"What do you mean?" He didn't know why he was so worried.
She's not human… Just a robot…Just a robot… Just……
He could almost see the technician shrug. "I've got no idea what's wrong with her," he admitted. "Or rather, I know the problem's in her brain case, but I don't know how to fix it."
He felt his shoulders slump. There was something he had to tell her, but what was it?
She was dying. He laughed audible at this, and the technician must have thought he was really crazy now. It was stupid to call it dying, right? You have to be alive to die, and, he reminded himself once again, she wasn't alive. She was a robot.
"You have a good insurance policy," the technician was saying. "You can get another of her model real cheap at—"
Another of her model? She's not human, she's not. And yet… The technician sounded more robotic to him than she ever had. He was treating her as if she didn't exist, as if something like her—someone?—could just be replaced. She'd quoted Orwell. And then… Well, what she said next was a mystery, but somehow it seemed important. He needed to know.
"Is she—" he was about to say "dead"—"…gone?" It was the only word that sufficed.
"She's god about an hour of battery left," the techie replied, clearly not understanding why the question was asked. "If you really want to see her you can, but with brain shell problems like hers you can't be sure that her recognition software will know you. If there's some data you want me to save for you, I'll get it now and send it to you."
"No, I don't want any of her data." Why was he shaking? "I'm not going to take her self and put it in some other body! Don't you have any respect for her?!" And then it hit him.
"You are the dead," he told the technician. "Humans are more robotic than the robots. She is more human than you are."
The techie was silent.
"I need to see her."
"Yes, sir," the technician said.
