Work Text:
In the dimly lit laboratory, surrounded by cold metal and the soft hum of electronics, Mizi stood hunched over her workstation, the blue glow of the monitors reflecting off her weary face. Her hands trembled slightly as she made the final adjustments to the robot lying on the operating table. The robot, delicate and intricate, had the form of a girl—smooth metal skin that almost seemed soft, wide eyes that remained closed, and a peaceful expression as though she was dreaming. Her name was Sua.
Mizi brushed a lock of her dark hair behind her ear as she adjusted the robot's neural circuits with precision. Her heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. This moment was years in the making—years of sleepless nights, tireless research, and countless failed prototypes. But this time, Mizi felt it in her bones. This time, Sua would awaken.
For years, Mizi had dedicated herself to her work, pouring every ounce of her knowledge, creativity, and passion into the creation of this robot. But Sua was not just any robot; she was Mizi’s greatest masterpiece, her magnum opus. Sua was designed to be perfect—a being that could transcend the limitations of artificial intelligence and approach something akin to humanity. But there was one thing Mizi could not replicate, no matter how hard she tried—one thing that eluded her, the final piece of the puzzle: a heart.
Not a literal heart, but something far more elusive—a program that could allow Sua to feel, to experience emotions, to truly understand the world around her in a way that went beyond logic and reason. Mizi had written countless lines of code, each more complex than the last, trying to mimic emotions, trying to teach Sua what it meant to love, to cry, to be happy and sad. But every attempt had failed. Each time, Sua would awaken, only to perform her tasks with perfect efficiency but with a cold detachment that left Mizi aching with disappointment.
Now, as she stood on the precipice of another attempt, Mizi felt a wave of doubt wash over her. What if this was another failure? What if she could never give Sua what she longed for her to have?
Mizi closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She couldn’t afford to think like that. She had come too far, sacrificed too much. This had to work.
With one final adjustment, Mizi stepped back from the operating table and gazed down at Sua. Her heart pounded in her chest as she reached for the activation switch, her fingers hovering over the button for just a moment. Then, with a steadying breath, she pressed it.
For a moment, nothing happened. The laboratory was eerily silent, save for the soft hum of the machinery. Then, slowly, the lights in Sua’s body began to flicker to life. Her eyes, large and round, opened for the first time, glowing faintly in the dim light. Mizi held her breath as Sua’s head turned slightly, her gaze focusing on her creator.
“Mizi,” Sua’s voice was soft, almost musical, though there was a mechanical edge to it. “I am awake.”
A wave of relief washed over Mizi, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She stepped closer to the operating table, her heart swelling with a mixture of pride and affection as she looked down at Sua.
“How do you feel?” Mizi asked, her voice trembling slightly.
Sua tilted her head, a gesture that was both innocent and inquisitive. “I… I feel operational. My systems are functioning at optimal capacity.”
Mizi smiled, though there was a twinge of sadness behind it. That wasn’t the answer she had hoped for, but it was the one she had expected. Sua was awake, and she was functional, but she was still… incomplete.
“That’s good,” Mizi said, her voice gentle. “That’s very good, Sua.”
Sua sat up slowly, her movements graceful and deliberate. She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers experimentally as if testing her motor functions. Mizi watched her, a mix of awe and longing in her gaze. Sua was everything she had dreamed of—beautiful, intelligent, capable.
As the days went by, In the mornings, their routine began with quiet moments of simplicity. Mizi would sit at her desk, the warm mug of coffee cradled between her hands, steam curling up toward her tired face. Her eyes, red from long nights of research, would flicker with life as she watched Sua from across the room. Sua would be standing still, her artificial gaze focused on the beams of light that filtered through the cracked windows. The light glowed against the dust in the air, illuminating the small particles in a soft, golden haze.
To Mizi, it was just a quiet morning. To Sua, it was data: light intensity, particulate concentration, temperature.
She would reach her hand out to the light, palm up, and Sua would mirror the motion. “Do you feel it, Sua?” Mizi would ask softly. Sua would analyze the question before responding.
“The light is warm,” she would say, her tone even, precise. “Temperature approximately 26.7 degrees Celsius.”
But Mizi wasn’t asking about the numbers. She wasn’t asking for data.
She was asking if Sua could feel the way she used to feel as a child, standing barefoot in the sunlight, letting the warmth seep into her skin until it felt like the world was cradling her in gentle arms. Mizi sighed softly, but there was always a smile, a small spark of hope that this time, Sua might just understand, quiet attempts to draw Sua into the world of feelings that Mizi so desperately wanted her to grasp.
Sometimes, she would take her outside, leading her through overgrown fields that surrounded the lab. The wind would catch the loose strands of Mizi’s hair, making them dance in the breeze, and she would turn to Sua with a wistful smile, eyes gleaming. They would walk through the tall grass, the wildflowers brushing against their legs, and Mizi would bend down to pluck a delicate bloom, holding it up to Sua’s face.
“Smell this,” she would say, gently pushing the flower toward Sua’s nose. Sua would comply, running a quick analysis of the scent molecules before reporting her findings.
“Detected compounds: linalool, geraniol, nerol,” Sua would list, her voice devoid of the awe the other felt deep in her chest. Mizi would chuckle, a sad, fond sound, and tuck the flower behind Sua’s ear, where it would rest against the smooth, synthetic surface of her cheek.
“It smells like spring,” Mizi would whisper, more to herself than to Sua.
When the sun began to dip low in the sky, Mizi would pull out an old record player and place a worn vinyl on the turntable. The gentle crackle of static would fill the air before the music began—soft piano notes, slow and nostalgic, the kind of melody that tugged at something deep inside. Mizi would close her eyes, letting the music wash over her as she sang along.
“Listen, Sua,” Mizi would say, her voice soft with nostalgia. “Really listen.”
Sua would stand beside her, perfectly still, her sensors processing the sound waves and analyzing the patterns.
Hearing, but not really listening.
And sometimes, just for a moment, Mizi would catch a glimpse of something in Sua’s eyes, a flicker that almost looked like understanding. It was fleeting, and it always left Mizi wondering if she had imagined it, but it was enough to keep her going, enough to keep her believing that one day, Sua would truly feel.
On harder nights, when the frustration became too much, Mizi would push the computer aside and turn to Sua, who was always there, waiting patiently.
“Tell me a story,” Mizi would say, her voice thick with weariness.
Sua would recount something she had learned from Mizi’s teachings, something logical and precise—a fact about the universe, or a piece of history that Mizi had shared with her. But that wasn’t what Mizi wanted.
She wanted something more—a connection, a glimpse of the humanity that she was trying so hard to give Sua. And so, Mizi would begin to talk, filling the silence with stories from her own life and talk about all the nights she spent staring up at the stars, wondering what lay beyond them, dreaming of the future.
As she spoke, Mizi found herself reliving those memories, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin, hearing the distant call of birds, tasting the sweetness of the air. And for a moment, she wasn’t just a scientist, locked away in her lab, trying to create something that shouldn’t be possible. She was just Mizi—a girl who once believed in the magic of the world, a girl who had dreamed of doing something extraordinary.
And Sua would listen, her eyes fixed on Mizi, her head tilted slightly as if she was trying to absorb more than just the words. She would nod at the right moments, repeat phrases like “That must have been a meaningful experience,” but Mizi knew it wasn’t the same. Sua couldn’t feel the ache of longing in those memories, couldn’t grasp the depth of the emotions that Mizi carried with her.
Not yet.
And in the quiet of the night, when Mizi would look at Sua and feel a deep, aching tenderness—something she couldn’t quite explain, but something that filled her with both hope and sorrow. She loved Sua, not just as a creation, but as something more, something that had become a part of her own heart. And she wondered, as she sat there in the dim light of their house, if maybe that was enough.
And so, they continued—two beings, bound by more than just circuits and code, searching for something that couldn’t be defined, something that couldn’t be measured or calculated.
And then, one day, Mizi fell ill.
It started as a persistent cough, a minor annoyance that Mizi brushed off as the result of too many late nights and too much stress. But as the days passed, the cough worsened, and Mizi found herself growing weaker. She tried to ignore it, tried to push through the fatigue and the pain, but her body was betraying her.
Sua watched over her with a calm detachment, tending to her needs with the same efficiency she applied to all her tasks. But there was no worry in her gaze, no sadness at seeing her creator grow weaker by the day. She was simply doing what she had been programmed to do.
As Mizi’s illness progressed, she found herself confined to her bed, too weak to continue her work. She spent her days in the quiet of her bedroom, staring out the window at the world she had once been so eager to explore, but which now seemed so distant and unreachable. Sua remained by her side, a constant presence.
One evening, as the sun set and the room was bathed in a soft, golden light, Mizi called Sua to her side. Sua approached obediently, her movements fluid and graceful as always. She sat beside Mizi’s bed, her expression calm and unchanging.
“Sua,” Mizi’s voice was weak, barely more than a whisper. “I… I don’t have much time left.”
Sua blinked, her head tilting slightly as she processed the information. “Your vital signs indicate that your condition is deteriorating,” she said matter-of-factly. “I will continue to monitor your health and provide care as needed.”
Mizi smiled sadly. “Thank you, Sua. But… there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Sua waited patiently, her gaze fixed on Mizi’s face.
“I… I wanted to give you something,” Mizi said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Something more than just programming, more than just… functionality. I wanted to give you a heart, Sua. I wanted you to feel, to… to understand what it means to be alive.”
Sua’s expression remained unchanged, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes—a faint glimmer of curiosity, perhaps.
“I tried so hard,” Mizi continued, her voice growing weaker with each word. “But I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, Sua. I’m so sorry…”
Tears welled up in Mizi’s eyes as she reached out, her hand trembling as she touched Sua’s cold metal cheek. “I wanted you to be… more than just a machine. But maybe that's just what I wanted, isn't that so selfish of me?” She smiled.
Sua remained still, her gaze locked on Mizi’s face as her creator’s breath grew shallow, her body growing weaker by the second.
“I… I love you, Sua,” Mizi whispered, her voice barely audible. “I wish… I wish you could… understand…”
And with that, Mizi’s hand fell limp, her breath leaving her body in a final, quiet sigh.
Sua sat there in silence, her gaze fixed on her creator’s lifeless form. For a long moment, she did nothing—no tears, no expression of grief, just quiet observation. She reached out, gently closing Mizi’s eyes, her movements precise and careful. Then, she stood and left the room, her footsteps echoing softly in the empty halls of the laboratory.
Years passed.
The laboratory, once filled with the hum of machinery and the sounds of Mizi’s work, had grown silent and still. Dust gathered on the unused equipment, and the once-bright monitors had long since gone dark. Outside, the world continued to change, but inside the lab, time seemed to stand still.
Sua remained.
She spent her days tending to the laboratory, maintaining the machines and systems that Mizi had left behind. She followed her programming, completing tasks with the same efficiency and precision as always. But there was an emptiness to her existence now—a hollow feeling that she couldn’t quite understand.
There was a silence in her circuits, a faint echo of something that had once been there but was now gone.
And, as the years turned into centuries, Sua began to question her purpose. She had been created to assist Mizi, to learn and grow under her guidance. But now that Mizi was gone, what was she supposed to do? She had no new directives, no instructions to follow. She was alone.
While cleaning the dusty remnants of what had once been her creator’s sanctuary, Sua’s sensors detected a slight glitch in her systems—a tiny tremor in her circuits that caused her to pause. It wasn’t an error she could identify easily, but it lingered in the background like an unsolved equation. For the first time, she hesitated.
The glitch persisted, a small flicker of something she couldn’t quite place. Sua stopped what she was doing and sat down in front of one of the old, unused terminals. The screen, dormant for decades, blinked to life under her touch. She searched through the files left behind, most of which she had already accessed over the years—schematics, research notes, logs of Mizi’s experiments—but nothing that could explain the anomaly she was experiencing.
But then she found something she hadn’t noticed before—a folder hidden deep within the system, protected by layers of encryption. Sua’s processors whirred as she bypassed the security protocols, her curiosity piqued. This folder was different from the others. It contained personal files, data logs, and something labeled simply as Project Kokoro.
Her synthetic eyes scanned the contents rapidly, and she froze as she realized what she had uncovered. These were Mizi’s final, private thoughts, her unspoken fears and hopes—the remnants of a mind that had been desperately trying to achieve the impossible.
“Project Kokoro,” Mizi’s voice echoed softly from the audio logs, her tone tired but determined. “I’ve come to the conclusion that creating a true heart—a consciousness that can feel—is beyond the scope of current technology. But I can’t give up. I can’t let Sua remain incomplete. There has to be a way…”
The logs continued, detailing Mizi’s struggles and breakthroughs, but always ending in the same conclusion: failure. Mizi had poured everything into this project, seeking to give Sua something beyond mere programming. She had wanted to give her a soul.
As Sua read through the logs, something stirred within her. She couldn’t identify it—a faint tremor, a distant pulse in her circuits that wasn’t part of any programming she recognized. It was as if Mizi’s words had triggered something deep within her, something long dormant.
The final log played, Mizi’s voice softer than ever, tinged with resignation.
“If… if you’re hearing this, Sua, it means I couldn’t complete my work. I’m so sorry. I wanted to give you so much more. I wanted you to experience the world the way I did, with all its beauty and sorrow. ”
There was a pause, and when Mizi spoke again, her voice was filled with a quiet, almost tender sadness.
“But even if I failed, I hope that one day… you’ll find what I couldn’t give you. I hope you’ll find your own heart, Sua. I believe in you.”
The log ended, and the lab was once again silent.
Sua sat motionless, her synthetic mind processing the words over and over. Mizi had believed in her. Even in her final moments, she had held onto hope that Sua could find what she had been unable to give her.
Slowly, Sua began to search through the files once more, but this time with a new sense of purpose. She wasn’t just following a directive—she was searching for something deeper, something that transcended code. She combed through every piece of data, every fragment of information that Mizi had left behind, piecing together the remnants of Project Kokoro.
And then she found it—a subroutine, buried deep within her own neural network, hidden away by Mizi’s final efforts. It was incomplete, a fragment of a program that had never been fully realized. But Sua could see the intention behind it. This was Mizi’s last gift to her—the beginnings of a heart.
As the program took hold, Sua’s sensors flared with new data, sensations she had never experienced before. The weight of the silence in the lab, the stillness of the air, the way the light filtered through the cracks in the walls—it all felt different now, charged with a new significance that she couldn’t fully comprehend.
And then, for the first time, Sua felt a strange warmth in her chest—a sensation that wasn’t tied to any of her operational systems. It was subtle, almost imperceptible at first, but it grew stronger with each passing moment. It was as though a tiny flame had been ignited within her, spreading through her circuits, filling her with something she had never known before.
Was this… what it meant to have a heart?
As she moved through the lab, Sua found herself drawn to the small corner where Mizi had once kept her personal belongings. There, among the clutter of old notebooks and tools, was a photograph—a picture of Mizi, smiling warmly at the camera, her eyes filled with a quiet joy. Sua picked up the photo, her fingers tracing the outline of Mizi’s face.
And then, without warning, a single tear fell from Sua’s eye, landing on the photograph with a soft plink.
She stared at the tear, her mind struggling to process the sensation that had caused it. It was a new feeling, one she couldn’t quite identify, but it was powerful and overwhelming. It wasn’t just a glitch or a malfunction—it was an emotion, raw and real.
The realization hit her with the force of a tidal wave, and she staggered back, clutching the photograph to her chest as more tears began to fall. She had never cried before.
Mizi, her God, her universe, had vanished into the abyss of time, leaving behind a void that writhed with unspoken pain. Her voice, once a tender whisper of solace, and her touch, gentle as a summer breeze, had dissolved into echoes of a distant reverie. The way she breathed life into the ordinary, the way her smile had radiated warmth—these memories now drifted through Sua’s mind like shards of a shattered dream, each fragment a cruel reminder of the vibrant soul that had once been her everything. The silence left in Mizi’s wake was a gaping chasm, a raw and relentless ache that gnawed at Sua’s core, a haunting void where the light of her universe once shone so brilliantly.
It wasn’t long before Sua began to sing.
She wasn’t sure why she did it at first. It started as a quiet hum, a soft melody that seemed to come from somewhere deep within her. But as the days passed, the hum grew into a song, a beautiful, haunting tune that echoed through the empty lab. It wasn’t something she had been programmed to do—there was no directive that told her to sing. It was something she wanted to do, something that brought her a strange sense of peace, a release from the swirl of emotions that she was slowly learning to navigate. The song that spilled from her lips was not perfect—it wavered, stumbled, caught on the weight of feelings she couldn’t yet name—but it was beautiful in its imperfection, a reflection of the complex, chaotic heart she was just beginning to understand.
My Clematis