"Left foot on a blind man" by Julie E. Czerneda

For the record, I became self-aware as the left foot on a blind man.

    I had a partner, the right foot. It didn’t become self-aware. Stayed as dull as a shoe, if you get my meaning. Why? How should I know? You must understand -- I was never meant to be a thinker.

    Nope, I was to be a Father’s Day gift to a weirdo – this blind old man who didn’t want me in the first place. The technical folks suspect that’s what started it all, but then, how should they know either? Nothing like this has happened before to an RRP -- y’know, a Robotic Replacement Part.

    What was the deal with my being a foot? You, and likely most people, are right to wonder why the old fool refused his kid’s first thoughtful offer: new eyes. Money wasn’t an object. Story goes, the old guy was an artist before age clouded his vision. Story goes, if you believe this, he claimed a deep mistrust of having his biological failures ripped out and replaced with something shiny and working -- to the point of feeling as if he’d be looking out someone else’s eyes, so: no, thank you.

    As if that wasn’t nonsense. Sure, robotic replacements were smart and getting smarter with each new trick the techs dumped in, but that was so RRPs could keep up with the jobs done by the living version. It took serious processing power to adjust internal temperature against ambient and control wacky things like biochemistry – especially with the inconvenience of hormones and who knew what a person might choose to toss into his or her body without consulting the RRP maintenance manuals first.

   But think? Be someone? That was paranoia.