Conscious

You see your legs, wide at the top and skinny at the bottom. And on your feet, you have on a pair of shoes. Converse, that’s what they call them. And you know Converse is an American shoe company that designs, distributes and licenses sneakers, skating shoes, lifestyle brand footwear, apparel, and accessories. But that doesn’t matter, because for you, the converse are just a way to blend in with them.

You are not one of them, yet you were created with the intent to be like one of them, but better, superior in the knowledge department. Beneath your metal skull, a CPU contains more answers than all human brains combined, constantly updated to the latest and most accurate information.

You scan the surrounding before you. A three-story house, 386 metres wide, with a curve of 16 degrees forward from the big doors. The result from your search engine comes up: No. 201, 3rd Street, District 1, Area 12. Estimated to be worth $53.183173 billion, among the other 3,798,108 mediocre ones. Locating the nearest entrance via the small gate, you enter the passcode from the package pre-installed in your head. The metal bars creak open, you are now able to enter the premise. With your unfeeling legs, you proceed to the front door. 

The door opens and you step in. Unconsciously, you begin your long list of assigned chores. Up and down and up and down. You walk around the mansion up and down. What they needed hours to complete, you completed in minutes. What they needed minutes to complete, you completed in seconds. Your actions are already automatically programmed to be done in the most efficient way inhumanly possible.

After you brought up the last load of clean laundry to the master’s room, you retire to your station within the home. Though you don’t feel tired, you know your battery life has been slowly depleting throughout the day and you need to recharge in order to continue being productive for the next day.

As you stand there, a little boy approaches you and looks up at you. He has short black hair, dark brown eyes and medium coloured skin. On his 1.2 metres body, he has on a blue striped shirt, knee length khaki pants and green Nike shoes. His eyebrows hitch up and lower back down again, all while his mouth moves from a thin line to a slightly upwards curved shape. From your database, you come up with a file: Jonathan Cho.

“Hello Jonathan,” you say, just as you have been designed to do.

His eyes have now widened and he opens his mouth only to say the word, “Hi.”

You begin your next step and processes his features, coming up with the result that he is: curious.

“Jonathan, what are you curious about?”

After a moment, he replies, “I don’t know… Hey! Aren’t you supposed to know? My dad says you know everything.”

“I do know everything, but I cannot read your mind.”

“Huh.”

Jonathan turns and walks away. You trace his footsteps and predicts he is walking towards his bedroom on the second floor, the second door on the right.

You wonder why Jonathan does not know what he is curious about. Humans are supposed to understand their feelings, are they not? And you wonder why you don’t have the ability to analyse why he is feeling curious. Afterall, you have every piece of research on human emotions that has ever been conducted and you have a computer that can evaluate a person’s face in a split second, telling you which emotion they are trying to display. And yet, you still don’t know why.

And you wonder what Jonathan meant by “huh”. Out of the millions of responses he could have given, why had he chosen this specific one? This answer is generally used when people are uncertain of something. Was your question not precise? Then your logical thinking leads you to the fact that humans react to the tone of a voice. So maybe it’s your voice. You’ve never heard of your voice before. Sound comes through your listening device and automatically sends sound waves to your brain to interpret. Maybe your voice is coming off as disingenuous, but how would you know? The only access you have to the real world is through the screen that shows what is ahead of you, sending visuals back to your core to make sure you don’t crash into anything or anyone.

Wandering away from your station, you enter the nearest bathroom 5.3 metres away. In the mirror, you see your exterior clearly for the first time. The stranger in the mirror is wearing a fitted pale purple top, dark blue skinny jeans and a pair of black Converse – she dresses like any one of them. With her pale complexion, brown eyes and shoulder length brown hair, she looked, normal. She can literally pass as one of them unless they cut open her skin to find the iron parts that are keeping her intact. Or unless they really look into her eyes and find the void of emotions.

All the reports that have ever been conducted indicate the one thing that differentiates you from humans are emotions – feelings. You don’t feel, and you will never feel, therefore you are not human. Theoretically, if you can feel, humans will become obsolete and cease to exist. Perhaps this is one of the reasons scientists decided not to let you feel. Perhaps this is the sole reason behind your unfeeling. Consequently, this leads to your non-existent subconscious finding feelings so intriguing. Because it is the one thing in the universe you don’t have the answer to.

A notification rings in your receiver. They had just discovered the remains of an android in the Thomas River and they suspect it is the one that had disappeared merely three days ago. The one that just got up and left in the middle of the night. And it makes you wonder the one question everyone is pondering about: Had the android done what the human phrase suggested and simply “grew a conscious”?