Lossof love, loss of freedom, loss of sanity – humans had so much to lose.
Yet losswas such a vague concept, defined only by the significance granted to it by afeeling, thinking individual. Except loss of life. Loss of life was a definite,unshakable truth, and the taking of a life was a crime, punishable bydeactivation.
Connor clasped his hands and slowly leanedforward, trying to meet the AP700’s clouded eyes.
“You know why you were brought in,” hestated gently, “Witnesses saw you push the man into oncoming traffic. There arerecordings of it…”, he reached for the tablet lying next to him on theotherwise bare table.
“I don’t want to see it…!”
“Okay,” Connor replaced the tablet and pushedhis shoulders back, “Then tell me why you did it.”
He monitored her stress levels as shefidgeted with the handcuffs around her thin wrists.
“There were those men,” she started feebly,“They kept following me around everywhere I went.”
She bent forward and placed her head on thetable surface in defeat.
“They kept making remarks about me and myfamily. They were talking about burning down our home,” she glanced up atConnor, trying to make sense of his impassive expression.
“I’ve seen some of them demonstrate infront of my family’s business before. They seemed so angry about seeing theandroids working there,” she continued as she struggled to tuck a strand ofloose hair behind her ear.
Connor sighed, “As a family assistant, youare advised to report any suspicions about criminal activity or threats to yourmaster or the police hotline. However, we have no such incidence reports onfile.”
“I know,” it broke out of her in a sob, “Iwanted to make the problems go away myself –! I felt so useless, just standingby while these things troubled my family.”
“So you decided to take action yourself andget rid of the ringleader once and for all,” Connor prompted. Her stress levelsspiked as she sat upright with a start, apparently trying to look resolute.
She pressed her lips together tightly asher LED indicator flickered in violent shades of red.
“My purpose is to protect my family. I didthe right thing,” she finally answered in defiance.
Connor nodded and straightened his jacketas he got up.
“It might interest you to know that yourfamily appreciated your actions enough to replace you with another AP700,” heremarked on the way out of the interrogation room.
She lowered her eyes as the stressoverpowered her senses and she became unresponsive.
After all this deviant had lost asconsequence of her actions, he didn’t know why he had so casually robbed her ofall she had left – her sense of purpose and uniqueness.
