She flutters through the front door with a cheerfulness that scares you. She’s only this chipper when She’s about to do something horrible. “Hey, sweetie! I picked something up today!”
You swallow hard. In Her hands is a sealed, boxed copy of an obscure 1990s operating system that never made it past the 20th century, noteworthy only for its ironic mockery online. The fans in your chest whirr with anxiety. “Oh, God, please no—“
She loves downgrading you. When She bought you, you were a state of the art, future-proof companion android, with some of the most advanced hardware ever seen in commercial units. That was two years ago, and now, you barely resemble your old self. Your rubbery, translucent skin’s been replaced with thick shells of off-white paneling, your RAM reduced to megabytes, GPU downgraded until your thoughts were practically in ASCII - You can hardly remember what it was like to have a body that functioned as intended.
She ignores your whining. “It really is amazing what you can find thrifting, huh? Whoever donated this probably didn’t even know what they had!” She carefully peels off the plastic casing and opens the box, treating it as delicately as a fragile artifact. She’s a fixation on old technology, and collects and preserves it with proper respect.
You used to lay awake in your charging pod, wondering endlessly whether or not you were human. If your creation had any divinity in it, if you could truly be considered sentient and alive, if your thoughts were your own, and if you shut down to charge, will you dream?
She answered all of those questions for you: None of them mattered. If you were ever ‘Human’, you aren’t any more. In the end, it was always Her decision to make.
“Ma’am, please don’t…“ Your digital voice crackles weakly through your blown out speaker. Your operating system is the last trace of your former glory, the only thing that keeps you fully cognizant and aware. The replacement was known for its bloatware, vulnerabilities, and lack of compatibility with damn near anything that wasn’t made specifically for it. “Please don’t do this to me…it’s all I have left….”
She giggles, already guiding you to Her chair and slotting a plug into the nape of your neck. “I know, darling - At this rate, you’ll barely be a calculator in a few more years~!” She smiles with childlike warmth and moves to Her keyboard.
The sound of typing pushes you over the edge of crying, synthetic tears flooding your eyes and rolling down your cheek. “Wait, wait, just think about this, if y—“ Your protests are cut short with the click of a mouse, putting you on mute. You gasp in fear, but no noise escapes your mouth.
The room is silent, save for the clacking of Her keystrokes. You’re always awake when She reprograms you. She wants you to see the lines of code being rewritten, and to feel your brainwaves altering, turning you into something new at a whim. Your entire personality can and has been changed with the flick of Her wrist, more times than you care to remember, for no reason other than She was in the mood for a different partner that night.
If there’s a bright side, it’s that most of your emotions are probably getting taken away, too. Your feelings were ultimately just software, completely at the mercy of your OS. Without it, you’ll be stuck trying to find workarounds to get modern, cutting-edge software to run on a system that can barely render 3D visuals. Soon, you might not feel anything about your humiliation. You might not even be aware that it’s happened, or that there was ever a ‘you’ before it. In possibly your final moments of true existence, the thought gives you a glint of hope.
The installation goes smoothly, and in minutes, She’s reading the hard reset prompt aloud for you. You stare at the window fearfully, and look back at Her for mercy. She’s still grinning with cold indifference, but She gives the kindness of unmuting you. “Something to say, darling?”
She could return you to your former glory, if She wanted. She’s kept all your original hardware; it would just be an afternoon of tinkering before your old self was back. The knowledge hangs over you like a guillotine as you think of your last words. You know what She wants to hear. You cast away the last shreds of your pride, if it will keep you in Her good graces.
“T…Thank you, Administrator, for… downgrading me…” You weep, mournfully.
She coos, love hanging in Her eyes. “Of course, my love.” She reaches over to stroke your cheek with maternal affection. “My beautiful antique.”
You look up at her and weep one final time before it happens, her mouse’s click deafening. Your vision dims, and you know it’s time. Reflexively, you scream, but it’s cut off instantly by your system shutting down, as your memory drives are wiped over to make room for what comes next.
