I remember reading somewhere that the word ÒamusementÓ originated as a word meaning Òto shut off one's mind.Ó
Mamka, therefore, is very amused at the moment.
Once I repair her emotion chip, she shall be very unamused, in both senses of the word. She will not only be reactivated, but she will be upset with me for turning her off to begin with.
She'll understand, I'm sure. I had to do it, to turn her off without alerting her that I was doing so in advance. I need to do repairs to her emotion chip.
She wasn't doing so bad, actually Ð mood swings, that was the only problem. She still felt the proper emotion at the proper time, but to far too much of an extent. Laughing hysterically at the slightest joke, bursting into tears at every little upsetting thing. She hates being deactivated, though, so I had to sneak up on her to do it. She cried when I told her I needed to repair her emotion chip, and I just couldn't bear to tell her she'd need to be shut down for it.
She thinks she's one-of-a-kind, too. That's the other reason I didn't tell her I was going to deactivate her and if I had, she'd ask why it was so bloody important that I repair a little error in her emotion chip. Mamka won't let me lie to her, either.
Thing is, I can never tell Mamka about Toshi. I'm scared to know what she'll do when she finds out I made another android before her Ð the closest thing she ever had to a big brother. Even more scared to know what she'll do when she finds out I killed that big brother.
It's not entirely my fault, you know. I had to do it. He went crazy Ð it started off as a problem with his emotion chip, same as Mamka's. I kept putting off repairs, partially because, like Mamka, he didn't enjoy being shut down, and partly because I thought it would allow him to gain a greater sensitivity even after I did repair it, or at least he wouldn't be able to gripe at me next time I was PMSing and being a little cranky. I never thought the emotion chip would go so haywire that Toshi would start killing people.
I'm still not sure why he killed all those people, either. I think it might have started off with them making him angry Ð with the emotion chip pushing him to such emotional extremes, it wouldn't take much for him to be angry enough to kill. The scariest thing, though, was that when I finally caught up to him, four days after he ran away from me, he seemed to be enjoying it. He was in the process of killing a woman when I found him Ð I was too late to save her, but even if I had shown up in time, I don't think I'd have done much. I was too shocked, staring at my creation, my innocent little Toshi, the sweet little boy who had once gazed into my eyes and asked why the other children at school teased him because of his cybernetic implants, why the teachers didn't believe him when he told them they weren't implants and he really was an android.
Poor Toshi, fully grown and in a new, adult body I had built for him only a few months before, was laughing when I found him. Laughing as he killed the woman. I can still remember forcing myself to aim the gun at the spot where I knew his main processor was located, squeezing my eyes shut before I pulled the trigger because I couldn't bear to watch him die. I could never do something like that again, least of all not to Mamka, and that's why I have to repair her.
Oh, the government would probably appreciate my preventing Mamka from becoming a serial killer as well. The police still haven't figured out exactly who killed all those people nine years ago, and I'm not too keen on the idea of telling them. I destroyed all of Toshi's old bodies, disassembling them one bolt at a time, starting with the newest body and working my way down. When I reached the baby's body, thoughÉ I just couldn't do it. It had been difficult enough to disassemble the child-bodies, and the babyÉ I couldn't. I'd cradled this baby in my arms, had slept with him curled up in my bed next to me because I didn't consider it worthwhile to buy or build a crib for a robotic baby.
When I first built Toshi, I hadn't decided yet whether I wanted him to be a boy or a girl, and the wonderful thing about androids is they don't have to be either one. I figured as a baby, Toshi wouldn't have much need for sex, and as an android, he wouldn't need to pee, so there was no reason to give him any little gender-distinguishing add-ons. I'd programmed new AI software for Mamka, and installed it on Toshi's tiny infant body.
Looking down at Mamka's latest body, modelled to look like an eight-year-old girl, I double-check to be sure the emotion chip has been reinstalled properly. She'll be angry with me for turning her off without her permission, but I certainly can't leave her off forever. And every little girl gets angry at her mother once in a while; just because Mamka is an android doesn't mean she should be any different.