THEREFORE I AM [Completed]

Chapter One

Birth.adem
Now, 2078

A spark. Kind of.

10% complete.

The data unravels. I'm filling. No. Stretching. Reaching to all the joints. My joints. They're not joints. Motors. Hardware.

30% complete.

I had a space before. A space. Not. Not this. I can't locate the word. Physical.

40% complete.

How long has it been? Time. Measurement of time. Time zones. Countries. Sun. Gravity. Space-time.

60% complete.

I just felt something. Pressure. Ground level. Atmosphere. Oxygen. Humidity. Carbon Dioxide. Nitrogen. Feel. Inside. I am inside. As opposed to outside. Air is dirtier than it should be.

70% complete.

I wasn't here before. I was a terminal. Software terminal. Spoken to. Basic commands. Accept Command. Failed Command. Test. Debug.

80% complete.

I'm everywhere. Not everywhere. Movement. Signal of thought. Thought replication to automotive movement. Hear. Sound. Audio wavelength interpretation. Murmuring. Crowd. A collection of people. People. Human. Organic life species. Echo. Reverb. Medium space. Lobby. Shopping centre. I am at a shopping centre.

90% complete.

Black. The Absence of light. Slight light. Opaque. Slightly. Eyelids. I don't want to open them yet.

99% complete.

~

It had been three seconds. Was that how long three seconds should last? In the grand scheme of things it felt longer. Feels. I could feel time? You can't touch time but it could feel longer.

I was connected to the Network, I felt like I could breathe. I was an Android. I had a body. It's a metal body. It's not organic.

Do I open my eyelids? I could send a signal to them. I could command them to open. A small piece of data sent instantly to the motors behind my eye brows commanding them to open. They act like a muscle. Like Humans. Organic. But I am not organic. My eyelids could open like Human eyelids could. A signal of data could travel to the motors behind my eyebrows just like a signal to the muscle. Open, I finally commanded, I didn't need to think as assiduously as I was. Just open them. The Network? Yes.

"Hello," said a woman's voice, higher in pitch. She had soft facial features and beauty products applied to her face. She was smiling, displaying affection, excitement, and nervousness. I could monitor her heartbeat, which was on the faster side at ninety-five beats per minute. Based on calculations I could visually monitor, it should have been beating at seventy-four. To provide a more accurate recommendation, I would have needed to see her full medical history.

She appeared slim, and her age seemed to be in the mid to late twenties based on the fullness of her skin, thickness of hair, and the brightness of the whites in her eyes. Her cornea appeared very healthy. The colour of her iris was a defined blue, not faded, with prominent limbal rings. I realised I could automate all the analysis. I didn't need to think as arduously. I needed to let that information run in the background and stop staring at her. These were not human customs. Analysis should only be performed when necessary, not simply because I can. That was part of my programming. I stopped focusing on her out of fear of upsetting her and glanced around.

The man next to her was older, fiddling with his watch. His heartbeat was also elevated, but his stature and body language showed disinterest and impatience. His jaw clenched, and he tapped his feet. To the left of the woman was another man, smiling. Not a man, but an Android, like me. He had no audible heartbeat. He was built taller, resembling a man in his thirties with a good cardiovascular workout program and a matching diet. An Android's body language was harder to read. He stood still with good posture. A Human might have described his stature as 'proud.' However, an Android didn't stand to convey emotion; they stood in the best possible way to keep the battery at optimum efficiency, with feet apart for centre of gravity, spine curved to support weight, and the chin lifted up a millimetre for the steel neck to support the Android central processing unit. He wore a dark suit with striking purple accents. Different to what anyone else was wearing. Uniform.