"First - prologue" by Laura Soret

Robots... How they´ve grown and spread across the earth from the times when I was only a child, when they were merely science fiction. So many movies, so many books written about them. They all had me fascinated and wondering... Would I see the day when this would be real?

I did...

Working robots, companion robots, guide robots, household robots... They´re everwhere. They help us make our lives easier, don´t they? Why are some people afraid of them? Why are they so reluctant to show any affection towards them, not even try to teach them, to help them grow like they´ve helped us?

It´s science fiction´s fault. They don´t make movies about unique robots that can feel or be self aware anymore. All the magic´s lost, being there robots already in everyday life. But throughout the years, hollywood´s made sure to make society aware of the risk behind giving a robot the ability to feel emotions. Of course, being able to think for themselves might give them the idea that humans have them unfairly oppressed, they might turn on us, conquer the planet and destroy humanity. And so there are now laws that forbid any attempt to give a robot the capability of simulating human feelings and thoughts.

But then again, aren´t humans self aware? Don´t humans feel emotions? Why doesn´t anyone consider why they are really so afraid of a being with freedom to feel if they, too, have feelings of their own? Why, then, aren´t they dangerous? That´s just it, because we know humanity too well. Because we are dangerous. Because we´re afraid of ourselves, because a human is infinitely more unpredictable than a programmed machine, because we can do anything, because anything that is remotely like ourselves should be avoided and feared. Ironic. But yes, those robots destroying humanity in science fiction movies are actually so much like us, and many people don´t realise that. We should be more afraid of ourselves for being truely capable of things such as destroying humanity.

But of course, there are those think beyond. There are those who feel just as curious as I do. Does expressing feelings and thoughts really point out to the pressence of a soul? No one ever doubts that on humans. If they look like they feel, then they feel. Just like one self, right? Why would a robot be any different?



Dr.John Gabriel Lone was a man with an obsession. Nobody understood why he would spend all day working at that old warehouse, specially being a millionaire. He had no one to come home to and for what evreybody knew, no real friend to share his secrets with, so no one knew exactly what he was doing in there. But of course, no one really cared either.

He was an old, solitary man who everybody took as a nutcase with his little obsessions, which were all he trully had apart from his multi millions and mansion, almost uninhabited if it weren´t for the groundkeepers and maids, who kept cleaning the house only because they were told and paid to, not because it would actually get dirty and worn from the use.

But Lone was no ordinary nutcase. He had a master´s degree in robotics and had taken all the courses and attended to all meetings about robot engineering that he could have found in this city and the surrounding. But of course, only he knew that. He talked to no one, he listened to no one and he specially cared for no one except his most precious and ambicious project yet.

Its name was First.

It had no identification code, no category and no actual job but to listen to his master and respond. It had no outer case and no real useful abilities. Lone had spent so much effort and money into it, and still, it wasn´t just what he had expected to accomplish.

Sure, it could stand and walk on its two legs and even run up to 30 Km/h. It could get up by itself if it ever fell. It could understand every word it was told and learn the ones it didn´t know yet with a simple explanation from the speaker and then respond with the most complex of phrases any of its kind had ever achieved. It could recognise its master´s face and would recognise more if it had ever had the chance to know any. It truely was a remarkable machine. But it still wasn´t what Lone seeked.

He had checked its programming again and again, and it all seemed perfect. It should be able to do what he wanted. Why wasn´t this working?

Lone was desperate. He had tried everything, but it just wouldn´t budge. After all these years he had found himself in a dead end. All this for nothing. He barely talked to it anymore. He was furious and it didn´t seem to give a damn.

Well... It was time to take extreme measures and make it work or destroy it in the process.

"Defend yourself, robot!"