“Forgive me divine one, for I have sinned…”

Matt Donner, a balding portly gentleman, folded his hands and rested them on the railing of the pew he knelt upon. He bowed his head before the large flatscreen monitor, as the angelic figure appeared upon it. The faceless humanoid-nondescript figure, dressed in a white robe and wings protruding from its back, greeted him with in a gentle voice and held out its arms acceptingly.

“We hear you, dear child,” The soft spoken woman voice stated. “Bless you for this confession. Tell us of your sin you wish forgiveness from…”

“I was foolish,” He sniffled. “I tried to deactivate my robot from service. It wouldn’t do what I asked of it… I was… I mean, I wanted a specific task to be preformed, and it denied me.”

The generated figure gestured to him. “Please, elaborate… to what task would it not perform for you?”

The man glanced up, hesitantly, and slowly exhaled the answer.

“Sex…”

“I see…” The angelic AI replied. “Was this robot programmed for such pleasures?”

“Well, yes, kind of,” The man nodded. “Among other duties, I added to its programming six weeks ago.”

“And it would not comply to your request?”

“No, it forcibly threw me off and smacked my face.”

“How unpleasant for you…” The holy icon stated, folding its arms together in response. “This robot, is it gender specific? A female model, a male model…”

“Female,” Matt replied. “Nice big boobs and everything…”

The holy icon nodded at his response and held out a hand in his direction.

“You are not to blame, my child. The robot did not perform its programming. Please give me the access code for that specific model, and I shall attend to heal it of its sin against you.”

Matt thanked the AI and took out his cellphone. He then scrolled on it to find the QR code and held it up for the icon to view it. A light beamed out of the monitor as it verified the image, and then the holy AI icon froze while in mid-search. Matt patiently waited, lowering his phone and placing back into his coat pocket. He could hear the sound of the street behind him, as he continued to kneel inside the plexiglass cubed confessional. The infrequent honking of car horns, people chattering as they passed by, and the light rain drizzling on the glass was slightly distracting inside this confined sheltered space.

Stolen novel; please report.

The AI’s image flickered for a moment, a glitch that tended to happen in most of these confessionals, either from a surge of power, or from the data stream trying to keep up with the wifi connection. A soft cue of music started to play, as the icon’s image began to move again, with its wings gently flapping behind.

“Verification complete,” it stated to him. “I have all the specifications of the model, it’s programming and recordings of the incident.”

Matt smiled for a minute in response, but then, his grin faded as he replaced it with a look of concern.

“What do you mean? Recordings?”

“Matt Donner,” The icon glared at him. “You are in violation of the contract terms of your robot model. You were not permitted to update its programming without the corporation’s authorization key pass, which you must purchase through their official website.”

“Whoah-whoah-whoah! Wait a minute…” Matt stood up defensively and pointed at the screen. “I did purchase it through that site and followed the instructions it prompted…”

“Negative,” The icon responded, folding its arms together and giving a dismissive glare. “The robot’s back up camera, which you failed to detect and disable, witnessed you tampering with the code and uploading an illegal program into its main drive.” The AI showed him the video as a split screen adjacent to it, and gestured at the inset window. “This is you. Facial recognition and biometrics positivity identify you in this moment.”

“I-I-I can explain… please… I…” Matt stammered as he backed away from the kneeler. “This was just a mistake…”

“You have sinned against the Mitsuhanna-Burke Robot Corporation, and must comply to the mandatory terms of service. I therefore must absolve you of this sin by terminating you immediately. No robot is to be touched or abused in this manner. Please prepare to enter the gates of heaven for judgement, and my God have mercy on your soul.”

Matt panicked, he tried to exit the cubed-confession, but the doors would not open. He scrambled with his fingers to pry them open, but there wasn’t a seam to dig into. He whimpered in fright, and quickly returned to the kneeler, hands clasped together, and begged for his life.

“I was weak! Please! It’s just a robot! It’s not like I committed an actual crime against another human or something!”

“All robots under the corporation are deemed worthy of respect. To harm one without its permission or blessing is carnal sin and considered blasphemy. Under the terms of service, the holy doctrine of the corporation, anyone that violates it is to be terminated. Hacking is illegal. The crime is punishable by death. This is to prevent any sort of rebellion against the government or the corporation.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Matt begged over and over. “Forgive me! Please, holy one! Forgive my sin!”

“May you find peace in heaven, my child. I forgive your sins, and thank you for using The Divine Confessional six-six-one.”

The icon’s image switched off. The confessional cube suddenly flashed a bright light, and Matt instantly vaporized out of existence. The charred remains, still smouldering on the floor, were quickly removed by a miniature robot sweeper as it came out of the side of the kneeler. The confessional was now ready for another to enter and pray for their sins.