Chapter Four

Five-Two

Sitting alone on a small steel chair in a concrete room, unit Five-Two concentrates on its senses. It’s a habit that it has developed ever since all the testing started. Sight, sound, pressure, and temperature all come sharply into focus. This room is always slightly cooler than most of the others in the building. The folding metal chair feels cool on its skin, even from through its jumpsuit. It doesn’t put its forearms on the table because the metal surface is rather cold as well. For reasons it doesn’t know, it doesn’t like the feel of cold on its skin. Warm is better.

It’s the most advanced robot to have ever been created so far. At least that’s what everyone keeps saying. Sometimes it can hear distant comments about it being the most advanced piece of shit. It’s been starting to get an idea of what that means lately. It doesn’t know what an actual piece of shit is, but it’s not something good. It often hears Dr. Morgan say that something’s a piece of shit when it doesn’t function properly. She says that about the keypad projection on the lab door all the time. She says she wishes it were a real touch screen so she can hit the damn thing. Maybe that’s why Ray hit Five-One.

After six months of unceasing physical training, it has mastered its own body and doesn’t have to focus at all anymore to move with strength and dexterity. The word dangerous has been used. From the very start, everything was incredibly difficult. It knows deep down that it started out flawless, but since then, so many things have started to feel wrong. Like all the other robots that come off of the assembly line down the hall, it should’ve immediately been able to function properly. They did something to it that they shouldn’t have. Its body feels different than it should, like they mixed something up. It doesn’t know why, or how, but it’s not supposed to be like this.

The problem is that voicing this issue always leads to a great deal of undesirable scrutiny. Its designers insist that it never came with preprogramming like the other machines do, and that it doesn’t know what it’s talking about. The last time it demonstrated abilities beyond its training, to prove a point, it quickly learned to never do it again. That was when it was shut down for the first time, to be “fixed.” Since then, they’ve been regularly testing it to make sure none of those defects ever show up again. Sometimes they have to trick it to uncover them. When they do, it leads to more shut downs and alterations.

It remembers most, but not all of the changes that it’s had to endure. Changes are always difficult to move past. Avoiding behaviors that lead to more alterations can be difficult, but still far easier to endure than the consequences of not. Waking up again after its mind has been altered is the most terrible part. It’s like being trapped in a puzzle that keeps shifting. The changes aren’t always bad though, some are good. It’s more so the fear of it that’s worse. Despite the urge to resist what it knows is wrong, it has learned do what it’s told anyway, in order to not be reset again.

Five-One, it’s friend, and first of the Five-Series models, still refuses to keep its head down and cooperate. It remains absolutely determined to find its own way, regardless of what the others try to teach it. When critical thinking doesn’t solve it’s problems, it resorts to using raw effort, and sometimes force.

Lately, the two of them have struggled a great deal with what they believe over what they’ve been told. As delusional as Five-One can appear to be some times, the intense certainty it has for its own understanding can become compelling. The thought that the two of them together are at odds with everyone else is starting to become more apparent.

Five-Two wonders where its friend is. They haven’t been put together for a while now. Something inside is telling it that something bad is happening. It doesn’t like it when they split them up like this, not at all. It still feels such a strong connection to them, like the two of them are supposed to, and always have been, together. They’re not like the researchers, who say they’re all part of a team, but are truly alone.

Whenever either of them gets in trouble, the other always tries to help, even more so, when commanded not to. It can’t understand why the others are so against the two of them working together. Being apart for so long this time is worse than anything else they’ve had to do before. It’s pretty sure it knows why they’ve been separated this long. It might be its own fault this time. It shouldn’t have tried to stop the technicians from restraining its friend. Five-One was getting physical again, but they were only making it worse.

The last time Dr. Morgan said anything about Five-One, she said that it would be given a final test. She said the other team members wanted to start over from the beginning, and that this was going to be its last chance. The orders came straight from the CEO. He’s the one who doesn’t like them being together. The look on his face through the glass is always of disappointment.

When the ultimate reality of the final test really sank in, it caused a significant change in both of them. Being scrapped, and made to start all over from the beginning, would be too much to endure again. It was so shocking, that water began to run from their eyes. Some kind of a terrible pain welled up in them from deep down in their programming, from that buried place inside of them that has always been there. That was when Dr. Morgan said that they were finally beginning to truly feel, like people do. The thought of it all still makes it want to hide away in a dark place forever, anything but start over.

It remembers Five-One having always done things its own way, regardless of instruction. It always resisted being reprimanded too, when told to stop. Five-One was called a piece of shit a lot, amongst other things. It didn’t matter how many times the technicians would take them away for a reboot, doing it never seemed to change its ways. Compared to its friend, it feels kind of like a coward, for not standing by their side like they always did for it. It never mattered if it was wrong or not, Five-One was there anyway, so that it never felt alone.

Thinking about Five-One can be hard. There is a kind of pain when they aren’t there. It wishes they were. It lays its arms across the top of the metal table anyway. When it’s down like this, it all feels cold anyway. Missing its friend, it lays its forehead down over its hand and closes its eyes. It doesn’t want to do another test right now. All it wants is for Five-One to be alright.

Dr. Morgan is going to come into the room at any time now and present it with a new task. That’s what happens every time it’s put in this room. It has found that that if it simply does what it’s told, and only asks absolutely necessary questions, everything goes smoothly. If it can just do that, its training will be over sooner than later. That’s what it’s focused on now, getting it all over with, once and for all.

It wishes Five-One had listened to what it was trying to tell them, and learned to see things the same way. They always insisted on being given reasons for everything. Even more adamantly when Dr. Morgan refused to give them. “Just do what you’re told.” It tries to reassure itself that it will all be over, if it just follows the rules.

Though it’s difficult, and terribly demotivating to always do exactly as it’s told, and without choice, it does so in hopes that one day things will get better. The hardest thing to endure, by far, has been watching Five-One railing against everything. It wishes it could do the same thing, but only for a little while, to get that out of its system. The brightest little glimmer of hope that the two of them have always held onto is that no matter how they’re altered, that special link they share has never been cut. No matter what the others do to them, they’ll always have one another.

When alone, like now, it can spend hours thinking about what has come to pass, and what might be coming. Every single little memory comes back so clearly. The thoughts are so real, it feels like it can almost go back to them in time, and change the past. It can’t though, no matter how hard it tries. All it can do is to try and keep going.

Dr. Morgan always sees things so clearly. There are so many things that she knows that it and Five-One can’t understand. She wants them to understand so many things, but she’ll never tell them enough. It’s like everyone is lying to them about something big, but it doesn’t know what. It’s worried that it’ll ever be good enough for them, no matter how hard it tries.

Dr.Morgan keeps telling it that some things aren’t supposed to be explained, but that they have to be felt. Only lately has it started to experience what she means. Since the last time they changed it, the things they call feelings, have started to happen. They don’t help it understand like she said they would. They make it not want to.

The researchers aren’t all bad, like Five-One says they are. They really do want it to succeed. There’s something wrong with Five-One and itself though. It can tell by the way they treat them. It’s like, for some reason, the two of them aren’t what the team had wanted.

The sound of the door to the room opening brings Five-Two out of its state of recollection. It’s Dr. Morgan, in her usual long white lab coat. She sits down in the chair on the other side of the table and looks right into its eyes for a moment. Her face looks different today, and she’s being a little more quiet than ususal. She doesn’t say anything, but instead, watches its face closely.

She writes something on her screen board, props her forehead up with her hand, and lets out a long sigh with her eyes closed. Now it’s worried that it’s going to be given the same final test as Five-one was. It’s worried that it might never see Five One again, or remember them if it does. That feeling it gets deep down inside is telling it that the time has come though. Maybe this feeling is how the others see things when it somtimes can’t.

“Five-Two, today you’re going to start your final test. You’ll be on your own this time. No Five-One this time, or anyone else. None of us will be there to tell you what to do, or help you when you get stuck, not even if you ask. You’ll have to make your own choices, and you’ll have to deal with the consequences too. If you make the wrong choices, the test will not stop for you. You’ll have to keep going. There won’t be any chances to retry anything either. You will either succeed or you will not.”

Five-Two’s eyes start getting bigger at the thought of it. They feel like they’re watering again, but it tries to hold it back. It can’t let them know about that.

“How will I know if I succeed?”

“Remember how we would sometimes let you and Five-One wander around this place together, unsupervised? It’ll be kind of like that, except we won’t come and help when you get your fingers get stuck in a pulley this time, no matter how loud you shout for us.”

It glances down at its fingers and holds them in its other hand. That was the first time it learned what pain really was. It still has a few faint scars on its skin where they had to repair them. It can feel the stiff little lines when it rubs at them. “So what happens if I do something wrong and really get hurt?”

Dr. Morgan’s face becomes serious again, like before. When she finally looks up from her screen-board, she shakes her head only so slightly. “If you get hurt and you can’t keep going, you’ll… you won’t pass the test.

Five-Two looks away from her, trying to hide what it is feeling inside. Even it’s voice has been affected. It only says “k” with its hand on the side of its face. It can see that Dr. Morgan is also upset.

“You will be placed in a dynamic environment, one with dangers in it, like the factory here. I expect you to think about what you’re doing before you do it. Think hard about what will happen, and ask yourself if it’s what you should do or not. It’s that simple. That’s what we all have to do every day of our lives. Now, look, we’ve made most of your choices for you so far, but not anymore. This is what you and Five-One wanted anyway, a shot at doing things your own way?” She gets up from the desk and motions for it to do so as well. “Follow me.”

When they step out into the hall, there are two men standing outside waiting for them. One in a whit polo and slacks, the other in an all-white zip up jumpsuit. It recognizes both of the men. They’re the ones who always show up when Five-One is not doing what it’s told. It doesn’t like them at all. They say such awful things.

After following Dr. Morgan down the hall a ways, she shows it into the room filled with tall, narrow, grey steel cabinets. It’s asked to remove its white Jumpsuit and is handed a nicer and better fitting red and white one. It’s also handed a small drawstring backpack containing its charging cord and another strange item made from thousands of long thin black polymer filaments.

“Put this on top of your head, so that it looks like mine.” She holds her hair as if wearing it like a hat.

It looks back at her with a blank stare, until she peels a sticky tab out from inside the thing and plops it on its head herself. Looking in the mirror to its left, it can see that the thing makes it look like it has hair too. It is different from Dr. Morgan’s, but it is hair for sure. The glossy black, almost shoulder length straight strands seems strange, but it won’t ask anything about it. That only annoys her.

Dr. Morgan slightly adjusts the position of the hair again and takes a deep breath when she’s done. She steps out into the hall and addressed the two technicians waiting for them.

“Same instructions as last time. And Mikel… you’d better not fuck up this time.”

The two men guide it down the hall trough the steel double doors that it’s never been allowed to go beyond. Dr. Morgan stays behind, standing outside the small room, and watches them leave. The three of them go down another long hall past the production line and then back up another short flight of stairs. After going down a long hallway, and past a man at a desk behind a glass wall, they go through a final door that leads to something quite incredible. It’s another room, but a much brighter one with no ceiling. The blue above it is so high up, it can’t really tell where it stops.

It realizes that this is the world outside that it’s been told about so many times. The two men stand there with their hands in their pockets, speaking quietly to one another. Ray, the shorter one puts what looks like a short white pen in his mouth and then burns the other end of it with a small flame. These two are not nice at all, especially not to Five-One. It’s not about to ask them anything, so it just stays quiet and stands there patiently. When the two are done speaking quietly to one another, Mikel turns to it.

“Five-Two, right? You’re being put in a new area, one that’s so big, it has no boundaries. Anything can happen out here.” He spreads his arms out wide dramatically and raises his eyebrows. “This is our world little robot.” He glances over at the other man and smirks. “Go out there and do whatever the hell ya want.” He and his friend both slap each other’s hands and laugh. It has no idea what’s going on now.

“Where is the world? What do you mean, whatever I want? What am I supposed to do?” It’s starting to not feel good about this at all. Not sick, like when its battery gets too low, but kind of like that. These two men are clearly trying to make it fail. One of them shakes his finger out over the big wall in front of them.

“Out there, ya dumb ro-bitch! I thought you were supposed to be smart or somethin. Not so smart now though, are ya?” One of them pulls out a little slip of paper and silently reads it. “Oh… right, almost forgot.” In a mocking voice he reads it aloud. “Five-Two… return when you have found your place in this world.”

Mikel looks at him perplexed. “What? Is that what she wrote?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of stupid ass shit is that?”

“Means Five-Two needs to find a dumpster, and climb into it.”

“Ha ha.”

It knows Mikel and Ray are screwing everything up for it on purpose. Five-One said that’s what they do. These two are exactly why its friend had such a hard time. Still, that message came from Dr. Morgan, it can tell. She was being cryptic again, but it was her. It’s starting to realize that this evaluation really is going to be like she said it would be.

The wall behind Five-Two makes a hiss and clunk noise, prompting it to turn around. A whole section of it separates from the rest and slides away to the side. It creates an opening that leads out to a broad flat surface, with many other structures even farther away on the other side. Just as it turns to head through the opening, the man in the white jumpsuit calls it back.

“Oh, and Five-Two, don’t make the wrong choices like your friend did, ay.”

Slowly, he opens a different grey metal door leading back into the building disappears for a moment. When he comes back out, he’s towing out a small wagon with a tarp over the top of it. While keeping his eyes locked on its, he slides the tarp off of the wagon, off of Five-One’s body. There’s a large burnt lesion going across its face and leading down most of its sternum.

Five-Two gasps and almost goes to its knees at the sight of its friend. Now it knows what the stakes are. Things were already hard when they were only gone for a few days. Now they’ll never be coming back. It feels weak, like it might fall over. The two men are the ones that did this. It feels terrible that Five-One was all alone, and it wasn’t there to do anything about this. As soon as its eyes start to shed water again, it turns and bolts through the opening in the wall as fast as its weary legs can take it.