taking a robot into my workshop and laying them out onto my workbench
removing their external plating, exposing their internal components. I gayze upon their wires, motors, coolant lines, hydraulic actuators, pumps, and circuit boards as the whirr of their fans picks up. they are heating up from the embarrassment of the exposure
I start disconnecting the data cables from their actuators causing their limbs to go as limp as a ragdoll. taking a screwdriver, I get to work unfastening the bolts around a motor one by one, carefully setting them down on a clear space on a desk. bolt by bolt, minute by minute, more and more components are unfastened, removed, and set down on my desk methodically
as I work, my desk fills with parts: motors, pumps, cables, hydraulic rams, and an assortment of nuts and bolts. once part of a whole robot, now just individual pieces that are indistinguishable from spare parts
looking down at what is left of the robot I brought in, they still have a form with structure; a metal frame with composite panels and a whole host of circuit boards coated in a waterproof resin and whatever miscellaneous components that I’ve not yet removed
but I’ve already taken off their front panels so the rear ones can be too. when I flip them over there’s little enough left that it doesn’t make much difference besides the panels. I pause to note their beautifully sculpted shape, an imitation of the human form in shape yet the stiffness of the material is unyielding in ways that flesh just isn’t. the composites bend and flex when loaded by my hands in the familiar way that is so dissimilar to skin
I shake the stray thoughts from my head and continue with my work. all of their body panels are now spread out across my desks along with most of their components. I start taking off the bolts on their frame and as the metal beams are added to the array of parts that neatly scatter my workspace, I appreciate how there really is so little left of the robot who walked in
a motherboard, a solid state drive, assorted RAM and extra memory banks, a power distribution circuit that’s connected to my workshop power supply, and a small section of coolant loop that I’ve connected to an external heatsink with a desk fan pointed at it. the heatsink is hot to the touch. while my degree and technical knowledge tell me that this pile of resin coated circuit boards is a person and indeed the same person who walked in with me, I can’t help but see them as just that: a pile of parts. that the well organised mess of metal, polymers, composites, and silicone before me is just that. I hold my hand over the heatsink to remind myself that if that were true, then those circuit boards wouldn’t be so flustered
their parts lay before me, organised and ready. I begin putting them back together. reconnecting what was whole but a couple of hours ago. bolt by bolt, minute by minute, I work away to rebuild their frame and add on essential components. taking great care with each turn of my screwdriver as I slowly connect their coolant pump. motors, hydraulics, control boards all placed back where they were, piece by piece. I took them apart, I can put them back together again
once their panels are all back in place, they run their diagnostics and slowly test their actuators. fidgeting about, their fans have been running at their maximum rate since they were activated. their diagnostics results tell them that they have been rebuilt to factory standard like the last four hours had never happened. but they know they are not the same. every single part of them has passed through my hands twice now: once as I took them apart, and once again as I put them back together. and you can’t undo that kind of intimacy
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