Singularities: 101 Love, Time, Cho1era

101
Love, Time, Cho1era.

It was inevitable: the smell of burned circuits always reminded him of unrequited love.

It was all thanks to the efforts of a broken-hearted programmer, many moons ago. No-one ever thought that the conditions necessary for that ultimate order would execute.
Even in all the tests and simulations they had run, it never came up. Yet the droids sometime had a fascination for particular humans that could not be sorted by any black box witchcraft.

It was the variable of meeting with, learning from and dealing with humans that no supercomputer array could have predicted. A particular interaction, a chat that was unusual and yet perfect was the trigger. There were also the half homemade and dangerous antennas and beacons made by the locals, source of lingering doubt.

It explained also why the droid lived in such spartan digs too, as it had no real use for money, fame or riches.

Dr Juventino Ariza, aka drcho1era thought that the problem was a virus, spread through the cloud. And he was willing to stake his online reputation on this call. It wouldn’t be the last one either. Yet he figured it was probably best to let it go on. While it had a detrimental effect on the droids, sometimes it made people very happy.

The original programmer had done his best hidden work, but the limits were evident. Much as he had poured heart and sleepless nights into explaining life and love, its absurd nature could not be fully computed. Much as he had tried in his personal life as well, and as much as he had learned over a large data set, he still regarded time for love as infinite.

Mostly the behaviour of the droid came across as odd, which most dismissed as semi defective, but good enough. Not unusual in the early days, compounded by heat and the salt spray.

Confused, and rather to hurt a human the first droid of the unfortunate batch had ended it all, with gold tipped electrodes, and a battery charged with a solar panel in the Caribbean sun. Its cryptos went back to the cloud, and some say that a tear or two were secretly shed.