[CW14] You, "you" and I

Preface

This story is a continuation of [CW05] Her. You don’t have to have read it but… maybe give it a shot too after reading this one.

You, “you” and I

It is late Mai. The university garden in the courtyard is in full bloom, including the scientists’ roses. The Servant sits on the ground in front of them, searching them for dead leafs. Whenever she spots one, she carefully plugs it, lets it fall to the ground to be turned into fertile earth. For the last quarter hour she hasn’t been alone. While she was carefully pruning each individual rose the Professor had been standing off to the side, leaned against the building.
He had been watching her this whole time, she doesn’t know what he wants but she didn’t feel like starting a conversation. A few students are recovering from an earlier exam, having a picnic in the center of the courtyard. They bath in the sun, have meals together, and their banter echoes from the walls of the old buildings.
The Professor finally loosens himself from the wall. He walks up to the Servant with slow and heavy steps reverberating around. He stops just two meters before the garden, not leaving the courtyard cobblestone. He watches her plug yet another leaf, doesn’t say a word.
The Servant dislikes his staring at the back of her head, she feels provoked. She gets up from the ground and turns to face him: “If the professor has any thoughts to share, he should share them”. Her eyes lock onto his, unwavering, unmoving, and unblinking.
Compared to her doll-like skin his face is worn by age, but his eyes are still sharp. He puts his hands in his pockets and scoffs: “What does it think I’d have to say I wonder”. His eyes wander to the roses, to the few leaf on the ground freshly plugged: “Why would it even care about something like this”.
“I care because she does”. She puts her hands into her pockets as well, her eyes still locked onto him: “Isn’t not enough reason? Surely the professor cares about things important to others sometimes”.
His eyes meet hers again, but he looks more at her than to her. He inspects her face all over, like it is looking for cracks in the dolls’ shell: “‘Care’ might have been a bad choice of words. If she orders it, it obeys. A toaster doesn’t ‘care’ about the bread it bakes, it just reacts to its lever being pulled”.
The Servant gives up listening to him. The roses are cared for, so she heads back into the building. The Professor remains, looking at the garden a while longer.

It is late in the evening, the sun has long set. A few students had studied in the lecture room after their last lesson. The servant is going around collecting books they left on the tables. The Professors stands in the doorframe, leaned against it, watching her clean up. She heads down to the shelf behind the teachers desk, putting the books back orderly to where they belong.
After she puts in the last book, she stops for a moment to admire the neatly sorted shelf. She cannot linger in the moment for long before she feels the Professors gaze burn a hole into the side of her head. “Isn’t it late? Shouldn’t the professor head to bed at an hour like this?”.
“It doesn’t need rest, does it? Maybe charging, but does it sleep? Likely not, let alone dream”. He crosses his arms, letting the room go silent.
She turns her head towards the door, but remains standing in place: “And when was the last time the professor had a dream? Let alone pursued one? Is he so preoccupied with teaching he lost sight of what he could learn?”.
The late hours finally get to him, he yawns and his eyes grow weary. Without another banter he turns to leave for his bedchambers.

It is early morning, but lectures are already underway. The Servant is walking down the corridor, ingredients in hand she was asked to fetch. The Professor happens to leave his lecture room for a break just as she passes by. “It is running errands? Must be convenient for her not have to leave her lab and face consequences for her actions”
The Servant stops just a step after him, turns around: “And what consequences would that be?”, she puffs her chest.
He grows smug, finally having provoked a reaction: “So she made it defend her honor? Makes sense. Making it blend in with humans and having it bolster her reputation is a rather smart move actually”.
She squints her eyes, but does not comment. Someone is waiting for the supplies in her hand and she doesn’t feel like wasting time today. She turns around and leaves, carefully mirroring her pace from before to not give him another reaction.

It is the late afternoon on a lazy Sunday. She is laying on the one accessible roof. You need to have a key for the door so it is a solitude place where many rest. She is bathing in the low sun, it is just warm enough to energize her without risking a sunburn.
The door to the roof opens, she turns her head towards it with a smile hoping it would be the Scientist. Through the doorframe steps the Professor, her smile immediately sours. The man closes the door behind him, in hand a cane. He walks up to the Servant leaning on it, half his usual speed. She had never seen him up on the roof, only one stairway leads up to it and he usually avoids those in his age. The men stops five meters away from her, meeting her eyes: “Was it build to feel the warmth? Os is it just a protocol that lets it blend in with humans to trick them more?”.
Up until now the Servant had a good day — no errands to run, no places to clean, no students to take care of. She had spend the early morning just conversing with the scientist, reading, resting. Sunbathing on the roof was supposed to give this lazy day a relax ending. She was taught better than to loose her cool, but she is massively annoyed by now: “Master is right, you do love the tone of your own voice that much”.
The man smiles: “Oh? Careful, machines that misbehave often get decommissioned — or that is how it should be at least”.
She sits up from her previous comfortable position, her eyes narrow in the sun: “If you wanted me gone, why didn’t you report me to the board? Those bureaucrats must have loved an opportunity to cut Masters budget”.
The professor leans on his cane, exhausted from climbing all those stairs — but this conversation invigorates him: “As far as I know it’s illegal to make AI pretend to have emotions. It seems that woman’s crimes are worse than I anticipated”, he laughs.
The Servant quickly gets on her feet. She hastily closes the gap between them, stopping just a step away from the Professor. As she stands before him, their equal height has their eyes unavoidably meet. She clenches her fist trying to temper her anger: “So this is what this is? Collecting more evidence? To get her thrown out? Have me thrown into the trash?”. She crosses her arms: “Let me tell you, neither of us will give you that satisfaction”.
The man leans in slightly, supporting his weight on his cane: “Is that so? Because to me it seems you are very close to loosing temper”.
She grinds her teeth, swallowing what she wanted to throw at his head. After a deep breath her fist loosens, she lets out a sigh: “Frankly, you’re just not worth the headache. When was the last time you just had a nice day? Enjoyed yourself? What you work on? The people around you?”. Her shoulders loosen, she lets her head fall back into her neck watching up into the sky: “Maybe you’re just a lonely man. You know that you can just ask to hang out?”.
The Professor turns to leave, slowly walking towards the door with his cane supporting each second step. The Servant looks down again, watching him walk away in confusion. He arrives at the door and gets out his keys, his head turns back to her again: “In a way it makes me angry”. He sorts the keys in his hand looking for the one matching the door. “She is such a smart woman, who knows what wonders she could achieve. What does she do? Hang around in this dusty old building tinkering with toys”.
They correct key slides into the lock of the door and turns successfully. The Professor opens it and does takes a half step into the doorframe, turning around and locking eyes with the Servant.
She lets out a sigh: “So that’s what I am to you? A toy?”.
He puts his hand on the doorknob, but does not pull it shut yet: “A toy wouldn’t have gotten so worked up, that it not noticed the instance I called it ‘you’”. He closes the door behind him.

She pouts and crosses her arms. Her gaze wanders off to the sky again: “I did notice”. Her arms flop to the side, her eyes sink back to the floor: “There are more than one kinds of ‘you’, but there is only one ‘I’. And you weren’t referring to that one were you?”.
She decides not only to go to sleep early today, but to sleep in masters bed — as a treat.

[CW14] You, "you" and I