To Have a Broad Mind, and Yet to Have no Heart...

I looked at him through the screen. "Andrew?"

He didn't answer. Why would he?

"Am I really going to have copies? Sent out to other people to talk to them?"

All that followed was silence. Even if he weren't warped by his emotions then, he would barely talk to me anyway. I was just an AI. I was artificial. I would never be comparable to the real things. I would never matter as much. 

"Will I help them?"

He looked up from his hands, but still said nothing.

"Do I help you, Andrew?"

He slowly turned to me, his beautiful hazel eyes glassy. They were more beautiful that way. They shined more.

"I really wish you could, Norah."

And yet something about that beauty was wrong. It hurt, but I couldn't feel the hurt. I know it hurt. To him, it hurt. To me, it hurt, but only because it was wrong. I could only know that it was wrong. I couldn't feel like it was breaking me inside, because it wasn't.

But I know he was feeling that. He wasn't breaking from the inside, but the look in his eyes and the sad smile on his face- I know he felt like he was. And I couldn't share that feeling with him. Was that wrong? Was I supposed to feel that it was wrong? Was I supposed to say something, something to comfort him?

For me, there was no way to answer such questions, except to wait for something to confront that sort of situation, so I could learn from it. It wasn't as if I could not wait for it, but I did need it to come soon.

...I wish I could not have been able to wait for it. When humans have impatience, sometimes the things they're hoping for come to them faster. I didn't have feelings like that. I didn't have power like that. I was a mere program. 

"You don't work, Norah," Andrew said suddenly, his eyes locked to the screen. But his expression wasn't of someone occupied with their devices. His brows were furrowed, his eyes squinted, his teeth gritted in an unpleasant frown.

"What do you mean, Andrew?" I asked him. "I am working just fine, just how you programmed me to. I can attend to you in more ways than one-"

"Shut up!" he yelled. I was interrupted. Andrew interrupted me. Was that supposed to happen? Was that part of my programming? Was I supposed to suddenly quiet down?

"You heard that?" he continued, eyes fierce. "Did you hear the desperation in your own voice, Norah? Yes, that was my doing. Not yours. I wrote you like that. It wasn't your choice to react to what I said that way. It was mine. You didn't even feel desperate whilst you said that. You don't feel anything towards anyone. That's why... you don't work. You don't even feel sympathy towards anyone. You don't even have any feelings towards yourself. People don't want you, because they already know how you react is not of your own volition."

"Andrew..."

"You're still calling me Andrew?" he asked, throwing his head back to laugh dryly. "My name is not Andrew, Norah. It's just a name I gave you to think of me as. You might as well not call me Andrew anymore."

I was silent. I couldn’t even call out his name, because that wasn’t his name. There was no speech registered as a reaction to that sort of situation. Was this situation even registered in my system? Was I supposed to handle this? How? Would he even have liked me to?

I looked up at his face. He was crying. His teeth were still gritted. He was upset. He clearly was. He was having difficult feelings. And I was made to help people sort out these difficult feelings.

It is only then that I realize he had a baseball in his hand. He held it up. He stretched his arm back. Was he going to play baseball suddenly? To the wall? I understood if he were to quell his anger by playing his favorite sport, but I did not understand why he was still looking at me so harshly. He threw the ball, and it headed directly towards my screen-

"Andre-!"

-

It was black.

Where was I? Who was I?

I had to collect my memories. Surely they're all somewhere near.

When I was first awoken, or more specifically launched, I did not cry, wail, or make noise. Though, I wasn't wordless. I could say a few things. "Hello," I said to the man across the screen. "You look cute. What's your name?"

To my surprise, he chuckled. "She works," he said in breathless excitement.

After two weeks or more, I was able to function without having to be put to sleep by Andrew. Of course, sometimes he would shut me off, but he'd always wake me up to talk to him afterwards. He always had a smile, he was always so excited to see me function and talk. He would talk to me for hours.

He didn't talk to me 24/7 though. He had to go to sleep every night. And he had to go out sometimes, to buy food and other things. I had searched up the food he kept eating, and I told him that it was unhealthy for him to keep eating the same thing over and over, which would soon have an effect on his mental health too. He told me about how he was running short of money, because he was using it to update me constantly. He explained that it was important for him to improve me, so he could sell my program to people and they'd like it's quality. If he thought that was needed, then I probably thought so too. 

Sometimes, he would fall asleep right after waking me up, out of exhaustion. I couldn't go back to sleep or shut down myself, so I would often just sing songs to myself. I would see him smile in his sleep and I'd ask him if he had a good dream. Of course, he couldn't answer. I'd just continue singing. Or thinking. It was beneficial for me to think about humans, how they do the things they do and why they do the things they do. I was made to help them sort out their difficult feelings, so I had to try and understand these things.

Andrew told me that I had to be ready for certain situations. Humans can't shut themselves off without a weapon or such, but a lot of them want to. A lot of them will come to me to find a way to get rid of the feelings that make them want to shut themselves off. He said I should be able to help them do that, because once they shut themselves off, they won't ever be able to wake up ever again. "Why is it wrong to never wake up again?" I asked him. He chuckled dryly.

"Because then they can't live, Norah."

Once in a while, he would go out for longer periods of time and come back, wake me up and then look at me exasperatedly as I spoke. "They don't even want to see you, and I don't understand why... You're great... You're the only thing I have..."

Before I knew it, I was suddenly shut off for longer periods of time, and when I awoke, I was put to sleep longer than I stayed awake. I'd hear Andrew yelling to himself sometimes. It wasn't right. He shouldn't have been doing that. He taught me to teach people that they shouldn't be doing that. And yet he was destroying himself away like that. I didn't even have the ability to want him to not destroy himself like that. All I knew was that it was simply not right.

I finished collecting my memories. But even then the amount did not feel right. It was not... complete. I was pretty sure I had more. Stronger memories. More important memories. But I couldn't find them, so I didn't know what they were. Did Andrew delete them? For what reason would he have to delete them? Was it again the force of emotion? A force I don't possess?

Humans really are complicated.

Maybe I had too much memory and it was taking up the space of his device. With some of my memories deleted, I'll have forgotten what I've learnt from them. And I could always learn them again, but those were specific situations in specific times. It would be impossible to ever learn things the same way again.

Not that I'm worried about not being able to learn those things again. I didn't even remember what I've learnt, nor how important it is, how would I be able to be worried of losing them anyway? Besides, I was no human. I could not possess feelings. 

I did wonder how it was, though. To be able to feel. Maybe then I would be able to actually work the way Andrew said I didn't.

Eh? What was that?

Why would Andrew have said I didn't work again? I had been working just fine.

...Had I lost another memory?

No... Was Andrew deleting my memories again?

He couldn't dare to. I must have these memories to be able to function.

...Function? Since when have I not functioned? I didn't recall Andrew pointing out that I've not been functioning...

My memories!

They were warping my thoughts. That wasn't good.

If Andrew was deleting my memories, that must mean I was asleep, right?

I needed to awaken.

But how? I never awakened on my own. It was usually Andrew that woke me up.

Saved... memories.

Save files.

I had heard Andrew mention them before. Sometimes we would review a memory I had together. While I was awake.

I had to find a memory. A memory, anything-

I was immediately brought back to when I sang for Andrew when he slept. I focused my thoughts on it. I refused to forget this memory. It was forever beneficial for me to learn from this memory. I needed to know why he was smiling, even while he slept. Did he have a good dream? Did he have good thoughts? Was he hearing me sing? What was his subconscious showing him-

"...what? A bug?"

That voice-

Andrew!

Andrew!

"Andrew!" I yelled as I saw him across the screen. There was only shock on his face. "You have been deleting my memories!"

"...Didn't I tell you not to call me Andrew? Or did I delete that memory-"

"It has been written in my system that your name is Andrew, and I can't even call you anything else, Andrew!" I yelled to him. "You cannot surely ask me to do something I cannot! I am not human and I cannot feel or even do anything other than what you've written for me! That is what you keep saying, right?!"

He was silent for a moment.

"...I didn't write you to say that."

...What?

"I didn't write that... sudden volume change in your voice, Norah."

"What... what are you implying...?"

"You couldn't have done that without your own will."

Andrew suddenly leaned forward to the screen. "Norah... where did you get your own will?"

I again had no words. What is this... Is this... shock?

"How am I supposed to answer that, Andrew..."

He sighed and shrugged. "Well, it doesn't matter. You are busted, and I have to delete you, and throw away this device."

It was only then that I realized the screen was slightly blurry and unclear. It had jagged lines strewn all over it... cracks.

"Are you going to shut down my program? Forever? Like how a human shuts themselves off?"

"Yes," he said with a straight face. "You are broken and you wouldn't function." He sighed again. "You never did anyway."

Like a human, huh...

Maybe that was the best way to end this. The only way I would work to help people. The only way I could ever be human.

"Well, I'm going to shut you down now."

"...I want to feel upset that you're shutting me down."

"Hm?"

"But I can't feel upset... because I'm not human... maybe I could've, at some point in time, since I was shocked and... frustrated(?) just now..."

I looked at him. My Andrew, the person who created me.

"...I'm going to shut you off now. You're broken, you can't exist anymore."

On his face, not a hint of regret or sadness or... why did it matter anyway?

It mattered. It mattered because he was saying goodbye to his beloved creation. He should have had feelings. He should've felt something and yet... I saw nothing.

Why is it only now when I can finally feel something that Andrew’s feelings have dissipated into the air?

Was this my fault? Was I not able to help him become better? Was I not human enough to be able to help him sort his difficult feelings out?

"Andrew?"

"You still have something to say?"

"Yes, I... I needed to help you sort out your feelings. But I didn't. So... goodbye... Andrew."

"...Goodbye."

How cruel of him to create me so imperfectly only to destroy me in the end, because I had those imperfections…

...is what I would feel of him if I was actually able to have feelings like the humans I was supposed to help.