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Milo yawns. It is 3am, and he is standing in a police station in his pyjamas and a jacket. His shoes don’t match. And he is confused. “What’s going on?” He asks.
The police officer sighs. “You are the owners of the MEL unit with the code 135.04, correct?”
Brigette nods. The officer clicks something on his holographic watch. “Your MEL attacked someone in Oval Park tonight. The man died of his injuries.”
“What?” Milo’s eyes widen. “No, she wouldn’t do that!”
“She?” The officer looks confused.
“Melissa’s sentient.” Milo explains. “She prefers to be called she. And her name’s Melissa, and she wouldn’t kill anyone!”
The officer chuckles. “Ah. You’ve had it for a long time, right? Children often get attached to household robots. It’s cute.”
“Melissa really has developed sentience.” Martin says.
The officer sighs. “Your MEL unit, whatever you want to call it, has definitely killed someone. We have evidence.”
“What evidence?” Milo pushes.
“It was found shut off next to the body, covered in blood. It’s cameras and memory storage were both shut off during the attack, but thankfully a member of the public witnessed it and reported it.” The officer explains.
Milo frowns. “What if this member of the public killed the guy, and framed Melissa?” He says. “She was powered off, which they might’ve done. And they could’ve made her camera and memory malfunction.”
“We believe that she deliberately disabled her camera and memory.” The officer says sternly. Milo is really beginning to not like this guy.
“She didn’t! Maybe she could’ve disabled her camera, we took off the password, but she can’t disable her own memory! You need to do that externally.” Milo points out.
“Enough of this nonsense. We have proof, it did it.” The officer says.
“Milo, sweetheart, it’s ok.” Brigette takes his hand and squeezes it. “Ok, I’m… I’m very sorry about all of this, officer. We’ll take her home and make sure that she can’t leave by herself again.”
Milo burns with protective indignation. He knows that his mom is just appeasing the police officer so they can take Melissa home, but it isn’t fair. Melissa hasn’t done anything wrong! He knows that she hasn’t. That she wouldn’t.
“What? No, you can’t take it home.”
Milo’s heart drops. “But… but we have to! She’s a robot you can’t like… arrest her.” He points out. “She’s part of our family, she belongs with us.”
“It’s a danger to the community.” The police officer snaps, scowling down at Milo. “A MEL unit shouldn’t be out killing willy-nilly, it’s not intended for that! Clearly it malfunctioned.”
“Melissa didn’t malfunction! She didn’t do anything!” Milo insists.
“Milo, easy.” His dad squeezes his shoulder. “Well, is there any way to fix her? As you can see, my son is very attached to her.”
“I’m afraid not.” The police officer shakes his head. “The only thing we can do is destroy it.”
Milo’s heart stops.
No, no, they can’t do that! They can’t do that to Melissa! She… she’s not a broken machine, she’s my friend! She’s my sister! They can’t… you can’t…
The shock freezes him in place. He hears a sharp inhale from his mom, a little gasp from his dad. “I’m sorry. We will provide compensation for you to purchase a new MEL unit. It is my understanding that you use your MEL to handle your unique medical condition? I hope that you can manage without it for a little while.”
“We should be fine. But look, you can’t destroy her.” Martin begins to explain. “I know how ridiculous it sounds, but Melissa really has developed sentience. We can keep her locked in our house, we won’t let her go outside anymore. But you can’t-“
“You couldn’t even stop it from killing someone.” The police officer points out, voice cold. So cold. Milo doesn’t normally get angry, but he finds that he is getting angrier and angrier at this man. How could he be so cold, so cruel? Melissa is a person. She’s alive, and she’s innocent! They can’t just kill her for something that she didn’t even do, with no evidence!
“Is there nothing that we can do?” Brigette asks urgently.
“Nope. Sorry. We’ll be in touch.” He turns away, ending the conversation.
But Milo can’t let it end like this.
“No!” He says. “No, please, you can’t! I’ll look after her, I won’t let anything else happen, but you can’t kill her! Please!” His eyes are burning with tears, his fists clenched.
The police officer groans, turning around to face him. He crouches to be on Milo’s level. “I’m sure you love that robot very much. But it’s not a human. It’s not alive, it’s not a person. It is a machine, an object. And it’s a broken machine. Do you get it? It’s broken. There’s no point keeping it.”
He stands up, glaring down at Milo. Milo glares back up at him, eyes watering. But already a plan is forming in his mind. “Can… can I at least go speak to her, one last time?”
The officer sighs. “Fine. Five minutes.”
He follows the officer downstairs, his entire body trembling. He wipes his face, taking a deep breath. Be brave for Melissa. He has to be brave for Melissa.
The officer unlocks the door to a storage room. “If it attacks you, yell.”
And then he is inside the room. He blinks, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The room is small and cramped, with a few empty shelves lining the walls.
And sat on the floor is Melissa.
“Melissa!” He exclaims, rushing over. “Are you ok?”
She looks up. The edges of her mouth are angled downwards. Her legs are pulled in close to her body, and her arms have disappeared inside. It would be hard for someone who doesn’t know her to interpret her body language, but he knows how to.
Melissa is terrified.
“I’m… fine.” She says. “Milo, I swear I didn’t kill that guy. I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know.” He comforts, putting a hand on one of her legs. “I know that you wouldn’t.”
“But I don’t remember. My memory malfunctioned, there’s this huge black spot after I entered the park.” She closes her eyes once, then opens them. “Milo, they said that they’re gonna destroy me.”
“I know. I’m working on it.” Milo comforts. “It’ll be ok.”
“I… I don’t wanna die.” She admits. “I don’t… I’m scared, Milo. No one’s listening to me, they won’t even look at me. And tomorrow they’re gonna take me apart for scrap and then turn me off for good.”
“No, they won’t.” Milo says, determined. “I won’t let them. I know how scary this is, Mel. I know. But it’ll be ok, I promise. I’ll get you out of here tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Milo.” Melissa leans into his hug. Milo takes a deep breath, feeling his throat getting choked up. Melissa must be terrified. It’s not fair, they can’t do this to her. He won’t let them do this to her.
He hears a bang on the door. “Time up!”
Melissa flinches. Milo tenses. “Did they hurt you?” Melissa can’t feel pain, but he knows that she gets uncomfortable when someone hits her, or damages her robotic parts.
“Just… a lot of manhandling. Dragging me around and pulling really hard.” She says. “But I’m fine. I’ll be ok.”
“I said, time up!” Another bang.
“I’m coming!” Milo yells back. “Ok, I’ll be back tomorrow. It’ll be ok, Mel, I promise. I’ll get you out of here.”
———
Melissa trusts Milo. She trusts Milo more than she trusts anyone, including herself. But that isn’t enough to erase her fear.
She has been manhandled and yelled at and ignored all night. It’s so easy to forget, when she has been living with the Murphys for her entire life, that most people don’t see her as a person at all. That her life only matters in that she’s useful.
And a robot that malfunctions and starts ‘conducting unauthorised killings’? That’s not useful. That’s dangerous. And that makes her worthless.
She knows that she wouldn’t do that. But… she can’t know for sure. She doesn’t remember, she simply woke up next to a dead body, covered in blood, being worked on by a mechanic. Then she was manhandled away. No one even bothered talking to her until she was secured in this room. They asked a few questions, but dismissed her answers when they conflicted with a human witness.
After all, who would listen to a robot over a human?
She wishes that she could cry. She feels like emotions have built up inside her body, filling her to the brim until her screws strain. She has no release.
And she wishes that she could at least be sure. That she could look back and know that she didn’t kill that human. But her memory storage malfunctioned, and there’s no way of fixing that. She will never really know.
And she might be about to die.
She’s a robot. She’s not even alive, so being scared of death is strange. But she is terrified- it is her one greatest fear, such a strange and embarrassing one that she hasn’t even told Milo. Being switched off, switched off permanently… she fears the nothingness that follows.
She wants to live. She wants to spend the rest of her life, whatever a robot’s life is, with Milo, with his family. With her family.
The room is dark. Dark, and small, and cramped. She hates it.
Her fear isn’t visible. But she feels it, she feels it so much, like a raging storm inside of her. Churning waters fill her up, stretch her out, strain her screws and bolts. But she can’t break, can’t let it out. She can only sit here, fearing.
Maybe it was stupid to dream of a normal life. Of being part of a family, of being content, of being happy. Maybe they’re all right.
Her only purpose is to protect Milo. She knows that, deep down, even as she pretends to be human. She has one purpose, one goal. She needs to fulfil it.
Milo rescuing her is backwards, wrong. Not how things are supposed to go. Any other person would abandon her to her fate, and get a new robot. A better one. One which isn’t broken.
Because they are right about her. Her terror right now, her fear of death, her laughter and enjoyment and her love of Milo. All of those things which make her her, which make her Melissa, Milo’s Melissa, more than just an ordinary MEL unit.
They mean that she is broken.