You wake up.
You look around and see that you're in some kind of a dark room with lots of machines and cables.
In the middle of it all, stands some girl with a big grin on her face.
"It didn't blow up this time!" She exclaims, giving a fist-pump.
You watch, totally befuddled, as the girl cheers with what appears to be her dog.
Now that's a wierd color of fur for a dog, you think to yourself. I wonder if she dyed the poor thing?
Wait.
You can feel the gears in your brain slowly beginning to turn.
Roll back. Wake up? I don't remember falling asleep! Where am I?
As you try to get your thoughts together, the girl finished what appeared to be a small victory dance, and turned to you.
"Okay, let's start basic diagnostics. Hello" She says, waving her hand at you. You nimbly wave back, struggling for words, your mind still reeling.
"H-Hi..." You stammer out.
The girl smiles again and takes a confident step towards you. Before you can do anything, she gives you a strong shove. Surprised, you stumble back, but retain your footing. Before you can question anything, the girl reaches deep into her lab coat's pocket, her gaze on you hardening...
...only to pull out a pocket dictaphone. Wow, did you actually thought it was gonna be a gun? You guess that waking up suddenly in some dark room can do that to you...
"Entry number two hundred sixty five." The girl starts recording. "It seems to be working. Positive on speech recognition and response. Motor functions seem to be working correctly. Proceeding to further diagnostics soon." She puts the small dictaphone away and looks at you.
Like, warmly looks at you. With something in her eyes... like longing?
She closes the distance between the two of you again, this time to wrap you in an embrace, and gives a deep sigh in your chest.
"Oh Timber... soon I will have you all for myself..."
Timber? As in, lumber? The fuck?
Somehow, the fact that she mentioned a natural construction material in a way like this broke you from your stupor. Between waking up in an unknown place, and an actual girl hugging you affectionately, it seemed like the most absurd thing. Or maybe it was just the drop that broke the "Not-Okay things" dam that was steadily filling up during the past couple minutes.
"Wait." You say strongly. This gets the girls attention, and she steps back from you. "Who are you?" You ask your first question on the list.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle." She says matter-of-factly. "You should have my profile in the "Author" directory." She puts her hand to her chin. "You don't recognize me?" She asks.
You shake your head in response, at which the girl just shrugs her arms.
"Run Facial Recognition. Bind the result to the "Author" profile." she clearly commands you.
"I have no idea who you are. Also, where are we? How did I got here?" You start questioning.
"Wow, you are iquisitive. I thought I commented that part in the code?" She doesn't so much respond to you, as just talks at you. It's getting on your nerves.
"Inquisitive? Inquisitive?!" You start angrily. "I wake up in a dark room, with no idea how I got here, or what's going on!" You yell, clenching your fists. The girl seems unfazed.
"Hmm." She scratches her head, and starts to play with a bang of hair. "Maybe leaving your memory blank causes confusion. But you weren't supposed to be that thought independent." She waves her hand in your general direction before crossing her arms. "You were supposed to just follow commands."
"Like hell!" You finally break. You take a step at her. She is shorter than you, and you grab her by the flaps of her lab coat to shake out some answers. "Just tell me wh-!"
You stop abruptly.
The girl actually got frightened by your behaviour. Taking advantage of your pause, she wriggles away from your grip, though you don't really care anymore.
You look at your hands.
Are those your hands?
You were sure you knew how your hands looked like...
Those robotic appendages couldn't be your hands.
Or could they? They certainly did move as yours...
"Did you just attack me?!" The girl asks accusingly and with disbelief. "You can't! I implemented the Three Laws!" She straightens her coat, and looks up at you only to see you waving your hands in front of your face.
"What... what are you doing?" She asks with genuine curiosity.
"Are... Are those my hands?" You can voice only the question that currently occupies all your thoughts.
"Umm... Yes." She answers slowly. "Are... Are you self-aware?"
You look up at her.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because... Artificial Intelligence... I mean, there are advances..." She grabs her head, filled with sheer confusion. Somehow, seeing that you're not alone in not knowing what's going on, puts you a bit at ease.
"I know what code I wrote! This can't be!" She grabs the dictaphone again, and immediately starts recording.
"Two hundred sixty-six! I don't know how, but it's self conscious! Maybe the self-writing script evolved in unfathomable ways, or you can get thoughts from Hopefield's network! Who knows! Dare I say it," She looked up at the ceiling, raised her arms and laughed loudly. "It's alive!"
The only thing that picture lacked was a thunder going off in the background. After she settled down, you managed to regain your voice.
"What's going on? I'm at a loss here."
"Well, This is a historical event. You, Mister," She turns to you with a manic grin. "Are the first recorded instance of a self-aware Artificial Intelligence. You are sentient."
"What?" You deadpan. You're pretty sure you were sentient before, and it was never such a big deal.
"You are the first ever sentient robot! And I created you!" she exclaims with glee.
Robot? Whaaat You think.
"Whaaat" You say.
"Oh, an by the way, your name is 3P-1H/TP. It stands for Third prototype, First human of the Timber Project."
"Third prototype?"
"The first one was a dog." She points at the floor. There, beside the actual, though purple and green, dog was a dog-like robot. It looked a bit like those toys that were popular in the 00s. "She got a few upgrades since then. The second prototype was also a dog, but it blew up during tests. You're third, and you didn't, yet!" She says proudly.
"Um. Yet?"
"Yeah, 2P got three hours of runtime. Something went wrong with the power source." She shrugs.
You can't bring yourself to worry about blowing up, as you are still pretty sure that you're a human. Deep in thought, you give yourself a good once-over.
You guess that you do, in fact, look like a robot. From your feet, up to your chest and arms, you can see a robotic body with alloy and plastic structure and moving, mechanical parts. You also notice that you have feeling only in your hands and feet. You can't feel the temperature either, although somehow you're pretty sure that it is 70.9F ambient and your core is 147.2F.
On the other hand, you know for a fact that your name is Anon, not some Free-Pee-whatever, and you were just comning back from a failed job interview in Cincinnati.
Until further clarification, you decide to just roll with the "Robot" play.
