Friendbots, Ltd.
An original story by Armand aka Rivka
A tall, magnificent building, made almost entirely of pristine marble, stood above the city skyline. At the very top, about one hundred feet or so off of the ground, pink and green neon lights blazed the slogan "Friendbots, Limited. A quiet, docile companion for life or your money back."
The president of the company, Johnson, as he was lovingly referred to, had to go down to this building, the factory building, to perform an inspection. The corpulent man slid an ID card through the laser checker in the door. A soothing robotic female voice stated, "Welcome, Johnson. I hope all goes well."
With that the doors closed behind the fat, balding little man. All around he could hear the incessant humming of machinery, working hard to build android friends for the populace. It was a comforting sound, a sweet music he had longed to hear since he was but a boy with an intense interest in cybernetic engineering.
As he entered the factory, he saw the manufacture of robotic limbs and torsos, their metallic exterior covered with a plastic-like artificial skin. The robotic arms joined them together to make a complete body, alternating male and female body types. All that remained was the head.
To his right, he saw another machine crafting the androids heads. No two alike, he thought as he watched in amazement. The machines were programmed to not only give the mannequins lifelike skin, hair, eyes, and facial expressions, but to also construct a reasonably human brain, complete with emotions and personality chips hardwired into the main system. He watched in awe as the first head rolled off the assembly line, a female one with long flowing blonde hair and hazel eyes. A human worker carefully welded the head to a female body, attaching wires here, smoothing plasticine skin there.
Now was the moment of truth, for both Johnson and the human assembly-line worker: if the thing would actually work. The worker took off her protective mouth-covering and shrilly whistled towards two other workers. They came running towards her, aware of what would happen next. The fun part. Quality control.
They turned the android "ON" with the switch in its back, which sunk into its skin. It, or rather, she, as she considered herself, stood there in shock; she was naked , in a place she didn't know, surrounded by strange creatures wearing plastic clothing, head coverings, and a mouthpiece that made them look like thy had two noses.
"What the hell..?" shrieked the android. "What am I doing here? Am I going crazy? Am I naked? Get me some clothes!"
"Damn," said one of the factory workers, "a defective. Too human." With that they slammed the android onto her back, and dragged her into the incineration room. She screamed and begged for mercy the whole way; but they paid no heed, as she was just a machine.
The last thing Johnson heard before he left, stomach churning, was the harpy-like shriek that penetrated the whole of Friendbots, Ltd.: the sound of an artificial body being cruelly incinerated, and an artificial soul going through its worst torment.
