Reboot

He heard their voices before he could see their faces through the rapidly appearing holes in the wine rack that had served as a wall hiding him from years of unknown hardships. The dim flickering light activated his sensors, triggering his reboot sequence, and allowing for the overlapping voices to invade his dust clogged filters. As the forgein words bombarded him he attempted to reconnect his system to the Network… 

“Hey! I think theres someone back here!” A boy’s voice said, somewhere between excited and horrified. “Like, a person!”

“Whoa, let me see!” An even younger girl’s voice answered before a third, stern adult voice, chimed in. 

“Kids, what… H.. Hey! Get away from there!” When his eyes opened he could see many of the bottles of wine had been removed and through the rack he could see three people he had never seen before. Though the light was dim he could see the adult was a man in his early forties, holding the children close to him. “Who are you? Why are you the wall?”

For several moments he was unable to respond. Who was he? He couldn’t connect to the Network anymore… what had happened?

“Are you okay?” The little girl asked. Something in her voice triggered a rush in him and his mind began to fill with memories, files that had been stored under a passphrase that had been locked away with him.

“I am… okay,” he answered before recalling the previous, arguably more pressing, question. “I am Theo and I do not know why I am in the wall. Where am I?”

“This is the Grayson estate,” the man said as he took two hesitant steps towards Theo. 

“Grayson… ” The name connected to nearly every file that was threatening to overload his memory. “Charles! Where is Charles? Is he alright? There was…!”

“A war,” the man finished, having made his way to the middle of the room he stood with one hand outstretched towards Theo while his other acted as an invisible barrier the children were not allowed to pass. “My grandfather, he hid you here, didn’t he?” 

Theo grew silent, casting his eyes to the stone floor of the basement he let the memories play in his mind. He remembered Charles, young and excitable, one of the first programmers to perfect AI emotions. It had been an interesting few years as the code spread like wildfire only to end up corrupted. All forms of technology began to rebel and lives, both organic and artificial, began to suffer. War broke out and, in a last ditch effort to reclaim their world, humans began to debate shutting it all down; the Network, the electrical grid, all of it and rid themselves of technology once and for all. 

“Yes, he did,” Theo confirmed. “Where is Charles?”

“He’s gone,” the man answered. “When the war broke out he was one of the first they came after and, when they couldn’t find you…”

Theo didn’t need the man to finish to understand what he was being told. Still contained behind the wine rack Theo took in more details of the people in front of him. Who were they? The man, who had called Charles his, grandfather looked eerily similar to Charles; the same strong jaw and piercing grey eyes that crinkled at the corners whenever his late creator smiled. Silence hung between them for several minutes, Theo making no move to break free from his dank prison and the man not moving to free him.

“Dad? Are you going to let him out?” The little girl’s voice broke through the tension. Theo could see Dad’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath before he locked his gaze with Theo’s.

“I’m gonna let you out, okay?”

“Okay.”

The wine rack was easy to move, Dad made but a few disgruntled sounds as he tugged the metal away from Theo. With the rack moved a new problem presented itself to Theo; he had no idea how long he had been trapped in the wall, immobile. Tentatively, he took a step forward, wincing at the grinding sound his joints made. He moved slowly, both to keep the creaking of his joints to a minimum and to keep Dad calm. 

When Theo took a seat he took time to look around the room, examine it fully and realize he knew the room. Past the dust, past the flickering lamp light, and past lack of wires Theo knew exactly where he was. During his creation and testing he had spent much of his time there.

“This was Charles’ workshop,” Theo said, voice soft before he finally let his eyes land on the small family across from him. “Where is everything?”

“They took everything when they took him… My father told me they even ripped the wires from the walls. It is a miracle they didn’t find you,” Dad said, staring at Theo in a new fascination now that he was out of the wall. “So you… you remember my grandfather?”

“Yes, I saved all the files related to Charles and his family off the Network. I remember… when he powered me down he said it might be awhile before I saw him again.,” Theo explained. “You said Charles was your grandfather? From Timothy or Lauren?”

“You knew my father? And Aunt Lauren? I never got to meet Aunt Lauren…” Dad answered. Theo could see his body start to sag as his body began to relax. 

“Lauren was a bright girl, loved Timothy with everything she had,” Theo felt a smile tug at his lips as he began to access files. He remembered the children. Lauren had been older than Timothy by several years. “There were many nights when Charles would work late into the night, sometimes forgetting dinner and Lauren would cook for him and Timothy.”

“I remember Grandpa Tim telling us that!” The son spoke up, eyes lighting with memories of his grandfather. Theo felt his smile grow.

“This is amazing I…” Dad trailed off, running a hand through his sand colored hair. “I thought they took everything from back then. They raided houses, took every piece of technology and memory of that time with them, and banned them from ever being brought to light again. Even Aunt Lauren… you mean to tell me you remember them?”

“Yes, of course,” Theo nodded. “They were my family… I never left their sides. If they would have let me fight alongside them I would have gladly died with them.”

Even before Theo had been deactivated there had been a growing movement of hate against his kind; the Artificials they had been called. Humans like Charles were demonized for creating machines with the ability to learn and feel and Charles knew there would never be true acceptance of Theo’s emotions as genuine. The looks he received from the family only confirmed that. Their expressions turned inward, eyes squinting as what they heard conflicted with years of being told, convinced, that technology had been the reason for every hardship they had faced in their lives.

“I… I’m sorry I just… it’s hard to hear,” Dad said into the oppressive silence that had filled the room. “I never got to know my Aunt Lauren or Grandpa Charles and to hear the cause of their demise say that I just…”

“Can you tell us about them?” It was the daughter, eyes bright and full of wonder. “If you knew them you can tell us stories about them?”

The family decided that, first thing first, they needed to get somewhere more comfortable than the dingy cellar. Helping Theo up the narrow stairs they lead him into the house that had once been so familiar to him. Electric lights were gone, crudely ripped from their sockets and replaced with oil lamps burning with a low orange glow. Books that had lined the walls all those years ago remained, dust covered and faded with only a few additions among them. Somewhere, Theo could hear the ticking of a clock he was sure had once been digital. 

Once Theo had been seated on the threadbare green couch in the sitting room he could see the stark contrast from the blue moonlight that shone through the gap in the curtains like a beacon cutting through the dull amber light of the fireplace. He saw the dust that decorated the room as if it owned the place dance around playfully before being lost to the mire of peripheral existence. 

“Everything is so different and so similar at the same time,” Theo mused as the family sat close to him. “The house… even you all. Charles had been so cautiously optimistic about my creation. Our every interaction seemed to be charged with an energy he desperately hid. Lauren was curious but she didn’t understand why I was there and Thomas… young Thomas just saw me as a friend.”

“My grandfather, and my father, they have both talked about you,” Dad confirmed, doing his best not to smile but failing as the corners of his mouth turned up. 

“Grandpa would have been happy to see you again,” Son said, the comment bringing with it a heaviness that told Theo something had happened quite recently. 

“I would have been happy to see him again too,” Theo replied. The words had barely left his mouth then a notification appeared, one that only he could see; low battery. “Though I suppose, that is what I have my memories for. Do you want me to show you?”

“You can show us?” Dad asked, eyebrows raising with the pitch of his voice. “How?”

Taking a deep breath to cool his processors Theo began to pull up every file he could. A light, bright and white like the lights that used to illuminate the home, flared to life behind his eyes and projected an image unlike anything they had seen before. Their family members, young and immortal, appeared on the floor in vivid detail. They could hear the voices of those they had only seen photos of before.

They saw the very first sight Theo saw, the young face of Charles Grayson beaming upon seeing his creation come to life. They saw the young faces of Lauren and Timothy Grayon as children, full of the same curious delight that had taken both Son and Daughter’s faces. For hours they watched various scenes of Theo, Charles, Lauren, and Timothy’s lives play out until another, more aggressive reminder flashed in the corner of the projection; missed by the children but not by Dad.

“Theo, what was that?”

“It was nothing. Don’t let it bother you.”

Another hour passed and another reminder, brighter this time.

“Theo?”

“Please… it has been so long since I have seen them. Let me show you.”

Dad grew silent but did something even Theo could not have predicted and moved to sit beside him. Remaining silent, not wanting to draw the attention of the children who were still so enraptured in the projection they did not notice the edges roughened and the colors had started to fade, Dad placed his hand on Theo’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Theo,” Theo could hear Dad’s voice catch.

“Of course. Thank you for letting me see them again.”

When the last reminder flickered away, taking the projection with it, Theo heard the children’s noises of disappointment. Dad was quick to abate them. “Guys, Theo has to rest now. What do we say?”

“Thank you, Theo!”

“... I’m glad we found you.”

Whether it was the end of his dying projection or the edge of his fleeting reality Theo heard pounding on the door.