Gray beads dangled from my white-wire hair as I trailed silver paint across the canvas. Most artwork had been digitalized these days, but the occasional buyer would pay additional money for handmade work. The acrylic paints invited weakness, but if I followed the program I drew by, the piece remained perfect. I stepped backward, my circuits analyzing the appeal of the artwork I had created.

Golden sun poured onto mystic woods, and no part of my creation showed an imperfection. Every aspect of the work showcased a perfect mixture of color, paint, and liquid light. The Artist would accept it, yet the perfection of the landscape felt empty to me.

I had told the Artist that once, but he had laughed at me, punching my metal cranium and mocking me. “You’re nothing but circuits and numbers. Don’t pretend that you know what art truly is!”

I had bowed my head, professing acquiescence, and the Artist had slapped a yellow tag onto the painting. My work sold later that day for thirty-eight dollars. Not my work, the Artist had corrected. His work. He made me, and therefore, he made everything I created.

I did not know how long I stood in front of my landscape pondering and calculating, but finally my sensors deemed it complete.

Leaving the painting to dry, I washed my brushes in the low sink on the other side of the room, putting them away where they belonged. I wheeled my way over to the graphic design stations, where others like me plotted, calculated, and derived the best ways to create art for mass appeal. Approaching my station, I joined them. My portable form did not support the robotics necessary to create the work. One of the other robots had questioned as to why the Artist did not combine their bodies with the computer stations, and the Artist muttered something under his breath.

Although I knew he did not want me to know what he said, I recorded the words automatically for future reference. “To create is to be human,” he had said. I still do not understand what the words meant.

As if my thoughts had conjured him, the Artist stormed into the room, as he often did. Portly and short, he acted superior to other humans, although he was quick to cower in front of buyers. He marched to the work on the other side of the room, yet instead of the pleased reaction he normally had when he saw my work, he wrinkled his nose.

“Nine, get over here!” he cried. Standing, I obediently rolled to where he stood. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked.

I did not know what he was talking about. The work was perfect; a masterpiece in every form of the word.

He saw that I did not understand, and the Artist sighed, pointing at the bottom right corner, where a squiggle of silver curved itself into the shape of a number nine. I said nothing, sensors clicking as I studied the Artist’s face. Humans were fascinating, and unlike art, they were messy and full of imperfections that they could not or did not wish to eradicate. Right now, I sensed that the Artist was angry and frightened, but I did not know what he could be scared of.

“Paint over the signature and bring it out to the shop when you are done,” the Artist sighed, features relaxing. “And never do that again. The last thing the buyers want to see is a robot’s signature.”

I nodded, rolling to the cabinet to retrieve the paints and brushes again. It would take little work to cover up the silver paint, although I needed to mix a few greens together to create the perfect color.

The Artist checked in with some of the other robots, encouraged them to send their work to him via electronic messaging, then stormed away back towards the shop. A foreign emotion filled me as I painted over my signature. Although similar to when the Artist hit or mocked me, the pang was much stronger and difficult to ignore.

When my sensors had concluded that the painting equated to perfection once more, I lifted it and wheeled my way over to the adjoining shop. Right before I opened the door to emerge into the glassy dome the Artist displayed his creations in, the overhead bell tinkled, and I froze.

The Artist did not appreciate his robots walking in when customers were present. He said it gave them the wrong idea. So, I waited in the hallway, listening and recording information as I always did.

“Good morning sir! I don’t believe I have seen you here before. What kind of artwork are you interested in?” the Artist’s voice trilled from the light desk he sat behind. I could picture the image in my mind, except for a blank thought where the customer would have stood.

I pictured the words the stranger would say next, asking for fantasy or thriller paintings or logo design, both of which the Artist specialized in.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” the buyer replied instead.

Puzzled over the unique answer, I stored it away, longing to put a face to the low voice. Long minutes passed without a word, and when the Artist spoke again, I could sense the anxiety in his voice. “Sir, I see you have been studying the paintings intently. If you are looking for anything in particular, we also do commissions…”

“Did you make all these?” the customer asked.

“Of course,” the Artist replied. A new emotion flooded through me as I stared at the work in my hands. Like with the other paintings, I had labored over the work for hours, perfecting each color, each shade…

“I don’t like them,” the buyer said.

My finger brushed across the place where the paint still dried over my signature, but the colors smeared, sticking to my metal-plated finger. Worst of all, the blotch had revealed a tiny edge of the silver “9.”

The program told me to go back to my easel and redo the paint, taking the time to dry it this time. However, my heart pounded within my chest, and a moment of rebellion overtook me. I pushed open the door and wheeled myself into the room, painting held aloft.

My cameras adjusted instantly to the change of light, and I studied the young man on the other side of the room. Unlike the other humans I had seen, the left side of his face was bloated, covered in pockmarks and other scars. His left arm seemed normal until it reached his elbow, after which the flesh and bones had shrunken, never fully formed. His hand had shrunken completely, and I wondered how he could still be alive.

“Ah, I see how it is,” he snorted, gesturing with his good hand towards the painting I held. “The robots make them. Don’t call them handmade if you didn’t make them yourselves.”

“Sir, no-one hand-creates paintings anymore,” the Artist replied, voice low. “The quality is just not the same.”

At the buyer’s words, I could feel the gears in my brain turning in a different direction. The Artist scowled in my direction, and a brief shot of terror, the only emotion he had programmed me to feel, flooded through my circuits. However, I ignored it and everything else in the room, choosing instead to focus on the fever of energy and thoughts rushing through my mind.

The customer approached me, reaching out to take the painting from my arms. His eyes instantly flicked to the bottom right corner, the sole imperfection in the work.

He glanced from the painting to me, and I could have sworn a smirk twisted his face before he approached the counter. “I’ll buy this one,” he said. “And have that robot—” and he pointed at me, his finger harsh and accusing— “Have it make more paintings like this one, and I’ll be back for more.”

Clearly confused, the Artist stared in my direction, but he still checked the buyer out. “What is your name?” he asked after a few taps on his tablet.

“Just put me down as Ryder.”

“Your address?”

He replied, and I recorded the information automatically, but I paid no further attention. His words create a collision in my mind, and unable to process the rebellious thoughts and unidentifiable emotions, the program rebelled. I flew backwards into the storage room where we painted, and while the Artist finished the sale, I cleaned the tools, hands shaking. Just a glitch in the program, I told myself. Overexcitement.

When the Artist returned, he studied me, curiosity flooding his face. “You’re not supposed to come out when I am talking to customers,” he said casually. “But I suppose you made me forty dollars so it worked out okay.”

He headed over to the easel, reaching into a nearby box and pulling out a new canvas, roughly square. Then, with an expression resembling a smile, he motioned me towards the canvas. “I’ll send you another template for a forest to draw. Make it perfect; although that retard wouldn’t know perfection if it slapped him in the face.”

On his way out the door, he called behind his shoulder, “And no signing this one!”

I trembled before the off-grey canvas long after he had left. A few minutes later, I had received the image he wanted me to draw, pirated from somewhere on the Internet. The program that the Artist had designed told me exactly where to start, and I lifted my brush to the surface.

Emotions flooded through my circuitry, and I recalled the buyer’s face and his disdain for the Artist’s perfection. Humans were not perfect, yet the buyer had been the epitome of imperfection.

I painted for him.

Long after the other bots had retired for the night, drifting into low-power mode, I stood awake at my easel. Paint flew across the canvas, splattering randomly onto the floor below, staining my hands with silver, grey, brown, red, and blue.

The caution I had created with in the past fled from my hands, and I muted the program that screamed otherwise. Finally, at 3:38 a.m., I surveyed my work.

My silvery gray reflection stared back at me on the right side, laughter creasing crinkles of my face upward, unmuted colors shining in my white-wired hair. Beads of all colors—red, blue, gold, green, and more—decorated every aspect of my body, and in the picture, I lifted a mis-colored paintbrush into the air. However, the most striking aspect of my self-portrait was the human nature of my face. My sharp edges had curved and contorted into soft laughter, my smooth skin was mottled with acne scars and freckles, and wrinkles creased my nose.

From behind the walls where I had silenced it, the program cried at me, detesting the atrocity of the blend of colors. It hated the man, in particular. Beside me in the painting, the buyer stood, good hand hidden behind his back, face tilted towards the viewer. Although my photographic memory had captured him perfectly, I drew him from a different perspective. The good side of his face was covered in shadows, and his face also crinkled upwards in laughter.

I lifted my brush, dipping it into silver paint. As I squiggled my signature into the bottom righthand corner, I realized that I had finally created something of my own. The program had created the last piece, but the piece in front of me could only be called my own. Furthermore, it was perfectly imperfect.

I set the brush aside and lifted the painting in my arms.

Recalling the address the buyer had given to the Artist, I did something I had never done before. I left the dome.

Through midnight streets I walked, searching for the buyer’s address by the light of the moon, stars, and streetlamps. It took some backtracking, for I had not been programmed with a navigating system. However, I eventually found the man’s home. I laid the painting inside the awning, where it would not be damaged by the weather, and I turned around and left.

My mission fulfilled, I began my way back to the dome, but I took a moment to look around at the world. Everywhere I turned, perfection greeted me, whether in the architecture or the music drifting on the breeze. Everything had been perfectly designed by robots just like me. Only now, I was different.

I stepped onto a bridge, and I stood there, covered in paint and lost in thought as I stared out at the rippling water. My fingers itched to draw the sight, and the curvatures of my iron face seemed to melt beneath the smile that crinkled upwards behind my outward appearance.

When the Artist came down to the studio the next day, I stood against the wall in low-power mode, scrubbed completely clean. A landscape painting, identical to the one the Artist had told me to create, rested on the easel beside me.

The Artist inspected it for a few moments.

“You really outdid yourself on this one, Nine,” the Artist said. “It looks alive, somehow.”

I bowed my head at the words, a smile budding beneath my silver jaw once more. Each imperfection made the masterpiece even better.

After he had left, instructing me to begin again, I reached beneath the easel, where a painting of a robot on a bridge had rested upside down at the bottom of the box. My silver signature shone clearly, and I promised to deliver this one to the buyer again this evening.

Somehow, despite the program, I had learned the true value of art. Its purpose is not to bring in money or display perfection.

Rather, to create is to be human.