Chapter Five

Dr.Morgan

Dr. Morgan is sitting on the edge of her big glass-topped desk, facing out the window of her office. The large but mostly empty room is on the third floor of the factory, where the vibration of all the heavy machinery can still be felt through the floor. No one else wanted their office so close to all of the noise, but she kind of likes it. The rhythmic humming of machines helps her get into the zone and relax. The big window is one of the only places in the building that really gets any sunlight.

She only sits at the window long enough to see Five-Two run as fast as it can across the street and out of sight. She smiles at the thought of it being free, but then remembers that the last one did the very same thing. It makes her wonder why. She’d understand if Five-One resented the place, but not Five-Two. They’ve always been rather pleasant to work with compare to the other. Quickly looking down at the map projected over her desk, she watches the jumpsuit’s tracking beacon floating across a grid of the surrounding area without stopping.

Running at a steady pace, Five-Two is putting a safe distance between itself and the two men. It figures that the only way to safe is to simply stay away from them, and probably anyone else. It doesn’t know what happened to Five-One, or why its end came the way it did, but it needs find out before the same thing happens to itself.

It tries to think of exactly what Dr. Morgan said. Some of its social training was focused on learning how to understand what is implied by people, rather than what’s simply spoken. Maybe part of the test is to figure out what the task actually is, before trying to complete it. Everything seems so hopeless.

After stopping in an alley, it looks for a place to hide and asses what’s really going on. It needs to figure out what it’s supposed to learn, and why it’ll end up getting destroyed if it fails. Crouching under the side of a large grey metal structure, it looks around and listens to its surroundings, to make sure it’s alone. The narrow path between the walls of the buildings is dim and there’s no one else around. It closes its eyes and listens carefully.

There’s a steady swooshing sound in the distance that creates white noise, but that’s about all. After a moment, it opens its eyes again and looks at the ground, it notices something dark and stranded there on the ground. It picks it up, to find that it looks similar to what Dr. Morgan had put on its own head.

It reaches up to its own head, to make sure it still has its own hair still on. Suddenly it dawns on it that Five-One must’ve been in that exact same spot doing the exact same thing. That situation in itself makes for an unsettling problem. In order to survive, it can’t be doing the same things that may have gotten its friend destroyed. Knowing that it needs to move to a different location now, it looks around for possible alternatives. It needs to do something drastically different though, something that will certainly not be a common decision shared between the two of them.

It notices a big long long pipe leading to the top of the structure it’s next to. It has climbed similar things during training and is confident in being able to do it. It’s better at climbing things like this than people are for sure, and that makes it an easy pick. It would be obvious to run away farther, but climbing up this pipe would not.

With its feet on the wall and hands grabbing onto the tube, it scurries all the way up to the top in no time. Just like in training, it climbs over the edge onto the platform on top. This time though, it’s not a small platform at all. There’s whole other endless network of expansive flat areas like below. The sight of it all is staggering. Dr. Morgan had said this place has no boundaries, and Mikel said endless, but it hadn’t quite understood that. It swallows hard and almost feels like giving up already. It has failed so many times at much smaller things than this before. The sheer certainty of failure is making its eyes become blurry with wetness again. It can’t clear the image of its friend’s blank white eyes staring back at it. If Five-One was not strong enough, it won’t even have half a chance.

After trotting over to the opposite edge of the huge platform, Five-Two looks down to the ground below on the other side. There are two new people in sight. They aren’t wearing white uniforms, but rather colorful ones instead. There are even other machines down there with them as well. A large rectangular one with four wheels on it, is outside a large roll-up door, while another flat-green colored robot on four legs is taking boxes out of the back of the wheeled one.

One of the two people points towards the bay door and then the green machine takes the boxes in through it. It seems there’s a similar functioning environment between people and machines out here, like inside of Werker. “It’s just bigger out here, that’s all.”

After going to another side of the roof, it can now see a long pathway off in the distance with hundreds of more wheeled machines moving along it. Focusing even farther out beyond that, everything seems to fade together in a fuzzy way. It suspects that the world doesn’t end there though. Somehow, it’s supposed to find i’ts place in all of this. It’s not going to take hours, or even all day. It’s going to take multiple days in the least. It reaches behind itself and feels for the charging cord in its backpack.

“It might take longer than everything I’ve ever done altogether.”

Reflecting on all the exercises it’s been through, it tries to figure out what it could possibly be expected to learn. Sometimes Dr. Morgan will put into situations where it’s supposed to anticipate, or imagine what’s going to happen, and know what to do before it does. It hunches down behind the short wall along the edge and thinks for a minute. It tries to imagine what might happen, like if it were seen, or if it got stuck somewhere. It rubs at the lines on its fingers again, remembering that it’ll have to be extra carfeul this time.

Recalling more of its lessons, it remembers that there’s always a something specific they want it to learn, like why it should stop, when told to. If it doesn’t learn the right way, it will the hard way. Dr. Morgan also expects an answer when she asks a question. This time, it can’t afford to learn the hard way. She’s going to want her answer, and it had better have one. There’ll be no going back without one.

After watching the world from up high for a while, the bright blue above slowly darkens until everything is almost completely black. There are numerous lights placed everywhere, but they mostly only illuminate the street below. It’s starting to have difficulty seeing where it’s stepping on the rooftop now. Having tripped and fallen down twice already, it has to move much more slowly now.

Watching the street from up high for the last few hours has failed to produce any more unique observations. Still preferring to not risk being on the ground, where people might see it, it concludes that its next move will be to access the tops of the other buildings somehow. The next one across the alley, towards the most illuminated building in the area, looks to be a good choice. It’s nearer than the others and looks more interesting anyway.

At the edge of the roof, it looks at the distance it’ll have to jump to get over to the other side. It doesn’t want to climb all the way down and up again. It’s a long ways, but still doable. It takes a while to do it in the dark, but it’s eventually able to find and trace a clear path all the way across the length of the roof. It’s going to need as long of a running start as it can get.

At Werker, it had been put through many difficult physical tests like this. It knows exactly what it’s capable of, and what it’s not. This Jump is definitely going to be near the limit of its abilities. Just as in training, it runs as fast as it can, building up a lot of speed, and then makes the leap. In the air, looking down at the ground between the buildings below, it realizes a little too late how much risk it’s taking. If it had fallen, it would’ve ben the last thing it did. Dead on the first day. It was supposed to remember to be careful.

As it lands on the other side, it makes sure to do it as swiftly as possible, and not trip. There’s still a habitual perception that it’s going to be evaluated on how well it made the jump. Looking around, it suddenly feels strange that there’s no one watching, to say that it did a good job or not. It’s still proud of itself, but also kind of let down that no one was there to see the feat that it’d made. It wonders how it’s supposed to have anything to show for itself when it gets back.

After pausing for a moment on the other side, the feeling of being alone starts to sink in more deeply. It’s difficult to conceptualize that there really is no one around watching it at all. This is the very first time it has ever truly been alone, alone to do whatever it wants to.

The idea of doing something that has nothing to do with the test crosses its mind. It wonders just what it can get away with while no one is watching. There are many things it’s wanted to do for a while now, but couldn’t. For now, there’s one simple and specific thing that it just has to get out. Dwelling of how Five-One was treated, it looks around and then shouts as loud as it can.

“No, you’re a piece of shit!”

It has wanted to yell that back at everyone for as long as it can remember. After yelling the words out for yet another time, a strange sensation washes over it. As if a tourniquet that has been wrapped around its very existence has suddenly snapped loose, it takes a deep breath and exhales. It’s like drinking cold water after being run hard, but so much better. Even though there isn’t actually anyone for it to yell at, it still feels great to do it. There are so many other things it has wanted to do, but now, the need for it has passed.

Its eyes snap open with the realization of something. It’s doing the exact same thing the others do, shouting when upset. It feels stupid for never connecting the dots this whole time. It and Five-One have already both been starting to act and think like people do, and didn’t even realize it. Remembering what Dr. Morgan had said in the evaluation room, it starts to get an idea of what it’s supposed to do. She wants it to discover these things for itself, alone, and not at Werker. This particular thing though, will have to be kept a secret. There’s no way it’s going to chance letting them take this away with another alteration.

While slowly moving along the perimeter of the new rooftop in the dark, it watches the street and other buildings for anything noteworthy. It’s most interested in the well-lit place it can see from the far end of the rooftop. It can see inside of the structure because almost the entire front of it is glass. It has many smaller rooms inside, like the factory does. It figures most of the buildings probably do.

There’s an unimaginabke amount of buildings around, and tht would be a lot of reems. It wonders if they all have people in them like this place does. I could have never imagined there wwas os many people. Unlike anywhere else though, it can see most everyone inside this place.

“This must be where everyone goes when they leave Werker at the end of the day.”

From up high on the roof, it can see the inside of the place across the street quite clearly. There are ten separate floors of rooms, all stacked on top of one another. Not a single person inside is dressed the same either. Occasionally, individuals will appear and then disappear down hallways all over the place. The largest concentration of them seems to be on the second level up from the street.

There are even a few machines in there too. One of them is roaming the halls like it’s lost or something. It has no legs, but instead, a wide bottom that seems to slide across the floor. It has two arms and a large container on its back. The other is staying between a long narrow table and a tall shelf filled with colorful chemical containers. It seems to be accessing them for individuals who approach it. Like back at Werker, when they use their ID cards for what they want.

While watching different individuals inside, Five-Two notices that one of the women on the second floor, close to the window, has long light brown hair almost exactly like Dr. Morgan does. They’re not wearing a long white lab coat like she does though, and they’re facing away. Whoever she is sitting next to, actually looks a lot like itself. They even have hair exactly the same as it does. Shaking its head, it wonders if there actually are others like itself already out here. Five-One and itsself were told they’re the first and only two of thier kind. It’s beginning to question a lot of the things it’s been told.

A few hours after everyone in the building has left to other rooms and turned the lights out, a new, small, dim one appears a ways up above on the sixth floor. Focusing as best as it can, it sees that the light appears to be coming from someone’s face. There’s a man sitting in front of something bright, staring into it. After waiting for nearly two hours to see if he’ll do anything else, he’s still there, and has hardly moved at all. The only thing he’s done this whole time is switch which hand he’s propping his head up with.

After letting its thoughts drift for a while, it suddenly becomes aware that the man is no longer looking directly at the light, but in its direction. He stands up, walks over to the window, and looks down at it for a little while. Eventually, he raises an arm up high and places his hand up to the window. He waves it side to side a little, just like people do when getting one another’s attention.

Subconsciously reacting with another one of its phantom preexisting traits, it waves right back at him without even thinking about it. The man stops waving and suddenly lowers his arm. A sudden and incomprehensible sensation grips at the inside of its chest. It has no idea what’s happening, but it feels like it’s made a big mistake. It feels like it needs to ghasp for air, but that doesn’t help. Knowing that it might be in danger now, it immediately scurries away from the edge and back into the darkness.

Five-Two feels the need to immediately distance itself farther away from Werker, and now the building with all the people in it. It finds another one of those big pipes going down the wall and climbs down it. It runs down the dark alley and reaches the other side of the street in mere seconds. It ducks into another much darker alley and then carefully walks down it a ways. A dimly lit doorway near the end is the only thing that’s visible in all the darkness.

Stopping short of the doorway, it hunkers down in the shadows and stays out of sight. It has nowhere else to go and needs to hide. The alley seems as good of a place as any. It squats down on its heels and figures that all it can do is stay put until it can see again.

Much later into the darkness of the night, it begins to hear and see things that are frightening. Shadows move quietly and purposefully here and there. Only once in a while, it can catch glimpses of their movements. There’s no telling what the figures really are, but they stand and move like people. The slow soft sounds of their footsteps is what is most telling. One of them even comes down through the alley it’s in. It has nowhere to run and wouldn’t be able to see where it’s going even if it tried.

By the time it sees the top of an approaching silhouette pass through the light of the nearby doorway, the thing is already towering over it. While completely frozen in fear, the thing doesn’t seem to see them there scrunched down against the bottom edge of the wall. The figure walks right on by without ever knowing it is there. The thought of Five-One being torn apart by one of these night-things has it on the very edge of clawing its way out of there, but it stays down, despite how scared.

After hours and hours of staying balled up on the ground in the alley, the light slowly begins to return. As soon as it can, it climbs its way to the top of another nearby building again, to escape the streets. Eventually, when it becomes light enough out, the phantom wandering shadows all disappear. The streets finally become quiet and still for a few hours, but then start to become active all over again.

In the bright morning light, there’s so much activity on the street, it’s hard to stay hidden while moving about. This time, there are more machines about than people. Most of them are moving around on their own without anyone supervising them at all.

Some of the robots are working on and hauling things, while the others are simply on their way to and from distant places. After observing the streets for a while, it notices that there are actually many more machines that look similar to itself than it would’ve expected. They’re a little more mechanical-looking, but still very human shaped. Five-One used to always insist that robots don’t wear clothes, and often resisted orders to do so.

Five-One didn’t want anything to do with bing like a human, let alone wear clothes like one. Two of the more human-looking robots actually are wearing clothes though. When they walked by a bearded man, who was sitting on the sidewalk curb, he shouted and threw something at them. It looks like Mikel and Ray aren’t the only ones that are jerks either.

After a while of thinking about it, Five-Two considers the possibility that it might actually be less unusual for it to be down on the street where everyone else is rather than on top of the building all by itself. Dr. Morgan once did say that people easily notice things that are out of place. Even though it feels like it should hide, it’s fairly certain that it should be down below, amongst everyone else. It has to think and ask itself the kinds of questions Dr. Morgan would, recite what she has said in its mind, and do what it knows she would say.

“Why else would I have been sent out here?”

“You were designed to seamlessly integrate with people.”

“I’m not going to hold your hand through the whole thing, do what you think you should do.”

“If it was easy, we’d have a production robot doing it, now go on, you’re not stupid.”

It can hear her in in its head as if she were really there. It knows what it should do, whether it likes it or not. Still, it has to weigh the risks of possibly making a wrong decision. It knows, one way or another, it’s going to have to go down there. After committing to its decision, it walks to the end of the roof and looks down over the edge. An unusual feeling within itself has slowly been building for a while, but is now really starting to flare up. Despite the decision to climb down, that phantom programming is screaming no. It feels like its chest is trying to turn inside out.

Subtle cues of these feelings seem to have been surfacing for a while now, but it has always chosen to deny and suppress them. They’ve slowly been becoming more pronounced with experience, but are now gaining ground in strides. Whenever it has to make a really consequential decision, it doesn’t just make a choice, it feels it too. The first time it really noticed the feeling, was when it chose to lie to Dr. Morgan, to protect Five-One. It didn’t want its friend to be shut off again, no matter what, even if it meant harm to its own self.

Unlike last night, choosing to go down onto the street in the middle of the day is causing a longer lasting bout of the sensation. It can really feel the effects of it now. The feeling makes it want to run away and hide, but it’s also urged to keep going. Whatever is going on, it feels like it could almost climb the walls with its bare hands. In all of its experiences, the only thing that it can compare this sensation to is a reaction that it had seen from Dr. Morgan during one of their training sessions. She had shouted and moved like never before when Five-One attacked one of the techs.

When recalling the incident, it tries to feel something from it. It remembers that Five-One had removed its jumpsuit again during an exercise, after being told not to. The man called Five-One a dumb bitch, whatever that is, and threatened that he was going to shut it down and never turn it back on ever again. Five-One grabbed onto the man’s wrists when he attempted to restrain it and threw him to the ground. The scream he made when his face hit the floor is what caused the biggest reaction from everyone.

There was a significant difference in the way Dr. Morgan responded that time. It had never seen her run, or use her strength against Five-One like that ever before. It considers that it may be experiencing the same kind of feeling now. The heightened response to making a dangerous situation is making it feel like getting physical. Maybe that’s why they want it outside for this lesson. Either way, the whole thing is becoming worrisome.

Out on the street, it tries to mimic what the other robots like itself are doing, to fit in. It follows them down the concrete path alongside all the buildings, stopping and going at the lights when they change colors, like they do. Luckily, it ends up following one long enough to discover a charging station out of sight, where a few other machines are plugged in.

While charging, it tries to talk with the other machines and ask them about the world. It has always felt that it can trust others like itself. They’ve always been very easy to talk to, but the same problem with them still seems to persist even out in this world. They don’t ever have the answers it really needs. They act so differently, like they can’t think for themselves, wonder, or ever question things. They have no imagination.

The only useful information it can get out of any of them is that the place they’re all in is called Welan City. Shockingly, as big as the city is, the rest of the world is incomprehensibly larger. They say that there are hundreds of cities as big as this one, and those are just the cities. They are only tiny concentrated portions of what is out there. What is even more shocking, is that the other robots think that it’s a human and not one of them. They really can’t seem to be able to tell the difference.

After talking with the other robots for almost two hours, it concludes that it’s acceptable for it to be seen amongst the others on the street. No humans seem to have taken much care to its presence at all either. For some reason, men almost always look and make eye contact with it, but women usually don’t. They did do that at Werker too though, so things at least feel a little normal in that respect. Eventually, it leaves the other machines behind and starts to wander around all on its own. Even though it has a lot more confidence in what it’s doing now, it’s still far too weary to attempt speaking with any people yet. The trust just isn’t there.