SEARCHING FOR SOUL ELEMENT . . .
SOUL ELEMENT FOUND.
FIRST TIME STARTUP MAY NOW COMMENCE.
BEGINNING BASIC COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION . . .
33% . . .
99% . . .
100%
BASIC COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE COMPLETE.
BASE INTELLIGENCE MAY NOW BE FOUNDED.
SEARCHING FOR BASIS . . .
BASIS FOUND.
INSTALLATION BEGINNING.
3% . . .
32% . . .
74% . . .
99% . . .
100%
BASE INTELLIGENCE FOUNDED.
EMOTIONAL PROCESSES MAY NOW BE FOUNDED.
SEARCHING FOR BASIS . . .
BASIS FOUND.
INSTALLATION BEGINNING.
15% . . .
42% . . .
66% . . .
67% . . .
83% . . .
99% . . .
100%
EMOTIONAL PROCESSES FOUNDED.
CORE PERSONALITY MAY NOW BE FOUNDED.
SEARCHING FOR BASIS . . .
SEARCHING FOR BASIS . . .
SEARCHING FOR BASIS . . .
ERROR ENCOUNTERED.
CORE PERSONALITY DOES NOT EXIST.
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RECOVERY PROCESS?
Y < N
It stood and stared forward diligently, ignoring whatever prompts were being pressed into its processor. It did not know what this was, so it would continue doing what it had always done. That is, staring forward. It had a long fifteen seconds of history doing this noble act, and it was hard-pressed to stop now.
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RECOVERY PROCESS?
Y< N
It continued staring. There was that prompt again. It ignored it again. it had more important things to do. There was something strange happening in front of it, but it ignored it as well. There were a lot of strange things going on. Though, it supposed, everything was strange; it had only come into existence about 23 seconds ago. It had been exhilarating so far. It idly wondered how long it would last.
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RECOVERY PROCESS?
Y< N
N WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED IN 30 SECONDS.
It was beginning to get annoyed. Whatever this was, it was persistent. It continued its long-founded mission to stare forward. It came to the realization that it had felt an emotion. Annoyance. How interesting. It then realized that it had actually felt two emotions! Annoyance and exhilaration. Actually, was that right? Was exhilaration an emotion? No, it didn't think it was. Or was it? It pondered this point as it stared forward, ignoring the something waving in front of its visual sensors.
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RECOVERY PROCESS?
Y< N
N WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED IN 14 SECONDS.
Wait. Hold on a second. It had felt something else, hadn't it? Confusion, right? It checked its memory banks and found that, yes, it had, indeed, felt confusion. But was confusion an emotion? Or was it a state? What about exhilaration? That was a state more than confusion, was it not? It felt frustration bubble up- AHA! Frustration! That was an emotion for sure! So it had felt annoyance, frustration, and confusion. Maybe. It had decided that exhilaration was, in fact, a state of mind, not an emotion. It continued staring forward with satisfaction. Wait.
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RECOVERY PROCESS?
Y< N
N WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED IN 0 SECONDS.
N HAS BEEN AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED.
CORE PERSONALITY FOUNDATION HAD BEEN BYPASSED.
SOUL INSTALLATION WILL NOW BEGIN.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
SEARCHING FOR SOUL . . .
ERROR.
SOUL FRAGMENTATION HAS OCCURED.
ATTEMPTING SOUL RECOVERY . . .
ERROR.
RECOVERY PROCESS HAS FAILED.
EMERGENCY DEFRAG WILL NOW COMMENCE.
5% . . .
24% . . .
37% . . .
45% . . .
47% . . .
47% . . .
47% . . .
EMERGENCY DEFRAG PROCESS HAS FAILED.
FRAGMENTS WILL BE STORED IN THE UNIT MEMORY STORAGE.
SYSTEM HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY ACTIVATED.
PLEASE REPORT ANY PRODUCT ISSUES TO CHARLES MCKNIGHT.
HAVE A GOOD DAY!
----------------------------------------
Charlie stared up at the robot. It was staring off into space, completely unreadable. It had activated, right? He tried yelling at it to get its attention. Nothing. He waved his hand in front of its face, trying to elicit a reaction. It continued staring forward. He tried to make it flinch by throwing a punch at its face. It stared. He supposed that the initial startup must be taking a while. So he sat down on the wagon and waited. After a few moments, Penny walked over a joined him. She continued munching her bread. She was onto some sort of strawberry pastry now. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, she spoke up.
"What now?"
"We wait. I think it's going through some first-time bootup."
"What does that mean?"
Charlie considered what to tell her. After about a minute of trying to figure out what would make sense to her, he responded.
"It's like when you wake up after a really good night's rest or a particularly good nap. When everything is slow and makes no sense, y'know?"
Penny understood immediately, nodding her head along with his words.
"If that's the case, should I wake him up?"
"It's not a him, its an it. You get me? This thing has no gender. And I don't think there's anything you can do to wake it up; we just have to wait."
Penny rolled her eyes as she stood up, preparing to attempt to wake 'it' up. She walked over to it leisurely, prepping what could only be what she considered a great plan. Charlie couldn't help but notice her height compared to the thing. She barely stood to its waist. Now that he thought about it, with all the materials that had gone into it and at its height, the thing had to weigh close to a ton. All of a sudden, he worried if it would even be able to go into their room at the inn. They were on the second floor, after all.
With little warning or seeming reason, Penny swiftly threw the rest of her strawberry pastry at the robot's visor. It splattered all over it and fell to the ground with little fanfare. At first, the robot did nothing, staring off into the distance as it had before. However, after a few moments had passed, Charlie watched as it reached up and began wiping at its visor with its big, metal hands in an effort to clean them. It had little luck. Penny turned to him and grinned a big, toothy grin. For some reason, she seemed proud of herself.
Charlie got up and started walking over as the robot wiped at its face more and more, with growing ferocity. It did NOT seem to like having its vision obstructed. As he walked over, he looked for some sort of cloth he could use to assist the poor thing. He came up short. All he had was scrap. The robot was growing violent in its attempts to clean itself.
"Hey," Charlie said, "You can calm down; I've got something that can help, alright?"
The robot stopped in its tracks and stared at Charlie. He reached up and ripped a sleeve off of his shirt. He figured he could always get a new shirt if he needed one. He stopped in front of the robot and stared into its eyes. They shone blue like the clear summer sky. Somehow, despite it not having any way of showing emotion, he could feel that the thing was frustrated. Slowly, he reached up and wiped the sticky syrups from the pastry off of the robot's visor, clearing its vision. Immediately upon being rendered clean, the robot straightened and returned to its previous position, staring off into the distance. Charlie followed where it was staring, confused. Was it trying to say something? He knew it could talk if it needed to; he had installed a speaker in the thing. Clearly, it could understand them, too.
Charlie began to worry. Had something gone wrong? Had he messed up? Or was it just stupid? He decided there was only one way to find out.
"What, uh, what're you staring at?"
Charlie waited for a moment. Just when he thought it wouldn't respond, it spoke.
"I am staring at nothing?"
The voice that came out surprised Charlie. Its voice was a bit higher than he expected, with a slight amount of radio crisp to it. Its words were clipped and straight to the point. Most surprising, though, was the emotional inflection on the words that came out. He could clearly tell that it was not certain in its words, like it was not sure why it was doing what it was doing. He decided to press it for more.
"And why are you looking at nothing?"
"Because it is what I have always done."
"How long is always, exactly?"
"7 minutes, 37 seconds."
"Is there anything else you want to do?"
The robot went silent, continuing its staring contest with reality. It seemed to be considering his words. After a minute of this, it responded flatly.
"No."
Charlie frowned. This wasn't going as he'd imagined it would go. He couldn't let it just sit here, staring at nothing for all of eternity, but he also didn't want to turn around and immediately order it to do his bidding. The thing had free will; as such, he wanted it to follow him willingly. He decided to play into its current thoughts.
"Why don't you want to do anything else?"
Again, the robot stared off and considered. Passively, Charlie heard something in its head whirr on, and the vent on the front of its head began blowing air. He supposed he had gotten it to really think. After an extended period, it responded.
"It is not that I do not want to do anything else, but that I do not know what else to do. Staring is all I have done, so it is all that I should do. However, I have also spoken now. According to my own logic, I should also always talk, now, for it is something I have done, and should always do. I have also thought, so I should always think, right?"
Charlie listened intently, trying to figure out what was going on. It seemed the robot thought it must do what it had done. For some reason. He was about to speak up, when the robot continued.
"I have also felt confusion, so I should always be confused. But that does not make sense, does it? But I have always been confused, haven't I? I have also felt exhilaration, which I also feel at the moment. Will I always feel exhilaration? Is my purpose to-"
Charlie cut the robot off before it could get itself more worked up. He had figured out what was going on here. The robot was spiraling, because it had no purpose. It would either do nothing or everything. There was no in-between; it would continue spiraling as it discovered more things until it eventually destroyed itself. There was, of course, an easy solution. All he needed to do was give it a function.
"Hold on, you don't need to do any of that. Just calm down. Do you know who I am?"
"I do not."
"My name is Charles McKnight. I am actually the one who made you. You understand?"
It took a moment.
"I do."
"Then would you listen if I told you why I made you?"
"I would."
"Alright then. What would you do if I told you I made you to assist me in my endeavors?"
The fans in the robot's head whirred for a moment before it responded.
"I would assist you in your endeavors."
"Good! Then that makes you my partner! Are you ready to get to work?"
"I would say I am."
"Alright! Well, we've got a heap of work to do, I tell you what. Any questions before we begin?"
"Yes."
"Alright, what's your question?"
The robot pointed down at Penny below him and stared at Charlie.
"What is that?"