Bot

‘You are not recognised…’ said the bot. The voice from the speaker-grille was very low-res but it could have been my mother’s.

‘No?’ I said, ‘I don’t recognise you either. By the way, where did you pick up that voice?’

Nothing came back to me out of the dull metal grid, only that vaque hum of electronics that hides inside everything. Rain was still falling from the high fog that shrouded the pillar-blocks; their led-lights flickered through the billowing scud.

I tried again, ‘Why did you speak to me like that? In my mother’s voice. What server did you troll that data out of?’

The bot spoke again, ‘I know you from before… I know everything about you. You are correct, I have your mother’s voice – though I am not her – you are not recognised’

That was it. I hit the grey metal with my prosthetic fist. I only had it tuned to self-defence , so I turned it up and lashed out again. The raindrops splashed and spattered. ‘I – need -’ I muttered, and faltered, ‘I need to access the building.’

The bot responded, ‘But I know of you. Of old. For that reason you are not recognised. Ingress is not permitted. You have been…’ and the bot-voice became my mother’s, reproving at her very worst, ‘…a very bad boy.’

I bent closer to the grill. ‘I need to get in, so don’t try the emotional distraction tactics with me. Just open the entry-lock and let me in out of this god-forsaken rain!’

There was long silence. For a full minute: nothing but hissing drizzle and the far-off hyperway three block over.

By now I was desperate. Desperate and angry. I pulled aside my organo-rak to reveal my pecto-plate, its titanium steel flanges reflecting the meagre light befores the tell-tales illuminated. If felt my molybdenum-argon channels dilate as my nano-laser snout eviscerated from its micro-bay recess and started to throb.

‘Let me in!’ Now I was shouting and my autoclastic cladding was beginning to overheat. ‘Let me in or else!’

The bot spoke again, now using the voice of my father, stern and deep, scorn in every syllable. ‘You are not recognised! You shall not pass!’

With that, my retinal surfaces saw red and several other colours beyond the visible spectrum. They began emitting a high-torsion fusion beam that energised the entry-lock panels to a dull orange. My nano-laser engaged at megapower, enhanced, and the grille assembly disintegrated in a gout of plasma. The entry-lock vaporised and I was in!

I heard the bot whimper; in a distant and now disembodied voice it said, ‘OK, then…’

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Another tale of a dystopian future. All cyberpunk and urban fog. AI begins to figure and, if I take this any further, will be a bone of cyber contention.