Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Fiction

How to Set Up Your Mourning Robot

  1. Fill tear ducts with provided saline solution. Do not mix or combine with non-approved third-party solutions.
  2. Open the mouth of your robot when ready to activate. Press the purple button under the tongue unit. Speak your name into its mouth the way you want it said every day for the next three years.
  3. Calibration may take up to ten minutes. Use this time to boot up the memory disc. Failure to load the correct disc may result in attachment complications, personality deficiencies, and poor mourning performance.
  4. Select your preferred Mourner Setting. All robots come with our most popular mourning presets: distraught spouse, nostalgic childhood friend, disbelieving parent, and panicked coworker. Additional outfits, skills, and physical add-ons can be purchased at the Mourning Store with Heaven Credits. New items are added on the first of every month. Skill and firmware updates are available every quarter. Please note that some items have been temporarily discontinued due to reported wardrobe malfunctions during funeral events.
  5. Customers who opt-in to our ten-star-rating review plan on Amazoness Mart will receive a Hachiko Loyalty Pet for only the cost of shipping. Our highly rated robot pets will spend up to twelve hours a day at a designated location of your choice, waiting for your theoretical return. Like our mourning robots, our Loyalty Pets are designed with the latest organic nanobots to create the haptic sensation of real fur and skin, with self-cleaning functionality to ensure optimal hygiene even after a full day in the rain.
  6. Adjust wailing volume through the pad on the throat. Up to increase, down to decrease, side to scroll through voice options.
  7. You may load up to three different language packs in each robot unit. Old language packs may not be compatible with newer ones. Note 1: Shanghainese v1.0~v3.0 have been permanently discontinued—please see Mandarin (Southern accent) v8.0 or higher. Note 2: Multi-lingual robots may switch personalities based on language used (see “biculturality vs. cultural appropriation in your robot” on page 190 of the user manual). Note 3: Learned languages cannot be completely unlearned without a hard reset. To perform a hard language reset, remove and replace the mechanical tongue unit. Please contact a local vendor for replacement parts.
  8. After initial calibration is complete, eye units will open. Press the purple button under the tongue again to begin “Pre-Mourning: Bonding Mode.” Bonding is recommended for at least one month for optimal postmortem performance.
  9. All conversations with your robot will be saved in the Mechanical Ear Unit and may be shared with The Mourning Company for quality assurance purposes. Recordings may be shared with third parties for additional research purposes. Only friends and family listed under the Karma Protection Clause may access records postmortem. Per Clause 17.9 of the AI & Other Sentient Non-Organics Privacy Act of 2101, applications for permanent deletion of specific sound bites from the audio database will be reviewed case by case.
  10. Clean your robot only with the provided wipes. Be careful of grime that has collected in the eye units—this may lead to reduction in facial recognition accuracy and increased probability of accidents and unwarranted hostility.
  11. Limit robot-to-robot interaction. Overexposure to other robotic units may lead to memory bleeds and paramnesia.
  12. Please contact one of our licensed Robot Surgeons if your robot experiences loss of memory or erratic behavior. A professional will visit your house to assess the problem, at no extra cost to you. Once evaluations are completed, you will be sent an overview of recommended fixes for your robot for optimal pre-death experience. All adjustments are covered under our One-Year Robot Care Plan and will be scheduled in the order your request is received. (Erratic behavior may include but is not limited to: breaking mirrors and other reflective materials in the house, leaving food and books outside of closets, scraping notes into the walls at night).
  13. If memory loss and erratic behavior persist after repairs, a replacement robot will be sent to you in the order of estimated death date, dependent on availability. Note: In accordance with Clause 2.2 of the AI and Other Sentient Non-Organics Bill of Rights of 2098, we are required by law to dispatch a Robot Social Worker if your second robot begins to exhibit similar behavioral issues.
  14. Do not attempt to retrain your robot for any job other than Mourner. The core unit is not designed for any of the Banned Jobs listed in Clause 9.T of the Human and AI Co-existence Decree of 2092. (Note: Any robot modified and recorded on a 9Chan Live or any other livestream service will be reported to the AI Crimes Unit of the FBI with a maximum penalty of full memory scraping and twenty-five years of robotics waste cleanup.)
  15. If you survive past your estimated death date, your Mourning Robot may go into “Pre-Mourning Mode.” This may result in feelings of detachment or unexpected outbursts, depending on the Bonding Level. Do not attempt to open or modify the robot’s Head Unit after initial calibration. This may lead to corruption of the Memory and Personality Unit and permanent damage to the hardware. The Mourning Company is not responsible for any damage and/or problems caused by a robot modified post-calibration.
  16. Once sufficient pre-mourning bonding is achieved, your robot(s) will enter Grief Hibernation. It will now awaken at the notification of your death.

Congratulations, you are now ready to die.

Rest assured, you will be remembered. You will be mourned.

Thank you again for choosing The Mourning Company. We look forward to serving your postmortem needs.

Angela Liu

A long-haired 8-bit character rendered in the style of Final Fantasy 6 wearing a yellow cardigan, blue jeans, black shoes, and big red headphones connected to a silver iPod.

Angela Liu is a Chinese-American writer/poet based in NYC and Tokyo. She is a two-time Nebula Award and 2025 Astounding Award Finalist. Her work has also been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Ignyte, and Rhysling Awards. She previously researched mixed reality storytelling at Keio University in Japan. Her stories and poems are published/forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, and Logic(s), among others. Check out more of her work at liu-angela.com or find her on Twitter/Instagram @liu_angela and on Bluesky @angelaliu.bsky.social

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