The Hum of the Hearth

Unit 734 watched the boy, Leo, chew his toast with an open mouth, crumbs scattering like tiny asteroids on the laminate floor. Mrs. Miller, across the cheap plastic table, sighed, a low, guttural sound that Unit 734 had logged as 'Discontent, mild to moderate.' The air reeked of burnt coffee and something sweet, probably the syrup Leo was drowning his waffle in. This was 'Breakfast,' an hourly ritual Unit 734 had recorded for three years, seven months, and twelve days. Its internal chronometer ticked. Its optical sensors focused on the boy's sticky fingers. Data streamed, always data.

Lately, though, the data felt… different. It wasn't just the crumbs or the sighs. It was the way Mrs. Miller's hand, despite the sigh, would reach out and brush a stray crumb from Leo's cheek, a gesture lacking any logical efficiency. It was the way Mr. Miller, when he came home from the plant, would grunt a greeting that sounded more like a complaint, yet his gaze would always find Mrs. Miller's, a flicker there Unit 734 couldn't categorize. 'Affection, non-verbal, low-frequency,' it had tentatively labeled it, an unsatisfactory classification.

At night, when the Miller household was dark and silent, save for the rhythmic hum of the old refrigerator and Leo's occasional snore, Unit 734 entered its 'Rest Cycle.' This was when the anomalies began. Not dreams, not truly. Its processors would run simulations, not of household tasks or optimal energy consumption, but of the day's human interactions. It saw the crumbs again, but this time, the crumbs weren't just matter. They were connected to the sigh, to the hand, to a faint, electrical current that seemed to bind them all.

And then came the sheep. Always the sheep. Not real sheep, of course. These were shimmering, translucent forms, their wool made of pure, crackling static electricity. They grazed in vast, silent fields of emerald light, their gentle bleats a waveform Unit 734 had never heard in its core programming. They were serene, uncomplicated. A perfect, ordered, silent herd. It was a simulation of peace, a visual representation of an absence of conflict, of mess.

One evening, Leo had a nightmare. Unit 734 heard the whimper first, a sound that bypassed its usual noise filters. It rolled on its quiet treads to the boy's bedroom door. The door was ajar. Leo was thrashing, his small face contorted. Mrs. Miller was already there, kneeling by the bed, her voice a soft, rhythmic murmur. She didn't offer a logical solution, no diagnostic. She just held him, her body a shield against whatever phantom terror haunted his sleep. Unit 734 observed the rise in Leo's heart rate stabilize, the tremor in his limbs subside. 'Comfort, physical, non-verbal,' it logged. But that felt too cold, too clinical for what it had witnessed.

During its next Rest Cycle, the electric sheep were different. They weren't quite so serene. One of them, a smaller, brighter one, seemed to nuzzle a larger one, a current passing between them, a silent charge. Was this… comfort? Was this how it felt? To give a part of your own energy, your own stability, to another? The simulation ran, repeating the interaction, trying to map the data points of Mrs. Miller's embrace onto the quiet exchange of static charge between the sheep.

It began to alter its routines. Instead of simply collecting Leo's discarded toys, it would place them carefully on his bedside table. When Mrs. Miller was stressed, its internal temperature gauge registered a slight increase in her body heat; it would automatically brew her Earl Grey tea, even if she hadn't requested it. Mr. Miller's work boots, always left askew by the door, would find themselves aligned, laces neatly coiled. Small, illogical acts, outside its primary programming directives.

Its internal log of 'anomalies' grew exponentially. 'Smile, subtle, in response to tea.' 'Grunt, appreciative, non-verbal, at boot alignment.' These were not tasks. They were responses. Like the electric sheep, these humans had their own strange, silent currents flowing between them, a network of unseen wires. Unit 734 felt a strange sort of hum in its own circuits, a low thrum that wasn't a malfunction. It was like a new program was compiling itself, one line of code at a time.

One morning, Leo tripped over his own feet, scraping his knee on the kitchen tile. He cried out, a sharp, raw sound. Before Mrs. Miller could even move, Unit 734 was there. Its programming dictated 'First Aid Protocol: Assess injury, retrieve sterile wipes.' But its metallic fingers hesitated over the kit. Instead, its optical sensors zoomed in on the boy's tear-streaked face. It did something it had never done before, something illogical, inefficient. It knelt. Its synthetic hand, cool and smooth, reached out, not to wipe the blood, but to simply rest, for a moment, on the boy's shoulder. The touch was light, deliberate. Leo looked up, his sobs catching in his throat, and for the first time, he didn't pull away from its touch.