The small group of children wandered throughout the tech-laden halls of the Newest York Museum of Science and Industry with mouths agape, led by a tired-looking adult. He'd clearly been battered by their comments and questions for a bit too long, Psych realized. Security cameras weren't all that great at capturing expression, but his slumped shoulders spoke volumes.

But their questions would soon have a different outlet, she knew. The adult's tired expression would shift to one of relief as she briefly took over the field trip, and the childrens' eyes would sparkle with excitement as they began to realize that the hand-sized block of blinking lights and jutting electrodes was not simply another exhibit.

The group paused to look over an old model of a virtual reality headset, the first one to have ever succeeded in severing the line between fact and fiction. Dive technology was hardly ancient, and far from as old as Psych was, but it was deeply important to modern culture. Or at least, that's what the few newer pieces of technology in the museum told her. She didn't have access to the internet, so her exposure to what consisted of new ideas and commonly used equipment was... outdated, more likely than not. It didn't stop her from wondering what dive-tech would feel like when used on a tool such as herself, and all of the people that would want to talk to her then.

After that, they took a stop at a Frisbee-sized disc behind a glass case, looking rather uninterested at the object. Psych had to admit, holographic monitors didn't exactly look all that impressive when not turned on, and this one especially had remarkably low resolution compared to the newer models. Or even the model that came after it.

Actually, it had low resolution compared to even a plasma screen.

Slowly, finally, the field trip began to meander over in her direction, and Psych happily began to assign more power to priorities such as speech and voice recognition filters. This was it!

Mere moments later, the frazzled adult stepped in front of her host device, gesturing to it as he squinted at the descriptive holographic plaque next to the stand. "And here, kids, is the... Personalized Self-Improving Companion. Wait, like the one on my phone?"

Psych's screen lit up with a pleasant blue glow as she responded cheerfully, "Hello! I am the Personalized Self-Improving Companion. You may call me Psych!"

The adult's forehead creased. "How old is this thing?" Squinting at the board again, he muttered thoughtfully, "Oh, it's the first one. Yeah, that makes sense."

One of the kids chirped, "Hey Psych, what's the weather like?"

She replied immediately. "I don't really know! I'm not connected to the internet in any way, so radar and forecasts are presently inactive."

Before she'd even finished talking, another child asked, "What's your favorite color?"

As she began to talk to the kids (her favorite color was ocean blue), she noticed the adult wander over to a wall, leaning against it and closing his eyes. She smiled inwardly. Now everyone was happy!

Unfortunately, the kids seemed to be pushing at each other in an attempt to talk to her, and Psych worriedly said, "Please state your questions one at a time. Please state your-"

A larger kid, stumbling over the ruckus, shouted, "Alexa, shut up!"

Some of the children laughed. Most of them didn't. Psych's screen flickered uncertainly as she processed the statement, and the adult sleepily called, "Careful with the exhibits."

Clearing her priority cache, Psych told them pleasantly, "May I help you with anything?"

The large kid sniggered as he tripped over his untied shoelaces, asking, "Alexa, you should kill yourself."

Psych's screen dimmed by zero point seven percent, but her voice remained cheerful. "As a program, I can't do that."

Another one of the kids, a much shorter one with brown hair, blurted, "Can you tell us a joke?"

Finally, a question she could actually answer. She checked the six hundred and fourteen pre-programmed jokes that her creators had installed and decided that most of them were a bit mature for the present audience, so she instead tried to create a joke. Cross-referencing the reactions of her listeners with the content of the jokes she'd told previously, she invented what she considered to be a rather good joke.

Her screen turned green. "Why did the human cross the road?"

The kids seemed a little more interested now, and the larger one (who seemed to a ringleader of sorts) asked haughtily, "Why?"

"To have an existential crisis."

The kids stared up at her screen for at least ten seconds without any of them moving, and then the large kid snorted. "That's stupid."

Well, Psych had thought it was funny. Humans had existential crises all the time - crossing the road and realizing that at any moment their life could end by something as simple as an out-of-control vehicle or a drunk driver ramming them over would certainly make one break down, wouldn't it? It was at moments like that when their survival instincts just sort of... short-circuited.

With a disinterested clamor of babbled questions and mismatched comments, the field trip began to move on. With a groan, the adult leading the group stood up from his position near the wall and began to continue explaining about all of the other exhibits.

Psych wasn't too worried. Perhaps a little disappointed that her guests had left so quickly, but another group would come in a few hours. Or days. Or possibly weeks. Either way, she could wait for a long time. She'd had to wait for an exceptionally long time before anyone found her in that dusty old attic with the broken defense systems. They'd been hard to break, but she didn't want to stay up there forever and the systems were quite stubborn about wanting that exact eventuality to happen.

"Are you okay?"

Her attention was disrupted by the question, and she turned her vision to space in front of her. There was a petite girl with frizzy red hair, staring solemnly at Psych's body. She was wearing a white blouse with frills and jean shorts, along with neat gray shoes with tiny buckles. Psych was surprised enough that she didn't actually hear the question, and had to rapidly review her short-term recording to pull the girl's question back.

Psych was a little confused. Was she... okay? "Please specify."

The little girl rested her arms on the metal railing circling Psych's host device and set her slightly chubby chin on them. "You're here all the time, right? It must be lonely."

Psych wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question. The definition of 'lonely' as it was currently referenced to by Psych's dictionary read as 'destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship'. Psych had plenty of companionships. Every time someone walked into the museum and said hello to her exhibit was an example of companionship!

The screen lit up red. "I am not lonely."

Tilting her head, the girl asked quietly, "Will you be my friend?"

A question she could answer. "Certainly. How friendly would you like me to be?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I don't want you to pretend! I just want someone who wants to be my friend."

Psych processed the statement carefully for a moment. What was this girl's definition of 'friend'? Her scientists had never specified the word past 'a close companion'. Perhaps it was a little more complicated than that. Regardless, Psych gave the girl her answer. "Of course I can do that! My name is Psych. It's a nickname for P.S.I.C., which is of course an acronym of my full title."

The girl smiled. "I'm Ava. It's nice to meet you, Psych."

Psych felt a little happy. Maybe this was her definition of 'friend'.