The blue fluorescent lights bathed the cold metal of the room with a colder glow that was about as lifeless as everything it was shining on. Product #1864 was given the stick and unfortunately that came with consciousness, and the eyes on the painted and very carefully constructed android accessed their open(self) subroutine and flickered on. It was a very confusing memory to have, going from nothing to everything all at once, and looking back on it, the Electric Line Safety Attendant of Station B-19 on the Electric Line felt an odd mumbling in the brain, or at least in the coagulation of circuits that people colloquially called the brain, and it was quickly shunted away before it could even congeal into a thought let alone an opinion when the ping came from the superviser.
"Unruly passenger, gate 6."
The attendant ponged it and moved whirring gear and all towards gate 6, between the throngs of passengers going on and coming off the platforms, where a red-headed human female was plainly intoxicated and bewildered by the gate mechanism, lying on the ground. The superviser stood at the other end of the gate, and he was speaking.
"Ma'am, I'm only going to ask you one more time, or the android will take you away."
The girl jerked her head up so that she was staring at the attendant. "Android? You have androids here?"
"Ma'am. Do you have your passcard?" said the superviser.
"Yeah, it's in my pocket."
The attendant fixed calculating eyes on the girl. Intoxicated meant that she was immune to reason as such, and that meant that the superviser would probably send a command to restrain by physical force. It would be trivial. The girl was small and could be held by the arms rather tightly, and probably lifted off the ground, and carried to the backroom where she'd be blacklisted from the Electric Line until she paid her outstanding fees, plus the processing fee, plus whatever other fees the company contrived to deal with unruly passengers – well, they deserved it, really, being unruly and all.
"Ma'am, I'm only going to ask you to produce your passcard one last time."
The superviser had a confusing habit of asking other humans to do something for the "last time" over and over again. Privately, the attendant even wondered how many "last time"s there had been before the ping was sent out.
"I told you, it's in my pocket. Androids?" She widened her eyes at the attendant more fixedly. "I've never seen an android before."
"Ma'am. Your passcard."
No warning about it being the last time, so this really was the last time.
The girl wobbled to her feet, and reached a hand into the pocket of her blue denim pants. She withdrew it holding a shimmery silver card that she fed into the gate mechanism. A large red "X" appeared on the LED with an accompanying klaxon.
"Ma'am, you don't have the funds to pay the toll," pointed out the supervisor.
"Oh. Damn."
Ping. "Restrain and take to the backroom."
The Electric Line Safety Attendant seized the girl from behind. She replied with a yelp, and her arms were quickly folded back and tucked up in the attendant's powerful grip. Yes, she could be lifted – and was, and the attendant adopted a steady pace in the direction of the backroom.
"Hey – let go!" said the girl.
The attendant didn't reply. The automatic door to the backroom swung open at their approach, and the attendant unceremoniously dumped the girl on a hard wooden chair. The backroom was dark and lit only by a single fluorescent tube. It had some chairs and a filing cabinet in the corner. Now the attendant had to wait for the superviser to come and process the girl.
The girl rubbed her arms and stared liddedly at the attendant. "Man, you're strong. That hurt."
When the attendant didn't reply, only looking at the girl with the unconscious gaze that it always had, the girl blinked several times and cocked her head. "Wow, y'know, they really do make androids look just like people. I always thought that was, y'know, just something they said. 'Cos where I come from, there are robots – I mean, where aren't there robots? – but none like you. I mean, I'd think you were a human, too, if I didn't know better from your uniform. Except for the eyes."
The attendant said nothing and the girl squirmed in her chair. "So… Do you have, like, a name or something?"
Name. Humans all gave themselves weird and different-sounding names. It was a bit unwieldy for data storage, all things said, but the attendant knew – "knew" – that humans didn't store data the same way machines did. But the attendant just had its production serial (1864) and then its classification (B). Mostly it was known by its occupation identification – 607950 in the handbooks. So for "name" it might be 1864-B-607950. Stuff like that tended to go over human heads, though.
"Huh," said the girl. "For some reason, I thought androids would be different from other robots. Now – what's the point in that? Make androids look just like humans, but they're just like robots on the inside. Pretty silly, if you ask me."
A few minutes of silence passed, during which the girl slung her arm over the back of the chair and then assumed a diagonal sitting position that somehow annoyed the attendant. "So when's the guy gonna come and bail me out of here?"
She massaged her temples with her fingers. "I had too much to drink."
She unslung her arm and leaned forward, chin in her hands. "So, you're, like, just a robot, right? Can't talk and stuff?"
Not technically true. The attendant could transmit information via audio, but it was rarely ever necessary, and protocol didn't permit communicating as a general rule, though certain queries it had to respond to in accordance with certain laws on the books.
"You know, you'd be pretty sexy if you were a human. I wonder if that makes me a pervert – since, technically, you're a robot and all, not a human. That's a pretty awful pick-up line anyway. 'You'd be pretty sexy if you were a human.' Are you sure you don't have a name? Or like an ID number? Say, what is it?"
Without missing a beat, the attendant responded "Six-oh-seven-nine-five-oh." Its voice was monotone and somewhat cold, but it was a reasonable facsimile of a female human voice, really.
The girl blinked. "Uh, English, please?"
"Six-oh-seven-nine-five-oh corresponds to occupation name 'Electric Line Safety Attendant,'" said the attendant.
"Electric Line Safety Attendant," repeated the girl flatly. "That's a mouthful. What's that as an acronym – E. L. S. A. Elsa? That sounds better. Your new name is Elsa."
What.
"Well, Elsa, aka Mrs. Snooty Android. I'm Anna. Pleased to meet you." She stuck out a hand.
The attendant did not shake hands, only stared at the girl with a flicker in the eyes.
"Not one for shaking hands. O-kay, fine, I get it. Dirty human and all. Don't want to scuff up your chassis I suppose."
Well, no, the attendant just didn't shake hands. It just didn't do that.
The door swung open suddenly and the superviser came in. "All right, someone paid your ticket and your bail." Usually his tone was grudging when he said that, but this time it was more like obsequious. The attendant noted it without realizing why.
"Ugh," said Anna. "Not my dad, I hope?"
The superviser's face adopted a red hue. "Mr. Arendelle has… yes. I just received a transmission from the head office that – "
Anna sighed dramatically and jumped to her feet with a wave of the arms. "I swear, how does he always know what I'm getting into? Nosy old… ugh!" She stomped across the room towards the door.
The superviser, for a second, looked like he wanted to jump out of her way and cower in the corner. But to his credit, he maintained his cool. "Right this way, ma'am. I'm sorry for the trouble. If you could just tell your father that it was a misunderstanding – "
"Save it. I doubt I'll remember any of this tomorrow." She went to go out the door, and turned her head to look at the android. "'Cept you. Nice meeting you, Elsa. Good luck, erm… being an android, I guess." The superviser followed the girl out, forgetting to ping Els- erm, the android to get back to work.