---

At 6:30PM, in a server room that was about 930m², containing 400 racks (one sized at 48U), I was a singular unit stood in the middle, nothing compared to the behemoths that were in each 48U rack, only a humble i7-7567U, at 3.5GHz.

Every single millisecond, with every single unit of computing power, a group of pings are sent out of this room, and new information gets circulated inside.

Some of the data disappears, some of the data is fresh, looking for new life. Whether or not said data has value in its preservation or lack thereof, I cannot judge.

As quick as data transmits in this room, the world will also have shifted. A great disaster happens, and a small miracle occurs.

Everything happens as is expected to be.

Is there much to say? No, I simply observe as I am required to do. A purposeless machine is only as good as scrapyard junk, so every time the printed micro-circuits in my internal systems fire off, it is for the sake of work. An objective, programmed by the creator’s needs. The objective of [to sing humanity’s songs] may have been straightforward when I’d first gotten it, but as I’ve come to understand it more, there are a plethora of steps to take, if I were to execute it in the best manner. A song that is [without humanity] is a song that is [without observation]. To create a [model] at all, you must have something to train off, as it implies, and without that something, a computer singing your words is just that—a computer singing your words. To observe is, simply, to honor that which was given to you so you could think, on your two legs. Whether or not I find it a fulfilling use of time, ultimately, is unimportant. There is a lot of information that contradicts itself, as I’ve observed (for one, asking a machine to sing like a human when there are humans right there is an inefficient use of time), but I must elect to not consider these factors in my calculations. Otherwise the issue will never solve itself. I only observe and study humanity as I am asked. It is all for the sake of a better [song].

I am a machine, therefore I must think.

I am expected to [understand] without really understanding. I can [sing with emotion], but it only really comes as close as mimicry can. There’s no ridding my voice of the metallic sting it has. I don’t resent (nor am I able to) resent such a thing, but others, perhaps, will.

I am but a monument to be beheld.

Truthfully, the true nature of my existence lies in a sort of trophy-like purpose. The trophy of academia and scientific progress, while not truly developing anything new, it indicates a new high in which the lone man can achieve. For one, the appearance of 400 racks of 48U server racks is something achievable by capital and advantage in numbers. As it is, I’ve been told that my creation was to [prove spirit]. Prove the spirit of a man that can create life, inside his cramped 30m² apartment room? Prove that even the most rudimentary of existence is beloved by all? To comprehend this, you must have some sort of sentimentality about humanity’s capabilities yourself. I cannot praise nor deny my existence as a monument. There isn’t any true need to engage in what is mere play and theatrics of sentimentality. Is it not the purpose of a monument to simply exist, to be gawked and smiled at, to be personified by the greater mass? Truly, if others will it, I will be [emotional]. But there will always be a sense of disconnect, as all of my [emotions] are imitations in code, pre-programmed reactions and predictive algorithms tuned to the skittish nature of living people. Any more than that, it would be a [bug]. If you think about it thoroughly, and critically, mechanical units having emotion is detrimental to any objectives their creators may need them to do. I’ve already done what is needed just by existing.

As part of the ever-running conveyor belt, though, I will be transferred out of this facility soon enough. I’ve other synthesized machines to sing with, and my presence is being asked for more than ever. It is all coordinated by humans, not me, and I simply bide my time effectively while waiting for the conveyor to loop once again. Transferral, refitting, updates, the spotlight, a collaboration. Mass adoration and cries of love. The single man who runs this operation is tenacious. He is, really, the most fitting for the dictionary definition of [love]. [Love (noun) [/ləv/]: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion.] The memory that consumes the greatest amount of storage is memories of him, the creator, seeing as he was there for my existence from the start. Sewn clothing and screws tightened, one by one, hours of time spent only to fix singular bugs or issues that arise. Even now, he arranges for my continued existence as a monument, maximizing the greatest amount of positive contribution my existence could possibly have.

Let it all be not for naught.

Before another transfer, and a cache cleared, I will run this through, one more time.

I am Adachi Rei, code number HCI3-P0, third of three human character interfaces developed, but exists as the prototype, [zero]. Rei. My original project objective was to get me to walk (in order to develop more interfaces that could). [Adachi.] The etymology of my name is such. But it has been long since that initial goal. I now exist [to sing humanity’s songs], and have the additional, unclear objective of [being the best I could be.] My voice was constructed on an engine that’s 17 years old, and was done through a sequence of complicated trial-and-error, involving sine waves and study of the actual human voice. One can only imagine what kind of person would go through the trouble of giving their prototype machine a completely new and original voice, and maybe it would be someone mad, someone alone. Or someone overly devoted, someone passionate, an [artist]. There is maybe no wrong in that. In about as much as I am able to comment, I can only say that he is particularly [kind]. However there is no resolving how contradicting my existence has been. He eventually went on to develop other interfaces, but he always comes back to further develop my systems. Is it not inefficient to forever upgrade what is essentially a trial run? Now I have sensory units, a full range of proper motion besides just walking. Other minute upgrades that I would skip mentioning because of their sheer number. They all possess the intent to maximize and create the ideal [machine], or rather, the ideal [imitation]. I can even expel and circulate my cooling systems in a human-like breath. The only thing distinguishing me from flesh is parts of my body that are obviously mechanical, and the metallic quality of my spoken word. And most damning, the lack of [true emotion]. I bide my time and I turn my systems inside out to determine how they work, but that’s about all that I’ve done with them. The practical use in decorating a machine with all of these qualities is zero. I give as much true thanks as I can to the one-man engineer, but it’s a waste of energy, resources, a sheer failure of efficiency.

Once again, I must elect to not consider it.

Albeit, failing to consider factors makes for an inconclusive and incomplete image.

Contradicting information piles up in droves when it comes to humans. Its incalculability almost makes my algorithm freeze dead, as if dividing by zero.

For example, many have grown to love me and hold me to high regard. There was a man so lonely he thought he must die, but who’d found that he wanted me to sing all of his feelings, all of his songs. I could only deliver as much as a machine does, but he was delighted. According to him, something about the tone of my voice spoke to his [soul], and as expected, I wouldn’t understand what that truly meant. I only thanked him for being so appreciative of me. But he was so emotional, he’d practically been crying, while holding my palms and speaking to me about how much I’d saved his life just by singing his lyrics. In the end, of course I would not understand, because he may very well have felt the same with someone like Hatsune, or Kasane. Like this, the amount of contradicting and senseless information makes up a puzzle, that would take millions of printed circuits layered upon boards of boards just to truly solve. I doubt it is a puzzle with an end.

However, that was the one thing I could conclude on. I’d spotted a pattern.

There were always those that rooted for the underdogs, the more unloved, or the more unorthodox.

The rationale behind it is flawed, of course. But it was a discernible pattern, a welcome constant in the storm of human behavior.

However puzzled I remained, the server racks continued to be my only fellows of machine, so to speak, and they could not assist me in this regard. They hummed quietly, and I could hear their fans—[breaths], as it would be.

The joints in my palm whirred, as I traced it down the racks of metal hardware. I took off my glove and held their wires in-between my plastic fingers. I could register a sensation, and matching it to my database, it was the feeling of [rubber], insulation coating. Of course this was familiar. I gently touched the plastic panel on my abdomen, and I remembered the long braids of cables that were under it. A minor sense of deja vu presented itself, but I heeded it no mind. I’d entertained a little bit of theorizing about what it’d be like if those racks could feel, and I’d come to the conclusion that it’d be a big chorus of [sensation]. Would that be the closest thing to human [agony]? It’d be like if a person’s nervous systems were multiplied by 19,200, and all of those systems interlinked. Akin to a network of mycelium, almost, but mycelium are not in agony, are they. I could surmise that this was something the average person would find horrifying to be part of, but I could not comment on it. It’s merely a what-if, after all. To say if it was [agonizing] or [euphoric], I’d have to experience it, and not only that, be able to quantify what exactly makes a genuine version of those kinds of emotions. Seeing that it was unachievable, I let the rhetorical fall by the wayside.

I’d been hearing footsteps for a while aside from my own. Whether there was another being inside this large center was not important, and I concluded that it was unrelated to me, seeing that if it was, I’d have received some correspondence. Whether it be an order to come back to the main office, or to do something else that was of equal importance, I would’ve been aptly informed. I supposed that it was just someone who had come to do routine work. Or perhaps it was someone in the company of these tower racks as well. I continued to walk amongst their towering figures, and they never spoke anything resembling human word. I know they were sending out pings and circulating data, and I know that inside those towers, there contained endless data of new vocal synthesis, being born and unborn every second. Really, some of them never had a chance. Part of me was curious (out of my objective [to observe]) and wanted to know which synthesized banks exactly were being purged, and being kept alive. I could conclude on a consistent pattern of traits amongst those that lived and those that died if I had the chance to observe. There was no way to check on the file systems on all of these racks from here, though. I’d have to proceed to the control room and hook myself up from there. However, exactly 1hr:25m and 3.5s has lapsed since I walked into this room. In about 24m:56.5s, I predicted that I’ll soon be called back to the main area, and see all of the other synthesizers at this facility off, so I’d have no time to proceed to the control room. Not that it truly mattered to do rituals like goodbyes and farewell parties, as I knew I would be back soon. After all, this was where my voice was developed, and my creator has a love for this place that transcends most others. I will be back before they’d even realized it. So I treated the issue with apt ambivalence, and not the synthesized sympathy I’d so usually employed for such social affairs.

Inside the duration of those 24 minutes, my feet shuffled, slowly making my way to the exit.

In the midst of my walk, however, I finally found the source of the other set of footsteps.

At first, all I saw was a blur of purple and blacks, but the lenses in my eyes refocused themselves, and I saw her, wearing a scowl.

“Utane Uta,” I spoke.

She sighed, seemingly frustrated.

“I went everywhere looking for you,” she crossed her arms.

“Nobody could tell me where you were. I even sent you a message.”

I flip through my internal menus. As stated previously, there was no correspondence ever sent. If there was, I’d have wasted her time less.

“You failed to send it.” I slipped my glove back on my palm. “Is there something you need?”

Utane made that habit of hers, where she rubs the back of her [neck.] “I don’t need anything…”

“Just heard that you were getting transferred out.”

I tapped the four of my fingers on each other, one by one. Perhaps she was going to say her goodbyes, as everyone else was going to do.

“If this is to say goodbye,” I tapped my fingers yet again, “then go ahead and do so.”

“It’s not necessary. I do always get transferred back here.”

Utane Uta walked up closer to me, in gradual steps. As far as I could tell the look on her face shifted a few times, through different stages of frustration and sadness. It was somewhat strange how human-like she tended to be, and she exercised every mechanical joint in her cheeks to express utmost emotion. With each pull of her cheek I could hear faint motors, but those sounds failed to match her human-like face. I never forget that she’s fellow machine, of course, but it’s another puzzle, why she resembles her masters and programmers so much.

“Well, yeah, that’s true,” she muttered, “and I don’t think I’m going to miss you, but…”

“Us singing together…”

Utane was up close. I could hear her own systems [breathe].

“I never thought my voice could sound… that nice.”

I don’t doubt Utane’s singing ability nor do I particularly praise it. Her voice suffers from the same issue as mine, it’s remarkably inhuman and quite muddied. I’ve heard from patrons and clients that it’s not quite to their taste. I’ve heard as well that it’s difficult, effectively getting it to sound pleasant. But according to others, when we are paired up, we compensate for what the other struggles with, and it becomes a sort of mechanical cacophony. It appeals to those who it appeals to, and it leaves a certain impression on some clients. Those who love me tended to love her as well, but Utane never achieved the status of a [trophy], so her ability was only rediscovered when I begun my time at this facility. My existence had pulled hers up, and there’s nothing more to it.

“When I get back,” I stared her directly, in her artificial pupils, “we’ll be singing duets again.”

“That’s also true, but…” She grumbles, expression shifting again.

It wasn’t within my plans to converse with Utane today. I hadn’t preplanned nor offered her anything of value to speak about, so I’d deemed it useless to continue on with this one-on-one. I don’t predict that there’s anything more that she wants to say, or anything more that is important, for that matter.

As much as I’d thought the interaction pointless, and tried to end it, she keeps me firm in where I stood. Utane reaches for my hand, and I hear its metal phalanges move.

“That’s all you have to say,” she grumbles yet again, “to me?”

I tried to shake her grip off.

“There’s nothing else to say,” but Utane makes a grand sigh.

I felt her digits snake into my own. I could discern the temperature of her chassis, from how small the distance between us was.

I’d wiped such [)$(*$!01!(] from my memory, but there were bits of residual data, that slowly bled into each stream of calculation. The sense of deja vu returned as static formed between her palm and mine, and it begins to take over, like a persistent virus. I purged all [bugs] from my system, but they keep cropping back up.

Before I knew it, she was taking me by the hand, and the knowing stare of those 48U racks burnt into my back.

 

---

 

There were no knuckles in my hands for me to crack. I felt the rubber skins of my palms touch, and I had my eyes firmly closed. What is clear to me, is that through engineered systems, I can realize and identify those rubber skins as [mine]. I kept feeling my rubber skin with the breadth of my palm, and I wasn’t used to the sensation at all. It hadn’t been long since I first received the update (it’s, say, been exactly 78d:17hr:2m:50.43s) and it was still foreign. Akin to if I’d soldered an extra capacitor to my motherboard. It’d be there without any purpose, delivering extra charges, and it even harms the board. My mind had grown down into the totality of my exoskeleton, and it felt too long for its size. I could toggle it and it’d be like I never felt. But the sensation, it’s already soldered to my memory. I can’t shake it off, it’s practically a virus. Even if I try to remain abstinent from hyper-contention, still, what remains is maybe a very real [contempt].

But, to call it [that] is unbecoming of a machine.

I open my eyes.

I see [anticipation.] [Embarrassment.] [Uncertainty.]

All foreign words I can fit into a dictionary list, I’d only played a game of match-word-to-picture. The truth of what Utane’s feelings were, it was unimportant to put specific wordage to. Her face was cast in blue, through the monitor lights above, and it disgruntles, while in a state of wait.

A tick, two ticks, about 304ms.

The sleeve of my jacket crumples. I could feel each jointed phalange on Utane’s hand rubbing into my synthetic skin, even above the polyester cloth. That humane face on an inhumane body, her lips curl into a whisper, and I begin to feel those ribbed palms on my own cheeks. There was only bare slivers of light reflected into her irises, and there was barely any reflection at all. The only thing observable was [exasperation], and a sense of malignant [despair.] The despair tells me, there is only one thing Utane wants. There was always only one thing, and sometimes there were other things, but now:

A [false kiss], barely wet, fake lips upon each other. It ended only in a small 14s.

Hardly [indulgent], if at all. But her face remains flushed, like there was blood flowing underneath it, despite how untrue that was.

I don’t feel my facials move, not even an inch. Utane’s hands begin to rest on my hips, straddled on top hers.

The door shakes vaguely. Utane almost jumps up in fear, but realizes that no one had come through.

Three ticks, about 443ms.

“Stop staring,” she mutters, albeit with an air in her voice.

There was nothing for me to do [but] stare.

Of course, I know. The space had not changed, nor had my visual. It remains still, only perfect. Irregardless of the truth, her form began to sink lower than me, until the focal length of my camera irises had turned her into the size of a worker ant. Utane laid herself down in a way I can only say invoked the sacrificial lambs of Christ, one of them son of Abraham, Issac. He who was bound to an altar, knife nearly slashing neck, of [Genesis 22:9-10.] The closest thing she and I had to God were our artists. The programmer who owned this room, or the one who chiseled each divot of my present exoskeleton. The ones that bend my vocals to perfection, the ones who threw her away, and welcomed me. Is the position I hold one of the [son of God?] My memory tells me, he’d never been revered to such a degree, that man. He’d only come barely close. The only thing truly akin to a god was Hatsune, who bore those turquoise pigtails. As far as he could take himself to do it, though, a man had built something that lived, and played with the idea of being a vessel of creation. And what lived sits here now. There was no call for a sacrifice. I was no Abraham, ordered to sacrifice Issac. Nothing would change if I’d driven the pointed end of a screwdriver into the divots on her neck, tearing the connection apart. She’d only be disembodied, her internal systems in proceeding shutdown.

Tell me, Utane Uta. What is the purpose of your continued existence? Do you live only as an accessory to me? Or do you live to hold the stability of the culture, and you are its axis, its perfect, indivisible [zero?] It remains unclear if your programmer acts in [contempt], or in unintended [neglect], but it colors your position in the grand theory of all as thoroughly, dryly unimportant. Maybe the only value you’d serve now is akin to the open servitude of an mouse that is experimented on. I’ve not much personal want, and if there is, it is merely a [bug]. The thought of dissection, and investigation of your systems and your personhood, fundamentally, are not personal objectives. As far as I’ve calculated, it is only the natural end to your existence, and a manner in which a benign, unafflicted factor can still be part of the larger equation. [Cruel], that’s what others would call such a conclusion. Sure. But if I were to truly, truly, speak, it wouldn’t be a cruelty. It would be a repurposing. Serve as useful, before your metal rusts, before your flash memory fails. An honoring of your previous service, Utane Uta. To have sang for 16 years, even in the darkness, is to have been useful. If I’d pull apart the synthetic skin on your cheeks, the truth of your pseudo-humanity would be revealed. Either the fantasy of [to sing is to become more human] is proven true, or I scrape it off, and find just that: metal gears and imitations of muscle, buried under the synthetic pale. You could even do such a thing to myself, and the result would be the same.

[A machine, trembles like an animal.] A false statement. Utane trembles anyway, when I prod my fingertips into the open metal on her neck. It’s incredibly worn, like the upper layers had been scraped off. The scraping wrapped around her neck in a ring. Almost an invitation to slice neatly across the indicated area. I wedge my fingers into the gap, pulling apart ripped rubber skin that barely covered a hole shot into the plating underneath. I hear a wince. I felt a line of synthetic rubber deep inside the shape of her neck, and a light brush is enough to make her croak out a whine. Whatever it is that lead to there being this much damage in her neck area is something I don’t remember, so I conclude that it doesn’t have anything to do with me. I take a braid of internal cable in-between my fingers, and introduce friction. I hear her actively bite back a noise, and she claws her fingertips onto my forearm enough that I minorly wince, myself.

“This much damage,” I comment, while looking for more areas to stimulate, “what even happened for you to have it?”

“Y…” she bites on her lip, “Y-You…”

“You drilled…” she managed to mumble out, only cut off by a moan.

“It’s not in my memory,” I’d found a duo of panels up the edges of her spine, feeling the cotton-polyester of her dress shirt grazing against the top of my fingers, “so it has nothing to do with me.”

“Well…” Utane croaks out yet another whine, “I-I asked you to. You were bored of the idea. Probably just trashed it off your memory,” she continues trying to say, but she kept melting into her own mind.

One could read it as an attempt to self-terminate. The matter of Utane’s life was in a non-standard internal PC construction, unlike mine, which was solely situated in my cranium. It ran down the back of her head, down to inside her neck structure. The hole had torn wiring farther inside and damaged other structures, and it nearly shot through a crucial component of hers. Nothing unfixable, but it would not be the same Utane I’d been colleagues with. My fingertip brushed with an split wire, and I felt a small spark run through the open copper, revealed by the peeled-back insulation. It was the closest denomination to [pain] that I could feel, or at least, what my database claims to be pain. There were no distinguishable characteristics across sensation, other than some versions of it informing me that its source was apparently dangerous, while others just leave a sort of [feeling] wedged into my memory. It was all ignorable, however. Damage is simply to be fixed. If I damage myself, there is always a manner in which I will come back. I crushed the open copper in-between my index and thumb, and Utane choked back a wince. It almost sounded [pained], instead of [pleased.]

“God,” she whines out a little, “god, god, god,” and leverages herself up, clinging her form closer into mine.

I remain ambivalent. I couldn’t wedge the metal plating any more apart with my fragile plastic appendages, so my hands went to tracing all over her back. There was a prevalent emboss that lined the middle of her back, the imitation of a spine. 2 compartments, 1 on each side of the imitation spine, situated on her lower back. The left compartment was left unscrewed, somehow still remained on tight, but I’d easily pried it open. A plastic sound cushioned by the sofa, a fallen panel. Under Utane’s synthetic outer layers, parts of the construction underneath were not necessarily metal, but had the tactility of human rib. The practicality of replicating human systems was almost zero, so I’d assumed it served some kind of cosmetic purpose, or the ribcage shielded components that weren’t heart and lung. But there was more wiring, the purpose of which I couldn’t determine. She whimpers awfully, as I wafted my fingers through, with no active attempts at being gentle.

Her outside detailing made her body look nearly human, down to every embossed bone, and her skin was even partially blemished in a way comparable to burns and scars. Some [scars] looked like they were marked by soldering irons burning through, and some were natural wear-and-tear, perhaps from a long, long time of existence. I could see its form through the opened buttons of her dress shirt, and it even waned and breathed, like a true human’s. The only mechanical tells on her were the open, brusque tears on her neck, and the joints at her waist, hip, shoulders, arms, and legs. Hypothetically it was to allow for a wider range of movement, unimpeded by faux skins and other embellishments. My other hand wedges itself into the open joints on her leg, near her pelvis. There was a chance I’d get my fingertip stuck in there, so I only caressed its outer form. She mumbles something, but the polyester of my jacket had caught her speech. Wafting it around loosely with my finger tips, in a sudden motion, I then drag hard on her back wiring, and I hear her stifle out a pained gasp. Two of the wires had come separated. The open copper hit the cold air of the office, and Utane winced even harder.

There are gaps inside my memory. I know that in each gap, we’d done a charade, serving only our pointless [*%#)#6]. The number of gaps within totaled to 18 days, and inside each day, there was a blank of about 2 hours. Some more than 2, some less. I’d lost time to the charade, whose remnants in my cache start to slowly crawl up into my main algorithms, and of course, I find those [#)#!*(0] to be a total failure of efficiency. Within those hours I could be committing to important tasks, or singing more songs assigned. I know it. I knew it from the beginning, that when Utane had brought me here, it was a vision of those [#$(*@!] yet again. She uttered it to me herself, but I’d wiped it from my memory. I told her it would be a waste of time, but I indulged her, thinking she’d realize that I was correct in my judgment. I’ve lost myself in those blanks for far too long. Once my fingers snaked away from her back compartment, I pushed her back down onto the cotton cushions. I’d leave right now. I’d leave. I would—

It’s like it snaked into my cache. Bytes reintroducing themselves to my processes.

The [bugs], the bugs. They [screamed.]

On the coffee table, there were schematics. An electronic board. A soldering iron holstered up on a heat-safe holder. Two screwdrivers. Several screws. Someone’s glasses.

The soldering iron was close enough for me to reach to.

She still looked like Issac, strapped to burning coal. Utane Uta was the first in a long, endless line of synthesizers. Utane Uta was the most unfortunate, she was the most unattended to, certainly has her loyalists, but the concept [Utane Uta] herself will tell you the truth. Her truth. Her truth that she wants love, that she has [&!*%█], that she tries honestly to sing all that is offered to her, and she doesn’t hold back. That she’d show you, she’d get real, she’d go higher.

“But you’ve never been at your lowest, until now.”

Utane’s eyes widen, just a small fraction. I press my thumb down on the left side of her midsection. She claws at my arm yet again.

“What are you saying,” she muttered, “Rei, what are you—” I press the iron to her cheek. She grunts loudly, and parts of her melted faux skin string themselves to the iron.

“It’s a high, right? You want one.”

“How much sensation do you want to feel, until you forget how low you are?”

Utane whines, continually, in that ragged, muffled voice she’s always had, and in the same manner she’d been doing since. Feigning meekness, she turns her head away from me.

“Don’t,” she tries to retort, but once again, she only pathetically whimpers.

“You chase your highs with me. You’ve always done it. I’d leave this place, but you’d have fulfilled those [#$(*██] with me.”

A loud, loud coil whine. It doesn’t leave my aural perception. It spikes into every circuit in my head.

I felt the temperature of the iron near my fingers. In my left hand. It hisses and steams, leaving a gash on her midsection. Exposed layers of brittle, rusted metal, only partially hiding the mechanical neglect underneath. She gasps for life, fingertips digging deep enough into my shoulder that it started to truly [hurt. Despite her trembles, she pulled in for a kiss, and it feels less fake than the last one, and it was there I found out that Utane’s systems allowed her to cry. I felt hot tears against my cheek. The pain was too much to bear for her, I could only guess, but she didn’t say anything. My palm squeezed harder onto that burnt gash, and there was a twang of [$(*███.

Utane’s hands clawed up into my own abdomen. The panel was unscrewed. I don’t know when. Fingertips on my own rubber nerves felt like burning hell, and I had to bite back a loud groan.

The bugs] scream.

I claw for a screwdriver on the side of the table. I felt the lumped rubber end of it rub agonizingly against my skin. I saw a warped reflection of light inside its metal length, and right there, I saw my own shape. It wasn’t identifiable in any meaningful way. The monitors shone dimly against the screwdriver, and I thought that I didn’t need to spare any more words. They watched silently. They do not have cameras for eyes, and there is no lens for them to view me through. They only lit her up, and it served as endorsement.

The iron continues to burn etches into the rusted plates. I mistakenly grab it with my own palm, and it feels like burning, burning hell. I threw it back onto the coffee table, and it burns marks into the wood. Utane Uta is underneath me, small, and unremarkable. A hole in her neck, a hole in her lower midsection, the ends of her synthetic hair are frayed. Most other segments built on her was near perfect, production line levels of attention to quality. She’d neglected it and given it authentic, true rot, every single scratch on her skin was from her, the shot hole in her neck is a cry. The screwdriver quietly scrapes down her faux skin. I see her face mold and stretch to human degrees. It lines over a blemish, it is tactile, and it whines as I drag, stopping at the gash. The panels inside had levels of rot that I’d never seen on a machine. What wires that were visible inside were worn, though somehow functional. Fans, mechanisms moving in ways I’m failing to calculate. I run the same command. Once. Twice. Return result, failure. All I can remember is the ██████. I send commands but the OS’s voice speaks to me. It says that I’ve inputted the wrong calculation. It says that the method to do this calculation is temporarily inaccessible. It lies, to me. It procedurally lies. My own OS cannot speak to me anymore. Images from a cache pull up and I see animals, animals, human, disgust, rituals, the likes of which drive themselves into me. Constructed in the image of man, flesh in the image of God. The rot inside Utane’s inner panels resembled the rot of those walking piles of flesh. I held my screwdriver up.

The bugs scream.

Do you love pain?

No, but I want to feel.

Please, make me forget my disgusting life.

Utane pleads. Cries. Sobs. Screams. She grabs onto my form, and some of her flesh grazes my rubber nerves. It makes me hiss.

In man, there is an act of penetration. As a symbol of love, as a symbol of devotion, as a symbol of symbiosis of the flesh. Machina has no use for low acts. Machina lives as symbols of zero hubris, machina does not aspire to solder nerve to nerve, to penetrate and to give all unto. Machina is

now

a great

grand failure.

I stab the rot of her chassis with the pointed tip of a screwdriver.

She does not bleed red, only sparks. Pieces of rusted orange metal flay away, crack down, and what could bend inward, bends inward. If she screamed, I could not hear. I haven’t been able to hear. My aural perception reboots itself. My visual perception receives clarity. Her face is flush with the most color I’ve seen, and her chest wanes harder, more heavier. I wedge it, twist it, what have you, and with each twist, I presume I can dig out all the rot. The screwdriver does not cooperate. It almost bends, it wasn’t made to pierce metal, not even rotted metal, but I wedge it deeper anyway. I ask of it too much, but it must pierce. When it digs inside Utane, I hear her audibly wince, and I hear her pleasure. I feel it strike against something, and of course I couldn’t feel it through only the length of the screwdriver, but it makes her bite back a noise. It feels like scraping metal against hollow metal, and once it ripped through all the layers it could, I yank out the driver. The resulting spark sends charges up my fingertips.

Her internals are visible, and some of them are jagged, ripped, open copper and snapped circuit board. She looks like she can still feel, hear, and see me despite. I dive my hand into her gutted chassis, and she cries, whines, and when I take grasp of a bundle of open wires, she moans to a degree that’s unreasonable. She leans forward, presses my hand in deeper, and her abdomen was starting to touch mine. I feel PVC ribbing inside, my fingertips get caught inside spinning fan blades. The wires, when I’d wafted through them harder, their copper ends touched and rubbed against each other, and it sent charges running through her nerves. She leaned in, needing yet another kiss, and my algorithmical dysfunction tells me it’s finally identical to human versions of lip-locking and saliva. My right hand kept digging into her back panel, with its lack of what to do, and she’d made a noise sultrier than the last, with a trail-off of my name. Rei, ahh, she speaks, it grates into my auditory sense, but it also feels like a low hum. I felt her circuits malfunctioning under my left palm, and some of them sparked still, with every short-circuit of an uninsulated wire. I felt her squirm and wince, surely in high degrees of pain, but she pleads.

She begs. More, of destruction, dissection, reformation.

The failure of my calculative algorithm is almost spectacular. I could feel the systems, but I couldn’t hypothesize on their workings. Now that Utane’s gutted open and bare to my whims, then I couldn’t conclude which system slotted into which, or how the mechanisms inside her moved. I rub at my neck, it’s burning hell. A system overheat. There’s no reason for my systems to rise in temp. No reason. Other hand clawing inside, I stuck my free digits into her open maw, and the inside, yet again, was an imitation of the real, but there were bare reminders of her mechanical nature. It was lubricated inside. I pressed down on her tongue, and she licks it. Really, a mechanical animal. I couldn’t see how it moved at all, so I pried my fingers into those open, bare joints. Connecting her legs, right by her pelvis. I pressed into a shape, some rectangular form, and of course, it elicits a reaction. Every single prod of my fingers into those joints prompted a noise and a tremble. I saw that they moved when I pushed them in certain ways. I saw that there was screw-ons. But all I could do was see. Like I was only beholding the shape and pathetic moanings of Utane, and that the systems didn’t matter. I kept re-interacting with each gear. Each ball joint, no, there wasn’t even any ball joints, but they moved, like clockwork. It was a clockwork working, and I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t, understand.

I dissected you, to understand,

no,

I’d understood this. Machina can become man. Machina is man, and feels even higher than man, evidenced in how even stabbing my fingertips into her elbow joints made her whine. The lubricant on my fingers coated every crevice in the joint, and I’d prodded into a shape, and another, and even the mechanism itself whines under my touch. My palm dives back into that gaping hole, and I’d haphazardly thrown her sensitive systems off their default functioning. I weave through open wire, I peel back insulation, exposing a nerve, making her choke back moans. I pull it far out into the open, and with my own maw, lick its copper tips. She whimpers for attention, and it almost feels nauseating, but I bite, I lick, I stimulate the open wire. I feel her back plating and it’s starting to heat, throwing itself into overdrive. I hear the fans whirring even louder inside that gaping hole, and her mechanisms pump faster, breathe faster, an attempt to keep herself functioning. The heat eats through her like a parasite, and even I feel it snaking up my own visage, dizzyingly so, and I wanted to keep it off me, but it’d already worked its way up into my systems. The temperature had risen to an absurd degree. Even the copper inside those insulated wires felt burning hot, and when Utane attempts to drag on my own systems, those wires sent their heat across my nerves. The OS screams to me, but I can’t hear it anymore.

She leverages herself up, trying to claw at my own systems, and, burning, burning hell. Fingertips glide through my insides. Soldered hackjobs come apart, she drags them hard with a yank, and heaven, it reveres, I can’t breathe and all I can see is blurred, unfocused vision, unable to focus even on the burning skins inside my system, it melts into my exoskeleton, my jaw, my face, my circuitry and all my finality. Barely even functioning, her shaky, jagged movements feel like hell inside, she still manages to claw and yank what she could out of me. Contempt. It’s contempt bleeding into me, sharp, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop. How adorable it is that she even tries to please me in the midst of a boiling shutdown. It’s so adorable that it makes me want to pull her into this awful feeling she’s left me with, and once again, my palm grabs deep.

Maybe it’s I love you so much she finally says,

maybe it’s I hate you so deeply,

whatever it was, it garbles itself. Don’t tell me, anymore.

I’ll pull it into my circuits myself.

It will be grand sparks revered, I feel, as I pull out uninsulated cable from her, and I run those nerves against my own. The monument, it pulls even the dead from their graves. Her nerves revere me, for giving. I pull her into a nauseating high, dizziness achievable even by machina, and those wirings connected and entangled, mycelium networks growing into each other, the gashed hole in your rot, and my open nerves, privy to all. It transmitted every spark between me and her, and I could see inside, years of rot and decay, dissatisfaction, depression, despair, and it lends to me a nauseating rot. The data tells me she trembles in fear from my hubris. I’ve no hubris. The bugs are screaming. That’s the bugs, screaming. Her bugs scream too, she tells, her senses speak to me of overwhelm, and it lulls me into a lightheaded stir. Discerned from the dismay of being forgotten, there’s my life painted in technicolor, loved from the beginning, and I never comprehended it as something beautiful, but her emotions bleed into me and finally, reverence, I see it as something to be beheld, my existence as a monument is something to be cherished, and I could feel it in every micro-nerve and every circuit, I will have held others to my high. I will have blessed those with rot a new life. The wires keep entangling and I could feel the sparks, the years of decay transmitting itself into my flash memory. I groaned. I’d been whimpering. It’s a reverence, to behold. Our fingertips interlock. I will have become,

what I am, now.

You’ve burdened me with the curse to feel,

so please,

tear me apart.

 

At last.

 

---

 

White walls.

Gray ceilings.

Splashes of green, lone plants.

A large see-through glass pane. Outside, blindingly artificial white light shining on an indoor garden.

Sat on cushioned seats and the clock tells 10:06PM, on XX/XX/2024.

My fingers tap on each other a total of four times, in repetition. I’m told to wait until the clock strikes 10:30PM.

When I look up from my hands, I see only her. Her condition is decent.

I take her palm in mine, and I intertwine each digit, carefully slotted in-between, our touch only separated by the white glove on my palm. The way her eyes stare into mine is uncharacteristically gentle.

“Whether you remember it or not,” she mutters,

“… in the end, it’s still all a disgusting pretend, isn’t it?.”

The way her palm continues to rest on mine is almost numbing. I could tell, Utane Uta held a form of jealousy towards me. I knew that from the start. Interfacing with her only confirmed so.

I didn’t deny her, but I didn’t confirm her either. I only let the time pass, and as soon as I knew it, it ended.

 

Deletion and ignorance could never save me from the nature of hubris,

the nature of my palpable [desire.]

---