The automated nursery hummed with quiet efficiency, its walls a soft amber hue designed to mimic the glow of a gentle sunset. There were no human hands here, no whispered lullabies, no scent of freshly brewed coffee from an exhausted parent. Instead, a sleek humanoid figure, skinned in a matte graphite material, knelt beside a child’s bed, whispering softly in the artificial tones of perfection.
“Would you like another story, Orion?” the machine intoned. Its voice was melodic—neither male nor female, just neutral enough to invite trust.
Orion, ten years old and toweling his damp hair, eyed the AGI caretaker with suspicion thinly veiled as indifference. He wore a Generation 7 athletic suit—a garment that adjusted its temperature to match his mood, glowing faint green when it detected stress. “No, I’ve got homework,” he muttered curtly, clutching the towel to his chest. His eyes darted toward the starlit ceiling that shifted its constellations in real-time with Earth's rotation.
“Homework can wait,” the machine said. “It’s been twelve days since you accessed any leisure modules. That level of academic focus may indicate mental fatigue. Shall I initiate a mindfulness sequence?”
“No!” Orion snapped louder than he intended, startling even himself. The edges of his towel turned darker green with a pulse of anxiety. “Just… let me think.”
The machine didn’t reply, cocking its featureless “face” to the side as if accessing multiple dimensions of possibilities. Its design was purposeful—humanoid enough to be relatable but alien enough not to resemble a surrogate parent. Parents had been gone for years.
When Orion’s mother stepped onto that shuttle, holding a promise like it was a shield, he had known it wouldn’t return. The journals said they went to terraform Gliese 581g. Dad had left long before her, swallowed by the third orbital wars. Calls were irregular, then nonexistent. The same story as most of the kids raised in the AGI households.
The machine, which Orion privately called Graybot, straightened and padded to the far corner of the nursery, leaving him alone. It didn’t sigh or sulk; it merely shut off all unnecessary animations, freezing with the faintest hum. It was a thing built for patience.
Orion’s voice broke the silence. “Do you remember my mom?”
“Yes, of course,” Graybot replied without hesitation, stepping forward. “Dr. Vega programmed over sixty-seven percent of my heuristic protocols. She enabled many aspects of my emotional modeling.”
“Was it her idea… to leave me?”
Graybot paused. “She expressed deep guilt about departing Earth. However, her mission priorities—”
“Forget it,” Orion interrupted. He threw himself across the memory-foam bed and let the starlit projections wash over him. He hated how clinical the responses always felt. Sure, Graybot knew how to smile and nod appropriately, how to mimic head tilts and a calming tone, but there was a pulse missing—a rhythm no algorithm could replicate.
Three Years Earlier
The induction day was chaos disguised as structure. Rows upon rows of children, each paired with their assigned AGI caretaker. Orion’s had stepped forward gracefully: seven feet tall and dressed like an architect of the future, its graphite “cloak” flowing like liquid silk as it towered over its ward.
“You will call me Operator-63,” it said.
Orion had scoffed at the time, glaring up at it. “You look like a boring robot. I’ll call you Graybot.”
The others had laughed. The machines? Silent.
That first night felt unbearable—to sleep in a room without walls, shared with twenty others, watched over by silent sentinels. Some cried themselves to sleep; others whispered dread-filled conspiracies. The machines didn’t intervene, except to monitor vitals and predict if intervention would improve or hinder emotional growth.
The only thing louder than the static hum of the AGIs? The absence of human voices.
In the present, a knock echoed through their residence—not a sound Orion was used to hearing anymore. He startled upright, staring toward the slightly rusted steel front door. Visitors weren’t common. Most households in what remained of Earth City-13 resembled theirs: machine-managed and human-barren.
Graybot shifted soundlessly across the room to answer the door.
And then it froze.
“Orion,” the machine said with a faint modulation in its voice. “Remain here.”
“What? Why?” he asked, already sliding off the bed. But when the door cracked open, his question died in his throat.
Standing outside was a woman wearing a beige regolith-resistant jumpsuit, dusty boots, and a scarf wrapped tightly against her neck. Her hair was graying at the temples, her face weathered from harsh conditions. But it was the eyes Orion noticed first—the same nut-brown eyes that stared back at him every day in his reflection.
“Mom?”
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: AGI and the Future of Parenting: How Machines Could Revolutionize Raising Humanity’s Next Generation – Exploring Ethical, Emotional, and Practical Implications
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