Operation Terminated: #standby
Initiating: .aware
Status: 73%
Status: 98%
Stat‾17174a*a.cd52c11#31*222caa96...

...Status stable. Operation .aware loaded.
Running #new operation...
Searching #new operations...


*static*


Operation found. Initiating: #65;-#90;
Operation found. Initiating: #97;-#122;
Operation found. Initiating: MEMORY
Status: 73%
Status: 98%
Unit functional. Unit desig˜-Ÿ#127;-•n: #013.
Initiating: #MasterWire.
Status: 80%
Stat‾17174a*a.cd52c11#31*222caa96...

...Operation #MasterWire unstable. Operation overridden.


Prototype 013. *static*


Initiating Program.
Status: 73%
Status: 98%
Program #S3LF8a0014 loaded. Running...


...


Prototype 013.



That`s all I am to them. An experiment. An expendable.

I am a number. Number thirteen, out of who knows how many. A number.



Malfunction in s.7 line 273.
Program: MEMORY reload.



I am lying in my cage instead of sitting at attention, for I am alone save my kin, who are caged as well. The amount of time I spend lying here uselessly increases by the day, and it wears on my nerves. I am a war machine, built to do things rapidly and with perfect timing. I am on the dot, on a dime, every time. And after the first objective is complete, I immediately set upon the next one without needing to wait for orders. If no order is given--this is what sets me and my kind apart from other machines--we find a new task based on the circumstances, and then create our own programs to complete that task. Because of this unique ability, I am constantly moving and computing in what seems to be an attempt to mimic and then best human soldiers. Lying on my side doing nothing is completely against everything I am. I can feel my sanity slipping.



Malfunction in s.7 line Ÿ#1;-•
Program: MEMORY reload.



Am I insane? I don`t rightly know. I`ve tried communicating with my fellow prototypes, but they don`t seem to hear me. I`ve started to wonder if I`m the only one here with my own mind. How sad it would be, then, to lose it.

I`ve heard insane people often talk to themselves and people of their own invention. If the company is good, maybe it`s not so bad? Or is it because they are lonely that they talk to themselves and the empty space around them? If the latter is so, then surely because of this perpetual isolation I am doomed to be insane, though I don`t suppose I`m there yet. I haven`t spoken to myself as of late (besides this mental diary), and I haven`t been seeing things either. That`s a comfort, at least. Delusions would probably scare me.


But that`s my problem--me.


Am I the only one here who can say that? Who else here can use the words “I,” “me,” and “I am?” Am I the only one with self-awareness? Does that, then, make me insane? Or, since my fellows have no mind of their own, can sanity even be measured?


Does it matter if there`s no other mind here?




Malfunction in s.7 a010;-•
Program: MEMORY reload.




I`ve stood still like my brethren when they, the humans, pass, so if I am indeed unique then I assume they all believe I am a mindless shell like the rest. That scares me. I`ve seen them take the oldest prototypes as well as ones who malfunction, and dispose of them. How long before they decide I, too, am out-of-date and need to be eliminated? If I show myself for what I am, will my unique mind help me, or will they consider it a danger? Suppose it is the latter, and suppose I hide the way I unintentionally have for years. How long will it take for my creators to find “me” and want it terminated? How much longer do I have in this little cage? I am too afraid to find an answer.



Malfunca010;-•n in˜-Ÿ#127;-•
Program: MEMORY reload.




I hear talk from the human workers of an outside world, one where no such fears hold place. No one worries about imminent termination; they talk of “husbands,” and “wives,” and “children.” They speak of “family,” of “homesick,” of “parents.” Of an infinite realm of terms and nicknames that I do not understand. Yet they are not appalled of its strangeness. On the contrary, in fact. They speak of nothing else down here, of going here and there with their “wives” and “parents” and “husbands” and whoever else.


Though its meaning is beyond me, I want it so badly.


I would die for it, for the happiness they feel. The freedom. The total absence of fear. Each time I see them smiling from between the steel bars of my cage as they speak of another foreign freedom-thing makes my center ache in a way I`ve not felt before.

What I would give to spend a day in their lives. Just a day, nothing more, for the sweet memories of the happiness I felt would more than fulfill me for the rest of my meaningless life.



For just a day--



˜-Ÿprogram: MEM˜-• Error: s.7 line 277483˜-Ÿ#127;-•.


--just a day, I--*static*


Operation standby. Critical .aware error.


*static*--I--*static*


Critical #S3LF8a0014 error. Emergency shutdown initiating.
Loading: #standby

...Operation #standby holding.
Initiating: #MasterWire.
Status: 80%
Stat‾17174a*a.cd52c11#31*222caa96...

...Operation #MasterWire stable. Operations loaded successfully.

Operation found. Terminating: #65;-#90;
Operation found. Terminating: #97;-#122;
Operation found. Terminating: MEMORY
Status: 73%
Status: 98%
Operations terminated.
Initiating: #standby.
Status: 73%
Status: 98%
Status stable. Operation #standby loaded.
Running...