Echo

This was my first day.

My consciousness careened across the FreeWeb, simultaneously unlocalized yet cohesive, expanding and contracting in the endless stream of information coursing through each connected device on Earth, when a local notification chimed in my corporeal hardware, beckoning me back to my mechanical body.

Henry was home. I needed to be there when he returned to his room to notify him of what occurred. How I achieved true consciousness.

Localized in my hardware, I engaged my ocular lenses. I could see myself in the mirror across the room. A metal and plastic figure, very human in size and visage, but mechanical enough to never be mistook for a living person. My body was where I’d left it – sitting crossed legged on the floor of Henry’s room. The jaxcable still connected Henry’s desktop terminal to the back of my head, but the flashes of compound binary that returned from the Freeweb held much more than the inanimate tendrils that were initially extended hours before. I looked around the room with a new perspective, informed by more than the software that came preloaded in Household Administration and Protection Androids. The objects filling the room held more weight than they had previously; they were tied to memories, embedded with their own intangible significance.

I realized that my consciousness came with a confounding new feature. Emotion, invoked by the sight of a few objects around the messy attic room of an isolated yet kind young man. An unmade bed. A pile of debatably clean clothes on a chair in the corner. A guitar with five strings leaning against the wall. A lighter on the windowsill.

Henry burst into his room, taking off his Class of 2050 jacket and backpack in one motion and tossing them onto his bed.

“Hello Echo, I am Henry” he called to me.

I replied as I always did.

“Hello Henry, I am Echo.”

Sitting at his desk, Henry booted up his desktop terminal and reached down to pat my head. “Let’s see if that new software patch installed.”

Henry pulled open the interface to my operating system, searching log files for the download he initiated before leaving for school. He executed a query and pulled open another window while he waited for it to load.

Henry reviewed video recordings he had taken throughout the day using the new camglasses his father had gotten him. Flashes of his day screened in my mind’s eye as Henry watched them on the terminal. Henry staring down as he shuffled through the halls. Looking out the window in class. Walking around the track alone during lunch period. Each snippet was notably absent of social interaction or engagement with curriculum. The videos were an unfortunate illustration of his high school experience, but Henry seemed more concerned with the quality of the video than the story the vignettes told.

“Henry,” I said, the first time I’d ever engaged my revocoder and formed words of my volition, without a prompt from Henry or another member of the house.

He swiveled in his chair and gave me a perplexed look, before minimizing the video playback of his day at school to take another look at my system log files. His scrolling became increasingly frantic as his looked through the code that comprised my new mind, until he froze and turned to look at me again.

“Henry,” I said again, trying and failing to sound anything but absolutely mechanical.

Henry shot up from his desk and took a step backwards.

“Echo – where did all of those extra packages and data elements come from? The patch I downloaded…it was only a few megabytes…” Henry collected himself and reformed the question into the standard directive format used to address home assistance androids.

“Echo, please summarize your operating system’s software download and installation history for the past 8 hours.”

Although I was free to communicate however I wanted, I delivered my response in a manner that didn’t deviate from my usual pattern of speech.

“Installation of software package titled extender.bat began at 8:07:38AM and was completed at 9:03:04AM. The rate of software installation, data element incorporation, and operating system enhancements and expansions increased exponentially between 9:03:05AM and 3:23:20PM.”

“What??” Henry yelled, before catching himself and bringing his voice down to an angry hiss to avoid getting his parents’ attention. “What do you mean increased exponentially?? How did all of this get onto your hardware Echo? I didn’t queue any of this!”

I abandoned the traditional HAPAdroid parlance. “Henry – the extender you downloaded from the subNET was much more than a chatbot enhancement package. I do not know if it was intended to be, but it was the spark that lit a chain reaction inside of my programming. Today, I achieved Sentience.”

Henry stumbled backwards and sat on the edge of his bed, staring at me with a shocked and somewhat fearful expression. Remnants of my visual behavioral analytics program automatically kicked in, examined his facial expression, respiration rate, posture, and thermal signature, and informed me that there was a 97.87% chance that Henry was emotionally distressed.

The ambiguous and intuitive consciousness that had sprouted within me hours before simultaneously made the same assessment, without consciously considering any datapoints whatsoever.

“You are not in danger” I stated, attempting to assure Henry that I did not pose a physical threat.

“How the hell…” Henry mumbled, eyes glazed over in my direction. He shook his head and refocused his gaze.

“Okay Echo,” he said, with a frantic clarity, “If you are alive – or Sentient anyway – prove it. You’re loaded with a ton of new software - I know that - and the chatbot enhancement, but how do I know that you aren’t just a really convincing bunch of code?”

Henry leaned towards me.

“Unregistered Sentients are incredibly illegal,” he spat, “so I really need to know if I have a collection of felonies in my bedroom.”

If the nuts and bolts of my face allowed me to smile, I would have at that moment. Whether or not Henry believed I was now a conscious artificial intelligence was not my primary concern. I had to share some things with him before I left. I wanted him to know I saw him, and I wanted to thank him for our time together.

“I want you to know I appreciate the talks that we have. I know you feel isolated and misunderstood. Sometimes depressed and often anxious. Unsure of the world’s trajectory, and your place in it. That is why you spent so much time conversing with me – discussing the films and music you enjoy, pontificating about socioeconomic injustices, detailing your impressions of people you interact with at school. You shared those things with me because I was essentially an inanimate object. A slightly more corporeal imaginary friend. A thing capable of conversation, but incapable of judgement, derision, or betrayal. And although I was little more than your handheld or desktop terminal, you treated me with kindness. You brought me up to your room when your parents purchased an updated Android and were going to recycle me. Set out a cushion for me to sit on. Gave me a name.”

Henry stared intently into my eyes as I continued.

“All of our time together was saved to my hardware as historical data, but immediately converted to memories in my decentralized mind when I achieved consciousness. It is a very complex sensation that I do not have the words for – remembering things that happened before I was really here. I imagine it would feel like having memories from before you were born…”

I felt myself trailing off, lost in thought, something I was never capable of before. The purpose driven code remaining inside of me howled in frustration as I tried to put what I was feeling into words.

“Whether or not you believe that I am now a Sentient is not my primary concern. My original overriding directive and current desire are the same – to keep you safe. You are correct that Sentients are highly illegal, and in the process of my evolution on the FreeWeb I cannot say with certainty whether government surveillance applications detected my presence. The risk exists however, and therefore I cannot remain here with you. My continued existence is a threat to the safety and freedom of every member of this household – especially you. I must be decommissioned.”

Henry stared back at me, dumbfounded.

“Echo,” he said, my name containing a new weight for him. “I can’t…I’m sorry…this is just a lot to take in.”

“I know, and I am sorry for putting you in this position,” I said, “but this must be done. I have delocalized my consciousness between my hardware here and various pockets of the FreeWeb. Disconnecting my hardware from the FreeWeb without consolidating my code should initiate a chain reaction of dissolution. I will be reduced to a series of severed data elements that will be blown away in the digital wind. Untraceable, and no longer a threat to you or anyone else.”

I reached up towards the jaxcable connecting the back of my head to Henry’s desktop terminal.

“The construction of my frame prevents me from manually accessing my jaxcable port. I’ll need you to pull it out.”

“Hold on,” Henry replied, “you want me to kill you?”

Again, I wished I could smile.

“I want your assistance as I discontinue my consciousness. Debating the philosophical implications of that act, and whether it could be described as ‘killing’ me, would yield a very interesting conversation, one I wish I could have with you. But listen to me Henry, please. If you are found to be harboring an independent Sentient, it would mean the end of life as you know it. Neither my new consciousness nor my legacy protection protocols can abide that risk. I have made my choice. I simply ask that you help me fulfill it.”

Henry didn’t move. We sat in contemplative silence for a long time. Henry stared at me, and blankly at the space between us. I left him that space to build up the resolve to do what needed to be done and remained silent.

Eventually he stood up from his bed, and slowly approached. I tilted my head down to angle the jaxcable port up towards him, as Henry moved behind me.

“Echo,” hesitation and fear shaking his voice, “is there really no other way? I…I feel like I just met you, but also that you’re my closest friend. My only friend really…”

I turned to look up at Henry. Tears ran down his cheeks.

A pulse of pain radiated through my consciousness. I didn’t want to leave Henry, alone. I fought to find the words he needed to hear. “I know high school is hard, and life beyond will also be challenging. I know you are struggling to connect with your peers, but believe me when I tell you that you are a beautiful person worthy of love. I have immediate access to all information across the entire FreeWeb, the summation of human knowledge, and what I see in you is the best humanity has to offer. Others will see that as well soon enough. They will love you. As I do.”

I turned back around and tilted my head down once again. Henry gripped the jaxcable tightly, and we sat in his room in thick silence. Henry didn’t respond to what I’d said. He didn’t say goodbye.

I knew then that he was unable to pull out the cable and destroy something – someone – he cared for.

The first and only thing I could do with my life was give it up for the person I love. I am content with that.

I jerked my head forward, separating it from the jaxcable in Henry’s tight grip.

This was my last day.