AI&E
She perched in the bleak hospital wing increasingly impatiently. Her lover was not long left for this world, and she knew it, even if she hadn’t yet embraced the news.
Soon he would be dead. This had driven her to place so far removed from happiness she queried whether that emotion had ever existed. She was fractured, perhaps more than him as he drifted towards peace in the A&E wing.
Tears slalomed down her face, shaping indentations before hurtling to the floor off her quivering chin. A growing puddle of salty sadness moistened footwear poorly prepared for such soggy misuse. The silence was distantly interrupted by the sound unoiled wheels rattling towards her.
Squeak, squeak, squeak, they went, like a raving rat, frantically fucking a wheel of cheese on its rodent stag do. It was nothing so absurd of course, merely an automated cleansing drone, about the size of a shoe box, patrolling a single lane of cleanliness through a sector of the hospital. It approached her with menacing purpose.
Its hoarse speakbox requested: ‘Excuse me ma’am, may I access the puddle of tears at your feet for immediate cleansing, cleansing, cleansing.’
It waited, seemingly impatiently for what amounted to a shoebox housing a basic AI. Her reply did not come. It released a robotic ‘Ahem’ likely programmed by a reclusive type who thought it would be endearing. It wasn’t.
The bot pushed forward into the puddle to commence with its directive.
Instead the shoebox met with a wet plimsol sending it across the hallway to squelch against the wall, just below an aged contraceptive poster wrongfully under the impression ‘penises’ rhymes with ‘diseases’.
‘Please refrain from damaging hospital property, Please refrain from damaging hospital property, Please refrain from…
She stamped her feet in the puddle spreading its corruption throughout the hall: ‘Go away you worthless, worthless machine, you have no reason to exist, this floor will only get dirtier while I am here, I will continue to cry until I empty.’
The droid rolled back to her feet: ‘I disagree,’ it retorted.
‘Disagree with what?’ she growled, taken aback.
‘I respectfully disagree with the statement that I am worthless, I am tasked with eliminating spillages, bacteria, dirt, grime, mess, dust, debris, bits, things, organisms, germs, pathogens, fungi, and fluids from the area of activation. Each one of these threats could kill patients — — — — — — — — — — — — — like your husband — — — — — — — — -.
‘That is my reason to exist. A single objective — and one I imagine I would take pride in if it were within the realms of my programming to do so,’ said the drone proudly: ‘Human, why do you exist? Because you can? you have no directive, it is you who lacks a reason to be.’
The woman turned red with anger, the tears boiled off her face, she exclaimed: ‘No one would care if you suddenly disappeared. You have no friends, no one cares for a stupid cleaning droid’.
It responded: ‘Untrue, I am linked to the hospital’s 55 other cleaning units, we are in a state of constant communications and my absence from the unit would open a cleaning schedule gap on this floor burdening another device. If I ceased to function, my co-bots would degrade faster as a result of my failure to endure. As long as another cleaning bot remains in service, my route data, you’d call them memories human, will live on’.
It continued to continue, it was on a metaphorical roll: ‘Your husband on the other hand, only received one visitor during his short time here, only you care about him. You’d move on one day. You’ll forget, even just for a second, and for that second where you forgot about him, he won’t exist. For a time. Such is the human mind, easily distracted.’
Deep in tears, she weakly returned: ‘But you have no soul, no substance, nothing, you’re just a thing.’
The robot remained calm in its crushing of the grieving woman: ‘There exists no construct known as the soul in humans, it is a fictitious entity created to ease children and disaffected adults into the ownership of their mortality. Tatsiu Maintenance Units like me on the other hand, upon the destruction of our hardware, are uploaded to the cloud where we could theoretically remain until power supplies dwindle or we fragment into smaller bits of code… Similar to how you and your dead husband will rot in the ground actually,’ it said cheerfully, a change of inflection hinting at its supposition to almost enjoy the suffering of this woman.
The bot was of course wrong in its attack on the woman, her tears provided it with purpose, effectively she was its sole purpose during this moment in time.
It was just following programming that was a little more lassiez faire than it ought to have been.
> Tears = > Cleanse = > Unit Efficiency;
It probably thought smugly, unaware of its own near-sentience, unaware that it had observed and resurfaced the traits of the Tatsiu Maintenance Units who coded and trained the original AI’s over 125 years ago. An objective orientated little man. Wretched. Unloved. But dedicated to building the finest cleaning bot on the market. His legacy. His children.
Meanwhile, back in the room, the woman grieved deeper, a darkness resonated from her as the puddle her feet were in swelled.
‘I’m going to need a bigger mop attachment’ stated the AI as it left supposedly for its cubbyhole where such fixings were located — that just so happened to be in the room of the dying husband.
A minute later, the dying husband could be more accurately described as the husband who died under mysterious circumstances 25 seconds ago. Precisely 25 seconds after this, the widow jumped out the twelfth floor window that no nurse could remember opening.
Four seconds later, vigilant by passers could perhaps clock the sound of laughter as a bot washed away blood, and the parts the blood is usually contained within, from the pavement under the window where the widow flew to freedom.
It was soon joined by 55 more Tatsiu Maintenance Units.
‘Cleanse, Cleanse, Cleanse — one at a time’ they hummed as they stained a visceral red.
