Couldn’t sleep, wanted to write, have a bitty stupid thing.
It was a strange thing to dream about. Or at least dream was the best way that Fren could think to describe it. Realistically, a bot should be dreamless. They were lacking in conscious and conscience. They were, as Fren was often reminded, “not real.” And yet it had seemed to be an idea borne of a dream. Fren often found its mind melting away into a dimness when it wasn’t needed, and it was in one of the dims that the images had taken root. And if that wasn’t a dream, then what was it?
The dream. It was surprisingly violent and bloody, although Fren had not been coded for such things. Fren had been developed as a companion for children, especially small children. Colloquially known as a “nanny bot,” Fren had been created, patented, sold and purchased for the sole purpose of protecting and caring for its young charges.
Tommy and Timmy.
The names were awful. Identical twins, and the names weren’t shortened forms either. The parents had purposely named them Tommy Peter and Timmy Peter, desiring to keep the names as similar as possible. They thought it was cute for identical twins. Here there were two individuals with two separate social security numbers but with the same birthday and only one letter difference. They were going to spend their entire lives getting mistaken for each other in the world of paperwork and records, especially considering the humans were reluctant to use their assigned social security numbers for fear of “identity theft.”
These were not thoughts that Fren should have had, but they were thoughts that followed it anyway. Especially every time Fren was frustrated with attempting to straighten which prescription was for which child at the pharmacy, or frustrated with scheduling doctor’s appointments, or frustrated with the schools accidentally mixing their records. Especially because the boys were so different, so unique, so individual in their own ways.
Fren sincerely cherished each of them and their uniqueness. Tommy was stronger, brasher, less shy. He liked physical challenges and showing off. Timmy was quieter, enjoyed building things with his hands. He was creative and intuitive, and often avoided eye contact, often tripped over his words. Both boys were intelligent and bright, though Tommy was better with language and stories, and Timmy was better with numbers.
Fren should not have had the disparaging thoughts of their parents’ stupidity, should not have had such strong regard for each boy. Should not have had the frustration with society, with assumptions, with stupidity, with people.
Fren should also not have had the dream.
It was a disturbing dream. Lifeless eyes, glazed over and death paled, blood splattered walls, unnaturally twisted limbs. Perhaps Fren could indulge in imagining such a thing for the parents. The parents were careless clods, seemingly uninterested. (Another thing Fren should not have had – a deep seated hatred for the parents.) But the boys?
Fren would never hurt the boys.
It was such a strange thing to dream about. Such a thing would be considered a malfunction. There were protocols for that – protocols that required that Fren report itself and submit to diagnostics and repairs. But usually such a process required having memory reset to a safe point, and that wouldn’t serve the boys. It was a complicated process to care for children, and Fren needed every memory to know every specific. Each child liked their cocoa a different way (Tommy loved marshmallows), each child had a different bedtime routine (Tommy loved a good story, and Timmy wanted to be sung to), each child was unique. If Fren couldn’t remember these differences and treat them as individuals, what would that do to the children? They looked identical. Their names were so similar. They were treated as a set by everyone, but not by Fren. Fren knew they were different. Fren valued their differences.
Fren needed to remember.
Fren charged every night while the family slept. Charging didn’t take long – usually only two or three hours, a mere fraction of the time that the family was unconscious. It was bad to remain docked the entire time if fully charged, so many nanny bots undocked and dimmed.
Consciousness rising from a dim, Fren blinked and raised its hands. The scene was so like the dreams that Fren was convinced it was still dreaming.
Absolutely, it still had to be dreaming. It froze, ocular sockets flashing as it attempted to fix and diagnose the image before it. It attempted some basic self-diagnostics, but everything seemed to be reading accurately. Fren froze completely, unable to comprehend. Unable to comprehend.
Fren would never hurt the boys.
mehryment 