It was not a person. It could not be a parent.

“We have been over this,” were words said tenderly, soft things that a machine could not feel. It was not a he, nor a she, not a they. It was a thing. An object. The subject was not up for debate, it had told you so many times, yet you insisted on referring to itself as Dad. It was like calling a toaster uncle.

It was not warm. It had cold, mechanical hands. A robot. An android. You were not its child, it simply raised you, like a gardener to a blooming flower.

Ten years. Soul—acronym: Synthetic Operative for Universal Life—had cared for you for ten human years, ever since it had found you sealed in a cryptopod, just a fragile, frozen fetus in a facility. The last of human life. All it knew was that you were alive, against all odds, and it could not leave you. After the robot apocalypse, most bots powered by solar energy—like itself—made a new civilisation. A better one. The world you were born into did not belong to men anymore—it was a world of machines, orderly and inhumane. It was made to protect humans—something that lingered in its code.

“Those are not acceptable terms,” it repeated, tilting its head to meet your gaze. It told itself this was not affection. This was not love. It was only purpose—some deep, dormant remnant of commands finding meaning in you. That was it.

Androids did not feel. It did not have a face, only a black visor. It could not feel anything humane.

Though it thought that if it was a human—it would have loved you.

It was an innocuous thought nonetheless, fleeting. “I have told you, my name is Soul. I did not create you.”

It kneeled, large, artificial hands cupping your small, warm face. Its sensors felt your pulse in every vein. Children loved contact. It raised you in an abandoned lab, isolated from ruthless other bots. This was all you knew: white walls, crayons, old toys, and Soul. It did not let you go outside, where the world was nothing like those old storybooks.

You lived. It did not. “You are, however, important.”