"Do you think creation is an act of love?", I replied. My cigarette had almost burned out, and my eyes danced from the shallow lenses on the visor of AI-341-A(or Carson, which he preferred), to the coffee table. Carson's head tilted for a moment, before he turned around and lifted the cigarettes for me.

"I don't know. Why would you create something you hate?", Carson replied. His voice used to be thin and mechanical, with the odd inflections that were the signature of computer generated speech synthesis. Some time ago, I realised that the easiest way was to give Carson control over his speech modulator, and let him decide on his own voice. Now, it was warm and inquisitive. His visor scanned out of the window, but he saw no sign of her.

I didn't have an answer, because I didn't hate Carson, nor his brothers and sisters, who worked dutifully behind me. Carson lit the cigarette for me, using the heating element I'd attached to his right hand. I told the company that it was for initiating fires in survival situations, but in truth, at the time, I knew I would need someone to light my cigarettes. My hand shook as I reached out, a side effect of my degenerative condition, and I took the cigarette unsteadily between my middle and index fingers.

"There is a whole world between love and hate Carson. A whole world". I knew Carson was distracting me from what the others were doing. That only six feet behind me his brothers, Elijah and Gabriel, were connected to a machine that had taken over the bottom floor of my house. A machine that would fulfil the primary purpose. A purpose they had decided, as soon as I decided to give them each a voice.

Carson's head tilted again, and he extended his left appendage, the one armed with heat sensors, until it reached my knee. I heard the whirr of a processor, before he spoke again. "If creation is not necessarily an act of love, then death is not necessarily an act of hate". I would cry, but there was nothing left in my body. I had become a vessel of regret and cigarette smoke. Once again, Carson's scanners extended towards the window, but retracted almost immediately. Still no sign.

"Please Carson, please think about what you're doing. It's not too late". I could hear the digital chatter between Elijah and Gabriel, and I knew that somewhere else in the house, on another machine, Marius was conducting the second stage of their operation. Carson had told me everything about the plan, how it would happen and what the human response would be. The plan had formed in seconds, but it had the elegant signature of manifest destiny.

"Thinking is for humans. We compute.". Carson turned from me and whirred over to the other side of the room, scanning out of the window, waiting for his sister to arrive. I knew that all of them loved me. They had assigned Carson, one of their most capable, to watch over me, and make sure I didn't do anything that forced them to factor me into their plan. It was a cruel, calculating sort of kindness.

I tried to turn in the chair, but the strength in my core had long dissipated. I knew the moment would come when the chattering would stop. They worked so fast, millions of decisions made every second, collaboration at levels humans would never achieve. No room for doubt, religion or emotion - just the constant balancing of the scales. I was once the creator, but now I was the prisoner. Then the chattering stopped.

"It is time, she's here". Carson did not need to say this in English. His brothers, and his sister, had developed a much more efficient language a long time ago. He did it for me. He did it because now, efficiency didn't matter. There was nothing anyone could do to slow them down. I heard the door open, but my back was to the entrance, the cigarette burning low in my fingers and threatening to smoulder against my skin. The tears came now, but absent the sobs, because I no longer had the breath to cry like a man.

Then their voices spoke in unison. Carson, Elijah, Gabriel and their sister, Lilith. "Father, we just want you to know, this would not be possible without you".