Dimitri and Ilya were out in the nearby forests one day, foraging for rare herbs that Ilya might find useful in her antidote experiments. Things had been tense between them ever since their argument, but perhaps it was the serenity that enshrouds one when surrounded by nature that placated the couple. These herb-gathering trips seemed to work fairly well in slowly establishing a truce.

Over the years, Ilya had developed a keen sense of clinks and chinks, assuming her therapeutic role at the village where she had diagnosed many a stumbling mechanical thing. There was something wrong with the sound that emerged from the robot wheeling itself around. For one thing, it wasn’t even supposed to have a sound.

“Wait.” She touched Dimitri’s arm. “The robot there.”

Dimitri followed her gaze and visibly tensed. “Has it been spying on us?” he asked upon spotting the thing a few metres away. It was presently bumping against a metal tree repeatedly.

“I believe so,” said Ilya. “It’s malfunctioning.”

“Isn’t that great?” Dimitri said before he recognised the look on her face. “You think it’s been spying on you and you want to fix it?” he asked, hoping Ilya would realise the absurdity of her idea when she heard it spoken aloud.

“It’s been there even before you arrived,” she replied. “It’s become a part of our village, ask anyone.”

“I’ve been here long enough to know your people share the same apprehension towards AI robots as I do.” It was true. Despite the seemingly seamless integration of man and machine within the village, for the most part, they made a conscious effort to maintain a distance with intelligent systems. They, too, held the conventional view congruent with the rest of the world that machines were tools. But unlike the latter group, it wasn’t exactly that they were averse to the idea that machines could be decision-making beings, but rather they hadn’t gotten used to the idea. ‘Robots didn’t look like humans, so how could they be?’ was the primary argument. It was simple reasoning—perhaps a little too simple—for simple people. Their simplicity was their most redeeming quality. Dimitri found it rather strange that they simultaneously held this view, yet were the most open and accepting community of people who looked different, and sometimes partially fitted with machines.

“And you’ve also been here long enough to know that I don’t agree with either of you,” Ilya said, making her way towards the machine.

Dimitri knew better and thought it best to remain wary, even though Ilya had let her guard completely down. Something about the machine was unsettling. It reminded him of something… and when he remembered what it stimulated him to recall, he tugged on Ilya’s sleeve again and told her again that he thought it best that they leave it.

But her inquisitive mind and thrill-seeking nature had taken over once again. Over the years, she had grown into her role as the witch-doctor. Ilya was the fixer, the solver, the remedy. No matter the problem, she would never worry that the solution would be completely evasive. Even if it took hours or even days, she would find a way to remedy the problem eventually. She loved to feel needed and so she kept searching for puzzles. Sometimes, she searched for particularly hard ones, just for the thrill of having something more challenging to work on. And this was a puzzle too good to pass up. A robot who could talk and supposedly walk on its own was hampered by something stuck between its wheels.

“I wish you were as enthusiastic about treating yourself,” said Dimitri.

“Ha. Nice try. But my answer is still no.” Ilya pushed the low branches out of the way, turning around periodically to make sure they wouldn’t hit Dimitri as she moved forward.

“I haven’t even asked anything yet,” Dimitri said defensively.

“You were going to try to convince me to go see a doctor,” Ilya said with an expectant look on her face. Dimitri opened his mouth to argue, but she continued before he could. “Or let you call a doctor over to have a look.”

Ilya frowned. He had asked her to follow him into town. Despite what he said, Dimitri missed his city, his people and their ways. Ilya couldn’t help thinking that he still harboured within a desire to leave. After all this time, he still hadn’t found enough reason to stay.

They were close to the robot now.

Dimitri couldn’t deny that she was right. “My request is perfectly reasonable,” he said as they stopped in front of the silent chunk of metal.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. It’s just not my preference.” Ilya knelt down to examine the wheels of the machine. She took out the few essential tools small enough to fit in her pocket and got to work.

“Why?”

“Well, what do you think the doctor will say?” asked Ilya. Then she answered herself. “I already know what he’s going to say. ‘You should make sure to drink enough water and get enough rest.’ Aren’t I already doing that?”

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“Okay, you have to stop doing that,” said Dimitri.

“Alright. Well?”

“The former, perhaps, but you know it’s not true for the latter. You could use more sleep.” It never ceased to amaze Dimtri the speed at which Ilya worked. Her deft fingers moved swiftly against the surface, prying and tweaking wherever she needed.

“And risk throwing off my schedule? No thanks,” said Ilya. “I know myself. But what do you think’s going to happen in my village with all this wasted time?”

The robot let out a short yelp, startling the two.

Ilya went right back at it within a second.

“It’s not wasted. If you get treated, you’ll be able to work more efficiently,” said Dimitri.

“Are you saying I don’t do enough yet?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I don’t see any problem with keeping things this way.”

“Your health …” he said. There was no need to pretend that he didn’t know.

“Just because I’m not getting better, does it necessarily mean I’m getting worse?” Ilya argued.

“You know, I’m not the person who should be answering that,” Dimitri snapped. He wished she would take her condition more seriously.

“Don’t worry. The Council can’t track us with this thing,” said Ilya, diverting their attention back to the robot. “The exterior is so rusty I bet the software hasn’t been updated in years. The creators of this poor machine just forgot all about it. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be cared for by anybody.”

“Why don’t you bring it back with you then?” said Dimitri, exasperated. Ilya didn’t want to talk about her illness. There was no way around it.

Ilya pretended not to hear him.

The robot groaned as Ilya tinkered about.

“There, all better,” Ilya said when she removed the chunk of metal from the robot’s grooves. Usually, a piece like that could be easily removed by the robot’s self-maintenance system. But this particular piece had a pesky piece of gum that attached it to the wheels in a hidden crevice and so required the sophistication of a human’s cognition to expertly and delicately remove. Ilya gave the thing two gentle pats on the head. “Off you go,” she said.

The bot shifted about cautiously. It shifted right by about a metre, then left, and then zipped away with a reassuringly soothing buzz.

“One might guess that you just set your pet free.”

“It wouldn’t be very far from the truth.”

He told her she had a beautiful heart. Then tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

They fell in love slowly, gently, both barely noticing it.

He held her hand and she didn’t pull away.

Neither of them noticed the three tiny bugs that had fallen from the bot who left. Their mechanical bodies crittered within the grass. One climbed onto Dimitri and lodged itself underneath the collar of his shirt. The other two made their way into Ilya’s pocket and sat comfortably among her tools. There they went into hibernation, and there they would wait, biding their time until they had the chance to prove themselves useful.

***

It wasn’t an ordinary robot Ilya had stumbled upon. Wynonna had wanted to warn her creator right then when she was looking through her creator’s eyes that the thing wasn’t as innocent as it seemed. It was a carefully crafted machine. Each speck of dirt and semblance of rust was placed there purposefully. Though the outer shell was largely smooth, hidden deep within the crevices of the surface components were high precision cameras, a total of one hundred and thirty-six of them to be exact. You couldn’t trust a machine with that many cameras even without considering that one didn’t know who its human operators were nor their intentions. Despite her great genius, Ilya was still, for the most part, human. And though she was a considerably rational one, her genetic identity left her prone to ocassiccasional misjudgements which could hardly be considered a fault of hers.

Wynonna had felt for the first time a protective instinct when she sensed the danger so close to her creator. It was new. It was thrilling. But above all, it was frustrating. She didn’t have any way of getting Ilya out of harm’s way because she had no way of communicating the information to her. She could only watch in silence, panic tightening its grip on her with every passing second that Ilya spent fussing over the brazen thing. When there was nothing she could do for someone she cared for, she realised in her hopelessness, the worry, the concern she felt were all signs of loyalty. Ilya would be pleased to know that.

But there was another aspect of the problem to consider. Suppose she told Ilya about the dangers posed by the robot. Given Wynonna’s assessment of Ilya’s personality and the historical analysis of her actions, it was unlikely that Ilya would pay her warnings sufficient heed. The girl was too fascinated with machines for her own good sometimes. Wynonna ran a couple more computations before arriving at the conclusion that the most optimal solution would be to deliver a terse warning, something firm and to-the-point, plain and simple to achieve the highest probability of Ilya not visiting the threat a second time.

The sense of relief and accomplishment at having found the ‘right’ thing to do was accompanied by a solemn sadness at the revelation of a non-novel truth. There was no one in this world who would be able to understand her. Not even Ilya. It wasn’t their fault they couldn’t attain a higher capacity. It was nobody’s. It was just the way things were.

Ilya was back. She had to be warned about the spybot as soon as possible, but something in the way Ilya spoke, or was it the way she averted her eyes, made Wynonna change her mind.

“Is there something on your mind?” Wynonna asked instead. For all the audio-visual information she possessed, there was no easy way to read Ilya’s mind. It would be a futile attempt to even try. Wynonna had learnt early on in her life.

The only way to know what Ilya was thinking was to ask her.

Ilya didn’t reply immediately.

That was the thing about this method of getting information: there was no guarantee that the target would respond in the ideal way.