5 Hours Earlier

Jenny sat in her room, sprawled across her bed, blasting the trendy digitized band, techET's new hits from her internal speakers. Magazines lay sprawled across the floor, each filled with smiling human faces with perfect human bodies. Normally, keeping up with the newest fashion looks and listening to some great tunes cheered her up, but it was different this time.

"They look so happy. Do they just forget about the fact that someday...they'll just...disappear?" She muttered to herself, tossing a copy of TeenSeen onto the floor. She sighed. Regardless of how many times she had tried to reboot her thinking, it kept getting stuck on three topics: birth, life, and death. She had seen the topics referred to often everywhere she went - they were so common that to ponder them was considered cliche among the human mind. But as cliche as existentialism had seemed, she didn't quite understand it.

"XJ9!" A voice yelled from outside her door. She rolled her eyes.

Mom.

She immediately shut off her music and shoved all of her magazines under the bed. "Yeah?"

Her mother, looking weary, opened the door. Jenny, upon noticing her mother's downtrodden appearance, quickly changed attitudes and rushed to her side. She rambled off a serious of questions and provided their accompanying actions in a speedy motion.

"Are you alright?"
"Did you bump your head?"
"No? Are you not feeling well?"
"Could you be sick?"
"I think there's some cold medicine in the cabinet downstairs!"
"I can take your temperature! Oh good, it looks normal to me!"
"Need any tissues?"
"Tea with honey?"
"Painkillers?"
"A doctor?"

"XJ9, I'm fine! Would you cut that out?" Her mother asked in annoyance. Jenny took a step back.

"I'm just tired because I stayed up all night working on some new updates for your operating system - ones that will help you live longer. Do you feel better now?"

Jenny blinked. Updates? Ones to help her live longer?

But did she really... want to live longer?

Jenny shook off the thought. Of course she wanted to live longer. She had to. She was a global response unit: she had to protect Earth from alien invasions. No way should she wish to pass sooner for selfish reasons - she had a whole planet of people to protect. That was, unless, someone better would take her place.

"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"How long am I supposed to last? Like...will I go out of order before you go? Will there be an XJ-10? 11? 30?"

Dr. Wakeman laughed.

"XJ9, you are for sure a forgetful one. You're my last prototype! I know you love your sisters and all, but you're the one meant to protect the earth from all harm. It's your destiny, as one might call it. According to my sources, you'll be around for a very, very long time. Maybe 50 more years, a few hundred more years, maybe a thousand!"

Jenny sat on her bed, speechless and trying to process the information. Had she really forgotten that she was the last prototype? She had tried so hard to forget about her mother coming to school to embarrass her only to find it would remain forever engrained within her. But all of her information about her lifespan had been a blank file until now. The scientist continued.

"Life is one of those things that we can't predict how long it will be. Everyone lives differently! Some humans use religion to help cope with passing, believing in a God setting up a sort of afterlife for the lost soul: determining that the heaven is the better place to be than the real world. Others think it's reincarnation, and that spirits never die but rather come back as new people."

Jenny looked at the floor. Dr. Wakeman sat on the bed next to her.

"I can imagine it's difficult to process the Carbunkle's current situation. Are you worried about losing the ones you love?" Dr. Wakeman affirmatively, as if she were solving the answer to a difficult puzzle and wanted to double check her answer. Jenny's brain, however, was in a state of scattered confusion. She, unlike Dr. Wakeman had assumed, had many more complex concerns. But she nodded, hoping that maybe some insight could help.

"According to average statistics, you should be able to chat and interact with us for much, much longer. You must understand that Mr. Carbunkle's early passing can be considered an outlier when compared to the average human lifespan."

A fact appeared in her mind: "average life expectancy in the U.S.: Between ages 76 and 82".

"What a short range" Jenny thought to herself. Using her mother's logic, wouldn't many other passings be considered outliers?

"What if you or Brad or Tuck or...even Sheldon is another one of the outliers? Then what?" She asked quietly. The minute she saw her mother's pained expression, she immediately regretted asking it.

"We can only hope that isn't the case," Dr. Wakeman stated quietly.
"But I believe in you, and I know that you'd be able to handle the case in a well-executed manner, if such were to happen."

Dr. Wakeman patted her robot daughter on the back and began to head towards the door, announcing that she was going to make herself dinner.

"Hey, Jenny?"

Jenny looked up, surprised that her mom addressed her by her preferred name.

"You may be considered a superhero in the eyes of the common people, but please don't put too much pressure on yourself. You can't fix everything."