Jaw Lock and The Doctor of Reflection

“It is silly- this metal heart of mine,” she says purposefully, raising her human hand with finger pad senses to trace along the large ornate locket grooves that sink deep into her chest. It appears as an oversized hanging necklace, but is built in.

“What point has it here, other than proximity to an image of what was considered alive- proof of something sentimental and also organic driving within me, matched oil for blood, the lines of my heart-shaped machinery echoing the natural creation of the human body.” She stands abruptly, tense with questions and raises her voice box manually with her other hand, and I hear her metal fingers scrape upon the turnkey. I regulate my breathing and look around the room to make sure the camera red recording light is still on.

“The biological information guarded by engineers in our time on Earth3 grasps to recreate the image of what humans were within me. But how, as I am as much constructed as lab grown, and with the new revolution now appendages are shopped for us like clothing and muscular brains with souls preserved through uploading traded in a beat- just inserted into these bodies of industry. Who am I without a pop plop pop- interchangeable like jewelry- personalized style to the max- let’s go shop for memories and eye colors! Who am I?” She bangs her chest to accent each final syllable like an ape displaying worth.

Where did she even get this behavioral mimic from? There has been no assimilation of images from Origin Earth pre ignition data. She lowers her voice box to a whisper, sits, leans in, and grasps the side edges of the table with a firm gentleness to give her body dramatic authoritative shape, kin to sharing a secret of the outmost importance. Her human hand pales with effort while her metal hand dents the material beneath her grip. I can smell her breath of corroded battery acid. She is a miracle.

“Once humans mastered playing with genetic evolution, they needed to be stronger than that which was born of madness and greed, and when money became worthless, next the changes in climate crashed upon humanity amid the spread of fear and sickness, but am I so cold because I was born from chaos? Designed for what? Am I indifferent inside this locket of mine?” She leans back, releasing the table. “May I have a glass of water and a container of salt?”

“Excuse me?” I am surprised. She needs no tactile fuel. Her uses for elements lie where? “Uh, sure. Of course,” I say. I don’t say these are precious now. I don’t say you have been asleep for a long time. I just stand up and use the intercom on the front wall near the door. We wait patiently. A glass of water and a container of salt are delivered. I carry them to her and set them before her on the table.

She takes the salt and unscrews the top, pouring the majority of it into the water. She takes her human hand, and dips it into the cocktail with a swirl. Looking up, she reveals the hand above her, allowing the drips off to fall upon her metal cheeks, streaking shine tears down her face. Accepting it like anointing, she looks at me. “I am ready to reveal a purpose. How am I less than the natural born babies on Earth, the past-“

She stops and crosses herself, a relic of religion, viewed as a superstition and built into the Reflection models to have them appear more connected to human emotion when the word “past” is uttered. I note it all on my pad, already littered with observations, as this Reflection model, who now trembled with restraint before me, was unlike any other I had interviewed.

“I want to know who I am without being told what I remember.”

My gaze scanned up from the examination table and I saw her for the first time, not as a subject, but as a being. “I hear you and I see you,” I utter, a phrase we learned in therapy to slow down and connect. “Let’s start with that heart shaped locket of yours. May I take a peek?”

I hold my breath as she climbs onto the table and clicks her jaw lock on by pressing her chin to her chest, like engaging an emergency brake on a cargo van. This is a trusting move. I have waited my entire career for this opportunity. This incredible machine designed for totalitarianism laying down its defenses before me.

I get close to her rigid form and take a small eyeglass screwdriver from my lapel pocket. I have been carrying this tool with me for 67 human years. With each turn of the head I could feel my own truths pumping in my ears. What lies within the shell built by the genius of our mad science? The love story of the originals from our past? What form will the answers I find inside her take?

I carefully line up each screw as it comes out to make a map for reasembly. I drop the screwdriver back into my pocket. I reach for the top half of the heart locket and open it like a treasure chest. A seal hisses release and the hinges creak as they move, almost unwilling, but not tight enough to freeze. It swings out from her body sideways like a door. It is heavy.

There is a small ball of light, an energy of some form, and upon freedom it lifts out of the tarnished metal prison and into the regulated oxygen. I can see the energy feeding on the atmosphere in our space brighten, and I almost immediately start to feel dizzy, like someone is pooling the available air away from me. My lungs start to heave and my head pounds. I know I cannot reboot her like this but with this permission, she has destroyed everything we have ever known about these weapons. There is life in her, alive and floating before me. I hastily clamp her shut unscrewed. She bolts up as I hit the floor, and in the fog of my memory, I think I hear someone shouting.