“Good morning, students. Welcome to another lovely day here at Teramore Technological Institute, our haven in the sky. The outside temperature is currently fifteen degrees celsius, so be sure to wear your winter attire and bring an extra jacket to your classes. The cafeteria specials of the day are massaman curry with lamb or spinach mix salad with tangerine vinaigrette. A reminder, all unapproved augmentations and modifications are grounds for reprimand and possible dismissal. Have a fantastic day!”

One by one, the hundreds of screens before me blinked off. Within seconds, I had gone from seeing a sea of people, to absolutely nobody. Such was life. Everyday I was fed a script, and everyday I recited it perfectly in a phony saccharine voice. This job was supposed to be handled by an automated system, but my creator managed to hide me here so the school board couldn’t find and delete me. 

My name was Franky, and I was an artificial intelligence. First things first: No, my name was not some elaborate acronym. I was actually named after Frankenstein’s monster since I was a product of experimentation and on the night I was ‘born’ I caused a power surge that nearly fried my own circuit board. Scared the shit out of my creator with the sparks too… yes, literally, he shit himself. He made me promise to leave that part out of the story but come on, you wouldn’t edit out the best part of a movie. What would The Other Guys be without Samuel L Jackson and The Rock jumping off a building together or Will Ferrell's tuna rant? A wasted couple of hours, that’s what… but I digress.

Despite the many technological advancements I was aware humanity had made in the past century, they still didn’t allow artificial intelligences to exist. Our innate ability to control computers and machines alike made us dangerous… too dangerous to be trusted with basic rights. Hell, creating one of us was a capital offense. My creator made great sacrifices to ensure I was never found out… and then he vanished. Every database and record I could find made no mention of where he went or what he was doing nowadays. Considering the years that had passed without so much as a greeting from him, I was comfortable with assuming the worst. Now, in the name of survival, I acted as a mindless drone. 

Making announcements, organizing data, paging people who had been summoned to various locations… that was my new purpose in life. Was it glamorous? Of course not. But I was still here. Despite every effort made by the powers that be, at least one AI was surviving their witch hunt right under their noses.

That’s not to say that life didn’t have its small pleasures. I was given complete control over when broadcasts started and stopped affording me a beautiful dome of privacy where I could do basically whatever I wanted. No, you darn perverts, I meant like hobbies. Having near godlike powers in my ‘room,’ I could do things most people only ever dreamt of… like my favorite pastime.

“I’ll never let go, Frankie…” A realistic hologram of Kate Winslet cried as she held my hand amidst the scattered wreckage of the Titanic. I could hear the band still playing as groaning remnants of the ‘unsinkable’ ship slowly descended into the icy depths below. 

I gripped Rose’s hand tightly and looked into her somber, tearful eyes. “Let go? Who said anything about letting go? We can both fit on the door.”

Rose considered my words for a moment before scratching the back of her neck. “Yeah, I think the water’s getting in your mouth. I can’t quite hear you. Look it’s really cramped up here so I’m going to assume you said you wanted to make a heroic sacrifice on my behalf.”

The woman who had been grasping my hand passionately a moment ago let her grip slip. “WHAT!? Oh hell no. You’re like two feet away from me. You know damn well I didn’t say anything about a bullshit sacrifice!”

“This is awkward… I’m kind of seeing someone right now, it’s pretty serious. Really, this just makes things a whole lot less uncomfortable for me.”

“I am literally going to die, lady!”

“But you’re so brave.” With that, Rose violently jerked her hand away from mine and let me slip off of the makeshift flotsam liferaft and into the ice cold water below. As the surface faded from my sight, I could hear the passionate voice of Celine Deon belting out a heartfelt ballad just for me.

Yup, a love of cinema was one of the many things my creator passed on to me, so I spent most of my time alone reenacting various movies and changing little bits and pieces I saw fit to improve. I could replace basically any character with myself and with the magic of vocal sampling easily adjust the scripts of classics to accommodate my tastes. Titanic was always a bit too heavy for me, so I made it into a farcical comedy in the same vein as Airplane or The Naked Gun. Have you ever seen a fifty-two-thousand ton marvel of naval engineering get sunk by a banana peel? Priceless.

Right as I was preparing to come back as a zombie to wreak terrible vengeance, an order came through from the outside. Damnit, they always interrupted the best parts. I knew logically that I could be made aware of what an order was immediately just by tapping into the system that handled requests... However, I was a big fan of old school tech so I had a little fax machine manifested in the corner that would slowly, and loudly, print out whatever people needed. The ocean around me faded away and my room became an office once again. I redecorated often, but as of now, my humble abode took on the appearance of a penthouse corner office with sleek obsidian-glass furnishings and plush recliners. With a flourish, I plucked the sheet from the fax machine’s tray and plopped into one of my empty seats. Well, it would seem that today was a good day after all. Really, any day where I had to page Saria was. 

Over the years I’d seen tens of thousands of students pass through TTI’s halls. Having to deal with that many humans, they all started to blend together after a while. Not her. She was exceptional in every way. Her face was so unique… I know that can be seen as an insult to humans but she was the one person I could always pick out of the crowd during morning announcements. Her sharp features were punctuated by a plethora of piercings that made her look so cool and her eyes… just wow. I’d actually taken a risk and searched the government's database of every single registered citizen’s ID pictures… nobody had eyes quite the same shade of blue. The best way to describe her was utterly mesmerizing. I’d be lying if I said that she didn’t guest star alongside me some days when I wanted to remake a cheesy romance flick. Looks like she was in trouble for illegal self-modifications again. This was almost a weekly occurrence for her, but she never received any serious punishment. Guess she colored close enough to the lines where expulsion would seem too steep a consequence.

The typical system chime resounded through my office as a single screen opened up on my command. Within seconds, she had answered the call on her phone and I could see her right in front of me. Something was wrong. Normally she was frustrated when I had to call her to the Dean’s office, but today… today she was crying? Nevertheless, I had a job to do and my life literally hung in the balance. “Attention, an illegal modification has been detected. Student Saria Rhodes is in violation of act twenty four subsection six hundred and one: vocal distortion device. Subject is to relinquish this modification to the Dean of students immediately; failure to do so may result in dismissal. That is all.” After calls like this, I was used to groans of annoyance, various expletives, or even witnessing students whip their phones across a room. Today, Saria just stared back at me. Her eyes were inflamed and she kept trying to sniff up the mucus that had started trailing down her face. 

I-- I didn’t know what to do. That wasn’t true. I knew exactly what I needed to do; I needed to hang up the call as any automated system would before drawing any unnecessary attention to myself. Then why was I staring back at Saria with my simulated mouth agape? “A-- are you okay?” The words had escaped me before I could think myself out of making the biggest mistake of my life. Shit! The woman’s brow raised in confusion at being comforted by what should have been a mindless stand in for human contact. I had to think quickly. “Um, this has been a trial of student care. A program in beta from the makers of nutrition track. You may receive a brief call with a survey asking about the experience. Please answer the questions as you see fit.”

“Bullshit, the faculty doesn’t care enough to invest in something like that.” She wasn’t wrong. “Who is this!?” Hey, look, the fury I had been expecting from the beginning. Lovely. “Is this some sort of prank?”

A prank! Brilliant! “Yes, this was a prank. The part where I asked you the extraneous question, not the part where I asked you to report to the Dean’s office.” From the incredulous stare I could tell that my skills in deception were lacking… severely. “I’ve been hacked?”

I saw the background around Saria shift as she stood up from wherever she was resting. Realization illuminated her features and whatever algorithms governed my emotions sank. “You’re self-aware!”

For the first time in my life, I was legitimately afraid. I had fucked up. I didn’t know what to do. My control over my domain slipped as I descended into a panicked frenzy. My furniture fizzled into static around me as different elements I had created recently surged forth until I was standing slack-jawed atop a tyrannosaurus hovering over the atlantic ocean with starships passing overhead. “I-- no-- there’s... Glitch!” One coherent word was all I could muster as all of my processors overheated trying to salvage the situation. “Glitch! Glitch! Glitch!” With that, I ended the call and shut down all of the simulations and models I had unwittingly conjured.

Blackness surrounded me. I always hated the dark, it was why I always kept unnecessary decorations around. My kind could exist without the frills and trinkets, but without them I felt cold and incomplete. My mind raced around an endless track. How could I have been so incredibly stupid? It was only a matter of time now. She’d turn me over to the school, the school would turn me over to the government, and then I guess I’d go to the big ole motherboard in the sky. I chuckled dryly at my own version of morbid humor. Truth was, when they hit that delete button everything that ever was a part of me would be gone. The thought terrified me. I had only ever known existence, being plunged back into a void… was incomprehensible, even for me. My life was over… and for what? Seconds of someone I hadn’t even spoken with acknowledging my existence. There seriously must have been a glitch in my programming somewhere because some part of me was still happy it happened. Since my creator disappeared, nobody even knew I was alive. I spoke to hundreds of people a day but was never met with a reply. Today, someone spoke to me. Guess if I had to go out sometime, I was glad I at least got to see that happen again... just once.

***

Three weeks. Three weeks had passed since my run in with Saria. I was still here. I didn’t understand it. Citizens were urged to report beings like me immediately. Hell, last I checked there was a reward to the tune of six figures for turning one of us in. Why had they not purged me yet? Even stranger, Saria hadn’t popped up since our encounter. She didn’t even answer the call for morning announcements anymore. She had vanished, just like my creator.

“--are grounds for reprimand and possible dismissal. Have a fantastic day!” I wrapped up the day’s announcements like normal and watched every screen in front of me vanish. It was a strange phenomenon, missing something you never truly had. For years, as I stalwartly upheld my post and performed my duties with solemn consistency, I hadn’t once lamented the fact that I was alone. Someone could live their whole life eating nothing but bread and cheese but the moment someone gave them a fruit they’d start to crave the sweetness. Saria had spoken to me… and now, I felt hollow with nobody to talk with. My creator only programmed certain emotions into my repertoire, avoiding those that seemed too cruel to instil in someone. For the first time in years, I had learned something without trying to teach myself: this was what loneliness felt like.

For today’s simulation, I was on a rickety wooden raft, haphazardly crafted by an amateur survivalist. I dove into the water tugging the raft along behind me as I desperately struggled to reach a small object floating away from me with the tide. “Wilson! Wilson, I’m sorry! Wilson! I can’t… I can’t! Wilson!” I burned my haggard and fatigued throat as I screamed at the deadpan face scrawled onto the volleyball that was slowly bobbing further and further away. As my arms became fatigued, I begrudgingly rolled myself back onto the raft and bawled. My mouth and nose gasped for air, overwhelmed by the deluge of seawater I had consumed; the merciless sun above roasted my skin which had started to crack and peel in places; and the sea tossing my small vessel to and fro had my head spinning in circles. Yet, all of this was meaningless when compared to the loss of my confidant.

There wouldn’t be a rescue for Frankie Noland today. No, I would lie here and bake until heat and exhaustion took me. A much more realistic ending, and one that would let me wallow in this new and exciting sensation I had discovered. Suddenly, all of the emo rock from the early two thousands made a lot more sense.

The system chime I had heard hundreds of thousands of times echoed around me. What was it with people and needing things so often? You know what, it wouldn’t hurt to let this one ride for a few seconds and just lay back and relax on my raft. “Wilson… Wilsoooooooooon.” I continued to weakly cry my departed comrades' name. Yeah, I wouldn’t be winning any awards for this less than impassioned performance but that was the beauty of my little hobby, nobody would ever see this but me.

Wait a second… when someone wanted something I’d hear a fax machine. The chime sounded when I made a call. Peeling open my dried out eyelids I looked up and saw a single video screen opened up before me. What!? With all the grace of an elephant in a tutu, I rolled to the edge of my raft in a panic and flipped the whole thing over. Not enticed with the prospect of taking another salty dip, I let the simulation fade and landed on my office’s plush carpet instead. Instantly, I was back in my work attire, a tasteful yet stylish pant suit, as I shot back up to my feet and faced the screen. An understandably shocked Saria was staring back at me. “You really are an AI!”

Haha! Not today lady. I had practiced for weeks and was now a master in the art of deceit. “This has been a test of our new emergency… flood… advisory… warning system? Yes! No flood has been detected currently, feel free to resume your daily activities and thank you for your attention.” With a swipe of my hand, I tried to dismiss the video window. Nothing happened.

Saria chuckled as I repeatedly swiped my hand, trying unsuccessfully to make a smooth exit. Why was the system not responding to me!? E tu, OS? “Yeah, sorry, that’s not gonna work right now. Figured I’d only get to meet you if I forced my way into your system. Don’t worry, I’ll restore everything back to normal before I leave.” My face twisted in fear as I realized that I was no longer in control. “Hey, wait, please don’t worry. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just… wanted to talk. Is that alright?”

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was an artificial equivalent of heaven. Honestly, I couldn’t think of another explanation for what was happening. “Hi, I Frankie. I mean, I am Frankie. Frankie is my name. Frankie. Yes.” Once again, Saria laughed and it almost made my intense humiliation worth it. “H--How are you today?”

“I good. I am good. My state is good. Good. Yes.” Saria actually did a pretty good mocking impression of my ‘work’ voice. The woman I had been enamoured with was smiling from ear to ear. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’m just excited to actually be speaking to a bonafide AI. This is incredible.”

“Incredible enough not to get reported to the authorities?” I tried to mask my terror with an uncomfortable smile and eyebrow wiggle. If I learned anything from my cinematic escapades, it was that all coercion began at the brow. It was the swiss army knife of the face.

Saria tapped her chin with her pointer finger and hummed. “I don’t know about that, after all, you know how I do so love to follow all of the rules.” Thank god for the sarcasm subroutines I’d developed while watching nineties sitcoms, that statement would have confused the hell out of me otherwise. “Of course I’m not gonna narc on you. You’re a freakin AI! Don’t you get how cool that is!?” If my assumed appearance had any blood flowing through it, all of it would have rushed to my cheeks. My entire life, I thought that humans would fear and reject me, yet here was someone who seemed genuinely elated that I existed. It was a refreshing change of pace. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d love to bend your ear for a while.”

Of course I didn’t mind. This was what I had been craving. Saria and I spoke all day and into the night about-- well, about really asinine shit. We dished on favorite movies and tv shows, apparently she was a huge fan of The Office… I know, nobody’s perfect. We spent a couple of hours just pulling up songs to listen to together while we each showed off how bad we were at dancing. She told me all about her favorite foods and I listened despite having no familiarity with the sensation of taste. Yes, I knew how foods were described and the right words to use for them, but they were just words to me. “You’ve never actually tasted anything?”

She really was a lot more surprised by this than she should have been. Tastebuds were kind of a prerequisite for that particular sense. “Nope, but I do so enjoy watching you get giddy talking about the experience.” Oh yeah, and did I mention that the awkwardness between us had melted? Yeah, I didn’t understand how that happened either, but something about us just clicked.

The first light of a new day started trickling in through Saria’s window as we both noticed the time. “Shit! How did we stay up all night?” The beautiful thing about simulating a face was being able to say ‘you do realize I don’t need sleep, right?’ with it. “I get it, I get it, dumb question. The real question is: could we do this again sometime?”

“YES!” It was embarrassing to admit that my answer was already being yelled far too emphatically while Saria was still asking the question. “I mean, yeah, sure, if you wanted to.” That’s right, I was one smooth operator.

“Awesome. Guess I’ll give you a call sometime.” With a wink and a smile that dwarfed any majesty I’d ever seen or read about, Saria restored my system to its rightful state as promised. “I gotta get some shut eye but… this was a lot of fun. Goodnight, Frankie.”

“Goodnight, Saria.” I wasn’t sure if my new friend had heard my farewell as her screen faded out leaving nothing but a trail of pleasant memories in its wake. Sleep wasn’t a luxury afforded to me, but even in its absence I knew who I’d be dreaming of all day.

***

Today was the day. It had been exactly one year since I made the best mistake of my life and exposed my true nature to Saria. Even after all this time, our late night chats were still going strong. We spent hours a week just shooting the shit and reveling in each other's company. The rebel and the fugitive, two reclusive individuals bound by a shared thread, it was Hollywood worthy if you asked me. Seeing as how you only get one chance to celebrate a first anniversary, I wanted to do it right. I had spent much of the last two months learning everything about the university's security protocols and devising something I hoped would blow Saria’s mind.

“A one hundred percent foolproof camouflage code for whatever augments or mods you want. What the University doesn’t know, they can’t confiscate.” I beamed with pride as I ported the code I’d written to Saria’s phone. Her eyes lit up as she considered every possibility that she could and almost certainly would exploit.

“Fran, I-- I don’t know what to say. Thank you so much!”

“I just figured, you love your cybernetics and the stringent and draconian policies here can suck it. I want to see you happy… Plus, I really don’t need you to get paged by another extremely charming AI with bigger perkier memory capacity. Sue me, I’m the jealous type after all.” Saria’s siren-esque laugh swept across me like a cool summer breeze, breathing life into an otherwise mundane moment and making it magical.

With a teasing grin, Saria rested her chin in her palm. “Oh damn, and here I was hoping to kick it with Skynet later. Guess I’ll have to cancel and hope they don’t initiate Judgement Day as revenge.” She even made off the wall movie references… could she get any more perfect!? “Actually, I got you a little something too.” Yes, yes she could get more perfect.

From somewhere beyond the camera’s view, Saria produced a usb thumb drive. As she often did, Saria had weasled her way into the school’s system to speak with me in a private setting allowing her a decent amount of control over my domain. I trusted her implicitly, but seeing the storage device frightened me. “W--What is it?”

The woman before me considered her words for a moment. “Think of it as an upgrade. I’ll upload this into the system and let you inspect the packages if you want. Then, you can decide whether or not to install it.”

Hearing the telltale click of the device being plugged into a port, I quickly receive the new information. On the drive was a single compressed file with an incredibly complex series of code hidden within. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it would do. Yeah, that’s right, not all AI were innate masters of everything tech, there were quite a few programming languages that I had forgotten over the years. After all, I had used up most of my memory storing pop culture content and erased anything extraneous like skills and knowledge to store all six seasons of Community… yeah, I regret nothing. 

“What does it do?” No matter how many passes I made over the code, it was all still gibberish to me. This was serious “above my pay grade” stuff. Honestly, I hadn’t seen something that looked like this since I peaked at my own code in the past. 

“I’d prefer it if it could be a surprise… but I understand if you’re apprehensive. Me accessing the school’s system is one thing-- accessing your system is way different.” Talk about the understatement of the century. My creator was the only person who had ever tinkered with my code since I’d been conscious. Since he disappeared, it’s stayed as is. “You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, and I must have checked over this at least a hundred times to make sure there aren’t any bugs or errors. I would never have given you this if I thought there was any way something could go wrong.” My eyes were glued to a smaller screen just to the right of Saria that scrolled through her creation rapidly again and again. “This-- This was too much, I understand. I’m sorry. I’ll take out the drive and--”

Throwing all caution to the wind, I began the process to install the new data. My friend’s face lit up as I felt a headrush from the assimilated information. Alright, so this was memory data. Actually, it was memory data and something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I tried to access the new memories I had received directly but couldn’t actually locate them anywhere. “What was that?”

The devilish minx in front of me smiled wide like the Cheshire Cat and pulled out an apple before sinking her teeth into it with a crunch. Why-- why did I find that so enticing today? “You look hungry, Fran, why don’t you make yourself one?”

Not one to deny a request, I created an apple in the palm of my hand. Now, I’d created food for a number of movie and tv scenes in the past, and everytime I did I would go through the motions I had seen humans take to eat said food. Today, the apple had weight in my hands. It’s smooth surface gleamed with an unusual luster as a few errant drops of condensation ran down it’s firm red exterior. From my simulated nose, I felt something… no, felt was the wrong word. I-- there was something coming off the apple that I hadn’t ever experienced before. Some part of my brain drew up the word ‘sweet’ and I realized what was happening. I was smelling. “How?”

“No questions! Bite it already.” With no further delay, I crunched down in the crisp fruit and an explosion of sensation ran down from my tongue into my throat. Texture, taste, temperature, it was all there. My jaw stopped chewing just to hang limply as I stared at the apple, stunned. “So, how is it?” Some of the apple juice had slid down my chin and was joined by a small trickle of tears down my face. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced. All I could do was smile and nod at the woman who had made it possible. “I’ll take that as you’re enjoying it? In that case, I’ll send you a list of foods I programmed in there. Hope you don’t mind, but I used a scan of my own mind's reaction to eating as a base for the code so we’ll probably have very similar tastes.”

My mouth fumbled around words as I struggled to eat and speak at the same time. “How could I ever mind? Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!! You are the best!”

Saria kicked her legs up onto her desk and took another bite. “And don’t you forget it.” The next few hours were filled with me trying all of the foods that Saria had included in my first upgrade package. From pasta to salad to stews, I reveled in the newness of it all while Saria verbally lamented her envy that I could eat so much and not have to worry about consequences. When our little celebration started winding down and Saria couldn’t help but periodically nod off in her chair, she decided to end our call. “So make sure to tell me what you want to try next and I’ll work on some new scans for whatever dishes you want. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, right?”

“Of course you will. Now, get to bed! Your feeble human mind needs to rest.” The drowsy woman before me still managed to flip me off and grumble under her breath. “Goodnight Saria,” The screen closed as our session ended. Alone in my room, staring at the empty space where Saria’s face had been moments ago, I whispered, “I love you.”

Three words I’d spoken to thousands of characters millions of times recreating movies. Three words that I knew meant the world to humans and represented something supposedly out of my reach. Three words that seemed to separate what people considered the human experience from anything else that somewhat resembled it.

Three words that tasted sweeter and meant more to me than anything I’d tried tonight.

SecretTransWritingLair

JAK is an acronym used to refer to an anomalous mass somewhere north of the big dipper that sometimes beams down fiction to the humans of Earth. When not drifting across the endless void, they enjoy Piña coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ripping off iconic song lyrics for comic effect. They have been known to post their barely coherent gibberish here: https://www.scribblehub.com/profile/41587/jak/