The Adventures of Elettricia
Elle bent and placed the bouquet on the headstone. Her mother, Giovanna, had died 10 years ago. She had been in her seventies, but was still doing well, until the massive stroke took her.
“Momma G, I miss you so much.”
Elle had started out as an android. Gia, an out of work, electrical engineer, who was let go during the mass layoffs following earth’s First Contact War, had built her. Gia had never married and so wanted children. She built Elle as a companion.
“It’s been hard, so hard, without you these past years.”
Gia was better with robotics than AI programing, and as a result, Elle had been unruly and difficult to the point of mischievousness. Gia was so exasperated that she installed a secondary logic unit in Elle to function as a ghost conscience. While this helped, it didn’t prevent Elle from living through a series of transformative experiences.
“You treated me so good.”
One time, Elle had run away. She had joined a gang. Their boss had installed a restraining bolt and forced her to serve as a translator and protocol assistant. Net Security agents had raided the boss’s hideout and liberated Elle. It seemed she had learned her lesson.
“And all for what?”
On her way home to Gia, Elle was enticed to run off to the Pleasure Zone, where androids and AIs can exist without interference and there are no external restraints on their programming. But it turned out to be another trap. An artificial neural machine was capturing and incorporating tech to grow into an entity capable of becoming humankind’s overlord.
“My sacrifice, for existence, for human life?”
Gia had hunted Elle down and found her. Together, they had attempted to escape; the machine had attempted to end Gia. Elle had sacrificed herself to protect her, and a miracle had occurred to bring Elle to life.
Elle dropped to her knees on her mother’s grave. Holding her head in her hands, she sobbed. Tears streaming down her face.
“Without you, existence is useless.”
