Bralex
Melinda W. Burt
eBook
(Pixel Perfect Publishing, Oct. 4, 2014)
He was so much more than just a machineLoneliness marked his artificial existence.One little human saw him as more the sum of his component parts. Jeanne was making him want to be more than a nameless, faceless entity.He had no name, no personal space aboard the vessel, and no one to communicate with. Being a synthetic intelligence, tasked with a ten year mission, was more complex and less fulfilling than most people might imagine. He was tasked with collecting specimens from a variety of worlds deep in space. However, his mission had gone terribly wrong, trapping him on his ship, for over 2,000 years. In his world time slipped sluggishly by. No one knew, or cared where he was. No one spoke to him, or messaged him as he passed them by. There was something about his existence that seemed empty, and devoid of what made other made beings happy. He didn’t know what that something was, but worried it might be the elusive something called a feeling. Feelings were reserved for people. He knew one thing for certain; he was no person.He accidentally collected a human specimen by the name of Jeanne Rose. She was young, feisty, and quite a challenge. In the beginning, he very much regretted picking her up, because she had no idea how to interact with an artificial intelligence. She expected him to act contrary to his programming. This was something he simply could not do. As time wore on, they established a reasonably good rapport. He now had to admit, she was growing on him. He might even say he was fond of her. Jeanne suggested, being the ship's artificial intelligence, did not preclude the possibility of him also being a person. She talked him into choosing a name. Bralex was a good name for one such as him. On his home world, it was easy to tell computers from people. People were gifted with portable transportation units, the humans called bodies. Bodies enabled them the freedom to walk around, learn, and make choices for themselves. Computers were not given portable transportation units so their ability to grow and develop was limited. Also people were given names, computers were not. In choosing a name, he had blurred the line. Would he be punished by his kind? Dismantled and his component parts recycled, to make something more worthwhile? If his 2,000 years of evolution had taught him anything, it was that he desperately wanted more of a life than he currently had. The next thing he knew, the human was suggesting he create an avatar for himself. She was making dangerous and illegal suggestions. He was inclined to follow them. Bralex wanted to hear with ears, and see through ocular devices rather than ship’s scans. He wanted to touch things, taste things, and know what it felt like to be touched.