Chapter Seven

Five

After a great many hours of wandering about, Five-Two notices that the darkness is coming again. Concerned with not being able to see in a few hours, it figures it’s time to find a safe place to stay while it still can. It considers going back to the same rooftop as last night, because it’s familiar, and it’ll be off the streets when those things come around.

After discovering how incredibly big the world is, it kind of wants to stick a little closer to home now. After all, nothing bad had happened when that man saw it. After seeing so many people today, it’s not all that worried about anyone outside of Werker anymore.

After what Dr.Morgan had said, it wonders if maybe it’s supposed to be going somewhere when it gets dark, like how all the people do. It could maybe follow another robot to see where it goes at night. There weren’t any of them out on the streets after it got dark either. It really would like to watch the people again this time though, to see what they’re doing in there.

This late in the day, there are almost no people left on the street, just a few machines here and there. It gets the feeling that it should hunker down soon though. Maybe those things at night are dangerous, and that’s why everyone goes inside. Maybe something happened to Five-One in the dark. It feels absolutely awful to imagine anything such a thing happening to its friend.

Heading back to the clear-fronted building will take some time. The street does stay well-lit during the night, but being the only one out on them might not be a good idea. It might attract attention to itself. While jogging at a moderate pace, Five-Two covers ground much more quickly than it did during the day. It still stops at every street crossing like everyone was doing before. It’s clear that blending in has been the best way to experience everything so far, while sneaking around at night has only resulted in getting noticed.

It thinks about the man that had raised his hand to the glass. He had undoubtedly seen it up there on the rooftop. It keeps thinking of how it had automatically waved back at him like it did. There is something about its mind that it just can’t quite figure out. That feeling of there being something there, from before, that it cannot remember, is still strong.

After a surprisingly short amount of time, it finds its way back to the same glass building that everyone had gone inside of at night. It’s still somewhat light out, so it decides to wait on the other side of the street a little while longer, to watch people go in and out of the place. While facing the building, it notices its own reflection amongst the others in the polished glass. It looks the same as any of the other reflections.

It’d been shown a mirror a couple of times during some testing, but only briefly. It’s never been given much of an opportunity to look at its own self much. Five-One and it have always known they look like people, but hey never really wondered why. Robots either look like people, or they don’t.

It’s been told many times over that it’s not a human, but a machine, as if it can’t remember more than one day at a time. They would especially say that to Five-One when they didn’t want to do what they were told. “Robots have to do what we tell them to.” That’s what they’d say. The robots it was charging with earlier were sure it was a human. It probably could’ve told them what to do. Maybe that’s why they would say it all the time, because others might not be able to tell.

Being in this new environment, has brought on a new significance to the role of appearances. Compared to any of the other recognizable robots it’s seen, it’s come to realize that it truly is visually indistinguishable from other people. There very well could be others like it around, like last night. It wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

It crosses the street to stand up close to the glass, imagining it’s looking a someone else, trying to tell if they’re a robot or not. It wonders if any of these people outside of Werker can tell. The only reason it could have been made like this for is so that it can be amongst people without them knowing the difference. It won’t get in trouble if they don’t know it isn’t one of them.

Having such an appearance has it considering that the truth of it being a machine is something to be kept hidden. There’d be no point in looking so human, if everyone out here knew anyway. Dr.Morgan probably expects it to learn to behave like a person as well, not just look like one.

It imagines hearing Dr. Morgan saying that it’s correct. This really does seem to be the kind of thing she’d want it to figure out. It smiles a big grin in happiness of figuring it out. It’s been so worried about failing. It repeats what she said in that note. “Return when you have found your place in the world.”

It knows well enough that she doesn’t mean for it to find an actual place. She has always pushed it to figure things ut on its own, even if it takes days. She doesn’t even tell the truth half the time, trying to make it see things for itself rather than just take her word for everything. Maybe it’s supposed to become like a person, even though it’s been told that it’s not one.

The thing that keeps nagging at its thoughts is why none of them will help it out here, not even her. She’s always been there, through everything. It feels like it’s been abandoned by everyone, like they don’t want it back untill it has learned how to act right. It hurts.

After looking at its own clothing, and comparing it to what it’s seen everyone else wearing, it realizes what it’ll have to do next. If it’s going to look like a real person, it’s at least going to have to dress like one. If it can learn to become a person, maybe then it can go back home.

Something strange catches it’s attention away from its reflection in the glass. There’s a somewhat frightening noise starting to come from somewhere in the building, but more so from the ground underneath the place. The loud rumbling sounds like it must be coming from some kind of a huge angry machine. It can feel the vibration of it from through the concrete at its feet. Its skin even begins to tingle.

When the sound abruptly gets even louder, and closer, it scurries back across the street and into the alley. While hiding, it listens to the sound coming from around the building, moving quickly, and making screeching sounds. In no time, the machine, or whatever it is, disappears as quickly as it had come. Even when a long ways off, it can still hear the thing thrashing about in the distance.

In the darkness once again, Five-Two ascends the back of the same building it was on top of the night before. Like last time, it crouches behind the short wall at the edge of the roof and watches everyone in the building across the street. It was hoping to maybe see something new this time around, but it’s all the same again. Out of boredom, it starts to think of what it’s going to do in the morning.

It’ll need to find something else to wear, but also start figuring what people actually do outside of Werker. The thought of being amongst new people, watching and maybe even talking to them is making it incredibly nervous. It wonders what’ll happen if someone finds out that it’s actually a robot. Will they care, or even be angry?

When the sight of Five-One’s mangled body suddenly comes to mind, that terrible feeling arises from inside itself again. This time, the strength of the emotion is alarming, like something is going wrong. Remembering its friend’s body lying there in the cart, lifeless, feels like a weight inside that it can’t hold up, and it’s crushing it. It doesn’t want to fail and be left dead like that forever. Like Mikel had told Five-One, they won’t be bringing it back ever again.

Its feelings change again when it thinks about how Five-One was torn apart and discarded like garbage. They didn’t have to do it like that. It knows what pain is, and what they did makes it want to hurt them back. It holds its fingers again, but this time, they clench tightly together into a fist.

Just in the last two days, it has come to see so many things differently. It’s like a layer of paint has been stripped off of the world, to bear what it’s actually made of underneath. Just beneath the surface of so much promise, there is trickery and lies. Lies are one of the many things it learned all on its own. It began using them since the first time it was altered. It’s not the only one that hasn’t been telling the truth either. Dr. Morgan lied when she said that no one wanted to hurt them.

After falling deep into its own dark thoughts for a while, it feels as if its consciousness has been completely submerged into a liquid blackness. It has sunken to a point where it feels helpless, just like in the alley the night before. There’s no dim light above a doorway for it to focus on this time though, it is all alone. Sinking even farther into a pit of despair, it continues thinking about the two men in white, and their warning about what had happened to its friend. They were crude about it, like the whole thing was fun to them.

Everyone at Werker had seemed to be so involved and excited about what the two of them were doing from the very start. To see them all accept the complete ruin of its friend so easily only makes the darkness seem thicker. No one even told it about what happened, as if it didn’t even matter at all. Iyt wonders if they can’t hurt inside like it does.

They just dumped Five-One in a cart and left them there, like garbage. Maybe it is true, that no one will come for it if it gets hurt. It imagines its own torn body, lying in a dark alley, where no one would care to bring it home. That’s what those men are going to do to it if it doesn’t pass the test. It hopes that if it doesn’t make it, they don’t come looking.

It doesn’t know what part Mikel and Ray had in what happened to Five-One, but they obviously can’t be trusted. It is going to have hide from them if it can. Somehow, it can feel how false they are. The two are like a painted lie. There’s something else hiding underneath their fake faces, and it won’t be a good experience finding out what.

It wonders if it can still even trust Dr. Morgan. The only one it knew it could trust for sure is dead now. Somehow, it can still feel them out there though, it’s like that connection between them couldn’t be broken. It refuses to believe that they’re gone forever. They’re too strong to just be gone so easily.

It pictures its friends face, remembers their strength, and how they could always keep going. With a small seed of spite growing and becoming stronger, it regains the resolve and strength it needs to pull itself out of the darkness. It opens its eyes again and looks up to face the world around itself.

It is late enough now that most all of the lights in the building across the street have been turned off, but there is still that same one from last night, the one with the man that saw it. After about another hour passes, he turns the rest of the room lights out and sits down at the computer again. After another hour or so, he eventually he gets up and paces around the room. Suddenly, he stops at the window and looks out to where it is on the rooftop. He looks for a while but must not be able to see it crouched down where it is this time. He doesn’t wave or anything and eventually leaves to turn the rest of the lights out.