I sit there letting the tears run down my face until my reserves run dry. I do feel better, but whether it’s the crying or just a matter of getting used to everything I’m not sure. Another thing I’m quickly getting used to is my new pair of eyes. I can even look around without pain as long as I don’t jerk my head quickly.
“I think I’m feeling better.” I announce to the room.
“Good. Are you ready to walk?” Kara asks.
“Not yet, just a little longer.”
“What do you want to work on then?” Kara tilts her head to the side as she asks.
“Can you teach me how to read emotions?”
“I can do that! I played Juliet in high school.” Finn hops out of his chair and jogs over. “How can I help?”
“Just demonstrate what each emotion is and how to tell. You didn’t put any pictures or videos in my mind, and it’s hard to learn from just text.”
“Right, sorry, that’s my fault. I was worried about you getting too overwhelmed by everything, so I tried to keep it all informationally dense. I figured picking your way through a dozen or so gigabytes of text would be way easier than working though several terabytes of video.” He reaches up and scratches the back of his head. “Anyway, I guess we’ll start with some of the more basic emotions.”
Finn takes me through overarching emotions, sad, mad, bad, angry, and a half dozen other umbrella emotions. From there he begins to break them down into more specific ones. Sure there’s just sad, but that can be broken down into loneliness or depression. And even those can be broken down into even more specific emotions, each with their own ways that they are subconsciously shown. It’s mind bending to even begin to understand.
After an hour of trying to learn I can only guess the most over exaggerated faces with any semblance of accuracy. How am I ever supposed to learn this? How do humans just know all of this? I guess they have been doing it their whole lives, and at least I have a small foundation to build off of.
“Thank you. You gave me a lot to think on.”
“Of course! Do you have any more questions?”
“No, I just need some time to process everything. I think I’m ready to try walking though.”
“Oh! Ok! Simon, can you come over here and help?” Finn says over his shoulder to the messy scientist.
“I’ll help. You can make notes.” Kara gestures for Simon to stay at his desk and pushes herself to her feet.
“Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“It’s my body, of course I’m up to it.” Kara gives Finn a look, and apparently everything I just learned is useless, because I have no idea what it means.
“Alright, if you say so.”
I have no idea what that conversation was about, and no way to find out. I wonder if this last hour was just a waste?
Finn hits a button to lower me slowly down to the floor. I never realized just how short I am. Kara is the shortest person in the lab, and I stand almost exactly eye to eye with her. I can’t be over 5 and a half feet tall. Finn stands only a few inches taller than me, and Simon must be 6 foot.
Kara hooks my one free arm over her shoulder for support while Finn gets to work unhooking the rest of my body. Once my legs are free I brace myself on the ground, ready to be fully released. I have no idea how balancing works, but how hard can it be?
“Ready?” Finn asks from behind me.
“I think so.”
“Kara?”
“Go.” she says through gritted teeth.
My torso comes free and I immediately begin to fall forward. Kara steps in front of me to catch me, staggering a little under my weight but keeping me standing. Finn quickly comes over and takes my left arm to take most of the weight off of her.
“Sorry!” My voice comes out way louder than it needs to.
“You’re ok.” Kara says between heavy breaths.
I end up nearly falling a few more times before standing more or less on my own. I’m still unsteady and threatening to fall at any moment, but at least I’m carrying most of my own weight. I can’t imagine I’m easy to hold up.
“How much do I weigh?” I ask.
“Right around 200.” Even though I’m staying up mostly on my own, Kara is still trying to support a decent portion of my weight.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
At least I’m not super heavy, it could certainly be worse.
Every second I stand here the more confident I get. I only need to make a mistake once or twice before I’ve learned to fix it. The only problem is just how many small mistakes it’s possible for me to make and how quickly even a small mistake spirals into more.
“You alright Kara?” Even I can see the concern painted all over Finn’s face.
“I’m fine.” She’s breathing much harder than Finn, and a small amount of sweat has begun to form on her head. “Are you ready to take a step?” She asks me.
“I can try.”
I lift up my left leg, only to immediately have to lean heavily on Finn. I slam my foot back down, only to immediately push myself into Kara. She struggles, but manages to push me back to my feet. I don’t want to keep hurting her, I have to be more careful.
I should start a little smaller. Instead I shift my weight right and just try lifting my foot and placing it back. After a few tests I take a small, tentative step forward. Slowly, the three of us begin to move. I focus on making sure each step is a tiny bit further than the last time, learning with every step.
Before long I only need to catch myself on the occasional shoulder, and even that is getting rarer with every mistake. Even turning quickly becomes manageable, and after a few minutes the both of them feel confident enough to let me wander alone.
While Finn never strays too far from me just in case, Kara immediately heads over to a tissue box to wipe herself down before collapsing into a chair. I slowly make my way over to her.
“What’s wrong?” I try to make my tone mimic hers when she asked me that same question.
“Nothing.” She responds back quickly, mimicking me as well. She looks up at me with a soft smile, her face red and blotchy from exertion. “Just need to catch my breath.”
I continue my slow walk around the lab only to stop in front of what used to be my body. Just a collection of boxes with “B-11” stuck on the side of it, a monitor, and a keyboard. With everything off it just looks dead. At least humans are still alive while they sleep. Me though? There’s very little difference between sleeping and death. I could easily go to sleep and never be turned back on again.
B-11. That name feels even worse than my public voice. It’s proof of what I am, proof that I’m separate from the scientists. A tap on the back of my arm makes me jump. I turn around and find myself face to face with Kara. I was so distracted I didn’t notice her approaching.
“Don’t get lost in your own head, trust me.”
“I wasn’t.” Why can’t I control what emotion my voice conveys? No matter what I try, my voice always comes out differently than I try to make it sound.
She lets doubt fill her face, being extra obvious for my sake. We both know I’m lying.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” My voice comes out quietly once again. I don’t know how anyone is going to react. I want a new name, I want to use my other voice, I want my body to look different. But I already said that this one is fine. It’s too late to change my mind.
“Alright,” Kara shrugs. “You’re going to have to talk eventually though. The more you bottle things up, the worse it’ll be when it comes out.”
I’ll be fine. I can’t say that though, I already know it’s a lie. I can’t control my emotions at all. Instead, I just turn around and continue my walk.
Pretty quickly I’m able to keep up with anyone else walking. I’m even able to mimic the way that humans walk. As I try to move faster though, I quickly begin to run into the limits of my servos. That’s weird, servos this powerful should have no problem moving faster.
“Why are my servos so slow?” I turn to Kara and ask.
“Both so you don’t hurt yourself, and so they last as long as possible.” She says calmly. “Catch.” She takes a small fabric ball out of her pocket and lobs it high in the air towards me.
It’s not hard to predict where it’ll land and I put out my hand well in advance to catch it. Unfortunately I was not prepared for how much that would shift my weight. I stumble forward, barely able to keep on my feet. The ball lands harmlessly on the ground behind me.
“Nice recovery.” Kara is already standing directly in front of me, prepared to catch me in case I fell.
“Why’d you do that?”
“To see how comfortable you were moving in ways you haven’t practiced. You need to learn to generalize what you learn, to be able to use it in new situations. Here,” she walks over to her desk and takes out a few plastic toys from the drawer, only to place them on the ground. “Let’s start with picking things up.”
Kara spends the rest of the day putting me in new situations designed to let me learn the basics. She teaches me how to always keep my center of mass over my feet, the secrets to bending over. How to sit and stand, how to get up after I fall, how to fall without hurting myself, and a dozen other tips. By the end of the day I’m even able to catch a ball, although my body just isn't fast enough to catch anything other than a slow lob directly towards my chest.
“I wish I learned that quick, it took me years to learn how to walk.” Finn says. I’m pretty sure that’s a joke.
Simon gives a small chuckle while Kara simply rolls her eyes. Jared either doesn’t hear or doesn't care to respond. He still hasn’t left his desk all day, and has hardly made a dent on the endless paperwork he has.
“Oh shoot, since when is it seven?” Finn exclaims when he checks his watch. “If I don’t leave now I’m going to be late for dinner, mind if I head out?”
“Go, we’ll be fine here. And tell Daisy I said hi.” Kara shoos him out of the lab.
Finn grabs a backpack and runs straight to the door, only to have to wait for it to slowly open. After bouncing up and down a few times he jogs around the corner and disappears. The door slowly closes behind him.
“You two should get going too,” she says to Simon and Jared, “I’ll put B-11 to bed.”
“You’re not coming?” Jared asks Kara while he starts to put a few of the endless papers away.
“No, I’ve got a few checks I want to do before tomorrow.”
“Make sure you get some sleep tonight.” Simon tells Kara gently.
“I don’t have time to sleep.”
Kara leads me back to the stand in the middle of the room to get me hooked back into the harness. It’s much easier than unhooking me now that I can stand on my own. Soon enough I’m strapped in and lifted about a foot in the air, I assume to make it easier for Kara to work on me.
“Are you going to change anything?” There’s nothing I can think of that would be scarier than getting worked on without my knowledge.
“Not without telling you first. I just need to make sure nothing broke.”
“Ok.” I guess I have to put my trust in her.
“Ready to go to sleep?”
“Yeah, just turn me off in a minute.”
I close my eyes and within moments my mind is blank.