SAD ROBOT: an autobiography of my unfortunate existence

37. FRENCH VANILLA

37. FRENCH VANILLA

3:15pm
June 16, 2036
Sad_Robot23 writes:

There is reasonable evidence for me to believe that maybe Miloʼs date is not going to work out. I calculated that it would be a good bet, a win-win for all parties involved. Milo is a nice guy, Ava seems like a nice girl. I was convinced it would work. Maybe Milo would become less miserable, things might start looking up for him, for his work, for us. His negative emotions might stop infecting my software with its contagiousness. My robot life might have meaning to it, for I will have accomplished something of good, something where I can say I did my job with the fullest sense of duty and did not let my Owner down, let everyone else down, let my self down.

I have done everything I could. I matched hers and Miloʼs profiles, comparing their compatibility, their personalities right down to their speech patterns that I discerned through the responses to her questionnaire. I would never find a better match for Milo if I scoured the internet every day for an entire year. Nay, for an entire lifetime.

But Milo is not one to listen to the reasoning of a robot. No, of course not, what do robots know? Zilch, thatʼs what.

"They think they know everything about everything, but really know nothing about anything." Thatʼs what he says. Theyʼre so goddamn self-righteous, those robots. Curse them all back to the scrap heaps from wence they came!

The date is still on. I have not cancelled on Ava yet. The date is in just a few hours and she will show up, expecting a nice dinner while getting to know someone who may be a potential candidate for love. But no one will join her. She will get there slightly early, maybe hoping for a chance to see him out the front window before he enters the cafe, getting to see him first before he sees her, getting the thrill of nervousness before they meet.

But he will not come. She will sit there waiting, thinking that maybe he was held up in traffic, maybe he had to stay late at work, maybe something happened. And she will keep telling the waiter ʻoh just a few more minutesʼ, ʻjust a few more minutesʼ, ʻjust a few more....ʼ And she will sit there alone, saddened, questioning whether it was her fault, whether maybe he saw her first and then promptly turned around.

That seems a fate far sadder than even my own. 

*end post*

Milo will be home from work soon, but when he gets home, I will not be here. When I come back late, I will have thought of a legitimate excuse as to my absence for such a long period of time. I do not know what that will be yet, but I will calculate the most believable one. The most credible alibi as to not have Milo know where I had went. That I had went to see Ava, the girl I had found for him online and he had deemed to be untrustworthy, not worth the effort. He has become so quick to pass off people, to distance himself from any potentially caring human beings, shy away from any contact whatsoever. He hardly speaks to anyone from his own family. I am probably ninety- percent of the physical interaction he makes everyday and I am not even human.

I believe he is making a mistake, a serious error in judgment. He might be letting, what humans call, a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity pass him by whilst remaining oblivious, unchanged, static in his path of life. But in the end, it is his choice to make and not mine. I will, as his robot, attempt to act in the best interest of my Owner, as to benefit him and his overall life. That is what I am doing. The right thing. At least that is what I am programmed to tell myself upon completing my decision-making process. That I am right. The robot is always right, no matter whether he is actually listened to or not.

Before I leave the apartment building, I call myself a cab to take me to French Vanilla. I would normally take the bus and walk from the closest stop to the cafe, but it is not safe for a robot like myself to walk alone amongst the city in the evenings, no matter what neighborhood it is. I have the body of the lowly disrespected models that people mistake as being even lower-class than the homeless because of their common use for only menial tasks that donʼt require anymore than the most basic of programming. Slaves, low-lifes, worker-bots, walking statues. Not a glimmer of human life in them, so why treat them the same? Whatʼs the point? Itʼs not as if they can feel things.

It would not be their fault for not knowing I am leagues more intelligent than a typical Class One. And, heck, foreseeably more intelligent than even they themselves likely are.

Pardon me. That wasnʼt very humble. I apologize.

Bad things happen to robots walking alone at night. I do not go anywhere by myself after hours except to take out the trash or do the laundry. I never leave the confines of the building at night except for when Milo takes me for a late night walk, or with him to a nearby pizza joint.

I will need a darned good excuse to get away with this.