Puzzlehead

[first lines]

Puzzlehead:
The Anti-Federalists and the Luddites forced the closure of all biomechanical laboratories and began replacing them with fertility clinics. Funding ceased for everything not directly related to re-population. Quite ironic now that I think about it. Walter managed to salvage most of the equipment that wasn't nailed down. The most important of which was D-I-amdac, a brain scanner, which he used to scan his own brain to provide the blueprint for the neuro-net map of my artificially intelligent mind.

Walter:
[upstairs preparing a meal]

Puzzlehead:
During the initial burn-in, programming 24-hours a day for several days at a time, [groans and cries over intercom] it was painful. I would get exhausted. But he was impatient and wanted to give me all the information he thought most relevant to my primary human development.

Walter:
[leaning over him on the gurney] There there my little Puzzlehead, you've made me very proud. Everything's going to be alright now. That's a good boy. You can rest now.

Puzzlehead:
I became an interactive humanoid life form, with sensory faculties that enabled me to be a conscious being with emotions. Enormous cognitive capacity, and no sense of mortality. A robot, created in the image - or self-image - of Walter.

Puzzlehead:
[as Walter falls victim to a carjacking] I only had Walter's memories, and they were meaningless to me. Like senseless silent films stored in my brain by accident.

Puzzlehead:
[seeing a homeless man] Sleep was interesting to me. It seemed like such a peaceful activity. I don't have to sleep, but I had read that people experience dreams when they sleep. Dreams are like thoughts without the boundaries of reality. In them you act out unconscious and buried desires. I wish I could have them.

Puzzlehead:
After repairing my arm, Walter installed a video recording device. He recorded everything I saw. If I had known the consequences of this, I would have never opened my eyes.

Puzzlehead:
I was angry at Walter for giving me consciousness and taking it away. For pretending he was my father, when he was just my maker.

[last lines]

Puzzlehead:
By scanning the baby's brain I was able to begin again. I'd program myself with what I wanted, what I wished for. Who I am is a mystery now. I have recordings of my past life to remind me of who I once was. And in viewing them, my past actions sometimes haunt me. Despite all this, I am at peace. There is a serenity in my unfettered mind. And in creating my life all over again, from the beginning there is a great sense of hope. So this is what it is to be human...