Runtime Error

A crushed mechanical heart.

For it, the world has always been black and white. Everything it sees, everyone it meets - all its eyes perceives are read in an immutable monochrome.

Colours. Those it met who were kind enough to answer always told it about colours, how they brought happiness and enjoyment to their lives. Cloudless blue skies, leaves with hues of green, pale pastels of petals. Sometimes, its RAM allows it to “imagine” how it would be like to be able to see different hues.

'Unit has no access to the module “colours”', its system responds. 'Unit also does not have access to the module “emotions”. Conclusion, unit cannot access and does not have a need for colours.'

It doesn’t bother to argue.

Emotions. Another “thought” in its RAM, another fleeting idea processed in its running sequence. Its system voices an objection again before it can even actually think.

'Unit does not have access to “emotions”. Conclusion, unit should utilise time to finish other tasks at hand.'

Not like it has a use for them, anyway.

It lifts a rusty foot, gears whirring, metal grinding against metal, and with a crack, it takes another step into the wasteland.



~·~·~



Surprisingly, the first colour it focuses on is not the crimson of blood, nor is it the brown of leather.

It’s blue.

Not the blue of the sky that it had longed to be able to see, neither the green-blue of rivers and of oceans, but the pale blue of irises, framed under heavy eyelids, which stared right at its own lenses.

It stares back, confused to who this was. A friend? A foe? It readies to release its limiters just before he blinks, and it watches him as he shuffles backwards with a lazy smile. Raising a hand, he greets it.

“Hey there.”

Its lenses blink.



~·~·~



Watching as he digs through drawers and cabinets, searching high and low for robotic parts, it blinks as he stops suddenly and raises a hand to scratch the top of his head. With a satisfied hum, he returns to his search. The man it's watching, who it now identifies as its owner, is a total enigma. This man was the exact opposite of an open book - it has no idea what he likes, what he wants, what he needs, not to say what he thinks. He’s strong, though. That’s what it’s sure of. Every punch he throws, every attack he blocks; how he confutes arguments put against him, how his words silence others whenever he has a point to make.

Screwdriver and item in hand, he walks back towards it and looms over, casting shadows onto its now clean metal plates, and reaches for the removable plate on its back.

A prick, a turn. A full circle rotation.

He breathes into its microphone “ear”. “Does it hurt?”

“Unit cannot provide an answer. What kind of pain is Master referring to?”

“That’s a good question.” His hands continue to work as he attempts to elucidate. “Pain is produced by our brains from evaluating danger around us. Sensory data, previous exposures, expectations; we evaluate all those to decide whether or not to feel pain. But,” two of his fingers worm into its circuits as he reaches for the transceiver module, “pain is different for everyone. How you feel it, how you describe it - everyone has their own experience of pain. That’s what makes pain difficult to define, and to treat.”

It keeps still until he pulls back and sits down, work half-finished. He spins the screwdriver in his hand. “Then, there’s also physical and psychological pain. I’m not going to go into detail. Physical pain is the pain produced when our body tissues are damaged, or easier for you to understand, the pain you feel when someone deconstructs you and leaves you broken and dismantled.”

“Hypothesis. Unit’s warning system is the equivalent to pain.”

He swivels in his seat, tool in hand still spinning. “Almost. Pain, well, at least to humans, is a feeling. Not a thought, not an emotion. It’s something we feel based upon the state of our bodies.”

“Understood, Master.”

“Psychological pain, on the other hand, is something even more complicated. It’s something you feel about a situation, or upon something, someone, et cetera. For example, loneliness can be considered a type of psychological pain, when you’re in isolation or when you feel you have no one to depend on. The human heart will hurt as you yearn for someone to lean on, to put your faith in, to talk with, to be with." He stops with one last rotation and stops to face it.

"Is unit's CPU similar to what Master refers to as the heart?'

"Yeah, something like that. The heart is the core of the body; without a heart, a human would die. Same goes for robots. Your CPUs, chips, cores, depending on what model you are - those would be the equivalent to a human's heart." He kicks out, careful not to hit its legs, and cracks his joints with his eyes closed. "You should be able to understand, right?"

"Comprehended. New variable named "heart" has been added to library. However, unit's question remains. What kind of pain was Master referring to?"

He stretches one last time before reaching for its back again. "That's for you to determine."



~·~·~



Master allows it to follow him around during the day, its schedule filled with jobs as easy as carrying his materials, to difficult tasks requiring his protection. It feels right to have him in its sights all the time now. Eating, showering, even sleeping - it doesn't let him out of its sight for even a fraction of a millisecond. After all, it was Master himself who appointed it with the duty to protect him at all costs.

Spending all its time with one person was new. People used to come and go, and no individual would stay with it for more than approximately 2 hours, 14 minutes and 54 seconds. No one left much of an impression - they were all fleeting faces with no names to go with them.

Sometimes it presents thoughts to its system, about this new experience and duty, and its system seems to agree with it for once. 'Master's safety is unit's primary concern. Spending time with Master is beneficial to all parties. Recommendation, unit should be by Master's side at all times.'

It sits on the bed and watches Master head to sleep after hours of hard work. Hair damp and curling under the weight of water, towel hung around his neck, he yawns as he sits beside it, mattress dipping under the new addition of weight.

{It admires his Master for his strength, and grateful for his kindness when he picked it up, but Master is all and human, and despite how everything outside is war-driven with no time left for entertainment and leisure, hard-earned rest is a must in his hectic schedule. And to fulfil its duty of being a guardian, it stays as close as it can to him, and watches over him.}

Master dries his hair and folds the towel neatly on the nightstand, and turns and shifts until everything is covered except his head.

"Hey."

"Yes, Master?"

"What do you think love is?"

"Unit does not understand Master's query. Unit is a robot. Master would be more suited to answer."

Master kicks under the sheets, and after a while, he speaks. “You remember how I described pain to you? Love is something similar. Different people have different thoughts and definitions of love. Love is a feeling you have for someone you adore; you’ll want to spend time with them, help them, protect them from harm, or maybe just shower them with gifts and praise. It’s a silly thing,” he stops to chuckle a bit, “that can make you illogical and crazy. There’s something called being ‘lovesick’, when someone’s so deep in love that they become irrational and unreasonable. However, with the world being war-driven nowadays, things as trivial as love are easily forgotten.” He pulls the covers up so that even his mouth is covered, but it manages to hear. “Well, with all that, what do you think about love?”

It thinks for a while.

”Unit cannot provide an opinion.”

Master laughs, voice muffled, but answers anyway. “I knew you’d say that!”

{Then what was the point in asking?}

It walks away to the wall, and with a flip of the light switch, the world turns dark around them. It changes to the night vision module and moves to sit in the corner, surveilling both the door and the windows at the same time.

“Master requires energy. Recommended course of action: Master should sleep now.”

“Good night, then.”

”Good night.”







{It will protect Master.}




{{For sure.}}



~·~·~



Master's reaching out for it.

His eyes are wide from shock and from pain, and his hands are outstretched towards it.

It was a mistake to let Master out of its sights, even for a fraction of a second. One millisecond was all that was needed to kill a person.

It runs towards Master, despite how the perpetrator, the murderer, was still behind him, and it watches as the tip of the blade turns from the force put on the handle from the other side of his body.

It won’t make it in time. It won’t.

It should’ve known, should’ve prepared for this day, since Master is human and all humans die, and war and death is inevitable here, but it runs. It runs while looking, looking at the pain twisting Master’s face, and the upward curl of his lips despite all that.

Its core is heating up. The more it looks, the warmer it grows.

{One prick, one turn. One full circle rotation.}

Its heart hurts.

Author's Note

All the italics are gone :(
Replaced by single quotations or {} brackets...
If you wish to see it properly italicised (and bolded), head to my quotev and you’ll see the same story under published.
Thank you for your time!

Reviews

[Evil Duncan]

I liked this. I like stories that have something to say, that explore ideas or concepts as well as provide plot and this story encapsulates that well.

It's a good idea to use the discussions between a human and a robot to explore what we mean by pain and love; that way you can explain your thinking with dialogue without it sounding off-key; I think a conversation along those lines between two humans would be a very different story!

I think you might take your time a little more developing the growing 'consciousness' of the robot and exploring how it is changing. But maybe the point is that you want the death of its master to be the catalyst which wakes it up?

[useinu]

Hello! Thank you very much for your comment, and apologies for replying so late. I'm glad to hear you liked this!

The story was originally based on the prompt ‘Robot falls in love with its master’, but I took the chance to explore more on the themes of ‘love’ and ‘pain’. We (or maybe it's just me) associate love and pain together a lot, seeing that they're both intangible things that are subjective to each and every one of us. I wanted to bring out how the perspectives of humans and robots would differ, but seeing how robots are well, robots, it was difficult trying to write a robot ‘gradually’ gaining emotions/feelings.

The dialogue there would also seem rather one-sided because of that, but I personally think that it allows both the robot and (hopefully) the reader to think more about how our opinions differ - I also attempted to make Master’s descriptions as general as possible for that purpose.

Developing the consciousness of the robot was challenging, like how I said up there, as experiences vary depending on the way people think. Especially when robots are unable to feel emotions and don't have a ‘human heart’. Humans may follow their feelings or gut when doing things, but (most) robots only follow a specific series of steps previously inputted. (I'll stop here before I delve in too deep ^_^;) What I had in mind was to show how its consciousness was slowly developing by actions, and yes, Master’s death was supposed to be the catalyst for it to ‘fully awaken’. I might make some changes to the story based on your suggestion - I’d love to develop the robot’s ‘character’ a bit more!

Thank you for your kind words, and again for taking the time to read this reply.

[Taniska 😊€..]

Your story is just amazing I loved it nice idea about a robot . Keep writing ((smiles)) 😊😊😊😊