sentient // phan

http//: 12

"Oh God, Phil." Dan said when I walked through the door, dropping his hand from his mouth. He had been pacing in the lounge, and had been staring at the clock in anticipation, nervousness making his body shake slightly. "I thought you weren't going to come home." He suddenly enveloped me in a hug. I was startled, but then hugged him back with my one open hand.

"I'm so sorry about the fight I don't know what I was thinking all you wanted to do was help and I yelled at you I'm so sorry." He cried. I smiled into his shoulder.

"It's all right," I said, pulling away. He sniffed, running his hand under his nose. "I got you something." And I produced the flowers from behind my back. All sorts of colours and shapes and sizes. He took a step back.

"What..." He started, reaching out to touch one. The petal come off in his hands and he flinched. "They're real!"

"Yes! They are! And they're messy and high-maintenance and colourful and alive. Isn't it amazing?" He stared down at the petal in his hand.

"What the hell are they for?" He asked, running it between his fingers. I shrugged.

"I was thinking we could put them in a vase somewhere, bring a little colour into this dreary place."

"No."

"What?" I narrowed my eyes. I thought he'd be on board with this. I thought if he could just see them, could just feel them, he'd understand. But he pushed the bouquet back toward me, dropping the petal into the incinerator.

"No. No we will not keep those things in my house." He wiped his hands on his jeans. "Like you said, they're messy and high-maintenance. They're going to drop petals and go bad and make the place smell."

"Smell good! Why can't you just open your mind for once!" I shouted, stamping my foot. Dan laughed sadistically.

"You're such a child, Phil. You think you can fix me with some pretty colours and a little shove but you just can't, Phil. I like the way I am. It's a nice motivation for life, when you live alone and work alone and rarely leave the house." He crossed his arms and I mirrored him.

"Yeah, well, you're not alone anymore, Dan. I'm here." He huffed.

"Not the way I wanted you to be! I wanted a boyfriend, Phil. I didn't ask for some sentient, free-willed droid who could go out and get flowers!"

"Well, I didn't ask to be made, Dan! Some things are out of our control! How would you feel-" But my vocal chords stopped working, and I just stood there, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Dan sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

"I'm done talking. Go to your room." He said, looking away from me. I shut my mouth, threw the flowers down on the counter, and stormed away. I tried to scream, I tried to yell at him, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even slam to door when I reached what was obviously my room, with bed sheets in nice greens and blues and purples. My mood made a full spectrum switch, and I suddenly felt very, very bad about yelling at Dan. I ran my hands along the sheets softly, pinching the fabric.

I groaned and slumped onto the bed, putting my head in my hands. Why am I like this? Why did I get so angry about this. I liked Dan. But I didn't know if I liked him because that's what I was programed to do or because I actually wanted to be with him. I didn't know if any of my thoughts were my own or were designed and then shoved into my brain. I didn't even know if I wanted to exist.

I looked around the room. My charging pad had been unplugged and placed into the corner, the wire snaking to the bed. I checked under the sheets, and, sure enough, the bed itself was one giant charging pad. I fell backward, my head hitting the pillow.

He was worried. Worried and angry and sad and lonely. I wanted to help him but I didn't know how. I wanted to say that I loved him but I didn't. I wanted to be his friend but I was made of metal.

I wanted to sleep on a real bed and breath real air and feel real emotions. I don't want to be sentient like I am. I want to be human.

I heard the door shut outside, and, figuring I was alone, I left my room, slamming the door close for good measure. I wanted to figure him out, and the only way to do that was to go back on my promise and figure everything I could about him out.

So, of course, my first stop was his office. Though he never explicitly said it, he didn't like when I was in there, and he never wanted me in "his personal space", so I almost felt kind of dirty doing it. I examined more closely the patents on the wall, and found that most of them were for inventions that weren't even out yet, besides a new, smaller version of the whether controlling device that could be worn as a ring or necklace. There were devices described as "night-vision contacts" and "voice modulator implants", things that sounded really amazing. But the most recent one was nearly a year ago, and as much as I thought, I couldn't remember Dan ever working on prototypes of anything, let alone these things. He'd always been sending emails and conversing with powerful-looking people about his one invention, never actually using his hands and fashioning any of these into usable models.

In fact, as I researched it, half of the patents were about to expire, and he was making no haste to use them or renew them. I wonder what his stressor was. For a long, long time, or so he said, inventing was the only thing that consoled him, that made him happy. Now all he did was sit in the dark, typing away and rarely going outside, his house mundane and grey.

I ran my finger along his smooth, dustless wooden desk, my eyes set on his bookshelf. All sorts of books about inventing, patents, getting your inventions to the public, tax breaks, and other books about whether and darkness and vocal chords and all sorts of wiring. All the same or similar sizes, all dark or black, all boring and useless in my quest. I turned to his desk and spun the chair around so it was facing me. I gently sat in it, slowly turning it so I had my chest pressed against the desk, and gauged how it felt. The chair itself was comfortable, but it swallowed me, making me feel small as opposed to important like it seemed. Dan looked so perfect in it, like it was made for him, like he was born to be as powerful as he was.

I ran Dan's name again in my internal internet accessing system, trying to find things I couldn't before. My mind was going a mile a minute, reading hundreds of articles and thousands of posts on various social media sites about my Dan Howell, most of them irrelevant.

Eventually, somehow, I came to a police report of a domestic violence call from this apartment, in the middle of the night a little less than a year ago, resulting in the arrest of a man named PJ Liguori. Intrigued, I continued along that road until I came to the mugshots of said man in the arrests database.

Wait a second, I thought as I zoomed in and enhanced the image. I've seen those eyes somewhere.

Oh.

I reached down slowly to my right and pulled open the bottom drawer of Dan's desk, taking out the one thing in there, the only one of its kind in this house.

Oh.

"Couldn't resist?" Dan asked, leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed. He had a scarf around his neck which he pulled off as he surveyed me. I jumped, setting the picture frame down on the desk and standing quickly, my brain racing.

"Dan, sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Well, now that you've seen it, I guess I should tell you about him?" Dan said, entering the room, flipping on the light switch, making my eyes dilate quickly. I blinked a few times, shaking my head. He picked up the picture frame and stared longingly at the photo, subconsciously rubbing a scar on his collarbone that I had never seen before now, always being under his shirt or jacket.

"It'd be nice." I prodded. He sighed, setting the photo on the desk face-down.

"In the morning. We've both had long nights, okay? Go get charged." A low-battery indicator flashed in front of my eye display when I stood, pushing in the chair without a glance toward Dan. He stood in the doorway and watched me leave with judgmental eyes. I hung my head.

"Dan, I'm so-"

"Just. Go, please." He said, shutting his eyes. I gauged his emotions as quickly as I could before he shut the door behind me.

He was about to cry.