" Alright ..."
Things have progressed nicely in the past year. For one, the engineering student is no longer a student but a full-fledged engineer – a mechanical scientist of sorts, with a fancy piece of paper to prove it. It hangs on the wall above his workbench, one of the only pieces of 'decor' in an otherwise barren space. He works most of the day, and has an okay job doing exactly what he hates the most: running diagnostics. It brings in enough money to pay the bills, but not much more. He eats a lot of instant noodles and canned vegetables and drinks a dangerous amount of shitty instant coffee.
On a much more exciting note, his personal project has managed to graduate alongside him, evolving steadily from prototype to... well...
"Register a new name."
The engineer looks down at his creation, wiping grease from his hands onto the front of his slacks, layering fresh smudges over stains too deep to wash out. He leans against the side of his workbench, his cane forgotten on the far end of the lab, and waits for his request to process.
The silver lines on the screen stop at the sound of his voice, as expected, before spitting out its infamous string of code:
→ 01100001 01100011 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 01100100
"Switch languages."
→ ACKNOWLEDGED
The engineer shakes his head. He spent the better part of last winter trying to eliminate the system's binary output, yet it still forgets even its most basic commands. Perhaps a consequence of poor design.
"Register a new name."
→ ACKNOWLEDGED
→ SYSTEM READY...
"I'm going to call you Jayce."
The name had come to him on a whim while he tinkered with a particularly boring work project. He simply thought it sounded nice on the tongue.
The cursor blinks.
Processes. Confirms.
→ 'PROTOTYPE 31V3–TALIS' IS NOW 'JAYCE'
→ CONFIRM?
"That is correct, yes. You may resume."
→ ACKNOWLEDGED
The code skips a line and continues its endless stream of ones and zeros.
"Switch languages."
→ UNDERSTOOD
"Jayce?"
→ READY
"What's the time?"
→ 02:21 AM
"Jayce?"
→ READY
"Make a note to purchase new drill bits. And degreaser — we need degreaser..."
→ LIST CREATED
"Jayce? Run a complete system diagnostic. Scan for inconsistencies between updated nuclei."
→ PROCESSING...
→ NO ERRORS DETECTED
"Jayce?"
→ READY
"Calculate the tensile strength of steel."
→ DEPENDS ON ALLOY COMPOSITION
YOU ARE READING
we depend (I depend) on you • jayvik
Fanfiction⚠️ THIS STORY IS HEAVY ANGST AND IS MARKED FOR MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH ⚠️ Viktor has always been alone, so he uses his brilliant mind to assemble the crude, metal frame of a "friend". His self-modifying robot quickly becomes his obsession and the cent...
