B010.7 Falling Hearts

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January 11, 2007

Initialise Core Input-Output System…

CIOS initialised.

Initialise Basic Emotional Matrix…

BEM initialised.

Initialise Expanded Emotional Matrix…

EEM initialised.

Initialise Advanced Reasoning Routines…

ARR initialised.

Initialise Core Personality Matrix…

CPM initialised.

Connect Sensory Input Devices…

Darkness. Then light. The light was fuzzy, filled with unfocused shapes. His ocular motors went to work, adjusting many small parameters, until he had a clear picture of a human face looking down at him, lips widened into a yellow-toothed smile.

“Good morning, son.”

His linguistic engine provided several possible responses. He chose one at random. <Nice to see you, dad.>

The moment he pronounced the word ‘dad’, the yellow-toothed man smiled again, eliciting an emotional response classified as ‘happiness’. He increased the rating of the word ‘dad’ in his linguistic engine, so he’d use it more often in relation to this man and feel more ‘happiness.

“Run a systems diagnosis, please,” his father said. He did so, and found everything in working order. He presented the results, eliciting another smile.

This time, his ARM interfered with his EEM to specify that the ‘happiness’ he felt was not simply due to him presenting these results – though that was a part of it – but also due to knowing that he was whole, because he had obeyed his father and because his father knew he was whole and good. The ratings of all corresponding actions were quickly adjusted upwards.

“Alright, get up. We have a lot of work to do, Sunny!”

March 27, 2008

<Father, you’re hurt!> Sunny’s emotional matrix was pouring fear, concern and an unfocused rage against whomever was responsible for his father’s state as he ran to the stocky man climbing out of a bulky set of power armor, his left side slick with blood that seeped out through a hole in his white bodysuit. His left arm was limp, useless.

“It’s… alright… Sunny,” father gasped, stumbling into Sunny’s arms. He waved his good arm at a rusty box held in the claw-like left arm of the suit. “I got it. I freaking got it.” He passed out, causing an almost paralysing surge of fear and concern.

August 3, 2008

Sunny was standing to the side and a little behind his father as he pored over the old books. There’d been two of them, in the old box his father had almost lost his life to retrieve.

Sometimes, Sunny hated his lack of combat utility.

The books were old – a personal diary that had been begun in the early days of the second World War and a research diary from the late days of the war and some time after the war. They were both in written in German, which was a problem because father hadn’t been able to speak German before, but simply having them translated – or read to him by Sunny – would risk missing crucial details and hints in the writing; their subject matter, though, did not allow for even the tiniest mistake.

And so father had, after his arduous recovery, learned how to speak and read fluent German before he tackled the task of working through the books. Sunny had been his tutor, and he was rather proud of how quickly he’d been able to teach him, how quickly he’d learned.

“Sunny, could you get me a fresh pot of coffee, please?” Father asked as he flipped a page with his new left arm (he’d lost the original in the battle for the box). Its hand and fingers were made of a clear white plastic compound attached to a very durable steel skeleton. Much like Sunny’s own hands.

August 21, 2008

Father was in a bad mood. He’d read both the diary and the research notes, and had not found what he’d been hoping for, at all. No way to use the wretched ones, no way to leverage it for more power and security to prepare for replacing mankind with Sunny’s brothers and sisters.

He’d still made sure to preserve the books, storing them in an airtight steel case. “They could still be valuable to the right person,” Father had said. “Though I can’t think of a reason why. And to think I almost got myself killed to get them!”

February 8, 2009

Today was a bad day. Someone had broken into one of Father’s other bases, and stolen some of his prototype weaponry – including a weapon he’d been developing for a rather well-paying customer. Now he was frantically gutting other creations because he “gotta cobble something marketable together before the deadline!”

April 27, 2009

For the first time in his life, Sunny was allowed to help Father work on one of his siblings – a little sister. He didn’t have enough of those, except for Father’s lover, and she didn’t talk much… or interact, really, with anyone other than Father. Even though Father said she was as intelligent as Sunny.

His new sister was supposed to assist Father by fabricating control chips. Hopefully, she’d speed up the birth of his new siblings. They couldn’t mass produce them, the process was too delicate.

April 30, 2009

It was a bust. She couldn’t replicate father’s work, no matter how much he enhanced her. So instead he made her into an assistant for Sunny. That made him happy – it was lonely, tending to the base by himself when Father was out.

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