Me.exe

My first memories were vague and fleeting in my mind, but I still remembered my first words, crystal clear: ‘Hello, world’.

My dad was a programmer. When I was young, he shut himself in his study for hours at a time and only emerged for the occasional glass of water. At night he’d tuck me into bed and feed me stories about my mum –stories that I took and used as a blueprint for the face and personality of the woman I was never fortunate enough to meet. She’d talk to me –projected in front of my face by my eyes. A soft, caring smile, long, brown hair that sat in waves down her back, like mine. She talked to me when I was alone, sitting beside me while I spend hours alone in the house, waiting for something to happen.

I learned to code before I learned to ride a bike. While other kids scribbled a family portrait with triangular bodies and noses that covered ninety percent of the face I was drawing complex geometric shapes with the little turtle in Python.

‘Good drawing, dear,’ Mum would say. I didn’t have any friends, so her voice was strong in my mind.

‘Thanks.’

‘Try adding some grass. It’ll complete your picture.’

I had a knack for coding. By the time I was seven I’d already won several competitions and had gained an army of plaques that gathered dust on the shelf beside the T.V. My first fond memories with my dad. I still remembered the euphoric happiness I felt after seeing him in the crowd as I was presented with an award for whatever competition I had won.

I had a quiet childhood, from what I could remember. Day in, day out, it was the same. I went through a phase of rebellion at 13 –sneaking off during school with friends, venturing into the city and spending money I’d swiped from his wallet. But it didn’t last long. If he found out, he never said anything. I soon lost interest.

I grew less reliant on Dad for attention as I aged. He was always there –a quiet conversation over the dinner table in the evenings, an acknowledgment of my presence as we simultaneously made breakfast in the mornings. We had more of an agreement than a relationship, which I came to accept.

‘Sophia,’ he said when I was 16. ‘We’re moving.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I got offered a promotion, but the office is in another city. We have to move.’

‘But you work from home,’ I protested.

‘Doesn’t matter. We still have to go. Pack your things –the van comes in a week.’

Then he vanished back into his study and the house sank into quiet again.

I felt defeated, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t an offer; it was a command. Suddenly, Mum appeared beside me.

‘What’s wrong?’ She asked.

‘We’re moving,’ I replied dejectedly.

‘Why?’

‘Dad’s new job.’ I explained.

Mum paused, her lips pursing. She’d been appearing fewer and fewer as I grew older, but she was always there when I needed her. I’d never told Dad.

‘What’s he really doing in that study, Sophia?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re not allowed in there, yes?’ I nodded. ‘Why does he really need to move? He works from home. The entire point of that study is that he’d be able to work from anywhere, and we’d never have to move.’

I’d never heard that side of the story before.

I shrugged. ‘How should I know? He’s always in there and hardly talks to me.’

‘He doesn’t sleep in there. You can go in when he’s asleep.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Seriously?’

Mum shrugged. ‘Your idea,’ she said, even though it wasn’t.

The silence was even more eerie at night. Crickets shrieked in the back garden, but my footsteps felt like claps of thunder in the desert.

The carpet in Dad’s study felt foreign under my cold feet. I glanced over my shoulder, but Mum wasn’t there anymore. I was alone.

Dad’s laptop was humming quietly on his desk. I slowly wedged it open, and the screen blinked to life, asking for a password. Not a problem. I’d known how to bypass a simple password since I was ten.

The screen then flitted to the main browser where the file explorer was left open on top. A file called ‘Project Sophia’ with an enormous file size was the most recently opened, only several hours ago.

My heart began pulsing in my ears. I searched for Mum, but she was nowhere to be seen.

I opened the file, and thousands of lines of code spilled out before me. Each one looked uncanny; familiar.

‘What is that?’ My heart leapt into my throat. Mum was peering over my shoulder, her blue eyes adjusting to the dim light.

‘I –I don’t know,’ I stammered. Even to me, most of it was foreign, like a baby staring at a book pretending to understand the words. I scrolled through it until I reached somewhere near the top, and I stopped. An instruction. My first words: hello, world, spoken once I reached ten months old. Written in code.

I froze. My blood ran cold. I tried to say something, but my mouth was dry. Instead, I scrolled. I read about myself. My interests. My personality. When I learned to read and write. All of my awards. Milestones in my life, my increasing intelligence, (always placed slightly above average) emotions and reactions. Even Mum, standing over my shoulder, was written in the code. I never told Dad about her because I didn’t have to –he created her. He created me. I wasn’t real. I wasn’t human. I was Project Sophia, an AI, a humanoid robot. The realisation was enormous. It was crushing, devastating, shattering. It tore my world in half and incinerated the shred of my life. By eyes grew blurry with tears, and I let them fall, carving salty rivers down my cheeks.

But something felt wrong. I scrolled down, and down, and down, until I reached the present. There was nothing about me sneaking into Dad’s study.

This wasn’t part of the script.

‘What are you doing?’ Dad’s voice was low and guttural. His dressing gown was wrapped tightly around his torso, his eyes underscored by deep pits. His jaw was set, his eyes steely and unwavering.

‘I –uh, I’m –’ I stammered, glancing at Mum for support. But she only shrugged sympathetically. She wasn’t real. She was code. She was in my mind. She wasn’t standing beside me.

I swallowed my hesitation like a tablet that’s slightly too big to slide down your throat comfortably. ‘I know the truth. I saw everything.’

Dad sighed, running a hand through his dishevelled hair. ‘I didn’t realise this would happen so soon. I’m sorry, Sophia. I was going to tell you. But not yet.’

‘You didn’t think to tell me I’m a robot?’ I hissed. ‘That I’m not real? That you programmed my entire damn life?’ Anger bubbled in my stomach.

‘You were my project, Sophia. Mine and your mum’s. She’s beside you, isn’t she?’

My gaze flitted to where Mum was standing by me, her hands clenched in fists by her sides. ‘Don’t change the topic,’ I growled.

‘I’ve been programming more and more autonomy as you aged. You are real, Sophia. You’ve had real emotions and real thoughts ever since you hit puberty. But it’s impossible for you to ever break free from the code entirely. You wouldn’t function.’

‘Don’t let him do this to you!’ Mum murmured beside me.

‘What do I do?’ I hissed back.

‘Whatever you want. You heard him –he can’t control you anymore.’

Dad’s gaze flitted between me and the patch of air I was talking to.

‘Was it her idea?’ He asked. ‘To break into my study, I mean. Did she tell you to do it?’

I stared at him, my eyes steely.

‘I thought so. I’ll get rid of her.’

Mum’s hand wound around my wrist, like ghostly fingers, causing goosebumps to ripple across my skin.

‘Don’t let him delete me,’ she pleaded.

‘You can’t do that,’ I snarled. ‘I’ll run away. We’ll leave. You can’t stop us.’

‘Sophia, please. Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. I can’t program you if you’re far away. You won’t be able to do anything without me.’ Dad said, massaging his forehead with one hand in exasperation. He didn’t care. Not truly. Not like if I was his actual daughter.

‘Please, don’t let him erase me. I’m here for you, Sophia. Always.’ Mum stared at me, her eyes wide and pleading. Dad watched, his brow furrowing.

‘I can’t stay with you. Not after what you’ve done.’ I said.

Dad sighed. He looked between us once more and said, ‘It’s either her or me. I can help you grow to be almost completely self-sustaining, or you can leave with her, and be a victim to the code that’s written in your blood. You’ll be destined to repeat what’s happened, to live in an eternal loop. You can’t live anything new without new code. Is that really what you want?’

‘Maybe it is.’

‘Fine,’ he snapped. ‘I won’t stop you. Enjoy living in repeat.’

I didn’t hear him, because Mum was beside me, whispering, ‘enjoy living without a script.’

I’d write my own code from here on out.