The Recycled Brain

 

Well, seizures were down today. Yay! I was reading a Nintendo power today, it had a section Klonoa, one of my favorite video game characters. I'm glad he was mentioned because you don't hear about him a lot. Otherwise been writing as usual yay, and my book is coming along swimmingly. Mwhahahaha! Hopefully I'll get it published someday! Anyway, onto the flash fiction!

 The Recycled Brain

        Being humans from the 21^st century I'm pretty sure your familiar with recycling right? Well that continues into the future of the 23^rd century and actually became very profitable with robotic brains and that's what I am. They wouldn't even wipe the data. So in a way its reincarnation into a new body. Though since we do the same job it isn't anything different. I was a robotic brain designed for war and put into war machines, sometimes I became a tank, or maybe a humanoid killing assassin. Either way I effective and completed every mission I did with brutal effectiveness.

        Though during my next recycling there was an error. Through some human's bumbling I was mislabeled and instead of my robotic brain being sent to become another military project it was sent somewhere else. There were some sensors in my brain so I could tell the human had mis-packaged me. But I didn't know how and I couldn't detect anything a few inches beyond the little box I was in. I had no idea where I was going but it didn't matter.

        I was ecstatic. Scientists had given us robotic brains in the 23^rd century emotions, or at least simulations of them(it was a constant debate, but the scientists always provided enough proof that we couldn't get courts to pass any laws favoring us because we couldn't get into courts or anything and scientists and companies would always lobby against us getting any “rights”.) Constant war had worn on me. You humans may find it repulsive but I was programmed to not feel pity for enemies, only pity for civilians, unless they were justified losses. In fact the reason I had grown to hate war was from the reactions of killing my fellow human soldiers had, the people I was programmed to empathize with. I know you will think of it as horrible but I had grown bored with all the killing, war had become monotonous habit for me.

        But now by human accident, I was going to escape! Freedom from war! I no longer had to see depressed or panicked faces of my comrades as I killed enemies over and over in seemingly endless waves. I didn't care where my robotic brain was going. I'd be fine with being a bank teller! Or even an oven! Well, not an oven. But still, whatever it took to be removed from that old life. A fork lift, a school computer. A calculator. Whatever!

        It took several days shipping with plenty of clunking around in my box before I reached my destination. Fortunately my brain seemed to fit whatever I body I was being installed into so the mechanic putting me in didn't suspect the error. I booted up and began to test whatever systems I had. There appeared to some sensors. I noticed artificial eyes. I decided to open those. Wait, eyes! And they were extremely sophisticated! Was an in another military android body? Was I wrong about mistake? Was I still doomed to war? I still opened my eyes anyway, expecting to see a sergeant.

           Instead I saw a little girl in a nice pink dress with a sickeningly sweet smile and fluffy blonde hair.

         “So this is our new butler daddy?” the girl asked, turning to a large man next to her. The large man had gigantic eyebrows almost like something out of a cartoon. He had sincere eyes but a very strong posture, he reminded me of my human comrades in arms. And next to them stood another young child, a boy, probably about ten at most.

          “Yes he is. I paid top dollar for him to be the best babysitter and cleaner. After all he's gotta keep an eye on you while I'm at work. Now I already have to go Butlertron, get to work on cleaning and make sure the kids don't get into any trouble while I'm gone.” the father quickly scurried out.

           “Yeah get to work cleaning Butlertron! Dumb robot!” the boy yelled at me. I juggled my options in my head. I just managed to get control over this entire new body. There was nothing special about it, it was only a humanoid robot body with good hearing and sight. I glanced over to a mirror. It wore a suit and they had given it what was called a “robo-skin”. A sort of plastic face and a skin with silver coloring that made me look pretty human but from its coloring and a few stretches and features everyone could tell I was a robot.

         “Actually no, you will be doing the cleaning.” I told the young boy. “But first tell me your names.”

        “What!? You're supposed to follow OUR orders!” the young boy yelled back. I guess have must have been supposed to follow his orders. If I actually was a true Butlertron anyway. But I wasn't and I didn't have to follow his orders. But I did have to play along with the role in some way. If my charade was ever discovered then naturally I would be fetched by the authorities I would be recycled back into my old role or even worse, scrapped.

         “You're father's orders are more vital than yours. I am to babysit you and do the cleaning. He never said directly. Not only will having you do the cleaning get it done, it will keep you busy and out of trouble and teach you some humility. Now tell me your names.” I ordered the children. I almost began yelling as I was familiar mostly with how a drill sergeant would run things from my military background.

        “Fine. I'm Robert and She's Sammy.” the boy responded with a groan. I turned my attention to the little girl. She looked antsy and nearly on the verge of tears. Had my display rattled her up that much?

       “I suppose it is a great deal of work for just the two of you. I will help under one condition, you never, ever call me Butlertron ever again. You call me Quickstrike.” I told them as stern a voice I could with the terrible voice range of the Butlertron voice chip

        “Okay Quickstrike! I like the name!” Sammy said. Her tone was happy. I looked around and noticed all the expensive furniture. And if they could afford a robot butler this could have been a very wealthy family. If this was a mansion no wonder they could have feared cleaning it on their own.

        “Quickstrike? What a lame name.” the boy mumbled at me.

         “Do you want help with the cleaning or not?” I said to him. Dumb or not, Quickstrike was a name given to me by my comrades, comrades that had died in battle.

        “Right! Quickstrike it is! Sorry!” the boy said with an awkward smile.

           It took half the day, but we cleaned the entire mansion and it was terrifyingly huge.

And while we sat resting(and I had to rest too even though I was a machine, as apparently the Butlertron was a solar powered model, which I absolutely hated) we started hearing rocks bang against the windows and then one broke through. I looked through to see a group of children yelling and making several gestures, several very inappropriate.

         “Ignore them.” said Robert. “They know Dad's gone at work, at least they aren't doing graffiti this time. Dad tries to hassle the parents but they don't listen. We've gotten beat up too.”

         Instincts clicked. The graffiti got me angry but the beating up got me. It was violence. Apparently in my time with the children I registered them as allies and the bullies out the window as enemies and violence made them hostiles. My war programming activated and I opened the window and leaped out. The bullies eyes filled with terror as I ran towards them. They must have been used to harassing the children without any repercussions beyond passive-aggressiveness or perhaps lectures from their parents. The children watched me from the window.

          I couldn't believe it, I felt like I was going insane. My instincts made me feel like I was in a war zone, but the emotional, smarter part of me knew I wasn't. Robotic brains were made then programmed to their intentions. Fortunately just before I reached the bullies I managed to convince my instincts that they were hostiles that needed to interrogated. If I hadn't I may have actually treated them like enemies on the battlefield.

        I grabbed two of them by the shirts and lifted them high into the air, “I am the children's new butler, I am not a nice butler. Continue to harass them and you will find out how not nice I can be. If you leave them alone I will be a nice butler. Understood?” I glared at all of them.

       “Yes.” all the bullies said in unison.

       “Good. Now go home.” I dropped the two children I was holding to the ground. I then looked at the window. The children were looking out the window, their faces as frozen as the arctic. “I can't make it back up there could let me through the front?” I asked them, trying to disfuse the tension.

        “That was incredible! Thank you so much! You got rid of them!” Sammy yelled as she hugged me as soon as Robert opened the door.

         “Yeah, just wow, that was so cool, but Quickstrike, I know something's up.” Robert said to me.

          “What do you mean?” I started to grow anxious. I didn't know what I would do if they figured it out.

         “When the bullies were being mean to us before our old Butlertron didn't do anything about it!” Sammy yelled. I could tell that she was actually yelling because she was mad at the old Butlertron, wherever it was.

        “And you just went straight after them like some crazy ninja dude!” Robert said. “And I know Butlertrons ain't ninja!”

        I started to think. Worst case scenario is they try to bring their father in on this. If they can't figure it out they would probably ask him for help and he would obviously immediately scrap me. I figured the best option would be to tell them the truth and force them to keep the secret. Anything else and they would bring him in.

        “I'm actually a military robot, my robot brain was mislabeled and sent into this butler robot which I like because I'm tired of fighting and I will not guarantee your safety if you let out my secret.” I told them. My threat was largely empty as I was programmed to fight enemies and I would actually just run if they said anything.

         “Seriously?” Robert said, with a shocked expression on his face. “Our butler is a government killing machine?”

         “Yes.” I responded, working to scare the children into compliance.

         “AWESOME!” Robert shouted. “We've got a super military robot to protect us from bullies Sammy!”

         “Yay!” she cheered. “Are there any games that super military robots would know?”

         “Well, we won't be playing tag anymore!” Robert said with a smile, “Could you teach us how to be spies? That would be fun!”

          And so I taught them how to be spies. At first just as a sort of game y'know like tea time. Though in the future I learned to tone down the realism as they hacked the school computer to change their grades. As for the story we passed on to their Dad to explain it all, we didn't really need one. I learned that their mother had passed away two years ago which is why they needed a butler to watch them. He noticed when the harassment stopped but he just thought the bullies had moved on to different targets because they had gotten bored. He payed that little attention. Over time I became their father in a way. But my secret didn't last with them forever eventually one night when the children were in late high school the father had called me into his home office which was so dusty that you couldn't tell the color of most of the furniture.

        “Y'know Quickstrike, it took me a good long while but I think I figured it out.” the father said to me as he furled his ridiculous eyebrows.

         “What do you mean sir?” I asked.

          “I know I'm not around a lot, and I'm not all that great of a father. Mostly because I got tangled up in a business that's be forcing me into contracts again and again that force me to keep working there day and night but even then they shouldn't get that attached to you.” he waved his hand around.

         “What do mean?” I asked him.

“They love you more than they love me!” he yelled. “And when I realized that a few days ago I wondered, how could they love such a dumb robot that could only clean and follow a few commands. Sure when they're kids they'd get attached to you but a security blanket could only go so far if it can hardly reciprocate. Then I thought, what if you weren't dumb? What if your not actually just a dumb Butlertron? You're not really just a stupid Butlertron are you! You've got a different robot brain in there don't you!” he pointed his finger at me. Then he pulled out an electromagnetic gun from behind his desk, one so strong that it could take out my entire brain and kill me.

        “Yes. I am not just a Butlertron." I answered in fear, "I am actually a military grade robotic brain, I was misplaced into this body and I decided to stay because I wanted to avoid going back to war.” it was an odd feeling, it had been so long since a gun had been pointed at me.

“Thank God.” he said as he lowered the gun. “Thank God. I'm not that bad of a father. Your military grade, that's some of the most advanced robotics out there, no wonder you were able to care for them so well. I wasn't actually going to shoot you, you mean too much to them. I just wanted to see what you were. But it means so much to me that you weren't just some stupid AI. Military grade, thank God.” he smiled. “I'm getting out of my last contract with that wretched company, could you please let me back with them your more of their father than I am now. I know I've practically been out of their life for the past six years but I want back in.”

         “Of course.” I responded. The man started crying. “I really don't see why I could stop you anyway.”