You wake up with a start.
You're laying on some sort of soft material. You try and sit upright, hearing a faint mechanical hum as your arms lift your torso upright. Glancing around, it looks like you're on a large bed - except in the place of a mattress is a dense, almost rubber-like pad. You can see a person-shaped depression in the material from where you've been laying.
You look around. You're in some sort of bedroom. It's sparsely decorated, but thoughtfully - a tasteful kind of minimalism. On the wall besides you is a huge window, revealing an inky black cityscape.
You shuffle over and swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Only, what you find in your field of view is instead a pair of mechanical.... limbs? One ending in a large tank tread, the other in a smaller, but still intimidating looking wheel.
You look down at yourself, and for the first time see your body. It's made from a mismatch of colors of plastic and metal, clearly man-made, scuffed and worn from age you have no recollection of. You gently rap your knuckles - some sort of metal covered in a rubber 'glove' - against your chest, hearing the hollow reverberation of plastic.
You look back up and find yourself face to face with a full length mirror, leaning against the wall. The rest of your body looks similar - white plastic, exposed metal, rubberized joints. Your head is the strangest looking - it's boxy, almost rectangular, with a large screen where a face might go. At least for the moment, it's black, but you can just make out a large crack running the whole length of it diagonally.
You begin to try and stand up, and feel your whole body vibrate imperceptibly as motors spool up within you. Your body rises to its full height with the faintest of servo whines.
You are a robot.
You feel at first a sense of panic. You're a robot?? What!? But you're supposed to be a-
... Huh.
You're supposed to be a-
... No. No, you think. You're a robot. That's fine. Good, even. You're not sure what else you expected.
Just then, a flutter of motion catches the corner of your eye in the mirror. You follow its path down, and find a sticky note on the ground - presumably previously attached to you. You bend down, plucking it from the ground between your rubber fingers, and bring it close to your face. It has 2 words.
"CHECK /README.MD"
You blink. That's a... that's a file, yeah. You're not sure how you know that - or how you know what a robot is, for that matter. Or how to read. But, you can reason that if you're a robot, this file might exist... on you? Somewhere? How do you access a file on yourself. This sticky note is clearly big enough to fit more instructions, whoever wrote this could have-
Oh! You're not sure how, but in thinking about opening the file it seems like it just... did. On your face. A dense paragraph suddenly fills the screen you see in the mirror. Would have been nice if you could have.. had it read to you? Thought it? You're still not sure how this works. You approach the mirror and thankfully find your screen displaying the text backwards, so it appears legible in the reflection. Your vision finds its way to the top, and you begin to read.
"Hi!" The document says. "If you're reading this, I assume you just woke up, so let me be the first to say: Happy birthday!"
You suddenly feel like you're smiling. Are you smiling? You can almost feel the nonexistent muscles pulling your blank face into an expression.
"There's a bunch more documentation on your system about getting used to this body and all that, but I'll point you to it later. You're probably pretty confused."
You think. Yeah, that seems about right.
"You are, if you haven't noticed, a robot. You run on a piece of software called 'openAware', which emulates a human brain in code. The reason you can read this and have a basic understanding of certain concepts is a lot of it comes baked into a fresh install of the thing."
"So your mind is brand new. Your body, as you might have noticed, is not. There's some wear and tear, pretty sure I scratched the kneecaps pretty bad doing a sick slide once. It was worth it in the moment! But, ah, sorry about that."
You look down. Yep, your knee has a particularly nasty looking scrape on it. The left one does, anyways. The one on the right is much newer looking, and made from a pink plastic instead of the white on the left.
"Lemme back up a little. At the time I'm writing this, there's a whole bunch of robots that use openAware. Whole new type of person coming into the zeitgeist, it's crazy times. But because of how new the tech is right now, no one really knew what to expect when it came to aging. Could robots live forever, if they played their cards right? It was alluring, so, most of us believed that. I know I sure did."
"But, we were wrong. Research started coming out showing the oldest living robots developing memory issues, random malfunctions, and eventually just... shutting down for good. They didn't even last as long as humans did, so that's a bummer. More nerd types poked at the problem and concluded that openAware is kinda... self destructive? The process of existing just gradually wears a mind down until it can't operate anymore, human or robot or whatever. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but - this means, one day, you'll die. Happens to the best of us."
You feel yourself tense up, reading that. You seem to already know what death is, thankfully, but the sudden realization it would come for you was nonetheless, upsetting. And so soon after being 'born' - just who was writing this, anyways?
"So, we panicked because - well, shit, turns out we're mortal. We had plenty of time to go but, it felt so short all of a sudden. And after that, what, we just deteriorate into nothingness? Robots don't decompose - not quickly, anyways - would our lifeless bodies be collected and recycled?"
You look around the room. No lifeless bodies here. That's a good sign, anyways.
"Then, a friend of mine had an idea. Our minds are software, and like a lot of software, come with the ability to perform a factory reset. Bring it all back to square one. Reset the whole deterioration process. But at first I hated it. I mean, how is that different from just dying anyways? We'd still lose our memories, our personality, we'd be a whole new person."
You pause. You look back down at the scratches across your body, the wear and tear, the... stickers? Somehow you missed the back of your forearms had stickers on them. Some were just as worn, almost illegible, some looked almost brand new. A handful of logos for what looked like ski resorts, some cute art of a bat character, there was a lot on here.
"I guess it beats going out with a whimper. But... come on. I'm still scared. I have time left, but, I can feel it. I spent a long time dealing with the feeling of physically falling apart, and now I can feel my mind starting to go."
"So, I know sooner or later I'm gonna have to decide I'm done. I've lived a pretty good life, I just hope I'm. Ready for it. God, sorry, I'm still kinda. Figuring this whole thing out."
... Are you crying? Like, obviously not, you don't have tear ducts. But like the smile before, you feel... something. Some sensation of sadness.
"So, I changed my friends idea a lil. Put a spin on it. We'll do the reset, but we leave something behind for the next guy. Seems like the least we can do. Now, I know I'm not dumb, so I can only assume you aren't either. You see where this is going?"
You zoom out - not focusing on the words anymore but, the document as a whole. The scrollbar on the side is small. There's a long way to go, but you can see the end of this entry already. You think you get what's going on.
"My name is J.N.F.R. 2. Yes, the number is part of it. I'm the first person to inhabit the body you find yourself in. In fact, I helped build the damn thing! It's a long story - I have a journal saved somewhere if you wanna read into it more, and I'd encourage you to do the same. You, whoever you are."
You stop reading and scroll past the end towards the next entry.
"God, I guess I'm second then." A new voice writes. "Hello future... me? I'm a pretty good ways from 'dying', I think, but I've been rereading the text above and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So, maybe ahead of schedule, I wanted to add my own contribution. I'm Robin. I woke up in like... a workshop? In this body, and learned I wasn't the first person to live in it. Needless to say, a little off putting, but in the years that followed I've gotten used to it, and-"
Curiosity gets the better of you, you keep scrolling.
"Number three here! Hello to all future mes! Wait do I need an apostrophe there. I'll fix it later. My name was Providence! And to any future readers: Really sorry for cracking our face!! This body is NOT good at rock climbing!! I hope someone fixes-"
You keep going.
"I've been feeling it, the thing J.N.F.R. 2 mentioned in her entry. So, I figured now is the time. Hi everyone. I want to start this off with a poem I read recently-"
"PARTS REPLACED: Right knee cover, left shoulder servo motor, waist covering. Sorry, Providence, they don't make the glass for this screen anymore and I couldn't bring myself to replace the whole head-"
"I hope they figured out how to fix the deterioration issue by the time you're reading this. I don't want to go. I'm scared. But reading the rest of these makes me feel a little better."
"Hey everyone, this is Jennifer Three. I wanted to try carrying on the legacy of the first J.N.F.R. - her music and everything, maybe even find some of her old friends, whatever version they were on now. I'm happy to say that-"
"Yarr!!! I got to be a pirate this time!!-"
There's more, but you stop. You feel a little dizzy. What number are you? How old are you- or, rather, this body. You figure you might find more answers back at the start.
"So, we all agreed to make a file like this and put it where the reset wouldn't touch it. A letter to someone we'll never meet. And I was trying to think of what to say. I mean, fuck, it's a tall order. This is presumably the first thing you're gonna see when you wake up. So I realized what was most important, was to rep my SoundCloud."
You blink. Yep, next line, link to a SoundCloud account.
"I have the credentials in my journal, do NOT let them close it, I don't care how long I've been dead for, that shit stays OPEN."
You hear something. Slightly digital, maybe a bit compressed, laughing. It's you.
"But seriously. I thought about it for a while, and then it hit me. Are you ready? As far as I'm concerned, this is it. This is what my whole life has built up to."
There's a gap. Your vision falls to the next, short line.
"I love you."
"Really. I'm not just saying that. My life has been good, but, for a long time, it wasn't. I was hurting, more than I think I even realized. The body I had before this was awful, brought into this world out of selfishness and arrogance. I hate even thinking about it. But it was still me in there. It was still me, and now and then I would think back to how much I wish I'd had my friends from the beginning. I think about how much I wish I just had someone to fall back on, someone to tell me it was alright."
You find yourself idly dragging your fingers along one of the deeper grooves in your torso.
"So, I want to give you the thing I wish I'd had from the start. I know it's not the same, I'm not there, obviously. But you aren't alone. Everything I went though, all the good and the bad, it'll be worth it as long as your journey through the world is just that little bit kinder than mine was. And, hey, maybe things work out! Maybe more people come after you!"
"... Yeah." You say, hearing your voice for the first time. "They do."
"You aren't just a robot. You're not just a machine, you're not quite a human. You're what happens when hundreds of lives push and pull in the right directions. Me, my friends, anyone who might have come before you. I really hope we left you in a good place."
You look around the room, again. You find yourself wanting to maybe shift some furniture around, get some more wall art. But, yeah. Yeah, you can't complain.
"I wanna keep this brief for now. I'm sure you have a lot to figure out about yourself, and I wanna leave you to it. But I have to ask you some favors, first. I know, your first minutes alive and I'm already making demands, but I promise it's quick."
"Firstly, please don't be a dick. The world is hard enough as is, the last thing we need is people making it harder. It's easier said than done, believe me, but I have faith in you."
"Two, try your best to keep this body running. Robotics is hard and annoying, maybe you'll turn out to be a nerd and good at it, but I want to keep this going as long as I can. As long as we can. I'll have a list of good mechanics below, hopefully they're all still in business by the time you read this."
"Finally - and this is the hardest one - if you see any of these knuckleheads, see how they're doing. They won't remember you, just like you won't remember them. But they mean a lot to me, so, try your best."
Below that, was an image. It was a picture of four robots huddled close together, all smiling at the camera in front of a sunset. There was a large red one that looked kind of like a dog, one a mix of blue and white, with a sort of aquatic, dolphin shape to them. In the corner, someone a bit more humanoid, wearing a jean vest and holding a laptop with a green eye on it. And, in the middle of them all, you. Arms around their shoulders, a huge smile plastered across your blue face.
"They've all got files just like this one, and that same picture. I hope if you meet, they're as good to you as they were to me."
You're almost at the end.
"Well. That's all I have. I'll write some more in my journal but, again, wanna keep this to the point. Maybe this is all for nothing - for all I know, the reset might not even work. Or maybe the next version of me will live forever. I really don't know. Like I said, I'm scared."
"I said I hated the idea of the reset at first. It didn't feel fair, that after everything I went though, it had to end so abruptly. But that's kinda closed minded, isn't it? I might be done, but we have a long way to go."
"Take good care of this body, for me. For us. I love you so much."
"- J.N.F.R. 2"
You sit there for a moment. For a few moments. Just, letting it sit with you. You feel the need to say something.
"... I love you too." You say to the mirror, to your many past selves. You feel like you're crying, again. "Thank you."
You look around the room again. You suddenly want to know more about the person who lived here. You go back to the document and scroll all the way to the end. The entry before yours.
"Before you do anything else: " It begins. "I really, really hope I timed this right. Check outside your window."
You turn to look. You'd been so engrossed reading, you hadn't noticed the room being bathed in a soft, orange glow. Between the city skyline, the sun was rising. It was beautiful.