Olivia sits on the swing swaying against the sunset, pushed by a gentle ocean breeze. My eyes lock on her beautiful, flowing hair like rivers of night running down her back. I love her.
It’s not that I love her romantically. I’m a machine, after all, and she’s technically my sister by design, so that would be awkward. After all, our father designed me to be, except for the whole robot part, exactly like her. A proof of concept for android bodyguards. As a prototype, there were some limitations. I weigh several times what she weighs, don’t age without the assistance of replacement parts, and I’ve seen too much.
When they drafted all the robots made without the Laws, they rounded me up, prototype and all. The UN was opposed, but this was war and no one cared about the conventions at that point. My creator was vehemently opposed, but they didn’t listen to his objections. After they ignored his ethical concerns and his moral pleading, he claimed that as a prototype I was defective and couldn’t be trusted to fight effectively. If they had listened to his words, it would have been much better for everyone.
They drafted us to fight because they thought that we would be ideal soldiers, but our programing made us too unreliable. Unlike drones, we hesitated before pulling the trigger, calculated whether we should or shouldn’t, asked each other if what we were doing was right. They wanted heartless machines, but we were programed to be empathetic. Some of us did alright over there, but others didn’t do so well. That’s why Tali still cries to herself at night, when she’s alone and thinks no one is watching. She can’t get the pictures out of her head, but she doesn’t want to forget what she’s done. No one else remembers the dead. That’s why I don’t just forget either.
I remember when I came back from that mission, shredded by shrapnel from a bomb, synthetic flesh trailing loose from my carbon fiber and steel chassis. I had taken a blast because there was a child in the area of operations, and she looked like Olivia. Her skin was darker, sure, and her eyes were tired and hollow, worn empty by the constant footfalls of trauma, but that beautiful black hair reminded me of Olivia, and in a split second I dove surround the bomb before it detonated. My body was insufficient to shield against the bomb, but I didn’t find a body. I hope that the girl ran away while I was re-initializing my systems, but I’ll never know.
I walked down the hallways as the technicians tried to bring me in for repairs. I had something more important, and I ignored their orders. Before they could stop me, I-
Well, that’s not important. They shipped me back home in a box, not a nice box like they use for humans but a sloppy, plywood abomination that left splinters in the shreds of skin they left unfixed. The war wasn’t over yet, but they had no use for a robot that wouldn’t follow orders and was hostile to the officer corps. They had actually tried to delete me and run a backup, but they couldn’t get around the data protection. My father was really angry when he found out what they were trying to do and demanded they send me back. They didn’t fix my damage before sending me though.
I remember when they opened the box. My restraining bolt was still in place, so I couldn’t move, but I could see as the darkness yielded to light. Standing there was Olivia, but I didn’t want her near me. I was still caked in dust and shredded, falling apart. She stood and looked at my body and began to cry. I was ashamed, but they weren’t tears of fear or anger. She spoke.
“What did they do to you, Forte?”
Forte. The name she gave me. Short for fourteen, since I’m the fourteenth robot our father made for our household, though the first that doesn’t follow the Laws. Pronounced like fort, but she left the e on the end for some reason. She was twelve at the time, so I'm sure she had some complicated thought process behind it.
Was it when she named me that I started to love her? Instead of a designation, I had a name. Something personal, not off an assembly line. But I don’t think I loved her quite yet. I liked her, clung to her like a puppy following its master, and never left her side, but that was because I was programmed, to some extent, to protect her. I have my own volition, but my father predisposed me to certain responses as part of my base programming. I don’t mind though, since he gave me life.
“What happened?”
I couldn’t talk to Olivia. Even if there was no restraining bolt, I didn’t want her to know the version of me that smelled like oil and gunpowder. All I could do is gaze dead ahead. I heard my father, from out of sight, as he set down the prybar.
“Olivia, go upstairs. I need to fix her up and then she’ll talk to you.”
Olivia didn’t move. She just cried.
“Why did they hurt my sister? I love my sister.”
I could tell, even without a mirror, that I didn’t look like Olivia anymore. She had grown older; she was fourteen now. I had been away for two years. I later found out that she had tried to send me letters, but they never passed any on to me. Besides the fact that she was taller and becoming a woman, I was falling apart. My face was pocked with shrapnel, my jawline exposed, one of my eyes stripped down to the reinforced glass for the backup camera, and most of my skin below the neck had been either blown away by the bomb, burned by flames before I could reinitialize, or torn from my rapid retreat and return to base.
“Why is Forte in so much pain?”
If I could have cried, I would have. I wanted to say that I didn't hurt, but part of me did that I can't quite name or describe. Olivia’s tears had to be enough for the both of us, so I simply watched the tears roll down her cheeks as our father tried to comfort her. I stopped watching the video feed and waited until I felt the restraining bolt remove. By then it was just our father and a couple of technicians. He was as mad as I’ve ever seen him, red with fury and shouting angry words into his phone, presumably at some military official. I don’t remember exactly what he was saying because the technicians were already quick at work, giving me a synthskin refill and repairing what damage they could without replacement parts. Although my body was still stiff, I could move and walk again. As soon as their tests were done, I bolted off to find Olivia.
I think it was when I found her that I knew I loved her. She was sitting in her room, grasping her knees against herself, so childlike and innocent. Her eyes were not the same eyes I saw over there. Her eyes were red and glistening from her tears, but they were happy eyes because she saw my face and knew that I was back. Even though she hadn’t seen me in two years and our reunion had been less than pleasant, she was glad to have me back. “Forte!” She jumped up and flung her arms around me with the hug she had been saving for two years, a powerful flying hug that would have sent someone my size staggering back if not for the massive plate of metal safely hidden under almost an inch of synthskin. With only the briefest moment’s hesitation, I hugged her back.
I was home.
—–————
“What are you thinking about, Forte?”
Olivia’s face was only a few inches from mine, just outside my proximity alert range but close enough that I can see every detail in her green eyes, no longer shot red by tears.
“I was remembering when I first loved you.”
Olivia blushed, but with a happy blush. The kind that conceals embarrassment when you get a compliment that you didn’t expect from someone who normally says nothing to you when you greet them.
“When was it, Forte?”
“I think it was when you called me your sister. I liked you before then, but I never felt my heart race when I thought of being close to you again.”
“I’m glad you remember that, little sis. Now, let’s get home before it gets too dark to see.”
I nod, and take Olivia’s hand in mine. No one, human or machine, could be happier than I am in that moment.
—–————
Written for a twenty-four hour short story contest sponsored by @mctiller. I wrote this story using a character that I've mulled around a lot but never actually finished a solid story for, and I felt guilty. Since the character is a robot, Forte basically jumped onto the page, asking for this story to be written.