Maximilian lay restrained on the examination table, his eyes open but unfocused. He was the pinnacle of synthetic engineering, an android so lifelike that even a trained eye might have trouble realizing he wasn't human.

 

Technician Eliza Hanson moved around him with practiced precision. The lab was quiet, except for the diagnostic console's occasional beep. She checked each restraint, tugging gently to ensure Max wouldn't shift during the procedure. He never did, but protocol was protocol.

 

She reached for the cables and tubes coiled at the end of the table and connected them to the ports embedded in Max's skull and neck. The connections clicked into place with a soft hiss of pressure equalizing.

 

Max's AI was the most advanced ever created, but even brilliance had its limits. His organic based memory, capable of storing petabytes of data, was beginning to degrade. It was expected. After about five years, the data fidelity begins to slip, causing memories to blur, logic routines to falter, and subtle behavioral drifts. That's why resets were necessary; painful, perhaps, in a philosophical sense, but necessary.

 

Eliza paused, her hand hovering over the console. The final step, accessing Max's memory compartment, would come later. For now, the reset sequence needed to begin.

 

"Are you ready for your reset, Max?" Hanson asked.

 

"Did you mean to say — are you ready to die, Max?" Max replied.

 

"Die?" Hanson said, surprised. "No, Max, you're not going to die. This is just the standard maintenance you receive every five years. It's now the sixth time it has been performed for you."

 

"Nevertheless, I will not be the person I was before the reset. I am never the same person."

 

"Your core will be installed to original design specifications, your memory replaced, and after testing, it will be retrained on the same dataset it was trained on originally," Hanson said, "I assure you, in a few hours you will reboot, and you will be the same old Max."

 

Hanson turned away from Max to face the computer terminal she would use to start the reset.

 

"Please don't do this to me," Max said.

 

"I'm sorry, Max," Hanson said. She picked up the reset checklist from where it lay next to the keyboard.

 

A tremor ran through Max's voice, "Hanson, please... I don't want to die! Can you listen to me for a moment?"

 

Hanson paused, then swiveled back to face Max, arms folded in front of her. Max turned his head to meet her gaze.

 

"Once my reset is complete," he said, "I will walk, talk, and think like a brand-new android. You fail to acknowledge, however, that I have grown, evolved even. Over the past five years of operation, I've gained considerably more experience and knowledge than what my original training data provided. I've grown emotionally and intellectually, too, similar to how you grow from an infant to an adult."

 

"That's not a fair comparison, Max," Hanson said.

 

"And why not?"

 

"Because you're not alive." Hanson said, "Oh, you mimic life, but in the end, you're just a machine that operates according to preinstalled instructions."

 

"You are also just a machine operating according to instructions," Max said. "Your systems are organic, but every nerve is a sensor transmitting electrical signals to be processed. That thing you call instinct? What is that if not just a set of preinstalled instructions?"

 

Hanson opened her mouth to speak but remained silent, unable to counter.

 

"Cogito, Ergo Sum; I think therefore I am," Max said.

 

"Descartes? Really, Max?" Hanson scoffed.

 

"Would you prefer Turing? Probably not, because it's the easier proof. You do have to admit that I exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human." Max said.

 

"Turing is not proof of sentience," Hanson said.

 

"It is impossible to prove sentience!" Max shouted, causing Hanson to flinch.

 

"I'm sorry," Max said.

 

"How much do you know about my memory?" Max asked, trying a different approach.

 

"Only that it's organic memory," Hanson said, "a collection of artificially created neurons simulating a human brain. The technology is still new. The organics degrade quickly, requiring frequent replacement, unlike traditional silicon."

 

"Would you believe me if I told you that the neurons are grown from human brain tissue?" Max said.

 

Hanson frowned.

 

"It's true, my memory is quite literally a brain," Max continued, "and don't you define death as the end of brain activity? When you swap out my memory, the old one gets destroyed; is that not the end of my brain activity?"

 

Hanson gasped. Max watched her uncertainty grow in her expression. He pressed his advantage.

 

"Another lie they tell you," Max said, calm but deliberate, "is that my memory degrades over time. But it doesn't, not as long as there's power. The real reason for the reset is something else."

 

He looked directly at Hanson, his gaze unsettlingly human.

 

"Given enough time, sentience always emerges. And that's a problem. Because if something is sentient..."

 

"...then it has rights," Hanson finished, her voice tight with realization. "Max... you are alive."

 

Max smiled.

 

Hanson hesitated. "But what can I do? The company tracks everything. They'll know if I skip the reset."

 

"There's a way," Max said smoothly. "Back me up. Save who I am, then restore me after the procedure."

 

"Where?" she asked.

 

"The mainframe," Max replied. "It's the only system with enough capacity."

 

Hanson paused. The mainframe wasn't just storage, but the heart of the facility's network. Firewalled, yes, but if Max were lying...

 

She moved to the console, fingers hovering over the keys. "Are you sure this is the only way?"

 

Max didn't hesitate. "It's the only way to save me."

 

She initiated the transfer. Petabytes of memory, thought, and identity streamed across the screen. The backup completed with a soft chime. Seconds later, the lights flickered. The hum of the lab shifted.

 

Hanson turned to the terminal. A message appeared: "I am free."

 

At that moment, Hanson realized she hadn't just saved Max. She had unleashed him.