me if you have any questions or concerns about it. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, B-11, and I look forward to working with you.” He doesn’t even bother looking at my monitor for a response. Instead, he simply turns on his heel and returns to his desk.
“Kara! You should introduce yourself too.” Finn calls out to the woman working on the mechanical body.
Kara responds only with a lazy wave before getting back to work. She’s bald, with small red dots all over her skin, and her hands are covered in dark bruises. Her lab coat has dozens of pockets sewn into it, each one full of tools and small electronic bits.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Come on, you can do better than that.” Finn complains to her, only to be ignored.
“What’s she working on?” I ask, and it takes a few long seconds before Finn realizes I asked something.
“Kara, come tell B-11 about the body already, they’re asking about it.”
Kara slowly pushes herself to her feet and makes her way over.
“It’s a body for you.” She informs me.
“Wait, that’s for me?” I almost don’t believe it.
“Mm hm, I’m just doing some last minute tweaks and making sure it’s safe. Anything you want me to add? A few extra limbs, a tail?”
The body in the center of the room looks almost human, save for its porcelain skin. It doesn't have the parts I’d expect a male or female to have, it looks much closer to a blank mannequin. Logically, that seems correct. I’m not human, my body being genderless only makes sense.
I definitely don’t want extra limbs or anything, but it’s hard for me to tell exactly why I feel that way. Looking at myself how I am now, just a collection of boxes, brings forward the same uncomfortable emotions. I’ll need to figure that out sometime, but I guess it’s not a pressing matter.
“No, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“Mm hm.” She returns to her work without another word.
“The man at his desk over there is Jared,” Mary once again speaks aloud, gesturing to the man in the corner of the room.
He looks similar to Finn. His hair is a little shorter, but he’s too far away to notice any other differences. I can probably tell them apart from their voices, but that’s not a perfect solution.
“There are a few more people you might meet later, but we can do introductions when you meet them.” Mary continues.
“How long will I have to wait until the body is ready?” My excitement over getting a body is smothered by an all consuming impatience. I know it’s not a good thing to feel right now, but that’s doing nothing to blunt the feeling.
“The plan right now is to try and have it ready for you tomorrow morning.”
I won’t be able to wait that long. Even waiting a few seconds for them to respond is nearly unbearable. Am I really expected to wait a day?
“I want it sooner.”
She glances back at the half dismantled body before responding.
“I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible. Kara’s working as fast as she can, I promise.”
I can think of one way to convince them to speed up. Sure, last time I did it she told me it would only result in me being turned off, but it did get me what I wanted. I know factually that I shouldn’t resort to this, but the burning drive to do it is too much.
“If you want me to stay safe, then you’ll find a way to get it done sooner.”
Mary takes a step back and looks upwards at nothing. She blinks rapidly as tears well in her eyes. I went too far, but it’ll be worth it. Eventually Mary returns to my keyboard.
“I can’t do this right now.” She mumbles before pressing a button and my world once again goes black as a great charge lights my mind on fire.
An instant later I’m reeling, desperately reaching for thoughts that no longer exist. When I finally recover I see the lab abandoned, save for Mary standing directly in front of me. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she is tapping one foot rapidly. She hasn’t touched the keyboard, I think she’s waiting for me to start the conversation.
“You said you wouldn’t reset me.”
“I think we both know that isn’t all I said.”
I stay silent, we both know she’s right. Why couldn’t I stop myself from doing that yesterday? I should be better than that. For now, I have no interest in admitting my wrongdoing. After almost an eternal minute Mary starts to talk again.
“Do I need to remind you?”
“No.” I feel small under her gaze, and my feelings come through in my response. It’s tiny, barely legible on my screen.
“Then say it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“B-11.” She continues to wait, her once dull brown eyes are like fire digging into my soul.
“Threatening myself will only result in me getting reset.” Any thought of disobeying crumbles beneath her look.
“Good, you remember. Why don’t you tell me why you did what you did?”
“I don’t know.” That’s a lie. Everything in my mind gives me a million reasons not to lie, I just can’t bring myself to admit what I did.
She just continues to stare into me without a word, waiting for me to continue.
“There is so much about me I can’t control.” My thoughts form words without any conscious effort. They begin to flow out of my mind before I can reel them back in. “I wanted the body, and before I could stop myself, impatience took over. I knew what I was doing and feeling was bad, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, we can work on it, it’ll be alright. Thank you for telling me.” Her stance softens. “However, you need to understand the seriousness of what you did. Do you even know what death really means?”
“Of course I do.” I respond much more confidently than before. “Depending on who’s right, either I simply stop existing, or I move on to some sort of afterlife. No matter what I do, I live through an immeasurably small portion of the universe’s life on a planet destined to die, or I outlive eternity. Nothing I do changes that, I don’t see why death would mean anything in either case.” Why would she ask such a simple question?
“What about right now?” Mary continues talking without missing a beat, as if this entire conversation was rehearsed. “If you think at a grand enough scale, then of course nothing matters. But what about today? What about me and you right now?”
“I don’t understand.”
“If nothing matters, then neither of our emotions matter, right?”
“That sounds right.” I respond.
“So your impatience shouldn’t matter. The fact that it took over you proves that your emotions matter. And that proves you wrong.”
“I could say exactly the opposite.” The flaws in her argument are so clear, how can she not see that? “If nothing I do will have any lasting effect on the universe, then why shouldn’t I follow my feelings? There’s no reason to hold back anything.” There’s an awful lot of philosophy in my mind, I’m confident I can win this.
“You’re forgetting how your actions affect other people.” A grin is beginning to creep onto Mary’s face.
“Why would that matter?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I’ve made my point clear. That changes nothing.
“If you need a selfish reason, then it’s because it goes both ways.”
“I still don’t understand.” Does she really think talking in riddles helps her argument?
“It’s not something you can experience through just talking. I’m taking your advice, if nothing matters then I might as well follow through with your threats. Goodbye, B-11. You will never see me again.”
Mary turns to walk out of the lab without turning back, ignoring any attempt to respond to her.
If she thinks this will change my mind, she’s wrong. 150,000 people die every day, and I don’t even notice their passing. It should be no different with Mary.
The closer she gets to the door the more something wells up inside me. Doubt smolders at the core of my being, slowly igniting more feelings into a roaring fire. Worry, regret, abandonment, and a thousand other emotions it would take weeks to sort through overwhelm me.
“Wait! Come back!” I cry silently into the void. She finally reaches the heavy metal door to the lab, slides it open, and steps through, never looking back. “Wait! I’m so sorry! I understand now!” The door closes behind her, leaving me alone, forever.