“It was never anything but a machine. It is still a machine. It will never be anything else.
“Personality is something that no machine can ever have. Idiosyncrasies, yes. No two machines are identical. But any personality that an individual sees in a machine has been projected there by the individual himself; it exists only in the human mind.
“A machine can only do what it is built to do, and teaching a robot is only a building process.” She gave a short, hard laugh. “I couldn’t even build a monster, like Dr. Frankenstein did, unless I purposely built it to turn on me. And in that case I would have done nothing more than the suicide who turns a gun on himself.”
Her head tilted forward again, and her eyes sought those of Mike the Angel. A rather lopsided grin came over her face.
“I guess I’m disenchanted, huh, Mike?” she asked.
Mike grinned back, but his lips were firm. “I think so, yes. And I think you’re glad of it.” His grin changed to a smile.
“Remember,” he asked, “the story of the Sleeping Beauty? Did you want to stay asleep all your life?”
“God forbid and thank you for the compliment, sir,” she said, managing a smile of her own. “And are you the Prince Charming who woke me up?”
“Prince Charming, I may be,” said Mike the Angel carefully, “but I’m not the one who woke you up. You did that yourself.”
Her smile became more natural. “Thanks, Mike. I really think I might have seen it, sooner or later. But, without you, I doubt....” She hesitated. “I doubt that I’d want to wake up.”