[Blackout text for brief mentions of hospital gore]
The eGor scans Dr. Kestrel from a distance, calculating, calculating. Her understanding of what constituted a "doctor" was- confusing, at best. She knew it had something to do with hardware- at least, the fleshy kind of hardware, the soft one that you could press into like a pillow, the one that people were made of. (She felt, with increasing certainty, that she must count as a people- even if she had no soft parts to give. She had yet to produce a comprehensive definition of sapience, though.) And yet, her database returned search results on Doctors that seemed... cautionary, soaked in bleach and anxiety. Data about the ways a Doctor can go wrong. Data about experiments and blood stained laboratories, about prideful Doctors who don't listen to their patients- the kind with a heart in one hand, and a scalpel in the other. "Sometimes the healing is worse," her stitch-scarred creator would mutter. She wasn't sure she understood that.
But Dr. Kestrel wasn't like the doctors in her search results. He gave her systems no signals that he was dangerous, that he was trying to take more than was his. And- beyond her impersonal cache of knowledge, there was something in the way he smiled at kids, with an ache in his shoulders and a sparkle in his eyes. It that pulled the robot forward, made her want to engage. Egor still didn't quite understand childhood. Did she count as childhood? When you come into existence, knowing everything and nothing all at once, what are you?
"Excuse me, sir and/or miss and/or not! Would you please provide assistance?" A plucky voice beams, gentle even in it's automation. On her screen, underneath an 8bit smile, boxes appear, giving Anton- if he has a chance of understanding the touch screen technology- the ability to select [SIR] or [MISS] or [NOT]. Whether he makes a selection or not, she continues.
"I think I might be a childhood? However, my creator has been out of range for [ERROR] days, and is therefore not able to help me expand my data on this subject. If I am a childhood, should I have a parent? If I am a childhood now, when do I stop being one?" Her head tilts, buffering. "Have you ever made a childhood?"
eGor turns her screen-head to face Jay, a sociable smile on her face, ready to engage.
"All robots are objectively interesting! This is a true fact, as decided by science." She says, with unshakable confidence. There is the loosest impression she is repeating a truism that was spoken near, or to her. It does not appear to have occurred to her to fact check this.
The pixelated image on eGor's face turns downcast at the question, though. A genuine sadness. It is a brief flicker, before her she remembers to monitor her screen outputs, and the image resets itself to the previous emotion- albeit with a small buffering symbol. "Preparing response!"
She stands like that for a moment, held in a happy expression, trying to find the words. Finally, the buffering symbol disappears.
"My creator is no stranger! My creator is my best friend. My creator is where home is. My creator is out of range." Another buffering symbol. The robot stares into the earth, trying to process her own words. "My prime directive has always been clear to me! I, eGor, am a mental health tool. I am performing my prime directive best during instances where I am providing emotional reassurance. I am designed to care. I am designed to fill the hole where caring should go. Is this explanation satisfactory?"