“To create Artificial Intelligence has been a dream amongst all since the beginning of technology, innovation and science” Dr. Kim Junmyeon, a well-known and highly respected scientist paced slowly along the aisle. He brushed his fingers under his chin, making sure to give eye contact to each and every one he was addressing in the room; may it be the interns who popped their heads from the railings towering above them, the government officials who took great interest in every words that came out from his mouth or his colleagues whose eyes twinkled with curiosity and eagerness to the proposal he had been planning for almost five years.

Junmyeon continued to walk at least five steps to the end where a very notable person in his eyes sat. He blinked twice at Dr. Junmyeon before the latter spun around with the heel of his foot and paced back to where he stood from the start.

“From being mindless primitives discovering fire,” a couple of chuckles resounded from the room as Junmyeon pressed on, “to writing and now look where we are. Building rockets, trains, planes, finding new curatives for replenishing our health from diseases. Mankind, is extraordinary indeed” Junmyeon turned around once more, his eyes darting over to the man sitting on the far edge of the room again who clamped his legs together and swallowed whole. “But mankind doesn’t stop there, no. A scientist can never stop their desires in discovering and inventing which is why, for the past years we have developed to create robots”

The corner of Junmyeon’s lips curled.

“Artificial Intelligence, now that is the word that pries up the ears of every scientists. It was because of Artificial Intelligence that led to the progress of mankind into creating your Nanny bots, your Robocops, your Military Droids. All of these were achieved because we have found the secret to Artificial Intelligence”

A couple of slurs and gossiping whispers echoed in the room with heads leaning over to each other’s ears and eyes wandering around to see each other’s absurd reactions.

“The Artificial being is perfectly simulated; they are quick in motion, articulate in speech and also in human response” Junmyeon briskly made his way and grabbed hold of the man on the far edge and pinched his skin.

“Ouch!” the man shrieked upon feeling the stinging pain Junmyeon inflicted upon him and yet, the man quickly reverted into his normal poker face as if being pinched had never happened to him.

“And even pain memory response” Junmyeon tried to reach out to pinch the man once more, but the man quickly hopped away from Junmyeon’s reach causing an uproar of laughter across the room. Junmyeon pulled a chair out from one of the audience’s and offered the man a seat and he gladly took it.

“Do you have a name?” Junmyeon smiled at the man who blinked twice once more.

“Lay” the man replied. He blinked twice, harder this time. There was another eruption of whispers and astonished gasps littering the room, but Lay never broke his interlocking gaze at Dr. Junmyeon.

“Then tell me, Lay” Junmyeon bent down to look at Lay straight in the eyes, “How did it feel when I pinched you? Did you get hurt? Angry? Sad? Were you about to cry?”

It took Lay a matter of a minute whilst cocking his head to the side as if he was trying to find the answers in Junmyeon’s eyes for his own question. There was nothing running in Lay’s mind, only more questions with answers he failed to recognize and register.

“I do not understand what you mean” was all Lay could reply.

“How did it make you feel Lay, when I inflicted pain to you?”

Lay merely blinked and that was all Junmyeon needed before he ordered Lay to stand up. Junmyeon led Lay to walk in front and face the audience who all with great anticipation and expectant eyes followed wherever the twosome went. Junmyeon slipped out from his pockets a knife and handed it over to Lay who without hesitation gladly swiped it from his hands.

“Lay, cut yourself” Junmyeon commanded and Lay did as he was told, “Lay, stab yourself” but before Lay could pierce the tip of the sharp knife to his chest, Junmyeon quickly halted him and Lay dropped the knife to the floor. Had it not been for Junmyeon’s command, Lay might have died – or so that’s what they all thought.

“You see this is the problem” Junmyeon pointed at the knife and back onto the cut Lay inflicted to himself, “Mechatron Incorporated has developed the highest form of Artificial Being. We have conducted over one hundred models starting from the Nanny Bot up until to this” Junmyeon raised Lay’s non-existent bleeding hand in the air. “We have finally achieved a Mecha that can serve, react and follow the array of every day human life”

A round of applause erupted from the room as they marvelled at Lay, one of the first Artificial Intelligence that resembles and responses like a human being, like an Orga. An Orga is what humans referred to as “living things” while Mecha on the other hand is referred to “non-living things” under the influence of machinery and electricity such as Lay himself.

Lay however, couldn’t comprehend nor calculate what they were all applauding about and that had Junmyeon to further continue on with his speech.

“We are proud of our creation. He is beautiful, isn’t he?” Junmyeon brushed his fingers over Lay’s shoulders, trailing every bit of the exact replica of human skin plastered over the metallic exoskeleton that held Lay together and with every new patch of skin he glided through, he could remember very well the hardships he and his colleagues all went through just to finally have Lay walking and talking now.

But it wasn’t enough.

“And yet, what does it amount to? So what if we have a Mecha such as him who looks human, talks human, breathes human and yet, he still is so far from being human” Junmyeon then pulled out from his pockets a round silver metal ball with a haunting hazy blue glow virulently coming out from its core. Junmyeon held it up for everyone to see.

“This my friends holds the key to Artificial Intelligence. A sensory toy, infused with behavioural circuits, pattern mimicking using neuron-sensory technology. With this ball, the Mecha can possess the abilities of response to each action we take” Junmyeon lowered his hand back down and eyed the ball in his hands with full fascination in his own creation. 

One step to what he would like to call: Perfection. He narrowed his eyes at the ball, staring at it where he could watch the future in front of his eyes, the answers to all scientist’s dreams. A glorious ticket for him to be called a God himself. He gripped the ball tight in his hands and said, “I believe if we can infuse and map this intelligent technology, we can go cross boarders to achieve the goal we thought is impossible for Mecha and mortal creation”

Junmyeon then turned to Lay who in all alertness snapped his head to look at him.

“What is Love?” Junmyeon asked Lay.

Lay merely blinked at Junmyeon. The scientist smiled at him, knowing too well that this robot in front of him, had no idea what love was.

“Love?” one man called out from the back of the room that had everyone’s heads to turn their attention, “Excuse me, but haven’t we achieved that already? I mean, we have at least five hundred of their models shipped around the world and dare I say, the night customers are all thrilled and very much happy with their performances in and out of bed”

Chuckles rose from the corners of the room.

“And quite frankly, I think our models are all being used up and over heating with frequent visitors who wouldn’t stop for hours in the company of our love-making robots!”

That alone had the whole room exploding with green-minded chortles. Junmyeon raised his index finger causing everyone to cease their chuckles. He pursed his lips into a straight line and popped it open before walking back down the aisle.  

“Ah yes. Our “love” making robots. Such a success to us all isn’t it? Not only do robots serve us breakfast in bed and watch over our children, but we’ve also developed robots that could pleasure us” Junmyeon chuckled to himself. “But the love I’m referring to however is more complicated than that”

Junmyeon nodded solemnly, fondling the ball in his hands with almost too much of great care – too much.

“Love is abstract is it not? Love can mean a lot of things. Love can mean the sunrise, love can mean the coffee you drink everyday, love can mean the hand of your wife or the game console your little boy has on his seventh birthday, the eyes of your parents or even the bark of your puppy” Junmyeon stares at the ball as if he could see the future in it, blurring everyone in the room except for the thing in his hands.

“The Love I want to achieve is far more…complex” Junmyeon closes his fist and stares up at Lay who held that stoic face. Junmyeon smiled as he approaches Lay. The robot did nothing as Junmyeon caressed his face, ever so tenderly and held his hand.

Junmyeon sensed the incredulous looks he was receiving from everyone in the room. So, he started without looking away from Lay’s robotic eyes, “Five years, and my research is finally complete. If Lay doesn’t feel anything with the way I hold his hands, tomorrow, he will respond in a more natural way”

“What do you mean?” asked one person just a person away from them.

“I’ve always wondered how robots could live amongst us in a more organic way. How they will respond in endearments, in little things such as hearing the laugh of a special someone” Junmyeon lets go of Lay’s hand and turns to the crowd. “I have achieved the most complex love there ever was blessed on human kind”

Everyone was silent and attentive, anticipating whatever it was Junmyeon wanted to say. To finally hear what he has to say after five years of gruelling research.

Junmyeon held the metallic ball in his hands tightly as if the answer to the universe was in the palm of his hands.

“Unconditional Love”

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here we go for another XiuBaek story~ Please do comment your thoughts <3 I am excited to read 'em~