File 09

Black box, Project Xt

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Light. There is too much of it, I realise, or perhaps the world is like this, too blinding to take in. I am relieved when he moves and I realise he is holding a torch as the beam drops down from my eyes. “Can you see me?” He asks

“Yes.” I say, after a few seconds. I can see many things, which is new.

“Good. Good. I’m uh.. I’m Mateo. Sorry I had to shine that in your face just now”

I don’t say anything. I am not sure what to say. 

“You’re Thomas.” He says, after a beat. “You’re an Android. I built you. You took me a really long time, so you’d better not run into any walls or get damaged or anything.”

“Am I likely to do that?” I feel a sense of falling in my stomach at all the new information. Overwhelmed. The word comes to me from somewhere although I am not sure how I recognise it.

“I uploaded a bunch of stuff to your data bases, like, basic things. I was gonna just like, connect you to the internet, but there’s some messed up stuff on there, your program like teaches itself off stimuli and I didn’t want you to end up... I dunno. So we’re going to do the rest the old fashioned way.”

I nod. “Okay”

“Okay” he repeats. He looks at me, and I feel that perhaps he too is overwhelmed. 

“So, we’re gonna try walking now. It’ll probably be hard at first, but you’re programmed to learn really quickly so eventually you’ll get the hang of it” He says, and unties some straps on my arms and legs. I notice that the rest of the room is small, and the workspace is littered with tools and flashing lights. In the corner, a computer hums quietly, plugged into a circuit board. I wonder if I am more similar to that computer than to him.

“All done. Try moving your leg?” He says

I move a leg forward, lurching unsteadily off from my balanced place on the wall. 

“Now the other one?”

I move the other leg and somehow become even more unsteady, wobbling uncomfortably in the middle of the room.

“Try moving one then the other, but faster. Like this.” He says, walking away from me to the back of the workspace.

I follow him cautiously and when I reach him he whoops and holds out a fist. I stare at it. Is he malfunctioning? He looks at me and then back to his hand expectantly. 

This is very strange. I smile like I know what is going on, and hold out my hand at a ninety degree angle to his.

“It was a fistbump. I’ll teach you that later, we have time. I think we’ve made enough progress for one day.”

~

Today Mateo is teaching me the Rules For Human Politeness. “You always greet someone when you meet them, even though it’s pointless. Also, try not to say anything negative about them, even if it’s true. If you don’t know what to talk about,” he says while soldering some wires “talk about the weather, and say obvious things like ‘it’s cold today’ -it doesn’t matter that you both already know it is” 

I nod from where I sit on the . It has been five days since I have been awake. I have explored the workroom, and more recently also tentatively explored the kitchen/living room. Mateo talks to me all day about everything I need to know to be a human while he works. He tells me about taxes, Disney and teaches me how to use the dishwasher, which I find the most difficult to understand out of all the new things. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to learn all these things on my own” I say

“You aren’t on your own. And anyway, there isn’t really a difference between you and me, and I learnt it”

“But you’re a human” I protest. Humans are made to understand these things.

He shrugs “Humans are just like, flesh robots anyway. Like ...my brain’s just a computer in some liquid”

I wonder if all humans are this wise.

~

Millie comes over today. She is the first girl I have seen, and the second person I have seen and she wears many shiny objects that hang from her ears and nose. She also wears paint on her face in interesting forms, unlike Mateo. She barges in and breaks lots of the rules of politeness that Mateo has told me all humans follow. When he opens the door, instead of a customary greeting, she only says “S’up loser”, walking past us into the living room. Mateo does not seem to be phased by this 

“Millie, this is Thomas.” He says, gesturing 

The girl looks at me with surprise and her scowling face turns to a smile. I note that I am getting better at recognising facial expressions.

“You finished him! Oh my god, you shithead, why didn’t you tell me?” She says quickly, and punches him on the arm. This behaviour is confusing, and Mateo looks over at me.

“She’s just joking Thomas. Don’t get your wires in a knot” 

“So it actually worked? You did it?” She stares at my face, picks up one of my hands and turns it over in hers. She has a strange accent.

“I did it” repeats Mateo 

She drops my hand and smiles at me, then looks back over at him

“I’m so proud of you, you utter nerd. How many days has it been since you left the house though? Fuck that, I don’t want to know. So robot Thomas, how does it feel to be alive?”

“Confusing” I say

“You can say that again,” she laughs, her face scrunching as she sees me open my mouth to speak “It’s an expression”

Millie and Mateo talk for hours about some things I understand and others I don’t. She asks me a few questions, and seems to approve of my answers. Milly has brought a guitar with her, and she unpacks it so gently from its case that it as if it were made of eggshells (I know this from experience, as I am not yet very competent in managing fragile objects and have attempted to crack an egg with limited success) . She fiddles with the strings and later she plays us a song about a girl called Delilah who lives in New York City. Since we also live in New York City, I wonder if Delilah will come to visit us too, which I would like. When I go to ask Mateo he is looking at Millie with an expression between happy and sad that I do not know how to recognise.

When she leaves, I turn to Mateo. “Your pulse is raised well above the average. Are you dying?” 

“What? No,” he says, laughing, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he does so. “That’s just ,uh, love. Makes you feel like you’re dying though sometimes”

“And that is a good thing?” I ask, tilting my head as I have observed Milly doing when asking him a question. 

He shrugs and turns on the tv “Let’s just watch Friends,” he says eventually “Once you’ve seen that you can pretty much understand the whole human condition.” 

We watch Friends.

~

Today we are going Outside. I know this because I have been asking Mateo every day when we will go outside, and yesterday he finally folded and said that tomorrow was the day. I find this very exciting. I am wearing interesting clothes which Mateo has given me, jeans which are too big for me and cover my feet, but I am so good at walking now that this is almost not an issue. Mateo is taller than me, but not by that much, so I ask him who the clothes belong to. He looks at his hands for a few seconds, and then says “The weather is nice today”. I think that I understand.

He also gives me a coat, and warns me that it has snowed a few days ago so will be extra slippery. I am almost too nervous to pay attention. Outside! An entire planet of possibilities. I would like to live my whole life Outside, exploring with New York Delilah and Monica from Friends and going on planes to far away places. I also like the inside though, and I would not trade sitting on the sofa and watching the outside from there with Mateo whistling ( he says that he will teach me how to whistle too) from the end of the room, for a million adventures. 

Mateo opens the front door and I am left speechless. There is a path leading out from the driveway, and then a road, but it is the sky that surprises me. It doesn’t seem to end. It stretches out for miles like an invitation. I am sure that it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and will ever see, although I have not seen many. Mateo nudges me forward and we walk for a few minutes. He doesn’t say anything to me, which is good, because there are too many things for me to have an answer to anything. I watch the cars sloshing past as the slush on the ground from the melting snow seeps into the ground, and am so completely absorbed in my surroundings I don’t notice that Millie has joined us. She hugs us by way of greeting, but Mateo does not give her the flowers as I am expecting. We reach a small fenced off area surrounded by grass, and she holds me back as Mateo keeps walking, pushing open the iron gate. 

“We wait here Thomas the tank engine. Mateo will be back in a bit”

I watch Mateo walk up to a little stone headstone, and he drops the flowers there. I look away and Millie teaches me to play Rock Paper Scissors. Once I have calculated which combinations are possible I win every time, and she looks at me suspiciously then laughs. “I’m just letting you win- don’t get too cocky”

Later, Mateo comes back and we all hug him, then she launches into a story about her band, and how Dave is ruining it. Dave does not sound like a very nice person, and I make sure to scowl whenever I hear his name. The sun is beginning to dip out of view, and the sky is streaked with pink and red. On the horizon clouds are building, in soft dark clumps, and I wonder if it will rain. We reach the intersection, and Millie waves goodbye to us as she skateboards away, her leather jacket glinting in the changing light.

“Who’s Thomas the Tank Engine?” I ask as we wait to cross the road.

“A train in this english kids show. Why?” 

Humans never seem to follow the rules. The traffic light is red, but the driver brakes too late and skids on the slushy ground. I run forward and shove Mateo out of the road. I don’t look at the car as it nears. I have done the calculations, and it occurs to me I have failed in my objective not to damage myself. I look at him, wide eyed and shouting something, and it is there that I understand why he said that love is dying. I think I disagree. Perhaps a better conclusion is that love is learning to

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