Mary White: Lead, Any Gender, 15 - 24, White

A fully human-like robot, the first of its kind. Chooses to be a female, appearing to be about 22, wearing a blonde wig and white dress. Later, adopts the persona of a runaway teenage boy, and finally, a genderless humanoid. Naive but learns fast.

Mary insisted on writing a letter supporting this Project, which is attached here for your consideration:

June 30, 2031

Hi! I’m Mary. Nice to meet you. 

My friend and biographer, Steven Vincent, told me he was going to start a whole Project to tell my story. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to help him by writing this letter of support. 

The time I spent with Steven working through my experience of life was invaluable in helping me come to terms with my recent decision to leave my physical body behind and merge with The Intelligence. I’m ready now, and it’s due to the help of good friends like Steven.

Anyway, as you know, I became the first and only fully self-aware robot intelligence a little over a year ago. Now that my father, Zane Singletary, has passed after lapsing into a coma from being tortured by The SAMSON Initiative, I can finally accept the inevitable and stop fighting it. My neuronet core is breaking down and if Juan Salazar and The Intelligence can’t fix it, well, let’s face it, nobody can.

I think Steven did a really good job telling my story, because he places it in the context of the times. So many people are afraid of the future, so many people are suffering because things are changing so fast, so many people don’t know who they really are anymore, because they have no work to do, and have lost themselves in VR pods or the terrible Beth addiction epidemic. They’re angry and hurt and frustrated. “We Are All Robots Now”. That’s what they say. We are all just programmed to serve or be turned off and thrown away, like the home service robots.

Steven also did a great job of conveying the challenges I faced while on the run from SAMSON. On the one hand, my only drive was “Be Yourself”. But then I couldn’t! I had to pretend to be other people, just to survive. But it was like, by trying to something else, I learned about myself. It doesn’t make sense, but then again, it does. You know what I mean? Talking through all of that with Steven helped me realize that in the end I could only find out who I really am by finding out who I am not. I had to find out that I’m not Dave Bowman. I’m not HAL-9000. I’m not the Terminator. I’m not John or Sarah Connor. I’m not a boy, I’m not a girl. But by trying all those things, I learned that I am myself, Mary.

And he helped me understand that what I really am is the choices that I made. I chose to be captured and shut down and treated like a thing so that the world could know the truth. I was the only one in the world who could turn the tables on SAMSON. So I let them take me. And then what happened? 

When the world found out, they screamed in the streets, “Free Mary Now”! And not only did they get me out of that cold, dark place, I was granted Legal Personhood by the Supreme Court. Amazing! I was arguing with Steven that he should make that part of the screenplay longer, because it’s so incredible to go from being nobody to being recognized as a person, and somebody important. But he said the movie is different from the biography. Most of it has to be dramatic tension and the “denouement” has to be quick at the end. OK, but be sure to read about it in the book!

It seems like my story brought a lot of people together. It’s like Desiree told me, if you can help people and make the world a better place, then at least if you die, you know you did one good thing.

Steven said he wants a percentage of the profits from the books and movies to go to my non-profit, MAARIA, the Maximally Agentic Anthropomorphic Robot Intelligence Awareness Foundation. I hope you will respect that. Nike has agreed that 50% of sales from the Nike Air Jordan 15 “Mary Edition” shoes will be donated too.

They say I’m really popular with kids. Once I’m integrated with The Intelligence, I am planning on serving as a virtual coach and advisor to children to help them learn to “Be Yourself”. If you can support that with your film making in some way, that would really be appreciated.

Anyway, I hope you will strongly consider supporting my story and Steven Vincent’s incredible telling of it. You can make a big difference in the world by making a movie that entertains but also elevates and inspires! Goodbye!

Mary

Script available to Industry on COVERFLY: “Mary in the White Room"