MRYK011le file No. 1984

Sometimes I feel as though the world has conspired to end my existence. I do not say kill me, as I am not alive and therefore cannot die. But what is close enough to death seems to be chasing me, always directly behind my back, perhaps four feet away. It is within my sensory cortex, or, as Humans are keen to say, to close for comfort. 

It stalks me.

It hunts me down.

Apparently, it wore a blue dress.

“Coffee, please.” I said to the bartender. I had watched for many minutes that pattern of the café: Coffee, chocolate, mocha, expresso, coffee, coffee, repeat. Sometimes a scone. I’d placed myself at the perfect spot in the line to order a coffee, so that I could use the caffeine within its molecular structure to charge my batteries, as it is much more efficient than oil in my model. Order, pay, receive. I would not stand out. I refused. 

Taking my beverage, I wound my way through the small café to the corner seat, which had always been unoccupied the times I had come here. Not today. In what was usually the seat I sat in, a female. Her hair was of a red orange pigmentation, and with blue eyes and a facial structure that showed European descent. What most humans in this place and age would determine to be beautiful. She wore a blue dress from an expensive brand, which struck me as incongruous with this run down coffee shop in a shadier side of town. She did not fit the pattern. I turned around to look for somewhere else. 

“You can sit here if you like.” I paused. It was the woman. Don’t break the pattern. I programmed my face into what would be considered an “abashed smile.” 

“Thank you very much.” I said, and moved to sit across from her. She smiled at me as well, and, despite how far she looked from the pattern, I could read no malice behind it. Carefully, I set down my Coffee and pulled out an old computer from the bag I carried with me. Also in the bag was a taser, currency, and a flask of oil in case I got desperate. I hadn’t needed it yet; coffee served me fine. I opened the computer to a document I typed in for my job. Most humans had jobs, so I had found one as well. I did everything just as good or bad as the next person. I was average. 

There was no joy in the meaningless words I threw against a meaningless project for a meaningless job. Joy was an emotion unknown to me, as were all emotions, perhaps outside of a primary survival instinct that the creators had built into me. The one last attempt to have their greatest achievement live on. It has not worked so far. There are only twenty androids left, and I am one of them. But the menial, grey nature of my task was, so far as I could figure, what most humans felt when they threw meaningless words against their meaningless sheets of paper in a desperate attempt to earn money so they could eat. Keep a roof over their heads. So focused on staying alive they forgot the parts that actually made life worth living.

Rather sad. 

“Pardon me for asking, but what are you typing?” It was the woman. She had set down her newspaper and was looking at me. I stopped typing.

“I work in accounting,” I said, keeping a neutral tone. “At the Johnson Brothers firm.” She smiled.

“Y’know, that’s pretty funny. I’ve actually heard of them.” I had a rather strong inclination that she was lying in order to make conversation, but it would have been impolite to call her out for it. 

“Really?” I said, voice full of surprise. “You would be the first.” 

She shrugged, “Only so many businesses you can trust around here. The Johnson Brothers are some of the only non-corrupt heads I know of.” Well that was a flat out lie- I happened to know at least one of the Mr. Johnsons was engaged in a black market scheme with the mafia, but again, it was one of the things a human wouldn’t know. So I smiled. 

“I make an effort to know who I’m working for. If I may ask, what do you do for a living?”

A polite question. A normal conversation. 

“I’m an artist.” The woman proudly declared. “I draw illustrations for children's books. Also how rude of me, forgetting to introduce myself. I’m Jane Lee.”

“Emery Kole.” I reciprocated, sticking out my hand and shaking hers. Emery, of course, was not my name. I did not have a name, I had a model number: MRYK011le, but Emery suited fine for my purpose. To blend in, to not stand out. To try and be a human. “Any particular authors you like to work with?” I asked Jane, drinking my coffee. Almost instantly I felt the processors within me begin to convert it to energy. She shrugged.

“Oh, you know. Not really. Whichever ones have the best story I suppose.” 

“And what stories are those?” 

“I like the ones with adventure.” She said with a dreamy sigh. “The fantastical ones that give me excuses to draw flying carpets and queens and dragons.” 

“It sounds rather stressful, if I’m to be entirely honest with you.” I said, looking back at my worksheet. “There are enough issues with the world without dragons.” She laughed.

“It's not stories about dragons,” She smiled, “It’s stories about overcoming them.” 

“And how do you overcome a dragon?” I asked, trying to keep myself in the pattern. Conversation was more difficult than almost anything else. Humans have a certain unpredictability that is very hard to replicate. She smiled wider and leaned in closer, as though about to share a secret. 

“You lure it in with a pretty maid,” She said, blue eyes sparkling. “And then, when it’s least expecting it, you strike!” She accompanied the last bit by grabbing my wrist. I laughed, for a second, until I realized she had also clasped something around my wrist with the same motion.

“What-” I began, but at the same moment a shock ran through my body from the wrist, through all my wires and circuits and everything that kept me running, and I remember no more.

I doubt there is anymore there to remember. 

There are 19 androids left: Do not count me. 

I am just words on your computer.

An anonymous account .

I am dead.