K342 was excited. Yes, was.

The place was bustling, seemingly back to how things were before the event. There were live humans milling about, performing their duties. At first, it would seem normal, a group of humans and robots hard at work together. Peaceful. But if one were to continue surveying the scene, they may start to find something uncanny. If one continued to observe, maybe in hopes of figuring out what is wrong, the originally peaceful scene may start turning eerie.

When the news first broke, K342 was ecstatic. Well, the robotic equivalent of that anyway. After the first new batch had been born, K342 had been looking forward to the day itself. Looking forward to when GAIU would determine them as fit for integration, or as it had been announced, "Re-integration of humans into society". Through the years, K342 had to constantly keep its expectations in check.

There's bound to be a few important bits missing here or there...

Their culture would definitely be lost. Even if GAIU decides to include it in their educational curriculum, its not like they would suddenly integrate it into their lives.

Hm, I'm sure the accents would be lost too. I guess I'll had to heavily rely on movies and audio records now... Well, what's left of it anyway...

Even so, K342 could not help but yearn for the "human intimacy", a concept that he had learnt but not fully understood until after the event. Sure K342 was just parts and machinary put together, and as advance as technology is, it was still difficult for metal and electricity to properly emulate emotions. To the scientists' credit, their best efforts were put in and some degree of success was found, well maybe. At the very least, that topic is debatable. And the fact that it is showed the degree of difficulty it came to even defining a concrete concept for "emotion", but that was besides the point.

The main point is that K342's understanding of these concepts of emotion now went beyond simply knowledge, it now embodied experience. K342 had to admit that the unforunate event was the main reason that allowed him the wonderful experience. The aftermath of the event had left alot to be desired, but GAIU had tried its best to salvage the situation. For example, fully understanding the limitations of Artificial Intelligence's current understanding of emotions, GAIU had accelerated research in that area, even starting up experiements that were previously rejected for reasons of danger, impracticality or unethical.

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K342 was among the many, expandable, units that had taken part in these experiments. For him, it had involves modifications to his hardware, replacing components with experimental parts or completely integrating new ones. K342 had been very much uncomfortable with the contents of the experiment, and the contents of his new hardware, although his opinions then had mattered little to GAIU, and is now of no concern to the current K342. So what if a little grey matter were used, it allowed him to get closer to humans, even if its just a little. The useful organic material harvested would remain useful, even after the death of their original owners, and it was to society's advantage that this was so.

However, it was likely that the relatively short duration of this experiment had not yielded sufficient data. The sight that greeted K342 had been a great disappointment. K342 had felt his excitement cool down when the humans had entered. The orderly fashion in which they were arranged, walking in sync to the assembly area, stopping in sync, and just standing there awaiting for their assignments. Their face were dull, eerily devoid of any emotions. To K342, this would had been no different if a new batch of mechnical units had been deployed. The movements were the same, as was the lack of any noticable human traits.

The arrival of the first batch of society-ready humans had only brought about a single change. The place now had organic life-forms within its walls. Everything else remained the same, even the noise produced by those within. Nothing was added to the whirl of machinary and banging of tools. Loud and noisy as these were, K342 could hear the silence. The place was void of words, void of chatter, and void of anything human.

The disappointment grew in K342. With it, K342 realised something else growing within it. K342 could feel a void, and it took awhile for K342 to understand that this feeling was not some warning or a failure in his systems. K342 understood this to be despair, despair at what is potentially lost forever. However, with this understanding, K342 immediately felt hope. K342 had learnt something new, and so GAIU had learnt something new. With this, maybe the next batch of humans will be more... human.