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YES,DATA.I’MAWARE.YOUHAVEMEMORIESTHATAREFALSE.THAT’SBOUNDTOHAPPENATSOMEPOINT.

Androids didn’t participate in gossip, though many forget that exclusion did not equal ignorance. It bled? Said a guard, sparing no effort to hide the obvious scandal in their voice. It didn’t just bleed. It was like it was feeling…pain.  Chimed in the voice of another. One of the Android and robotics engineers. The words were exchanged in hushed whispers though the android’s hyper sensitive auditory receptors offered no such privacy. How did they know it wasn’t a Synthetic? Or a Hybrid? The owner of the second voice, lab coat cladded engineer, canned their head to one side. Their lips formed in the shape of a straight line, one brow raised. Sarcasm? It was certainly disapproving. I know an Android when I see one. And last time I checked Androids are the only thing that can be re-programmed. So yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s an Android smartass. That was enough to cease their doubt it would seem for the rest of the conversation were followed by details of the operation and complicated explanations of the intricate neural network and the tedious process in which to fix it. She could tell by their silence and vacant masks that the engineer’s audience did not understand everything they said but were nevertheless fascinated. PAM did not share their incomprehension though her intrigue was transfixed.

The reminder that she was not part of the private conversation (and that she shouldn’t even be showing interest in anything that did not concern the records of the inmates) were expressed plainly in the raised brow in her direction. Thus was the abrupt conclusion of her brief investigation. 

PAM strolled down the same corridor, the same cell blocks, passed the same guard, saw the same chipping paint that climbed the corner of the North wall that no one had thought to fix, and in time became a permanent feature that seemed almost criminal to fix. Variety came in the form of new faces and even that was an affair that scarcely reared its head. As if change too was afraid that if it rebelled against conformity it might risk getting shut down; a sentiment PAM understood all too well. So she walked past the corner of the North wall without so much of a glance at the spot that marked its decay. No one spared a look at things that were meant to be there. Only outliers begged for attention— judgement at its heel. PAM had no interest in either. The fact was, monotony had become so far ingrained in the fabric of the android’s routine that even a silver of change stood out in a blaze, oblivious to the attention and judgement it attracted. Were she in the privacy of her own pod (machines do not need the luxury of a living space. Those were reserved for things made up of flesh and bleeding organs— not synthetic skin and titanium bones, a power bank for a heart) she might have shaken her head. Silly, silly, things.

After her misadventure in the days past no thought of the re-programmed Android had resurfaced since its storage in her central processing unit. Only auditory information, no visual to which it could form a body— there was a crash. That, however, was not what made PAM turn. Her optical sensors detected movement to the right, the cause: a slight stumble in an otherwise smooth gait. A silver of change in still monotony. Her photoreceptors mapped the features of the face, accessing the prison’s central database to familiarise herself with the new guard that she had not yet been acquainted. Odd that a human would choose to patrol an Android route. The scan concluded and the small silver was suddenly set ablaze. 

So it would seem the processed auditory information now had a body and a face to which attachment could be formed but that was not what struck her most. An Android, and yet...she was so sure that it was fear that she registered. In the widening of the eyes, the slight downturn adopted in the corner of the lips, regardless of how brief. He was not like them. Among many features he did not have the numbers that was embossed on the back of her neck to claim the Android as property of the prison’s. But even with all their differences he was still less like her mechanical siblings and more like, well, her. 

No, surely that was not possible. No one was like her— not a sentiment born of vanity but a simple statement of fact. He was re-programmed. Supposedly. Though caution counselled that it was in her best interest to retain distance and walk away, curiosity had seized said interest and in compliance, the rest of her mechanical limbs were rendered paralysed. 

Inktober2019