Pink City

Chapter 2

"Coming in stores worldwide today is the new SEENCH bot! SEENCH is more than just a Roomba or an Amazon Echo; SEENCH's initials stand for the things it can help you do.

S is for snacks! SEENCH bots are naturally equipped to use the same remarkable cooking methods in their recipes as famous chefs such as Gordon Ramsey and Bobby Flay. Not to mention SEENCH can cook anything under ten minutes!

EE is for ExErcise! SEENCHes are equipped with over 100 pre-programmed workouts to help you lose that winter dad bod! Talk about a personal traaaaain.............C is for clean! SEENCH is programmed to work for hours and never tire ouuuuu.........hyper-realistic desig..............own personal frienddddd.....Only 245.99! Buy now........................."

No matter how hard SEENCH #028 tried not to think about it, the advertisement kept ringing in their head over and over. As a part-SEENCH, it was one of the many things programmed into their brain, and despite the mental anguish the advertisements caused, they could never be programmed to forget that this is what they were ever going to be now; a part SEENCH. And being robots created for leisure purposes, no one intended them to be respected as human beings, even if they were 98% one. Plus, SEENCH #028 wasn't always SEENCH #028. Alas, 14 years ago, they had a different name. They were called Alicia (Or, Alice) Anderson.

Alice, being autistic, had dealt with many mental issues throughout her lifetime. She had daily issues with school concentration at thirteen, and severe depression at fourteen, but she was a sweet child with a good heart albeit her concerns, and she could've led a good life as a human if she had just stuck with therapy and medicine for a few years. August 12, 2007 was the date she became the first successful SEENCH-human hybrid. However, before her, there were 27 failed attempts at SEENCH-human incarnation.

Signix Labs, a mechanical engineering company, decided to introduce the idea of a SEENCH-human hybrid when Alice was only nine years old, however due to ethical concerns the experiment could only be performed using human brains from organ donors. The lab owners thought this was a genius idea, however they must've overlooked the fact that there were a lot of faults when trying to incorporate a human brain into a robot's body.

Embedded below are just some of the factors that caused the anthropomorphic blunders.

"SEENCH #001 had a complete loss of function. Causes are unknown but the organ donor was no longer viable. 6/9/02"

"SEENCH #009 never started up. Perhaps we forgot to keep the temperature in the control room kept at a constant of 68 degrees and the organ overheated. 12/13/03"

"SEENCH #014 stopped functioning after an estimate of five minutes and 43 seconds due to inadequate obtaining of oxygen" 1/14/05"

"SEENCH #023 was poorly wired and unable to sustain any movement or function. 1/11/06"

Signix Labs accepted the fact that in order to maintain a functioning, operable hybrid, they needed a human volunteer. Someone who was willing to replace their frontal lobe with the CPU of a SEENCH, in order to have programmed logic, intelligence and reason; a superhuman, in other words. Alice was the only volunteer.

The interview between Signix labs and Alice prior to the interview was pretty distressing to watch; one would assume it's not hard to shed tears when you see a frail fourteen year old in a hospital gown, about to undergo an operation that would change their lives forever. But Alice was very adamant on bestowing her transformation.

"I don't want to be seen as an eccentric, weird kid anymore. I just want to be a normal person." Was the last thing she said before she was put under, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks.

Being the first successful SEENCH hybrid, Alice's story went viral all over social media, and many people had a lot to say about what they thought of the modification of the young girl. Unethical, cruel and sadistic were just some of the words people used to describe the outcome of experiment #028.