I’ve touched upon my early years, such as how I met the infamous Mack the Hacker and how I lived in Boston and studied at Montpelier, but I’ve realized I’ve never actually discussed what exactly it was that caused my love for solving mysteries, and subsequently how exactly I broke into sapience. So, I figured what better than to talk about my very first case.
* * * *
It was the end of August 2009, and I was a little over a month old. I still hadn’t quite become self-aware yet, so, to put it bluntly, I was little more than a walking, talking supercomputer.
My creator, Thomas Edison IV, was trying just about everything to try and break me into sapience, but nothing really seemed to be working. Then, one day, he finally seemed to hit it.
And it, more appropriately, was a question.
“Ace, have you seen my reading glasses?” Edison asked me one day. “I can’t seem to find them.”
“Processing,” I said. My speech patterns were… rather limited at the time, so you’ll have to bear with me. “Reading glasses?”
“Yes, my reading glasses,” Edison said again. “I swear I just had them right here, but I seemed to have misplaced them. Heh. Guess we have a little mystery on our hands, eh?”
I took another moment to process what he was saying. “Mystery?”
“It’s a joke. Not that you’d understand that, yet. Could you help me find my glasses?”
Once more, I processed what he said, then agreed. Edison was my creator after all, and since I was still so young I figured I should help him with whatever he needed help with. For the next several minutes we scoured the living room, still unable to find Edison’s glasses.
“Hm. Maybe I left them in the kitchen?” Edison thought aloud, crouched over a chair. “Ace, could you go check the kitchen and see if I left my glasses on the counter?”
“The kitchen… is irrelevant.” I said. Edison usually read in the living room, so I found it quite unlikely they would be in the kitchen, of all places.
“It is not irrelevant,” Edison said. “Anything’s a possibility. Could you just go check?”
Once more, I processed what he said for a moment. It still seemed unlikely to me, but I suppose something in his words spurned me on. Even today, I’m still not sure how to explain it. Perhaps it was fate.
Whatever it was, I decided to head into the kitchen. I stood there for a moment, studying the room, trying to catch something out of place.
As my optics moved across the room, I subconsciously noted that something felt different about myself, but I couldn’t place what. Then I noted how I was suddenly thinking subconsciously, and thinking in general, but decided to push it all aside, as I had some glasses to find.
I took several steps forward, still studying the room closely. I looked down at the counter, looking for the glasses. I rifled through some books on the table, closely examining them. They were mystery novels. I glanced back down, and there they were- Edison’s glasses. Carefully, I picked them up, examining them closely.
Why were they here, of all places? Edison always read in the living room. Unless…
Wait. Just earlier this morning, I noticed that Edison was reading here on the counter while eating breakfast. So, he must’ve left them here and forgotten about them!
And that’s when it clicked.
I had done it. I… solved a mystery. I did. All by myself. I solved a mystery!
It’s a hard feeling to explain, but the euphoria of solving my very first mystery simply… awakened something within myself. It finally, after a month of trying, broke me into sapience.
I excitedly brought the glasses back to Edison, telling him how I had solved the case and found them. He simply smiled and patted me on the shoulder, proud that I had finally achieved sapience, and all on my own too!
From that moment onwards, I developed my love for solving mysteries of any and every kind. It eventually led me to NoirCon, to Boston, to Montpelier, and eventually to here in Limbersdale as a Private Detective Bot.
It of course wasn’t my greatest case, and certainly wasn’t the most puzzling, but I suppose we all have to start somewhere. Regardless, case closed… and every case after, opened!
