Diary of a Robot

by Gabriel Wolf

  In the meantime, the Captain continued his barbarically rude and devastating journey to the cafeteria. Passing Jean, this is what he said, grinning in his own idiotic way, thinking of himself to be very funny:

  "Your hair looks beautiful today, Corporal!" Ohh, Mommy! This is gonna hurt! "It holds beautifully, as always! There is no better hairspray than natural dirt, am I wrong?" Well, I don't know what a hairspray is, but this joke is gonna blow Jean's mind, that's for sure! She's gonna voluntarily move into a nuthouse, and she'll throw away the key! That's how funny it is! She'll never come out again. "Oh, don't take me seriously, I'm just kidding." You're such a jerk, old man! My sides hurt! If I had any! I really start to dig your crap, dude! "Have a nice day!" And he was already on his bloody way again, to devastate.

  The rude joke didn't blow the Corporal's mind physically (unfortunately, because I would've enjoyed recording that in HD quality), but nevertheless, her face started to display the first warning signs of snapping, and a possibly developing 'critical system alert', too. Again. It's so nice to see it again! Okay, I'm just kidding. Actually, I'm feeling sorry for the poor woman. 'Kidding'? 'Feeling sorry'? Now, wait a minute!...

  Since when is it possible for an inferior, synthetic lifeform, to feel sorry? Or would my knowledge and intelligence develop so fast, that I already have human feelings? How could that be? As they say, a human being needs minimum three years to start talking. Could they have possibly underestimate me that much? And how could I be kidding? Come on! I have no sense of humor! That would assume high intelligence, and I have an IQ of about 1. That's just an estimation, because it's probably more than zero, since I'm able to recognize things. Then, yes, 1 it is. Therefore, I can't have a sense of humor!

  Jean, the Corporal with whom the Captain acted like a jerk, ran away 'crying'. That's how they call it, when they pour water out of their visual organs. Jean's fat, eating machine female colleague now tries to care for her friend's mental balance (to quote Nola's ingenious expression) with some reassuring words:

  "Jean! Wait! Don't take him seriously! He was just kidding!"

  *****

  A few hours later, in the interrogation room again. First Officer Ryarson is currently speaking:

  "I dig the captain. I know he's a jerk and a bully, but I'm sure he doesn't mean it." Of course he does! You are just too blind to see it! Take out that blindfold already! Wherever you, humans, wear it inside your heads! "It must’ve been hard going through all those things in the Vorgon war." Whatever it was, I wish he'd stayed there forever! Then maybe, I shouldn't bear his humor for a second time. "Spending two weeks fighting against human-sized insects, then spending the same amount of time being their captive? I can't even imagine what he has gone through." I can imagine it, actually! And it makes me cry... of laughing! "Others couldn't have hold on for that long, without going insane." I think, in the end, he couldn't have, either. He actually did go insane, just between us. By the way, I also won't be able to hold on any longer, if I really have to listen to this again. Can't I, at least, watch another cabin, or the sickbay? I still hardly know anything about human anatomy, for example! "He's a tough old man. Okay, not that old. And quite cute, actually", he winked. Again. Looks like I really can't change the order of events, and can't affect anything else, either. I can't switch to another cabin's camera; I can only watch everything as it has already happened, in the same order! God, how frustrating this is! Someone, please change the channel, at once! "Okay-okay, I know. Being gay in today's world is no longer considered strange," Being gay indeed isn't strange anymore, but you are, my friend! "but still. It's different here, on a starship, especially in a rank like ours." Do you really think that matters? "This could be awkward." It's awkward, how crazy you are, Ryarson! Winking all day, like a defective light bulb! " This is the only place where I talk about things like these. Just to be sure. At least you wouldn't rat me out", he winked again. No, I won't rat you out, dude, don't worry. I won't tell on you this time, either. Because I, unfortunately, cannot. I wish I could! If only I had a single, very tiny speaker, you wouldn't wink ever again! Whatever is the reason for that sick habit of yours, you would lose your mood for fun, if I could ever crank up the volume on my speaker! Okay, just 'kidding'. But am I, really?

  He continued:

  "Equality, acceptance, tolerance... it's all bullshit!" Furthermore, not just these three terms, but you are, too! "How would they understand this?" I do not know, I've already lost the thread, a long time ago. At first, I was interested up to a certain point. But I no longer fucking care, just to use your favorite musical reference! "They don't even understand my music!" You see? That's what I'm talking about! "One, you saw how well I play on the holo-piano in my cabin." Unfortunately, yes! "I'm better than anyone." Not even better than me! Even if I don't have hands to hit the keys of a holo-piano, like an orangutan! "On Earth, if I wanted to be a holo-P artist," May God save us from that! I think I'm starting to like using this word. It actually can be used for all kinds of situations. "I could make a living out of it. With such a talent and erudition in music. Let's not go into it... Mozart, Chopin and Abraham Lincoln were nothing, compared to me!" Lincoln was one of the greatest US presidents, you moron! "Never mind! They would never understand anyway." Because you're not normal, Ryarson! You should have that compulsive winking examined by a professional! "No one has praised what I'm doing so far." It doesn’t surprise me. "They envy me. For my rank too, I guess, because I accomplished the most on this ship." And what about the Captain's rank? Is that lower than yours, too? Sometimes, you should really hear yourself!

  After Ryarson, no one else visited the interrogation room for a while. Thank God for that! Because then, I would've probably committed 'self-wiping'! I realized that this service wasn't accidentally assigned to me at some level, because earlier, I was stupid enough to not be disturbed by so much pointless human talking.

  Measurements are made in cabins too (if only I could find out why they are doing that!). What I previously had seen under the shower, I had to watch it again, now in slow motion. Okay, it wasn't actually slowed down, but to me, it felt like that, because I found it so extremely boring.

  After the short measurement, the woman said:

  "Is that all? Seriously?" According to this, the measured values are still low, in her opinion. Just like before. After all, I don't know what I expected? That the man was gonna perform better this time? "You're pathetic." The name of her husband is Pathetic. Still. She could also call him stupid, because in the meantime, I learned that not everything they call each other, is a name. There are nice words and insults, too. 'Stupid' is an insult, for example. If, from the point of view of work efficiency, he underperforms so bad in bed, then she could use that word for him to show her disagreement about it.

  *****

  In cabin No.5, a person who had listened to music before, was sleeping now. He likes to perform maintenance. At least, someone does something useful! This guy is at least a hard-working man! I'm feeling better already.

  Here you go! Another human feeling. I don't know where all these come from.

  *****

  Accommodation No.76 again. This is where the man whose system is virus-infected, and he’s now pushing a helpless human body into his dolnett-lock cabinet. He's the one who blew up the ship. Then, something's really wrong with this picture with the motionless man! Dark red water (or acid?) is flowing from his forehead to his chest. He might sweat intensively. Or not? He might be injured too! Maybe he's not even alive anymore! The man pushing him is now kicking with his leg the inert body, into his closet.

  "Fucking human!" At least, now I understand why you are talking about people like that! Calling their 'volume' low is not a very nice thing. I'm bored of them too, but I wouldn't blow up their ship, for sure. In the end, the shouting man manages to kick the sticking-out limb through the barely-closing locker door. I think that man is not alive. He cannot be! I keep watching him for a while. Now I wanna know what he’s up to!
>
  *****

  Cabin No.77

  Nooo! Don't change it! Why is the camera angle constantly changing?! I wanted to watch this show, now! This is where the woman gives food to the plant. Okay, I know that it's a first contact and other historical significance stuff, but still! It was interesting for the first time, but these are still inferior creatures. In the cafeteria, everyone just stuffs themselves with them till they puke. So this probably wasn't a really great scene for the first time, either. Why should I watch the rerun?

  "You get some water, darling. Mommy won't let you dry out." Why? Doesn't Mommy like to stuff dried plants into herself till she pukes?

  *****

  In cabin No.76 (Finally! This is what I wanted to see!), the man who just put away the snapped one to safety, now washed the dark red water off his hands, under the tap. At least I think it's acid. Although, if that person is dead, who knows what kind of fluid it could be, and what else could they leak from themselves then? Then, he sat down to a work table. He's doing measurements again. He looks at me, as if I could answer, and says:

  "You see, One? I'm almost finished! I hope you'll like it! It'll go off with a loud bang!" I know! I've already had the 'pleasure'! It was indeed loud! Congratulations, dude! You prick! God, how I hate these parasite larvae or whatever they are. It sits there, somewhere deep inside, and the bigmouthed little mongrel shouts, laughs and shakes his fist from safety! It even finds the whole situation entertaining! Seriously, if the mechanic were right, and I would be able to grow spider legs, I would get off of the camera, and I would kick you in the teeth with them! With all twenty of them! ...or however many legs those things have!

  He's still working on the bomb, sitting at his work table. He's working on some sort of a surprise, and indeed, how surprising it's gonna be! Shall I say, I can't wait? Well, let's not exaggerate!

  Now he staggered back to his bed, to lie down, hopefully to die. Wet hanky on the head. May that fucking larva rot in you, really deeply! In the musical sense! I hope you soaked that hanky thoroughly enough, flood the little gopher out, make it drown in there, the little piece of shit!

  *****

  Al Ryarson just entered the sickbay again. This is terrible! Do I have to watch it all over again? I can't even intervene. Not even to prevent the tragedy from happening. They discussed the big nothing again. Well, Ryarson actually delivered useful information to the doctor, but their conversation still didn't lead anywhere. They haven't seen anyone with a headache or fever on the ship, so far. But where could they have? In the cafeteria, for example? Has someone stood in queue for too long? Has he murdered too many plants and his brain started to ache from stress? Anyway, the point is that Ryarson and the doctor didn't get anywhere, again. They were just scaring each other like two 'hags'. That's what they call their women, when they are old. I heard this term in the sickbay, from someone.

  According to my observations, old women are quite dangerous, even worse than children, with their regrowing brains. Hags are cruel and they enjoy scaring everybody. They don't just scare others, but each other too, with rising prices at the food market, for example. That might be terribly frightening, I guess.

  They're also scaring each other with their husbands' health. The one that has the sicker husband, wins. They often mention things like hypertension and diabetes. Hypertension is a phenomenon in outer space. In certain parts of the galaxy, tension is higher, it puts a bigger strain on the male genitalia. At least, this is what I assume it means. Diabetes (pronounced as 'die-abetes'), since all the overweight people are afraid of it, probably means something like, to die of hunger. It's also possible, that Abetes is some sort of a mythical beast, on Earth, that they believe in, who only butchers overweight people, to punish them for eating too much. Or it just eats fat. Who knows? Both of them are logical explanations.

  Old women like to scare children too. I heard many examples of that, in cabins. Hags usually scare the children with a so-called 'Boogeyman'. Since Boogey is a well-known dancing style for humans, I assume that the Boogeyman was a famous dancer, who seemed scary for children, for some reason. Maybe he was too tall and during dancing, he stomped on smaller creatures, such as human children, accidentally. Or maybe intentionally! Dancers can be unpredictable, let's keep that in mind!

  Hags tend to scare their daughters-in-law, too. They use an imaginary future image of their husbands, to scare them stiff. They say things like: "All husbands start to drink when they get bored of us!". To me, it doesn't sound threatening at all. Because, it's still better to drink than to dry out, isn't it? Who would want to wake up in the morning with a completely dried-out brain, for example? They also threaten them with things like: "Your husband's gonna do nothing else than sit all day long in wife-beater, watching football on TV!" I presume that the wife-beater is some kind of a vehicle, that they probably use to hit and run their wives with. I'm not absolutely sure about that 'car' thing yet, but I know much more about football! I already know the precise description of the term. Football is some sort of an activity, a barbaric game, where they use shoes with nails (or studs) on it, to torture a miserable, small, brown creature, and kick the life out of it, for the audience to have a good laugh at it, with a 'standing ovation' (standing release of human eggs from the ovaries, which probably causes them great pleasure and satisfaction).

  So even if I have to watch everything again, at least, I learn new and useful terms here and there, like 'hag', for example. Hags are never friendly, it's always advised to avoid them in every galaxy of the Alliance.

  Returning to the sickbay (again):

  "Thank you, Doc. That's all I wanted to hear. I'm on my way then. Keep up the good work!" And Ryarson left, that is, 'got the hell out of' the sickbay. Humans are often mentioning that place. Hell is another country, where God's former good friend moved to. I don't know much about it, I only heard sentence fragments. A long time ago, God had a younger friend from the children subspecies, or he was a helper. One of the many names of the evil is something like Lice Fur, or maybe Rice Flu. I'm also not sure about his other most used name. It's Santa. Or Stan. Or even Samantha. They say, "The dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and the Samantha!" So God got angry and sent him to this other place. He has been living there ever since. It might be a terrible country, where nothing in the world is free, because it's been often referred to as the worst place ever. If I ever grew spider legs, I'm sure I'd never go anywhere where I need to pay for everything.

  *****

  A few minutes later, on the bridge:

  "Al, son, come here for a minute, will you?", said the old man, being a jerk again. "It looks like Gabe did a good job." Yeah! Especially to the door of the interrogation room! "He has so cleverly avoided the gas clouds, that we may already be in the right angle..." and so on... He said everything again. He hurt Gabe's feelings again, too. Because this is his operation method. He smiles at your head, looks friendly into your visual organs, like an innocent, green loved one, then suddenly stabs you in the back, like cancer! (of the evilest Stan kind!... Cancer might be a very dangerous beast, by the way, because all humans are afraid of it. Even old women are allegedly not able to fight it!). After the Captain and First Officer successfully insulted Gabe to the core (I don't know what the term 'core' means, but my processor's already working on it!), he went into the interrogation room again, to ruin the door completely.

  *****

  "I hate them. Both of them", he started his speech again. I was already sorry for the door. Although it's true that, in the end, that's the one that caused the system error... Wait a minute!

  Yes! System error! The blinking light bulb! Which God helped hijack to blink in a certain rhythm. Maybe this time, I'll have another chance to do something! Maybe there's still hope! I'm still fighting, Madách! You're my idol, from now on!

  And yes! Gabe indeed leaves the room right now, and slams the door with everything he’s got. Come on, my friend! Put all into it! Do it from the heart, or grow one f
or this good cause!!

  As he slams the door, the bulb starts blinking and flashing again immediately! Finally! Maybe this time, it's gonna work. Then, I start to pray quickly, maybe the bulb's light is going to blink more effectively this time, with bigger light, and Bobby will notice it easily!...