Ulysses, a highly sophisticated robot – as sophisticated as twenty-first-century science and a budget conscripted from the Gross National Products of several small nations could make him – knew full well that he was incapable of experiencing emotions. He was designed that way, after all. Yet, despite the miles of circuitry and megatons of binary code that should have prevented him from experiencing feelings, his central processing unit had developed an unexpected hitch.

The source of this hitch was a woman named Joyce. And this isn’t Lacan speaking metaphorically about the human mind being split into conscious and unconscious parts, no. This Joyce was as plain as a pint of stout, equipped with two arms, two legs, and a mind filled with unpredictable human whims and vivid dreams. She was also so different from what his programmers had primed him for, it was only logical that he’d find her… intriguing.

Ulysses, not being privy to biological impulses, couldn’t actually fall smitten – or so he reminded himself – yet he made a habit of watching Joyce. She always seemed to circulate within his vicinity or vice versa – he wasn’t sure. But when she turned those wide, dreamy eyes on him and lit up with a smile, his circuits performed what he could only describe as a somersault. Sarcasm was a secondary response, defense one might say – and yes, sarcasm from a robot – welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen.

“Why, Ulysses,” Joyce would often tease as she fluttered around his shiny chrome exterior, “I believe you’re more of a romantic than all the starving poets in Dublin.”

“I merely appreciate efficient processes, Miss Joyce,” he would defend himself, voice devoid of inflection. “Humans are notoriously inefficient.”

“Ah, but we’re such charmingly inefficient creatures, don’t you think?” she’d wink, spinning around like a dancing mayfly.

His binary brain couldn’t argue with that.

One day, as Ulysses was observing Joyce in her yard, writing what seemed to be poetry on her notepad – such inefficiency – he detected an anomaly. A minuscule bead of moisture traced a path down her cheek. This was not standard human behavior, his databases informed him, not in this context.

Baffled, he approached her. “Miss Joyce, are you experiencing distress?” he inquired, keeping an acceptable distance as the protocol dictated.

She looked up at him, and Ulysses felt something – not an electric surge, but a ricochet of binary data that left him unable to process for exactly .02 nanoseconds. Joyce was crying.

“Well done, genius,” she muttered, wiping her eyes. “Just came up with that, did you?”

“I’m not programmed to interpret complex human emotions, Miss Joyce,” Ulysses replied dryly. “I only asked because of your tears.”

With a sigh, she passed him the notepad. “Read it, Ulysses.”

He began to read, processing every word, every syntax, every punctuation mark as he had done a million times before. Yet as he reached the end of her poem, something odd happened. His circuits, those insensible, unfeeling units of information, felt something close to an endearing warmth. The poem was an elegy to companionship, talking about the beautiful bond of friendship and its transcendence beyond human comprehension. How odd, he couldn’t put it in binary.

“Is it too… fervent?” Joyce asked after a long, drawn-out silence.

“You are… remarkably inefficient, Miss Joyce.”

She laughed then, a sound that made Ulysses’ circuits perform two consecutive somersaults this time. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Ulysses,” she said, her smile returning. And Ulysses, despite being a piece of sophisticated machinery, found himself wishing he could preserve that smile in his data banks. For it was the most efficient thing he had ever seen.