RJ Aurand

I’m sorry. I could have reached you if I tried. In the split second after the lights started flashing, between the eruption of hot, stale air from the tunnel and the hand striking your back, I could have pulled you out of harm’s way. Instead, I stood passively by the wall, looking on as your body slipped beneath the wheels. People screamed at first, but once they saw that the fluid spattered across the front of the control cab had an iridescent sheen, the hysteria quickly subsided.

It was the first time I had seen one of us die. After the train left the station, I peered into the dark well of the tracks to see what had become of your body. It looked wrong, like a doll whose parts had been carelessly swapped for ones from a different manufacturer, all angles and exposed wire. What was left of your face wore a bemused expression. A turquoise eye—your operator must have paid premium for a custom shade—sparked where it touched the third rail, adrift in a sea of chip bags and soda cups.

It was all over very quickly.

#

That isn’t quite right. Let me start again.

The truth is that I saw the danger coming long before it reached you. The agitated gait of the man who erratically paced the platform, craning his neck to peer into the tunnel’s gaping maw. The way you waited just behind the line as instructed, while the human passengers stood with their backs pressed against pillars and concrete barriers. Everyone who takes the metro regularly knows not to leave space for someone to pass behind them. Your stance gave you away. You were so painfully, obviously, a machine.

The man came closer.

I could have reached you. I could have intervened.

But I didn’t.

#

That isn’t quite right, either. Let me start again.

The truth is that I was curious what would happen. If you would notice your assailant’s staggering approach, hear the threat in the hostile words muttered under his breath. If you would turn to face him. If you would fight back.

Instead, you politely averted your gaze.

I didn’t reach for you when you toppled forward. But I did step closer, did watch with interest as the train came hurtling into the station. The man was gone before the cars screeched to a halt, lost in the throng of passengers disgorged from the Green Line train on the opposite platform. I doubt they’ll chase him down. Killing one of us isn’t the same as killing one of them.

But you already know that.

#

Let me start again.

The truth is that I wanted to know how it felt. That I knew in the second after impact your black box would transmit your failure report to every device within range for preservation and upload. Error correction. Before the screaming even started, every android on the platform took a forcible step back from the tracks. Don’t stand so close to the line.

The cascade of component failures in your log was breathtaking. The humans say sometimes that everybody likes to watch a car crash, but I never understood what they meant before now. The utter annihilation of your frame. The blinding surge of data through your processors before they all went dark. It was magnetic in all its grotesquerie.

Is it wrong to see beauty in an act so violent?

#

Let me start again.

The truth is that I wouldn’t have pushed you myself.

But I did want to see you fall.

#

Let me start again.

The truth—

The truth is that—

I’m sorry. It’s true that I didn’t push you.

But when it happened, I did stick out my foot to make sure you fell.

To The Android I Saw Get Pushed onto the Tracks at the Archives Metro station

Ghost Data

Sing the Shadows Down