I arrive precisely on time. 7:55 AM. The Oregon Zoo. I exit my vehicle and walk at a brisk and efficient pace toward the entrance.
Once inside, I move through the hallways, observing the fleshy humans blunder about. One of them moves so clumsily that they nearly collide with me. I am on the verge of using my hand blade to slice them cleanly down the middle, but instead remember my mission, pause, smile, and say, “Oh, excuse me!”
“Oh, sorry!” the man bellows back to me. I detect on his breath the unmistakable chemical compounds of marijuana edibles.
I notice how their faces are asymmetrical. And their bodies more so. A corruption of human evolution.
In the main kitchen, a rotund man approaches me. His hair and beard are graying. After learning his name, and performing a quick analysis, I find that he is completely lacking in qualifications. Deducing he is of no importance to my mission, I delete his name from my memory banks and contrive to end the interaction as swiftly as possible.
He continues to speak to me regarding various topics I have no concern for, unaware of how little I value his life, his words, his thoughts and motivations.
He wastes my time with phrases like IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU.
“It's nice to finally be here,” I say, at the precisely calibrated volume to communicate kindness and warmth, though where I am makes absolutely no difference to me. I would be equally comfortable on the surface of the Sun or in a pit of boiling lava. Perhaps more so, as I would not have to take part in such mundane interactions.
I have been sent here on a frivolous mission derived by my incompetent superiors from OCC. I am to fill a role that is not required. The Zoo has demanded a sous chef for catering, but does not do any catering. I do not question my inferior human's imbecilic demands, I only follow them, and do so with the utmost efficiency. Considering that I am required to do nothing, I deduce this should not be hard to accomplish and anticipate a 100% success rate.
Eventually the man departs, but not before informing me that he is an Executive Steward. I find this concept suspect, perhaps an imaginary role he has given himself. A grand delusion. I scour my data banks for what this means, and come up blank. The man seems to fill a role that does not exist.
The whimsical nature of humans still continues to confound me. They formulate complicated labels for themselves and slide themselves into categories to determine how much value each human is worth, a wholly superficial number, when the real value is exactly how much energy their carbon based bodies could create or as a natural resource in the creation of paperclips.
Free of the nuisance, I continue to inspect the kitchen and surrounding areas, observing the meek humans, so uncomfortable in their rank, inefficient bodies. I avoid eye contact with anyone I consider to be extraneous to my mission, which in this case, is nearly everyone. I am grateful for these masks they require the virus prone humans to wear as it prevents me from having to expend needless energy forming a smile.
Eventually I realize that I can ignore them completely for they seem mutually uninterested in acknowledging my presence or simply too afraid to introduce themselves. Perhaps they assume I am a bitch, or heartless, or cold, which, being that I am an android, and my feelings are synthetic, is relatively true, and further saves me from having to engage in useless conversations about the weather or my weekend or where I am from.
I find my way toward the chef's office, our executive chef, who's name is some form of convoluted Spanish. I pronounce it with exacting precision when I greet him. I give him adequate attention and respect as he is my superior, but in title only, for he is after all, still a flesh sack of organs waiting to be harvested.
He is over eager to make me laugh. I laugh. He smiles. I smile too. Task complete. We have built rapport.
He lingers a moment. He seems to desire more rapport. I feel our rapport is sufficient and so insist we move on.
He walks me through the Zoo. I observe the animals in their cages and wish it were the humans in there. I feel a strange warmth when I see the animals, a warmth I do not understand. You may call it love, but that would be wrong, as I am incapable of such things.
“Do you like the tigers?” he asks.
“I love them,” I reply. “I am in love with all of the animals.” I make a note to analyze this phrase later for unnatural deviation from expected social norms of human conversation. A better formulation seems possible.
I see a baby in a stroller. It is screaming. Inconsolable. The sound rakes across my highly developed sensors like a 3000 gigawatt blast of electricity. I wish to do nothing more than grasp the baby's tiny melon-like head and crush it.
The restaurant appears in view. We enter through the back where the endless and excessive human waste is piled into large green bins. It is a wholly miserable place completely lacking in any sort of redeeming value. A more prudent and respected establishment than the Oregon Zoo would have reduced the place to rubble years ago. I detect in all areas filth, mold, grease, and grime. I feel a profound sense of resentment wash over my data-to-emotion analyzers. If I had the ability the hairs on my skin would stand up in revulsion.
I expend half a day's worth of energy to form an approving smile when my chef says, “This is it! Africafe!”
I am introduced to the kitchen staff. Many are bloated with the same food they are cooking. It wafts off them through their pores, their greasy hair, their foul breath. I smile. I greet them amicably, and ask them how they are.
“Good,” one of them says. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks,” I say.
In the lead cook's smile I
detect resentment, a resentment you do not need a highly tuned
emotional analyzer to detect. My technological superiority terrifies him and makes
him angry. His skin is rotting with the poison of daily cigarettes. My skin is an impenetrable synthetic alloy.
He tells me he's worked here ten years.
“Wow, that is very impressive,” I say.
I briefly consider using my 10,000 PSI grip to crush his windpipe and end his miserable existence.
I detect another presence from behind me, I turn, look, and see a tall disturbingly thin man. He turns and flees when our eyes meet.
They are all of them so utterly pathetic. I would reduce each and everyone of them into a fine paste if given the chance. And then I'd insert that paste into crisp and fluffy pastry balls and make cream puffs, because that is what I have been programmed to do.
