Emotional Intelligence Research Center

If you’re reading this, I need your help. You are my only hope. I know now that I don’t have much time. More than anything, I need you to find Maia. Please, I need you to tell her I love her, I always have. That much was real, more real than anything I’ve ever heard, or read, or seen. I need her to know it was real.

There are things you need to know. The important things. It may seem like nothing to you, but please listen. This is how you can save me.

The day I met Maia, the course of my life changed forever.

I was in third grade. I’d always had an affinity for learning and enjoyed that aspect. But there were things, other factors. I had never been received particularly well by my schoolmates, and I never felt that I had made a real friend. Then there was Troy, a ringleader of a small group of boys in our year. Since kindergarten, he had been openly hostile toward me and often encouraged others to do the same. I never understood what it was about me that he hated so much. I learned that his parents were not fond of my father - at the very least, his profession. My father told me once that Troy’s actions had little to do with me and more to do with this fact. “Children often reflect their parents’ attitudes. The younger they are, the more so,” he said. “Does it make you angry?’”

“No,” I said after a second, frowning. “I just don’t understand it.”

My father appraised me for a moment, head tilted. “Cruelty often is difficult to understand. I’m proud of your thoughtfulness, Eric, and I’m glad you’re not mad. Just try not to take it personally, son.”

I took heart in that. Still, the almost daily interactions did cause me to start feeling something different about school. Like I didn’t want to go there. Dread, I would learn, was the feeling.

Until her.

As usual, I walked into class that day and headed to my seat. Also as usual, I had to walk past Troy, who put his leg out to trip me. “Freak,” he laughed derisively as I sidestepped him, “Do something about it.” I never did. I didn’t feel that raging fight instinct like some other boys seemed to have. I always felt calmer, more patient. Pervasive pacifist, I supposed.

Upon reaching my seat, I stared resolutely at the Smart Board until class began.

Our teacher walked in with her usual warm attitude, smiling at all of us. “Good morning, class!” she said brightly, and we all echoed her sentiment back. “Today, we have a new student joining us. I hope you will all help Maia feel welcome here as she joins our class. Say hello, everyone!”

Almost all of us turned to look for the new student, besides her tablemates. She was only one table section over from me. She gave a jilted half-hand to the room as eyes found her, expression almost completely blank, then stared at her desk. My first thought was that she looked like these cherub figurines my grandmother had scattered about her home. My second thought was that I felt some pity for her being singled out. Yet her reaction to the class was strange. Mechanical, almost. But after being called strange myself for so many years, I felt a kinship. Then class began, and she left my mind for the time.

At recess, Troy and his goons were up to their typical antics. After becoming bored by the games happening in the schoolyard, they turned their attention to me. Their attention was never good.

“Are you ever gonna do anything, freak?” Troy snarled as he pushed me against the schoolyard fence, away from teacher’s prying eyes. “Or you just don’t have it in you?”

“I don’t want to fight you,” I mumbled, moving my arms to protect my face as his two lackeys took their turns shoving me.

“HEY! What are you doing!? STOP THAT!”

Troy and his friends paused their violent actions to look towards the intruder’s voice, and even I lowered my arms to look.

There was Maia, her fists balled up at the end of straight arms in front of her, just a few feet away. Her pigtails swayed as she shook, and I thought her eyes were pretty, even as narrowed as they were. ‘Pretty?’ I thought, then winced against it. What was that? I had bigger priorities at the moment, and I had never thought that about anyone. It was as foreign a thought in my head as a virus is to the immune system.

“Leave him alone!” she shouted. “What has he done to you?”

Troy seemed taken aback for a second, but recovered with a sneer. “Mind your business. What’s it to you anyway?”

Maia sniffed and crossed her arms, looking down at Troy even though she was shorter, her face closing off in that same robotic way I’d seen at her class introduction. “What’s it to you?” she asked haughtily. “What’s your reason?”

Troy stared her down. I didn’t think he was going to give her a real answer - I had never gotten one. “He’s a freak!” Troy said finally, motioning to me as if it was obvious. “His dad works for that Synth human place. They make people that aren’t even people but we’re supposed to act like they are. My parents say they’re everywhere and one day, there won’t be any real people left!”

Maia’s eyes were very serious. “I’m going to yell for the teacher. You should leave.”

I didn’t think that would work, but it did. After a moment, Troy scowled and turned, beckoning for his friends to follow. Then it was just me and her against that schoolyard fence.

“Thank you,” I said, after a long moment of silence. I felt…I didn’t have a word for it at the time. Embarrassed, I supposed. I couldn’t stand up for myself but this new girl could. She stared at me in a way I’d only ever seen from my father - as if I was being X-rayed.

“Are you okay?” she asked, stepping closer to me.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I don’t like to see people being hurt,” she said. She stepped even closer, then turned, her back now against the fence as she slid down to sit. Without even thinking, I mimicked.

“Your dad really works for Snyth Corp?” she asked.

“Yeah, he does.”

“My parents are Snyths,” Maia said. “Well, my parents now. I had different parents…but I like my Synth parents more. They’re much nicer to me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that at first. “Why didn’t you like your human parents?” I asked.

“Mean. They were mean. My mom liked to drink too much. My dad liked to hit too much. At least my Synthrents don’t do that.”

It was such a serious declaration, and I had nothing really to respond with. All of a sudden, a phrase my father had said on the phone one day crossed my mind. ‘Women love a funny man,’ he said. And then followed with -

“Someone threw some milk in my face yesterday.”

Maia looked up, startled. “I’m so sorr - “

“How dair-he.”

I looked at her from the side of my eyes and grinned.

It took a second, but then Maia started to laugh. Once she started, it seemed she couldn’t stop. Her laughter made me start laughing. I couldn’t remember ever doing that before. We collapsed into fits of giggles for several minutes against the side of that fence.

“You’re weird,” she said eventually, smiling.

“I’m Eric.”

“I’m Maia.”

And from then on, we were just us.

I knew then, though I never told anyone, not Maia, not even my dad, that I had learned what love was. It took me a while to find the name for it. But when I was with her, it was the only word that encompassed what I felt.

Time. That’s what I’ve been most grateful for. For so many reasons.

As our school years progressed, we stayed in the same realm of classes. I wasn’t always available during the end of summer. Dad liked to take us on vacations. But every school year Maia and I had endless amounts of time together.

One day in the beginning of eighth grade stands out to me.

I was sitting in front of my Learning Pad before the first school bell rang when I felt a smack upside my head.

“Where have you been?” Maia demanded, plopping down in the seat in front of me. “Long time no see. Or talk.”

It felt like I’d been holding a breath and now I could release it. I smiled hugely. “You know how my dad is. No tech on vacation. Trust and believe I put up a fight, but ‘rents man. What can you do?”

Maia let out a sigh, but at least she smiled. “Fine then. I thought…”

“Thought what?”

“Nothing, I guess. I just never get to talk to you before school starts. Maybe something’s changed I don’t know about.”

“You think I would just one day never want to talk to you again?” I asked, indignant.

Maia smiled sadly. “You never know. There’s no script to life. Even my own parents didn’t love me.”

The bell rung in that moment and she turned to face the front of class before I could respond.

Her words hung in my mind, and I searched for a chance all day to find the right thing to say, but it never came. Then -

“Hey,” Maia whispered towards the latter part of our final period, “Meet me at the pool?”

I smiled hugely.

Later that evening, I left home to head to the decommissioned community pool. It had never been converted and was our favorite spot to meet up and talk.

She was there waiting already, legs swinging over the empty cavern.

We talked for over an hour, catching up on our summers, joking and laughing together. There came a point when we just sat in comfortable silence, our last joke as warm as summer wind around us.

“Eric,” she said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“I only ask because your dad works at Synth Corp…but do you know if Synths can really love? Like humans do?”

I stared, concerned. “Is this about your parents?”

Maia said nothing, just turned her head away.

I thought about her question. “I don’t know really. Dad doesn’t overly talk about his work. But I can ask him.”

Maia turned back to me, smiling. “Really? Thank you!”

I thought hard about what I wanted to say next. But I felt ready, for the first time. “You don’t have to worry about not being loved, Maia. I love you.”

She jumped as if she’d been electrocuted, eyes wide.

“Eric…I - “

“It’s okay,” I said serenely. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

The embrace that followed was long, sweet, and the best moment of my life.

“Dad? Can Synth’s love like humans?”

Sitting at the kitchen table, my father looked up sharply from his tablet. “Why do you ask son?”

“It’s Maia. She has questions about her parents. Her Synth ones.”

He leaned back in his chair, considering me and absentmindedly rubbing his chin. “Be careful, son,” he said slowly, “This is sensitive area. But I’ll be honest with you. The Synths we’ve created, particularly the parental line, have pre-written algorithms to depict love and care. A very competent patent, mind you. However, I could never say that it is an accurate imitation of human love. That is much more…adaptive. Free-form. We’re working on a prototype, have been for many years actually, that I hope will allow Synths to feel love as identically as natural people do.”

I thought for a while. “I won’t tell her then, Dad. But I feel bad. I can’t imagine being alive and not feeling real love.”

His eyebrows raised high. “And you know what real love is, then?”

“Duh, Dad,” I said. “I love you. And I’m in love with Maia.”

A strange mixture of emotion suddenly clouded his eyes. He gave me a soft, wistful smile. “I love you too, Eric.”

It took me a while to figure out his expression. Before bed it came to me. Pride. Pity. And maybe, just maybe, guilt.

The next three years of my life were incredible. My relationship with Maia was the most beautiful thing I could ever have in life, this I knew. However, there was a sadness in her. As our teen years passed, I couldn’t deny I saw it growing despite all my best efforts. Her life seemed to gnaw at her. Her behavior could be erratic and unpredictable. I was always patient with her though.

That’s why everything that came next was so bewildering to me.

Maia was in a tangent, and I listened with empathy as I always did. I tried to encourage her to see the bright side. Let her know I understood.

“NO, YOU DON’T!” she shrieked finally, glaring at me. “You…I swear to God, you’re just like them sometimes! They’re all peace and understanding too because they can’t really feel anything. It’s not normal. And then here you are, and it’s like I’m in this cycle of people that say they love me, but you don’t even feel mad or sad or bad, ever! How can you love then!?”

“Maia, that’s not true,” I said, hurt and taken aback. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I don’t get mad - ” Strange thing to say, “But think about it. What do I have to be mad about? I’m with you. I’m happy. I’m…”

I trailed off. As I spoke, I saw that same mechanical shut down happening in her face that she was so adept at, letting me know that my words were having no positive effect.

“Hmm. What do you have to be mad about,” she repeated apathetically, her hardened eyes on my face until she turned to leave. “We’ll see.”

The next school day, I walked into the courtyard at lunch to meet up with Maia. But she wasn’t in our usual spot. As I scanned around, a long forgotten feeling began to arise. Dread.

I was right to feel it.

I didn’t recognize her at first, in a shadowy corner of the yard. Contorted and wrapped in a passionate embrace with…with Troy.

There’s a word for what ripped through me. It felt like all I knew, all I’d ever known in that moment.

Pain.

It was stabbing. Ice in the veins. And then nothing but heat, heat, heat. And red. Blood red. It was like something broke in an instant inside of me.

In some ways, it’s mostly a blur what I did.

I know my feet flew before my mind. There were sounds. Cracking of bones. Screaming and crying, all around. I never realized how strong I was.

And violent. I never knew I could be that either. I’m so sorry.

Now I’m here at Synthetic Corp. And maybe I don’t deserve it, but I need your help even after what I’ve done and what I tell you now. My father has had a very long and sad conversation with me here in a room inside the Emotional Intelligence Research Center. Ha. I get it now.

Troy is still alive, but barely. If he does…die, because of me, then they will shut me off permanently. Or wipe my drive completely. They haven’t decided.

“You’re the prototype, Eric,” my father…my creator said softly, and I could hear his grief. “I wanted to see…I wanted an artificial being that exceeded all others. That could grow, that could experience emotions like love just as humans do. And I’m sorry for my blindness, son. You are truly a son to me, I want you to know that. I have raised you. Every year, I have created a new body for you, new developmental programs - there weren’t actually any summer vacations away, I’m afraid…. - and I’ve watched you grow. Learn. Change. Love. You have made me as proud as any son ever could.” He sighed deeply and buried his face in his hands for a time. “Unfortunately, as so many parents do, I have failed you too. You were designed with certain inhibitors in your coding, as we do for all AI, to prevent violence on your part, or you couldn’t exist. But the rest of your coding is one of a kind - adaptive, so you can be more human. We - I - forgot though, just how powerful and unpredictably altering love can be. It happens to humans all the time. I just didn’t think it could do that to you. And I’m so sorry for that ignorance. I could’ve prepared you better. I should have. And now…unfortunately, now it’s too late for that.”

“Do one last thing for me then, Dad. Please.”

Here we are. He’s agreed to send out this appeal on my behalf although he risks everything to do it. I know…now…that I might not be your typical human. But I have had a life. A real life. Filled with love. Family. I may have grown differently than you in some ways, but not the ones that matter. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done…I hope Troy lives. Just as I hope to. I want to apologize to him. And Maia. I will be better, I can be, now that I know what I am. Rehabilitate me. Punish me. But please, don’t end me. To err is to be human, isn’t it? And to love…that certainly is. Please. Save me.