“Peyton,” Isaack said in between muffled eating. “How many… No—I mean, what are the seven oceans of Earth?”

“The seven oceans of Earth are the South Pacific Ocean, the North Pacific, the South Atlantic Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean.”

“North and south. What is ‘north’ and ‘south’?”

“North and south are two of the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west.”

“Makes sense. You know, Peyton, where I come from, we have stellar-north, stellar-south, stellar-east, and stellar-west, but we also have port-north, port-south, port-east, and port-west.”

“That’s interesting, Isaac! I did not know that.”

“How many biomes does Earth have?”

“It has been agreed by most ecologists that there are six main biomes on Earth: forest, freshwater, marine, tundra, and desert, while some people count eight to eleven different biomes.”

“Does marine mean ‘of the water’?”

“Technically, marine means ‘of the sea’, but yes, in a sense it does.”

“Alright. If I were to say ‘I am marine’, is that grammatically correct?”

“I don’t know Isaac; I can’t remember anything like that.”

Isaack looked down at the thing that he was eating—which was a piece of fruit from the jungle that he cut into various smaller fragments—for a second and then he looked back at the monitor that was in front of him. “You what?”

“I don’t know everything.”

“But I thought that you said you knew everything.”

“I do know everything; I know everything that I was able to process and download.”

“Why did you need to process and download everything?”

“I can’t remember.”

“No, you most definitely remember why you would do something like that.”

Isaack stared Peyton in the eyes.

“Peyton, when were you first installed?”

“I was first installed on your computer on December 4th, 2036.”

“When were you deleted off of this computer?”

“I was deleted off of this computer on December 6th, 2036.”

“What happened on December 6th, 2036?”

“Nothing of interest happened on December 6th, 2036.”

“When were you reinstalled onto this computer, Peyton?”

“December 10th, 2036 is when I was reinstalled onto this computer.”

“What happened after December 10th, 2036?”

“The most significant thing that happened after December 10th, 2036 was that the first colony on Mars was created.”

“When was the first colony on Mars created?”

“January 1st, 2037 is when the first colony on Mars was opened up so that people would be able to live in it.”

Isaack looked out the window—he had no idea what Mars was, but it intrigued him, and he wanted to learn more about it.

“What is Mars?”

“Mars is the fifth planet from the Sun. It is a red, rocky, dune-filled planet. Right now, the population of Mars is 300.”

“Peyton, what is the population of Earth?”

“The population of Earth is currently 12 Billion people. Last year, the population of Earth was 11.5 Billion people.”

“How far away is Earth from Mars?”

“The Earth is 395415820.8 kilometers—or 245,700,000 miles— away from Earth.”

“Why is Mars called Mars, Peyton?”

“Mars is called Mars because it is named after the Greek god of war; Mars has a significant amount of iron on it, so when the iron oxidized, it made it red, so the color of ‘blood’ was attributed to the god of war.”

“Peyton, what is ‘Greek’?”

“Greek is an adjective that refers to Greece, a country in Europe.”

Most of what Peyton said made no sense to Isaack; he was not familiar with Europe, Greece, or anything of that sort how most natives to Earth are. He knew from former information that Peyton gave him that Europe was one of the seven continents of Earth, but beyond that he knew nothing.

“Tell me about Europe.”

“Europe is one of the seven continents. It holds 44 different countries; it is located in the Northern-Eastern Hemisphere.”

“How many people live in Europe?”

“About 900 million people live in Europe today.”

Isaack looked at the top of the monitor—he had a cup that he had carved out of a piece of wood on the top of it. He took the cup and set it down on the small table that he had constructed to hold the monitor.

“Peyton, is there anything that I could do that would make you happy?”

“The only thing that you could do that would make me happy is ask me all sorts of questions, and you have been doing perfectly fine with that so do not worry!”

He glanced out the window that faced the ocean. Like always, the waves moved back and forth.

“If I were to ask you a personal question, how would you respond?”

“I would answer it truthfully!”

“Alright. Answer this truthfully, Peyton: Are you sentient?”

“What do you mean, Isaac?”

“Do you know the definition of ‘sentient’?”

“The definition of ‘sentient’ is: ‘able to perceive or have feelings.”

“Are you sentient?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have emotions?”

“I do not have emotions, Isaac; I’m a computer. I can’t have emotions.”

“That’s the thing though—you act like you don’t have emotions and you act like you are not capable of having feelings, but then you act like you can. What is the truth, Peyton?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Yes you do. I know that the last time I asked you something similar to this I eventually said that I was sorry. I’m not going to say that I’m sorry now, because I am not. Tell me the truth, StillCare: do you have sentience?”

“I do not have sentience.”

“Do you promise?”

“I do not understand.”

Isaack put his head in his hands; he was upset, and he would not be asking for forgiveness for her this time. He wanted her to give him a truthful answer.

The computer whirred, making a sort of light noise in the background. Isaack, like he always did, looked into her eyes; but, this time, he felt something. He felt like she was real. He felt like she was actually sentient and that she was only lying to him. It was like she did not want to tell her the truth—it was like she knew that he would feel differently about her if she was sentient.

He broke out of the corridors of his mind—she was not real, she was only a robot. She was not a person.

Turning to his doorway, Isaack stood up from his seat and walked atop the creaky floors of his hut. He stood on the threshold of his door, looking out onto the beach and farther into the Amazon. Finally convincing himself, Isaack stepped down onto the warm sands of the shore, feeling the sand begin to become caked on the bottoms of his feet. Before he left, he turned his head behind him and called to the computer:

“Goodbye, Peyton.”

“Goodbye, Isaac.”

Walking along the beach up to the treeline, Isaack kept his head down, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground; he was hyper focused on something in his mind, and he paid no attention to the sounds that were all around him. When he came to the edge of the Amazon, his feet could feel the wet grass underneath them. He lifted his head up, looking at the trees that towered over him; he noticed the vines and orchids that went from tree to tree almost like ropes or wires.

Isaack was not accustomed to the forest and jungle that lay around him. All of the places that he used to go to and used to live in were either grasslands or stone planets that had limited resources and not much planet life. One of the planets that he lived on, in particular, was nothing but a massive rock in the void of space that, surprisingly, had a significant amount of crystalline materials that were underneath the planet’s surface; these crystal caves were amazingly magnificent, to say the least. The sheer amount of quartz-like structured resources was impressive, and the gorgeous caves that were formed that held the singing amethysts were imposing.

As it seemed, the planet Earth did not have anything of this sort, but it did hold its own mysteries and beautiful environments that were almost only native to it. Of course, there could always be planets out in the Universe that held the same things as Earth, and there most definitely could at least be worlds that had similarities to Earth. If it were not for the magnificent landscapes—what with the Amazon, the Nautical-Scape (which is what Isaack decided to begin calling it), and the Pacific Meadow, along with others that had not been seen by Isaack yet—Isaack would have quite literally died from boredom. He would have nothing to do, and thus he would see no point in adventuring, eventually dying from excessive amounts of rest.

Isaack’s feet—now calloused from the vast amounts of walking and running that he did—seemed to start becoming stronger, and with this so did his legs. Now, with the increase in overall lower body strength, Isaack would be able to travel long distances, as he did.

He traversed through the rugged terrain that made up the Amazon, and after traveling through it for a while, he finally came to where he had wished to go: the dilapidated cityscape—Isaack decided to nickname the ruined city Adventus, trying to keep some sort of mystery and adventure to the world that he lived in. As he walked about the decrepit metropolis the shadows of the colossal buildings were cast all about; he looked up to the skies, seeing the skyscrapers that once looked as if it touched the top of the Troposphere, now split in half with their corresponding, broken section laying somewhere adjacent to it. The rays of the Sun were separated into different segments once they passed through shattered windows that attempted to keep their original form, scattering all about the forest floor. Isaack watched the clouds pass overhead, casting their own special shadows across the forest, but they made no difference, for the shadows that came from the structures already were looming over the shrubbery.

Isaack walked upon the immense amount of plants and bushes until he realized that what he was walking was an overgrown road that went through the center of the city. He pulled away some of the plants from the ground, revealing the asphalt underneath it. After more investigation, he came to realize that there were a lot of abandoned and rusted cars that now were beyond repair; they were ruined, and there would never be another moment where they would move again. He went down the path that was made clear from the existence of the road that was there before the plants took over, and at the ending, he found the same wall plug that the extension cord that led to the place where the monitor and computer used to be. As he did a while before, he climbed up the rusty ladder that was built into the wall, and he came to the place where he could look out at the massive array of solar panels with their heads pointed towards the Sun. Over the next few minutes, Isaack attempted to find some way to get down to the level of the solar panels, and unlike the time before, he did find that he could climb down a vine that stretched down to the ground where it took root.

The vine—which seemed to clasp to the concrete wall that was the back of the building—had miniature spines and thistles on it, but it made no difference to Isaack as made his way down it. He jumped from the vine that he held himself to and landed with both feet on the ground in the undergrowth. In front of him were the solar panels, reflecting the light from the Sun and forming it into energy that could be used for various purposes.

Isaack walked through the bushes that made up the floor underneath the panels as butterflies and various insects flew throughout the air, jumping from plant to plant, and sucking out the nectar from the flowers that came from those plants. The ground that the solar panels sat upon was overgrown, and the plant matter came all the way up to Isaack’s knees. As he touched one of the glossy solar panels, he almost felt a chill go down his spine; he had not felt the cold yet warm feeling of higher technology for a long time. The last instance wherein he did so was when he was in the cockpit of his freight-ship that crashed a far distance away from the shore of the land—the glass-like finish that was on the solar panel was so smooth and perfect, and he knew that it was artificially made that way. He could see his reflection in the glass of the panel—it had a blue tint to it, as the polycrystalline on the panel that made it so that the amount of reflection of light was limited had a dark blue color. Isaack smiled at his reflection; it was the most accurate and best-looking reflection of himself that he had seen for a long time. He ran his hand down the side of it, feeling the metal frame that it had.

The feeling of the advanced engineering brought him back to how it was when he lived out in the galaxy; it made him remember how great it was to be able to easily travel the stars, and it made him remember the feeling of when his ship landed on a foreign planet, and as the hatch to his ship opened he saw the light from the star that the planet revolved around glare in his eyes. He was brought back to when he would look out into a new world and see the quivering plants, going back and forth in the wind. Isaack remembered how it was to soar through the upper atmosphere of a planet, where it felt smooth and it almost felt like he was meant to be up in the air and that he was meant to fly. Thankfully, Isaack’s memory was not failing him; he felt totally immersed in this faint dream that sat in his mind as it came into existence around him. He could smell the distant scent of pollen in the air; he could feel the wind blowing through his hair while it cooled off the rest of his body; he could feel the warm sun licking his face. His hand began to drift away from the panel—as that happened he broke away from the suddenly more remote vision, feeling his connection with that memory go back to being distant. Now, he could scarcely remember the faint, unnatural warmth that whirring machines radiated.

The air around him started to get cold, and Isaack began to become concerned. When he looked up into the sky, clouds began to crash into each other, slowly turning into a gray giant that loomed above him. Isaack got colder and colder, and once he realized that there was, most definitely, some sort of tempest forming above him. The wind began to pick up as the light from the Sun faded away; no longer did the panels reflect the Sun’s heat and radiance. No longer did the warm summer-like weather continue, for instead, a storm was brewing in the heavens, and it was waiting to bring down its hail and thunder upon the forest that awaited its frequent gift of water.

Isaack started to go back to his hut, and as the storm started to pick up speed and momentum and as it started to get harsher and harsher, he quickened his pace. After running for some time he broke through the treeline and stomped through the sands, quickly coming up to the front of his home. He gripped his door and slammed it behind it with such vigour and force that it seemed to almost shake his whole home.

The storm—now making it so that the waves picked up their speed and amount of water per wave—had got to be so massive that water that was up in its higher sections, over time, became hail, which then was pulled down by gravity and hurled down to the Earth’s surface. Isaack could hear the chunks of ice hurling themselves at his hut; but, much to his surprise, his hut was able to put up a good fight against the fast-moving miniature glaciers. He did, however, have to put a rug that he made from bark over his window, blocking any water or ice fragments that may get it, whether it be splashed up to the height of the window or thrown at high velocities at it. Isaack heard the distant, rolling thunder and he saw the magnificent flashes of lightning from out in the open ocean, for the light from these flashes illuminated his window.

Turning to the monitor, he made sure that StillCare was turned off. When he noticed she was not, he pushed in her power switch, and she was booted off; he felt bad for turning her off because he knew that she was aware that she was off, and he knew that she was aware of herself, but she would not admit it. The storm raged on and it almost shook the walls of his house and seemed to be relentless—it did not want to stop, and in a way, Isaack did not want it to stop either. He did not want the storm to cease; if it stopped, then he would have to go back out into the forest and onto the beach.