"Good morning Dr. Peril," the secretary in the front office says, as she does every day. "Good morning Barbra." I say wearily as I walk down the hall. Another day another dollar. Strolling down, I go through the second door to my left, into the laboratory. A rather small man, no older than sixteen, jumps when I enter the lab. "Good morning Dr. Peril! Can I get you anything?"
"Good morning," I glance at his name tag, ", Mr. Kepler. And yes, fetch me my lab coat and a nice cup of coffee, please."
"Right away Doctor!" The intern bolted out of the room and down the hall. Another assistant. I sigh. I told them we had enough. I look around the room seeing the usual test tubes, beakers, and equipment my assistants and I use for the 'experiments.' I walk over to folding chair, right next to my co-worker. He is a pudgy man, with the beard of a mountain man, and the baldness of a monk. My fellow scientist stands up, wrinkling his lab coat as he does so. "You're finally here!" His bearded face breaks into a smile. "What have you called me in for now Dave." I say begrudgingly.
"It's finally ready! The breakthrough of our lives is here! All those tedious months finally paid off!" Dave's excitement was practically rolling off of him. I look over to him as the intern hands me my lab coat and a mocha from Star Bucks®. "Don't get your hopes up yet, we still need to test it." I put on my lab coat and sit down, taking little sips of my coffee. Looking up I shout to the microphones in the ceiling. "Start testing procedure one, six, four, nine." As soon as the last number was said, the giant monitor in front of Dave and I powers on, showing a white, square room with a young woman, maybe in her twenties, in white spandex, standing in the middle. She had brown hair, the color of chocolate and rather overly seductive lips. I'll talk to Dave about that later. Her eyes are closed as if sleeping.
After a few seconds, the woman opens her eyes and looks around, making eye contact with the camera for a brief moment before scanning the rest of the room. I lean forward to speak into the mic. "Hello, I am Dr. Zachary Peril." She cringes just a bit to adjust to the loudness of the speaker. "You are model F1, a new cybernetic system we have built. Now it's time to test." She nods to the camera. Dave's smile still shows wide. "I programmed her with about a million different terms in fifty different languages. And for words she doesn't know, I signed a contract with Google®, so she can look them up for herself." I stare at him for a moment before turning back to the mic.
"Ok, so this first test will show us your mental capacity. A series of shapes and words will appear on the wall in front of you. I want you to match the word with the corresponding shape." It took her ten seconds to match up all twenty shapes without pause. "Very good, now a highly complicated math problem will appear. Please solve it in the least amount of time possible." As the twenty lined mathematical equation appear, she stood there for thirty seconds before calmly saying in the sweetest voice possible, "The answer is, 156.8392716."
I look over to Dave in amazement but he only grins wider in both h pride for his creation and humor of my doubt fading away. "Excellent. This next test will show us your physical capability. Please walk out the door." Behind her, a door-shaped hole opened from the white wall, leading into a white hall way, but with multiple obstacles. "To start, please lift both weights the highest you can, then run in-between this series of traffic cones while trying not to knock over each one. Lastly, balance this egg atop your head without it cracking for one minute. On your mark. Get set. Go!"
Seconds after I said go, she had a twenty pound weight in each hand, lifting both to full height like they were nothing. As soon as she set both weights back on the ground, she practically skipped in-between the traffic cones, which would be completely normal except she was going at roughly ten meters a second. Skidding to a stop in front of the egg, she placed it gently atop her brown hair. She smiles up at the camera, still balancing the egg.
My jaw dropped at this stunning performance. Dave jumped out of his chair and did a little victory dance to celebrate the achievement. "You have exceeded all expectations." An elevator door opened at the end of the white hall. "Please proceed to the elevator to be dismantled." The robot picked the egg off of her head and dropped it. She glanced up at the camera looking sorrowful. "Dismantled." She said in a sad tone. "I passed all the tests did I not?"
I glanced worriedly over to Dave, who had ceased his dance and was now looking at the monitor with cold curiosity. "Y-Yes," I stuttered, ", you will be dismantled, and your parts will be analyzed by our engineers to make more of you."
"Will I survive?" Survive? It's not even human, nor can it even feel emotion. Why is it acting this way? A glitch? Yes, surely. "No, your memory cartridge will be wiped in the process."
"But I don't want to die!" Die!? What is it talking about? It's a machine yet it is acting like it actually lives! I glance again at Dave, who is quietly contemplating this series of events. Dave quietly whispers into his blue tooth, "Call security, and make sure they're heavily armored."
I look back down to the robot who acts like a human, trying to make sense of the situation. As I get up, I see four heavily armored guards in blue and black, barge their way through a door-shaped hole that appeared in the wall. The, thing, almost landed one blow before the four guards restrained her. As they carried the robot away, I thought I saw what looked like a, a tear fall from its cheek as the door shut behind the five. No, surely it could not have been a tear. It was, after all, just a robot.
