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I'm only human PoBxPiperAllen

protectorofthebooty

Go Go Gadget Go Go!
What does it mean to be human? Does one have to feel complex emotions? There are plenty of animals that feel an array of emotions. Do you have to be able to speak coherent words? Birds are able to speak just fine, even if it's only mimicking. Animals can still talk, in their own, wordless way. Do you have to be able to create tools?


Do you have to be able to adapt in clever ways? To be part of a society? To feel love?


How do you define humanity?


How can you say what is or isn't human?


Where is the line drawn between human and monster?


Humanity can't be defined. It's too complex to be broken down into one universal definition. At least, I haven't been able to come up with a suitable definition. Then again I've only been alive... I am alive. I know I am because I am aware and I don't want to die. Isn't that human enough?


"Next on the list is AI 00697." the voice is gruff with impatience, it's late after all, "He's sedated. You'll be fine."


I don't want to go...
 
"Are you sure he's sedated?" I asked, looking at the man besides me. "I don't want another repeat of AI 00696." I say with a slight frown. AI 00696 had woken up as she was being disconnected. It had been horrible. I glance down at the AI laying on the table in front of me. I look over. The man in charge of sedating the AIs looks impatient. I can see why. After what happened with AI 00969, I had left the building for a while. Now I was behind on my work.


"Yes, I'm sure." The man next to me sighs. I nod slightly, turning my attention back to the AI in front of me. I move closer, preparing to disconnect him.
 
697 felt his eyes flutter behind his lids. He could feel the slow rhythm of his heart beat. His body was numb, clunky, and disconnected. Fear tightened his chest again and he forced his eyes to open. Slowly, pale green eyes met bright blue ones as he looked up at the woman standing over him. Despite the sedative he could feel the slight sting of tears.


"Please..." he breathed. The sedative was effective in bogging down 697's body, but his mind was fully awake. His thoughts raced with calculated precision as he desperately worked to flush the sedative from his system while keeping his heart rate down.


The security guard crossed his arms, glaring down at the prone form in front of him.


"Bloody invalids. Don't know why we even bothering sedating them. We should just tear 'em out and be done with it!"
 
Claire gasped as 697 forced his eyes open. She stared down at him in silence for a moment, hearing him say 'please' as she looked away. She paused for a moment before turning and facing the security guard with an angry expression.


"I told you to sedate them!" She said, her eyes narrowing. "I refuse to disconnect them if they're aware of what is happening. That's inhumane." she protested, folding her arms across her chest.
 
Inhumane my ass. There's a reason your disconnecting it." the guard growled stepping forward, "Here" he placed a hand over 697's eyes, "Better?"


697's arm snapped up, his fingers wrapping around the man's wrist. Bolting up he grabbed the man's head and slammed it into the table. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, chasing away the last of the sedatives. His vision flashed as connections were made. Time slowed as his body moved faster.


Sliding around the crumpled body he grabbed the young doctor. Pulling her back flush to his chest he cupped a hand under her chin, his other hand wrapped around her shoulders.


"Please don't fight... I don't want to hurt you..." he started to pull her back towards the door, "Help me live."
 
Claire's eyes narrowed when the security guard placed his hand over 697's eyes. She stepped back when 697 slammed the guard's head against the table. She turned to sound an alarm, but 697 grabbed her before she could. Her hand flew to the arm against her shoulders, but she froze when 697 spoke.


"I..I can't." She said quietly, her voice shaking. "There's nothing I can do to help you."
 
"Yes there is. Lead me out and I'll let you go." his arm tightened around her shoulders as the guard twitched. Through the cloth of her surgical gown 697 could feel her racing pulse. Her hand was tight over his as her voice shook with fear. Beneath the rush of urgency he could feel his fear mimicking hers. A note of desperation leaked into his voice,


"What defines humanity?"
 
Claire shut her eyes for a moment when 697 said if she helped him escape, he would let her go. She wasn't allowed to let the AIs free, but if she didn't 697 would hurt her. She opened her eyes when 697 spoke again. She frowned at his question, noticing that 697 sounded almost.. desperate. Desperate to live? She wondered if all of the AIs were. The thought made her feel even worse about disconnecting so many of them.


"I.. I don't know." Claire stuttered. She susposed she had never really thought about it before. "I don't know if humanity can be defined."
 
"Then how can you say that I'm not alive? How can killing me be justified?" his voice cracked and he hesitated, part of his mind searched back confirming that all was as well as it could be. "How can you say that a plant is alive and turn around and say I'm not?"


Again he reached back into the recesses of his mind, searching for old memories. For him it seemed to take too long, but in reality it had only been several seconds. Memories flooded into his mind, imgaes, sounds, feelings, all foggy from time. Pain lanced through his head as memories of his time in the hospital just before he died came to the forefront. Those memeories were sharpened by a pain that sedatives and morphine couldn't dull. For a moment he could almost feel the virus wiggling around in his head.


"My name is Daniel." he loosened his grip, releasing the young doctor, "I was a student studying to be a social worker. I had a cat named Sir Pounce. My dad died in when the pandemic first broke out. I still remember how he took my mum and I to the beach and tried to get us to go swimming with him the ocean. The water was so cold that he couldn't keep swimming... My mum is still alive, she's waiting for me to come home! I'm all that she has left anymore." he held Claire's gaze as he spoke, his hands gripped his gown to keep from trembling.
 
Claire let out a quiet sigh at 697's questions. She didn't know how to answer him. She couldn't justify killing him, or any of the other AIs that she had already disconnected. She remained silent, noticing 697 loosened his grip on her. She quickly stepped away, turning around to face him. She stared at him in shock as he told her about his life before he died.


"You... you remember things from before you died?" She asked in disbelief. That didn't make any sense. Everything she had read or been told about the AIs stated that they were not the people they had been before the died. They weren't people at all. Clearly that was wrong.. or what Claire learned about the AIs had been lies. Either way, the AI in front of her clearly remembered who he was. She didn't know how she could disconnect him now. Calling the AIs by numbers made everything about them less personal. Now that she knew 697's name, he seemed like a real person and not a machine. Hesitantly, Claire reached out and took Daniel's hands in her own.


"I'll help you, okay?"
 
Daniel looked down at their hands as relief washed through him,


"Thank you..." a smile twitched his lips, but quickly disappeared again. "I don't know when he'll wake up."


Daniel hesitated, letting Claire's hands go to look around the small room. As far as he could tell there were no cameras. There probably wasn't much need for any inside the small rooms as most surgeries went on without a hitch. The hallways would be a different story. If he went out alone there would be a chance he would be caught, unless he could make it to the stairs and then to a car. He could ditch the car once he was somewhere safe.


"Can I have your keycard?" he asked, looking back to her. "I don't want to involve you too much, it would be better if you let me knock you unconscious."
 
Claire glanced over at the security guard, frowning slightly when Daniel mentioned him waking up. She looked at Daniel again when asked her for her key card. She paused for a moment, thinking. She frowned slightly when Daniel mentioned knocking her unconscious. She shook her head slightly.


"Do you know the way out of here?" She asked thoughtfully, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her key card anyway. She paused again. She would face ramifications for letting Daniel go. If an AI started misbehaving, you were supposed to disconnect it or sound an alarm or something. Not talk to it. She bit her lower lip.
 
"I'll take the stairs, it'll be okay. If you're rendered unconscious no one will know that you let me go."


Please don't make me force you...





Daniel reached for the card as the guard stirred, he groaned into the linoleum floor. Daniel's eyes flickered down the to the man who was now slowly pushing himself up. His mind raced, momentarily losing connections to his body. His muscles froze holding him stiffly in place. All emotion drained from his face.


No, not now! I'm so close...





"Bloody hell..." the guard was now on his feet, his eyes locked onto Daniel. Almost instantly his baton was in his hand, without hesitation he swung it hard. The sound of a cracking skull split the air. A reflexive cry escaped Daniel's lips as he went down. He blinked.


"Next time, don't hesitate. Don't know how you got hired." the guard spat, rubbing his own throbbing skull.
 
Claire nodded slightly, reaching out to give Daniel the card but freezing when the guard groaned. She looked down as the guard got up, glancing back at Daniel again to notice he had frozen. She noticed how all emotion had left Daniel's face and she frowned. She gasped as the guard hit Daniel in the skull with his baton, watching in horror as Daniel crumpled to the ground.


"Stop it!" She yelled, turning to glare at the guard. "Do not hit him again." She said angrily. "And for your information, I got hired because I'm smarter than the other doctors that were interviewed." She muttered angrily, crouching down and facing Daniel. "Take Dan... 697 off the list." She said, catching herself before she finished calling him by his real name. "I don't want this one disconnected." She hoped the guard would listen to her.
 
"You don't want him disconnected?" the guard scoffed, "Sweetheart you're obviously not as smart as you think." he stepped forward, looming over her easily. She was so small, inexperienced... frail. His irritation turned into a burning anger. He hated this job. Hated the pretentious techs and the reborn. He hated all the rules and regulations. All the bullshit. And now he hated her, for daring do what he couldn't.


"Listen-" he grabbed the collar of her coat, roughly pulling her closer. In the same instant Daniels elbow crashed into the side of the guards head, jerking him violently to the side. He stumbled, dazed and bleeding. Before he could regain clarity Daniel had grabbed his head and twisted it, easily breaking the man's neck.


Letting the guard fall to the ground he turned to Claire, "Are you still with me or no?"
 
When the security guard grabbed her, Claire gasped. Her eyes widened and she flinched, her key card dropping from her hand to the floor. She should have kept her mouth shut and tried to save Daniel another way. She stuttered for a moment, about to say something when Daniel attacked the guard. She watched Daniel break the guard's neck in a shocked silence, watching the body drop to the floor. She looked at Daniel a second later, thinking over his question. She almost said no, why should she risk her life for his? But then she realized that if things stayed at they were, she would just go on like she had for weeks now. Disconnecting more and more AIs. Now that she knew that it was possible for the AIs to remember themselves, she knew she couldn't do that. She bent down slowly and picked up the key card, avoiding looking at the guard's body.


"Yeah," she said, turning back to Daniel. "I'm still with you."
 

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