The Last Living Miner on the Moon by Jack Powers

As his father figure nears death, a robot grapples with the surge of emotions and the experience of coming into personhood.

Image generated with OpenAI

"It's yellow on Earth, right?" I said, knowing Frank wanted to talk about it, but didn't want to bore me with the same old. We sat on the rim of the crater watching the sunrise - a popping up more than rising. The white disc not much larger than the stars around it. But welcome after 14 Earth days of darkness. I felt a flicker of joy. The emotion still new enough that I had to pause to name it. It was probably one tenth of what Frank felt.

"Mostly orange at sunrise," Frank said. I could see an appreciative smile through his tinted face shield. The light cast our crater deep in shadow and magnified the creases around his eyes. "Some mornings it looks ten times this size rising from the horizon. Sky streaked with pink and purple thanks to Earth's atmosphere." The dot of sun reflected off his shield. "Never liked pink except at sunrise." He kicked a rock and we watched it roll down the crater, disappear without a sound into the darkness toward our shed. "Or sunset."

The emotion-simulator upgrade had been Frank's idea - to qualify me for personhood. It still seemed more handicap than asset, but Frank insisted I'd figure it out.

"Sure you don't want to see those colors again?" I asked. Frank hadn't been back to Earth in forty years - since he'd won this patch of moon in The People's Lunar Land Lottery in '38 - joining thousands of others now long replaced by bot-miners and autonomous extractors, crushers, leachers, precipitators. And consolidated into one of the mining mega-corps.

He laughed, squeezed my shoulder. "That ship has sailed." He waved the idea away with his other hand. "It's... It was a long time ago... Like a dozen upgrades ago for you."

I wished I'd been with him for all his human upgrades. I felt jealousy or envy - I'm still learning to identify the close emotions. Envy, I think, because it's not something that was ever mine. And confusion too - is confusion an emotion? For humans, upgrades are like promotions or graduations. But as Frank ages, they've been more like downgrades. He'd probably laugh if I told him that. But then he'd get quiet and sad. Start in with "Soon this will all be yours."

Earth sat half-lit/half-dark just above the horizon to our right. The lit side as mysterious to me as the dark. I'd been shipped back occasionally for hardware overhauls, but never saw anything outside my packing case and the lab. My last trip was for the emotion-simulator, the tear duct implants - everything I needed to qualify to inherit the mine.

"Remember when we used to sit out here with Rachel back in the day?" he asked in a whisper. His mic crackled like it was swallowing a hiccup of emotion.

An inhale caught in my throat. Surprise, I guess. Frank never mentioned his ex. Suddenly I could picture them thirty-six years ago. Sitting in this same spot. Talking. Laughing. On their own frequency so I couldn't hear anything. Watching the tilt of their helmets, the gestures of their gloved hands as they leaned toward each other. Trying to guess what they were saying. To understand this thing they had between them.

Frank wrapped an arm around my shoulder. Pulled me back to the present. "I know it doesn't seem like much to you, son," he said. "But these are the moments I'm going to miss."

I could imagine the Earth's sunrise, the experience of aging into new versions of yourself, the loneliness of being the last of your kind. But giving up? Accepting your own demise? I felt a surge of anger - no trouble identifying that one. It didn't just cloud my thinking as the manual suggested - it steamed it. Buried it in fog. How did humans think through it? And why would they want to? I followed the instructions and counted to ten.

"Just transplant your core into me. I'd be happy to -"

"Don't start, buddy. Please." Frank hugged my shoulder tighter. I could almost feel his body heat through the thick moon-suit. And his grip still strong at 82 - at least for that initial squeeze.

"It just takes a few hours now. And it's perfectly sa-"

"Thank you," he said firmly. He stretched his legs out straight, wipered his moonboots back and forth. "Replacing knees and hips is one thing, but this," he tapped his forehead, "is another. And it's already curdling. I can feel it. Once the meds stopped working, they said I'd have a couple weeks before I'm just a drooling, bumbling..." He trailed off.

He'd made his decision. I don't know why I kept bringing it up. Was the simulator urging me on? All it seemed to do was make us argue. I turned my gaze to the white sun and the incomprehensible darkness between the stars that would spin around it as the sun arced across the sky for the next two weeks.

"You are so amazing, my boy. Sometimes I forget you're not human."

"I could be," I insisted, knowing it would make him pull away. "I could be you."

But he kept his grip, sighed. "Every story," he began, "has a beginning, a middle and an end." He kicked another rock down the crater. "If any part's missing, it's not a story."

"It could be a longer story," I said, probing the flaws in his analogy, a surge of hope - or stubbornness - urging me on. "Or like a sequel."

He shook his head. "Sequels are never any good."

"That's not true!" I scanned through all the movies we'd watched together in the vid-room in the years after the others left. Remembering especially those seen in the two weeks since the upgrade when I could join Frank in laughter and tears and fears. No doubt the simulator made movies better. "What about -"

He shut me up with a raise of his gloved hand.

"You should always - I," he paused, "want to leave them wanting more."

My circuits surged with anger and frustration, with affection and sadness. Like the simulator couldn't make up its mind. A discordant chord of emotions rather than clear single notes. A glitch of some kind. I filed a report in the bug aggregator. Requested a patch.

"No, this will be my last sunrise." He held up a hand when I started to protest. "Get out before I embarrass myself. While I still have the marbles to do it. Everything's signed over to you. Half my success is your doing. It's well-deserved."

"What if I don't want it?" I felt another surge of anger - maybe even rage - and followed the instructions to blast the simulator with oxygen. "What if it has no meaning with you gone?"

"You're getting too emotional, son." Frank gripped my shoulder again and pulled me tighter. He chuckled. "Words I never thought I'd say."

I pushed him away. Something I'd never done. Emotions seeped into my arms, my core, but instead of pausing to name and regulate them, I kept talking. "What if I overrode the upgrade?" I scanned the manual to see if it was possible. "What if I didn't qualify for personhood anymore - wasn't eligible to own all this?" There was nothing about deleting glitchy apps. I'm not sure it was even ethical. I didn't send a query to tech support. Didn't tell Frank it didn't appear possible. Righteousness flooded the queasiness of my first lie. "You want some mega-corp to own this? For me to be a piece of acquired property?"

Frank sighed, took three slow deep breaths. "We need to be logical here, buddy. If they find me non compos mentis - and they will - they'll take this all away." He reached for my shoulder. I pulled away. "Even if I could just give it to you this minute, I'll eventually do something stupid. Or dangerous. You can't be running the mine and keeping an eye on me all the time."

When I stood up, I felt dizzy. I had to pause, flush my system, stare at the sun to get my bearings. The emotion-simulator was impairing my ability to make Frank see the flaws in his plan. The flush failed. My old operating system felt overloaded by this ill-conceived upgrade. "Why not?" I could hear myself say - but it was a distant voice. "Everything's pretty much automated." The sun was beginning to appear as a double image. "I just need an hour a day to check -" The voice - my voice - sounded farther and farther away. My limbs seemed heavier, flooded with anger and sadness and desperation - too many emotions to name. I searched the manual, but the letters were blurry. "I -" My screen went black. "I- I- I-" I tipped over, rolling down into the crater.

---

"For a good sequel," Frank said, "I think somebody has to die. Otherwise, you just have more of the same."

"What's wrong with more of the same?" I asked. When my sight and awareness were restored, I found myself in the vid-room. It was our biggest module - built as a rec room for the human mining crew before everything automated. Movie posters and odd pieces of Frank's memorabilia covered the walls. The floor vibrated from the grinding in the mines below.

"You gave me a scare there," Frank said. Reclining in his rejuvenating chair: muscles prompted to expand and contract, joints bending, straightening. He looked relaxed despite all the mechanical stimulus to counteract the lack of gravity. Wrapped in a blanket. Plaid pajamas. Slippers. He was watching The Last Matriarch Part II. "But you're all checked out. Good as new."

"How did you get me in here?" My hands and limbs had been cleaned and buffed.

"I have my ways," he said and laughed. "A mining bot did the heavy lifting."

"How long have I been out?"

"A few Earth days." Frank retracted the rejuvenator and paused the movie. His hand shook when he clicked the remote. Suddenly he looked old. "Long enough to get a temporary patch to mute your emotions. Long enough to realize I'd made too many assumptions."

"What about The Adventures of Angus Kelly?" I asked. "I think the sequels were better."

"Those were episodes more than sequels," he smiled at my challenge. "And by the end we were screaming, "Go to The Captain, you idiot!"

"How about Desolator 2?"

"Do I come back as the villain?" Frank laughed. Inhaled deeply. Looked back at the screen. The movie was frozen on the family flashback when they're briefly all alive again. "I've got four questions I should've asked," he shifted in his chair to face me, "since you're legally a person now - or will be again as soon as the simulator ramps up. One: do you even want personhood? And two: do you want to spend it here? You could go anywhere. See an orange sunset. Or I don't know... The Pacific Ocean."

I held up a hand as I considered. It felt odd to think so clearly again without the ebb and flow of emotion. "Of course, I want personhood. What bot doesn't? And mining the moon is all I've ever known and loved." The questions seemed so simple now. Almost too simple.

Frank smiled. His shoulders relaxed. He let out a deep sigh.

"But," I said, "how will I feel when the simulator's back at 100%? When the emotions are swirling? I think you need to ask me then."

Frank nodded, paused as if considering whether to speak. "Tech said you were highly emotional. Some older bots react that way. Just how you're built, I guess. But I'll ask again tonight when the simulator's fully ramped up."

We sat in silence. Without the swirl of emotions, I felt no urgency to speak. Like half of me was missing. Like I was playing the piano with one hand. When Rachel was here - must have been eight upgrades ago - she'd used the 3-D printer to make a piano. And then decided to teach me. I had no ear for it, no light touch, no understanding of what music even was. But she persisted. Tried to teach me to play simple tunes with my right hand while she played the left. My discordant notes clanged against her sweet harmonies. She laughed and laughed when I'd screw it up. I missed that laugh when it disappeared. Didn't know it was a sign she'd be leaving too. Didn't know how quiet it would be when she was gone.

"Three: Do you want to spread my ashes by the crater rim?" Frank asked. The simulator flickered - a kind of white noise like when a transmitter's turned on before a word is spoken. "I could pre-automate a mining bot so you didn't have to -"

"Some random mining bot?"

"Just to make it easi-"

"I'll do the spreading," I said, paused as Frank's shoulders relaxed in relief. Mine tensed up. I tried to tamp down a growing ripple of emotions. "What's the plan? Take your helmet off outside and suffocate? Jump in front of a haul tram?"

"Whoa!" Frank's whole body snapped back. "That's so -" He shook his head. "Really? I can't believe you just -" He stood, stretched awkwardly, limped over to the couch and sat next to me. "I'm going peacefully in my sleep." He put a hand on my shoulder. "Is your simulator kicking in?"

I felt a red flicker of anger. Do emotions have colors? I consulted the manual, found a "Yes," in the section on unexplained side effects. "Don't blame my emotions when I don't agree with you."

I was startled by a memory of Rachel saying something similar and felt a bubbling up of sadness and happiness and - Nostalgia? Frank's eyes widened. He looked away. "You felt it too?" I asked.

He nodded, raised his eyes to the ceiling. I could see his shoulders tighten again. His fists clench and unclench.

"What's the fourth question?" I asked.

"Fourth?" He furrowed his brow, tilted his head.

"You said you had four questions." He shrugged and looked confused. Eyes unfocused - almost afraid. "Do I want personhood," I said, "do I want the mine, do I want to spread your ashes and one more."

Frank paused, opened his mouth, closed it. Shook his head. Then his eyes opened wide and sharpened into focus. His worried face settled into a smile. "Yes, I remember. Do you want someone? A son, a mate, a friend? A bot, of course. Someone to make you less lonely - like you've done for me."

"A stranger?"

"At first, I guess, but..." Frank seemed flummoxed by my question. "Everyone's a stranger at first."

"A friend?" I tried to wrap my head around the idea and failed. Was it the simulator kicking in? Or just such a foreign idea?

"When you were out." Frank cleared his throat. "I remembered how hard it was when Rachel left, when we heard she met someone, when she started the family she'd always wanted, when we heard she was sick. I -" His voice cracked. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I know I didn't share a lot, but I never would've gotten through it without you."

"Some random bot?" I asked.

Frank laughed - a rat-tat-tat of sharp breaths. "Buddy!" he said when he caught his breath. "You make it sound like a punishment. I mean, like a sidekick... A right-hand man... Life can be cruel sometimes. You're going to feel it all now. Give yourself a little help."

"A son?" I asked. My emotions still simmered at a low heat, but the memory of them seeped into the space between the bones of logic. And with logic breaking down, I felt like I needed those emotions to tell me what to do. "A son," I said again. I felt the heavy weight of indecision. Of uncertainty. Arguments for and against circled faster and faster. I followed the manual's advice and engaged sleep mode to give me time to think.

---

Frank thought it was weird I named the bot "Frank Jr." but he liked it better than "Sequel." "That's not a name," he'd said.

Junior was the newest model. "All the bells and whistles," Frank had said. Had to look up bells and whistles. Had to laugh every time I looked at Junior and thought of it. I waited to activate his simulator until I got through the cremation and ash dispersal, but Junior was slotted for personhood "right out of the gate" as Frank said. "No need to jerry-rig an old system." I'd programmed Junior to employ arcane sayings to keep me on my toes.

After we spread Frank's ashes, we sat on the crater's edge waiting for sunset to say our goodbyes. "The sun's yellow on Earth," I said.

"Why?" Junior asked. Frank insisted Junior be coded for curiosity. And to ask before looking things up. I was confused at first when Frank said, "Nobody likes a know-it-all." Seemed to me a know-it-all could come in pretty handy. But it makes Junior kind of sweet. He's my size, stronger, more flexible, more versatile. It might have been too much if he was clearly smarter too.

I told Junior about Earth's atmosphere and air particles and wave lengths and light scattering. And silently thanked Frank again for sharing his wisdom about what makes a good companion. I felt a surge of guilt mixed with gratitude. Sadness mixed with joy. Love, I guess. I thought I might be starting to understand the crescendo of more complex emotions.

Junior's no Frank. But he's a better sequel to me than I was to Frank. I made a note to look at second sequels. Are they better than first sequels?

"Frank loved this spot." With a nod of my chin, I referred to all of it: the natural seats at the crater's edge, the rock-pocked lunar landscape rolling off to the horizon, the black sky of white stars and white sun and blue earth.

"Why?" Junior asked.

A wave of irritation surprised me. And then it turned inward. Junior's loaded with the potential to surpass me, but he was literally right out of the shipping crate. I reminded myself to cut him some slack. "Junior," I said, "just asking, 'Why?' doesn't make you curious. You need to ask specific questions."

He nodded. I smiled as I pictured him making a mental note.

"Why did Frank die?"

"Whoa!" I said, hearing an echo of Frank saying it as I spoke. "Okay, you're a quick learner. Well..." I searched my memory banks for ways Frank might have answered. I needed something young Junior could understand. "Every story has a beginning, middle and end. Frank got sick and thought -"

"Are you in the middle?" Junior asked.

"Am I in the middle?" I said, stalling to absorb the question. And the answer. "I guess so." I realized I didn't need to dumb anything down for Junior - I might need to raise my own game a little. "I never thought of that, but yes, I guess I am."

"When will you be at the end?"

"All right," I said. "Let's slow down." I looked at him with a new sense of wonder. He was truly the new and improved model - from toe to temple. Smoother, sharper, smarter, more state-of-the-art. The future. And that made me the past. I took a moment to digest that. He waited patiently.

"Someday - a long time from now, I'll be beyond a new upgrade, a snappier replacement part. I'll be discontinued basically." I had to smile at "discontinued." That was a euphemism Frank would have appreciated. I had the irrational sense of Frank's presence, like he was sitting back in his rejuvenating chair somewhere in the backrooms of my memory. Finding this all amusing.

"Why not," Junior asked, "just transfer your personhood into a new model then?"

Frank was definitely laughing now. I felt squeezed between the two of them, almost suffocated by contradictory emotions, so overwhelming I thought I'd have to shut down, but at the same time so amazing I wanted to savor every bit of it. Everything: Junior. Frank. The exact line of shadow inching imperceptibly up the crater.

"You know, Junior," I said. "Someday, this will all be yours." I started laughing. Not quite Frank's rat-tat-tat, but similar. This was Frank's revenge. And my own cruel revenge in a way. Junior probably was not ready for this talk about endings, but he did ask for it.

"Why are you laughing?" Junior asked. He sounded like Frank and for some reason that made me laugh harder.

"Not sure, really," I said when I caught my breath. "It's the mismatch, I guess, of this moment and the picture in my head. The ridiculous idea that I have the answers. You'll understand when you're older." At least I hoped he would. The manual said laughter was a social emotion - whatever that means. I couldn't remember if we'd prioritized Junior's sense of humor.

The sun slid down its arc almost all the way to the horizon. We stood. I tried to arrange myself into some configuration of wise and humble. But the few words of farewell I'd planned stuck in my electrolarynx when the time came to say goodbye. I still didn't understand sometimes how the emotional affects the physical. I'd read and re-read the entry in the unexplained side effects notes. It seemed like it's the complex emotions that gum up the machinery most. Love, regret, nostalgia, guilt. The ones that are rich and confusing and unpredictable and seemed to be the chief advantage of personhood - in addition to the inheritance laws, of course.

The sun disappeared. Less a setting than a flicking off. There. Then not there. Like Frank in the end. Like me someday. In the darkness, Junior read my planned speech aloud. I felt so proud of him - like he really was my son. I could understand how Frank could forget I wasn't human. Earth's other side was now lit and hovering over the horizon. Someday it would be time to ask Junior about his personhood: where he'd want to spend it and with whom. I didn't know when but I knew it should be sooner than when I was asked. When his future is still full of possibilities

For a moment we stood, hearts full, brains empty. Shoulder to shoulder in the darkness. Then on the count of three, we both kicked rocks off the rim of the crater. We couldn't see them. We couldn't hear them. I have no idea what Junior imagined, but it makes me happy to think they're still rolling.