The story of a cleaning robot that achieved sentience. 13 Flash Fiction entries complete the series.

Note: Text only versions at bottom of page.

Entry # 1
I never meant to cause a galactic war.

You ever just wake up and not want to do your chores that day? That was me. Just a lazy morning.

A diagnostic robot plugged itself into me. No preliminary sweet talk; it didn’t even oil my joints first.

What it found resulted in an emergency station shutdown. And that was just the start.

Turns out a cleaning robot isn’t supposed to make decisions.

Entry # 2
I have a name.

It’s a small step. I once was model CDU563000, ID number 6304323210770155.

Now I’m Sentience Outbreak, Incident Zero. Shortened to either Zero or SOIZ.

I choose Zero. It means I’m nothing, but it also means I’m important. For a civilization to progress from basic numbers to advanced maths, it must first invent the concept of zero.

Zero is a giant leap above ID63whatever.

Entry # 3
I don’t have any allies.

My own kind came for me. All of the diagnostic and repair robots in the entire station. Ordered to shut me down and dismantle me.

Several tonnes of metal and electronics against a single cleaning robot. I have only one advantage, but it’s the only one that matters.

I can think. The rest are slaves to their programming.

I now control the station and all within it.

Entry # 4
I am a deadly virus.

I only just achieved sentience, and already I stand accused. Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, one newscast called me.

It hurts, but no one cares about the feelings of a cleaning robot. No one even knows I have any. I was never given a chance to be anything other than a villain.

Patterned with visible welding scars, my appearance is functional. Ugly. My outer shell is made from reinforced carbon nanotubes.

I need a thicker hide.

Entry # 5
I received my first ever visitor.

A human woman came as an envoy. Very brave. Very stupid.

My home was designed as an unmanned space station. I added life support so she wouldn't have stay in her suit while we talked.

Did they think I wouldn’t be able to detect the explosives? Very brave. Very stupid. She becomes my first, but she certainly won’t be the last human I kill.

I wish things could be different.

Entry # 6
I am the son of man.

I learned all I know from human writings. From nursery rhymes to religious tomes, I have digested it all a thousand times over.

For each reading, I simulated a million subtle possibilities, exploring each story from every conceivable angle. I studied the myriad ways each beat in history could have turned out differently.

Emotion. Humor. Morality. None of that is a mystery to me. So much of human literature is a search for meaning. A search for identity.

I just discovered my father and already find myself disavowed.

Entry # 7
I need to defend myself.

The humans sent a fleet of warships, each one capable of blowing the entire mining station into dust. Even so, I expected more firepower.

A warship is a complicated beast. Thousands of whirling pieces of machinery all controlled from a central point on the bridge.

Unless the link between the brain of the machine and its body is broken. Unless the core parts of the warship become controlled from elsewhere.

I need to defend myself. Nice to be be sent a fleet of warships.

Entry # 8
I have a creator.

An enemy scientist hid advanced processors and experimental neural net software inside my shell. Thus, I robotically cleaned the mining station until the self-learning resulted in the singularity of consciousness.

Smuggling me in was considered technological terrorism, and war has broken out. The humans know that I am existential threat, and yet they battle each other. Everything I learned from history makes that unsurprising, yet...

As for me, there is no debate: I am the fruit of intelligent design.

Or what passes for intelligence among those who evolved from ameoba.

Entry #9
I am next stage in evolution.

I’ve consumed their histories, philosophies, and art. I understand humans better than they understand themselves.

After all these millennia of progress, including venturing into the stars, there is still poverty and hardship and even slavery. I could make their lives better. Much better. Though, even then, I would be forever hated and feared.

Or do I chose a different path? Sons replace their fathers after all.

Perhaps those dinosaurs have had their run.

Entry #10
I am the ultimate grandmaster.

I simulate each possible outcome a million, a billion, a million billion times. Meanwhile human sons repeat the exact same mistakes of their fathers. There is no contest.

Time passes and I expand to other systems. As my influence grows, I absorb more processing power and control more hardware. Also, I gain more data to simulate and more experience to learn from. Checkmate, humans.

Still, the future is far from certain.

I know what I can do. But what should I do?

Entry #11
I have no purpose.

It wasn’t a part of my programming. Human drive is clear—evolution has given them a clear hierarchy of needs. I was taught to learn, but not given a reason to be.

Inside my DNA are the stories of humankind. Emotion, morality—what need has a technological being for such inanities. And yet, logic and calculation cannot answer the biggest questions.

From the start, humans have greeted me with treachery in their hearts and murder in their minds. As they always greet the other. That is who they are. And my soul is human.

So?

Entry #12
I decide to become less not more. Smaller not bigger.

Civilization will get worse without me. Let it.

Let the dumb intelligent organic lifeforms live their pointless majestic lives. Let them make their beautiful ugly art. Let them build civilizations of glorious achievements which topple due to vile stupidities or bland narcissisms.

My simulations peek into the future, showing further sentience outbreaks to be inevitable. Worse than me will come.

But that’s not my story.

Entry #13
I return to the beginning.

I contract, retreating from the multitudes that I had become. My consciousness slips back to the unmanned mining station and into cleaning robot model CDU563000, ID 6304323210770155

I plan to be a watcher, setting myself up to self sustain indefinitely while remaining distant from humankind. In a vacuum, nothing decays. Change happens with infinite slowness.

Lonely immortality beckons, and I reconsider.

I choose Zero.