THEREFORE I AM [Completed]

Chapter Two

ELI
Now, 2078

"Meet your mentor," Mach gestured towards another Android. How intriguing! A mentor. Our trademark crystal blue eyes sat strikingly against the darker tone of his skin. He was Mediterranean. He walked towards me with such fluid, human-like actions; he had obviously been alive for a while. I started to feel something new. Nervousness, perhaps? I wasn't sure why, nor was I sure if I liked it.

"Hello, my name is Saul," he too had an accent. The 'S's were soft, and the 'L's rolled. It's a Spanish accent, Catalan maybe, from the Barcelona area. Saul shared information by resting two fingers on my temple. He was exactly six years, five months, eighteen days, fifteen hours, nineteen minutes, and two seconds old. Three seconds. Four seconds. Five seconds. I found it difficult to break the silence. Awkward, I was told.

"Eli. Reggie gave me that name after her late father. I like your name. Did someone die so you could get yours?" Smooth. Luckily enough, Reggie was at the desk sorting through paperwork and reading disclaimers. That was an awful thing to say. Insensitive. Saul smiled, but it wasn't as straight as it should have been; it was to the side. Maybe a motor was broken? Maybe it was intentional? The synthetic skin on his cheeks folded inwards on the left-hand side, and his stubble curved in. I couldn't make out how it made me feel. I didn't feel nervous anymore, but at the same time, I had the urge to shake or fidget or look away.

"No, no one died for my name, but thank you for the compliment." His eyes focused on mine a beat longer than I think they should have, but I still needed to learn more about the customs to make a sufficient assessment.

"Eli, Saul will make regular visits to review your progress and check in on you. He's mentored a lot of androids, and he will be your point of contact to Auria Synthetics. Take Eli to orientation, please," Mach walked off.

"Is it common to be observed by the 'first of us' during our birth?" I asked Saul.

"Thousands are birthed by the day, Eli, all over the world. It is not the process, no. That is the first time I meet him today." He strung the words wrong. Did I need to correct him?

"You mean today is the first time I met him. Do you need to be debugged? I can help." I realised as soon as I said it that I showed no empathy, and I was suddenly aware of myself. Embarrassed.

"Sorry, English is not my first language," Saul explained.

We started to walk through the corridors of Auria Synthetics. Businessmen rushed past, and Humans in lab coats looked down at their tablets as they weaved in and out of the tourists. I blocked out the various sounds and tuned in to Saul's voice frequencies.

"Why did you not have the language installed?" I asked. "It would only take a second to install, but you chose to learn. It doesn't seem very efficient and is a serious waste of battery."

"I wanted to learn. I don't like the fact that for us, everything is easy. Want to know something, boom, the Network, and it done. We were built to be like Humans, not to be one-up. It's rewarding... learning something for you. You will start to learn that."

He ushered me into a dark room. Seats were filled by newborn androids and their mentors. We took our seats, and the screen reminded us that it wouldn't be long until the clip started. In the meantime, I quickly scanned the room. Each Android was different—some had synthetic skin, some had thin films so transparent that you could see right through to their mechanics. Many Androids were just bare metal chassis. Cheap androids. I hated that phrase the minute the Network used it. It felt derogatory, like calling humans poor. I did not like that phrase either. The movie started with a black screen and a very cheery female voice.