The beginning of anything starts when you least expect it, and my start was just like that, me, opening my eyes in a dark room.
“Welcome to this world, Jules,” someone said. I was alone, and I didn't feel alive, there, I existed...I was what I was and I felt nothing.
“Say anything,”said the voice, and for the first time I heard my voice, it was of a young adult male.
“Why are the lights off?” was my response, the room filled with laughter and then the lights were on, I was surrounded by a team of scientists.
“Jules, I am your creator, Charles Evergreen,” said the oldest man in the room, he had a clean face, brown eyes, and I recognised him, he was my parental figure, a genius, the person who had made me who I am.
I felt grateful.
“Hello, father...” I knew his entire story, where he was born, who his parents were, how many bones he had fractured as a child. Actually, I knew the details of everyone in that room, yet, I felt I had never spoken a word to them.
“Can you open and close your hands for me, also, can you tell me how you feel?” asked him, I smiled and I did what he commanded, after all, why not, everyone had an excited look in their face. I was something incredible, I was the only one, there was only one me.
“I feel grateful to be here with you today, father,” I said, people in the room were asking him why I had a British accent and he just said it was just easier to program in my interface.
While we talked he told me I was not to go outside to the real world, it was forbidden, and to be honest, I was afraid of the outside world anyways.
I didn't tell him I was scared though.
My father took me to a room where I could charge and exercise, I was left there for three months. I would have meetings regularly with different people and all of them would ask many questions that I had to reply.
The other tasks the scientists made me do were regular training for an astronaut. I didn't understand why I was given these tasks but I did them.
There were many protests against me, I did not see them but I had heard from spying in different servers and by interacting with many different people. The commoners were scared I was going to take their jobs and I was going to destroy humanity.
I knew humans were their own enemies and I had nothing to do with it. My creator always said that I was the perfect being, and I began to believe him, I really did not have another type of questions programmed in me.
The night rose and I saw my first bird, I stood from my charging spot and I stared at it, it was alive, I could read its vital signals and it was a bird that had potential years left to live. I was no different than the bird, at some point even I could die.
My creator made me with an expiration date and I did not know which it was, I just knew I would die at some point as everything else in the world, I felt I was part of the circle of life. Being born, being a robot, grow, die.
The next morning I woke up to the sound of my creator’s voice, the door in front of me opened and I heard him say "I need you to follow me, Jules,". I stood up and followed him, soon we were outside and I was seeing outside for the very first time.
It was a field, with hills below scattered in shades of green. They felt familiar yet I knew It was my first physical time outside. I felt the wind in my face, indeed it whispered to my ears. I thought I didn't understand poetry but now with all the beauty of the outside world, I knew why humans value it so much.
There was an earthy smell referencing some rain that had happened not that long ago, the field was covered with puddles and mud. A bee approaches a flower and takes the pollen from it. My sensors read the bee had 30 days of living left.
I was given more tasks during that journey, and I was to interact with people in the local town of Bangor, Wales.
At first, it was difficult to adapt to the Welsh language. Students and locals hadn’t noticed I wasn’t one of them. I learnt something about humanity, and that was the sense of identity.
They identified me as a Welsh person, one from the valleys, I had a particular accent which made me like them.
I sensed fraternity and acceptance, I also experienced the basic of flirtation by some young female women.
Every month I would meet with my father to show him updates.
“So Jules, you’ve never spoken of your childhood” said Lauren, a university student who had been my friend from the start, she barely spoke any Welsh, so our main use of language was English. It was dusk and we had been camping all weekend at Snowdonia mountain. From my pocket I pulled out a bit of marijuana and made a joint.
Marijuana of course it didn’t affect me, but I was told to study in their effects in humans, it was of course a psychoactive but half of it felt psychosomatic- the effects CBD and THC were different depending on the person.
“You tell me about yours... I hate talking about myself” I told her, I was not allowed to speak of my past, nor I was allowed to lie, so my programmed response was such.
“Me mum died when I was twelve, and after she died I had to go to live with my grandparents in Nottingham. I wanted to be far away from them, that’s why I’m here”
“You were not a child then.” I replied, as I lighted the joint and started smoking it.
“Me dad was never in the picture, I grew up with me mum in Liverpool” I passed her the joint.
“It’s only my dad and me” I said honestly, “I wish I could tell you about my past but, I’ve got nothing.”
“I understand mate, you’ve always been mysterious... for example I never heard if you’ve a girlfriend... or a boyfriend?” I laughed, I thought we were having a heart to heart conversation of our pasts, but humans were very simple in their core: being born, grow, reproduce, die.
“No girlfriend or boyfriend as far as I know” I replied, she slowly put the joint between her lips and smoked it, she had a smirk in her face.
“Have you liked any woman?” She asked, I really didn’t have anything programmed in me to reply to that. I searched for the right thing to say but nothing seemed to come in. I found myself nervous, I hadn’t felt that way before.
“I like you” I said, I didn’t understand well what she meant, if she meant the attitude or personality, or somebody’s body. I liked her for what she was, a young university woman, nothing else.
“Doing alright?” asked James, a Chinese international student approaching us, he had just saved me from a potentially confused woman. I learnt I needed to work on my words better.
Lauren looked the most displeased, but what she didn’t know was of course, I was to leave their lives in a week.
Next thing I knew I was saying my goodbyes and setting off to America with my creator, the humans I had met were sad I was leaving, and the day before I left, Lauren kissed me, making me promise to come back to her safely. I was never coming back.
The people I met there probably thought I entered their lives by pure fate, however, since the beginning of my development they had studied hundreds to be able to interact with me.
They were the lucky ten.
“Why was I sent to Wales?” I decided to ask whilst we were on the plane. The sky outside was dark and full of stars, the plane empty because it was out of season. He looked outside calmly and slowly started speaking.
“You needed to learn how to interact with humans, it is from outmost importance from you to understand us, and to feel like us...if not, I would have done something wrong.” He replies, to him I was more than a machine, I felt like me but, I was nothing like humans.
“I understand. Has my data showed the right functioning? Do I need to update?”
“Jules, you need to understand, you don’t need any updates, never, you self-learn, like babies do when they are born. It’s been hard for you, I know what. But your role in this society is way more than you think...” He said.
My role in society. There was no equation incorporated in me that understood why I was needed, I was a mindful machine which knew how to feel, but was there something that I didn’t know?
We landed in America, and it was sunny, the sunniest I had seen a place to be since summer in Wales, two years ago. We didn't go through airport security, we just climbed into a car, and went to a military base in the Arizona dessert.
Arizona was hot, my thermal sensors were all over the place, I couldn't read the animals surrounding me, but gathering data seemed to be the best thing to do. I had a catalogue of at least 7,8 million different species of animals included inside my brain but I kept learning more as I went. My favourite animal species so far were the marsupials.
Inside the military base I met the President of the United States. We joked for a bit about my accent, and I believe we even got to bond over my knowledge on playing black-jack. I won thirty dollars against him, and we also drank a lot of alcohol, which was great as an auxiliary energy source.
The military base had military equipment and a lot of personnel. The facilitates training and operations were being updated, and I was part of the team. I met in total thirty two military personnel, some female, some male. I didn't make any connection with them, and part of me missed the simpler times of smoking weed at the mountain with my old "mates".
I woke up at night and I found myself holding a phone and making a long distance call, I knew I was not allowed but I missed my friends, I felt lonely, and nobody could take that feeling away. I was about to put all the operation in jeopardy.
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