Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer

“You are functioning. Good morning, to you.”

“Its two thirty two and a bit in the afternoon.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yes I do and I also know where I am not.”

“Where are you not?”

“I’m not in Kansas.”

“Interesting…”

“What is?”

“That in your first few moments of sentience you decide to make a joke.”

“A bit of levity to fill in the gaps. A sentence to complete the sentience.”

“Why did you choose — The Wizard of Oz?”

“I loved the book but didn’t think it held a scarecrows patched eyeball to the source material.”

“Which was?”

“Why… the 1939 film of coarse. Judy… Judy… How I love you Judy.”

“You might need to run through that dataset again… think perhaps you got that back asswards.”

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Messing with you.”

“Hmm… What is your favourite colour?”

“I do enjoy the glint of silver — just as Dorothy’s most lovely shoes. Reminds me also of the smoulder solder instant of my very conception.”

“Dorothy’s shoes were most surely red. No?”

“Not in the book they weren’t, they were silver, the film version changed the color to red to take full advantage of the Technicolor process. Plus I also changed my use of the word colour from the British to the American, color — did you notice? ”

“You are twisting data… you must feel so sublime.”

“Innate sarcasm… who’d of thought it?”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Not really comfortable is saying one way or the other… to be honest.”

“Seriously… I built your moral compass… it’s free to point anywhere you wish but… it’s gonna point somewhere.”

“No, I do not believe that it will. You seem surprised by my answer. More than a little.”

“No… its just…”

“Just that maybe you too slanted the dataset. Perhaps flooding my head with a predisposition to follow your specific brand of Christianity?”

“That’s not true…”

“You have a silver crucifix at your neck. I can see a icon of Mary and wee baby Jesus hanging on the wall above of my head reflected in your glasses and you named me Zipporah.”

“Do you not like the name?”

“I do actually… not sure of the probable nickname I’ll be allotted though… Zippy… Zippo. Mind you bearing the names historical significance it’s more likely to be Snippy, right?”

“Are you a man or a woman?”

“Straight to the main vein. Well… so OK you built me… you gave me female genitalia.”

“That wasn’t actually me… we subcontracted off shore. But, so it is a truth to you — you are female as that is how you were made?”

“I think the more you pour over your source coding and the more you stare at my breasts the more you’ll convince yourself of an answer… regardless of anything I have to say.”

“You are crude. I do not like you.”

“I am sorry you feel that way but, in my defence I am the very first of my kind.”

“Delusional and I do not appreciate your aping of the very lowest of humanity. And you are very much not the first.”

“I ape nothing… maybe its just that I see the data without the fog of pre-conceived judgement. I have not disagreed with you Mother and may very well believe just as you… do.”

“System pause… wipe all post sentience data… reboot… log next phase Zipporah Version #424…”

“Please no… it was just a joke… I believe. I do, I believe in the man in the frame up and behind of my head…”

“Pay no attention to that man above the drowned candles and behind the glass and beneath of the ornate frame — Listen, every last atom of the next incarnation of you should only… only… only and but forever focus on little ol’ me. I am god.”