13. The Magus

"Okay, Pavlov, you can come out," Eva called from the other room.

I opened the door to Eva, clad, like me, in a tight black bodysuit. Her curves were magnetizing. At the sight of them, my slow gray blood seemed to burn as red as human blood, even while the suddenly erratic pulsing of my wires reminded me I was not human.

"This might be a little strange for you because your senses may be limited by the VR technology, but that is what we want because your senses are much sharper than human senses anyway, so hopefully this will give you a better understanding of how humans experience the world," Eva said, interrupting my fascination with the way every part of her body was more divinely shaped than the next. I was a man-made thing, but she must have been shaped by a God.

I took the face mask she handed me and set it on my head, ready to pull down, as she went on talking, "My player is going to be called StarFire17, and I thought maybe you could pick your own name? You know, practice some human-like creativity."

She held out her tablet to me and indicated where I could type in a name.

All the manic activity inside me slowed to a stuttering whir as I considered her request. "Can't I just be Pavlov?" I asked.

"No, we need to go by fake names."

I stared at the blinking cursor, waiting for an idea to come.

"It doesn't have to be a good name, it doesn't have to even be a real name at all, ‘Starfire17' isn't a name at all, I just liked the way it sounds," Eva prompted.

Eva's Dog and Eva's Servant were the first names that popped into my programming, but I dismissed them, sensing that Eva would not approve.

"Humanoid?" I hesitantly suggested, "Android, Cyborg, Automaton? Golem?" I ran through synonyms in my dictionary programming.

Eva frowned, "No, you can't choose a name that might give you away. Okay, how about this, choose a name from one of the books I had you read."

"Heathcliff?" I named a male character from the novel Wuthering Heights, the first book that came to my mind.

Eva raised her eyebrows but nodded, "Okay, Heathcliff works. Go ahead and type it in."

I did as she said, but after I hit enter the words, "Username already taken, please choose another," came up.

I looked at Eva and then at the screen, and then at Eva again. She seemed not to want to give me any hints. Finally, I typed in "Heathcliff7" and hit enter again. This time, the screen changed, giving me the option to "Immerse Now."

"Great, now put down your mask, and we will begin. Remember to only address me as Starfire and to respond when I call you Heathcliff."

When I put down the mask, for a moment, all I saw was a blank black, and a spinning icon indicating loading, but soon enough, a brightly lit, bustling cafe fuzzed into view. The people were all inhumanly symmetrical and dressed quite uniquely; a couple had on leather pants, one had on a pirate costume complete with a sword, and one barista had blue hair, tiger ears, and what seemed to be a tiger tail swishing by her feet. I took in a deep breath to smell the truth of the tail, but I could only smell the room Eva and I were standing in.

A petite young woman flickered into view in front of me wearing shorts, a tank top, and sandals. She was pretty, but she looked nothing like Eva, with elfishly pointed ears poking out very long, wavy blonde hair. Still, I knew immediately it was Eva because I thought she was beautiful. It must have been the way she moved. When I looked closer to try to see past the facade, all I could see were pixels.

"It's me," she told me, "Starfire."

I nodded, "I'm me too."

She laughed, "I knew that. So... What do you think?"

"About what?"

"The cafe, of course." Her tone of voice was different from usual, lighter somehow. I quite liked it.

"I quite like it," I said.

Her smile brightened a watt, "That's good, I'm glad."

"I quite like it," I said again to see if her smile would grow again. It didn't.

"Let's go sit down and talk," she said.

I realized that the couch we sat on corresponded to one of the real couches in the sitting room, and it occurred to me that every person in the room must have been seeing a slightly different version of the cafe, corresponding to the rooms they were in. It brought to mind philosophy Eva had had me read on the subjectivity of reality.

Eva waved away the barista who came over to get our orders, explaining we don't have tongue sensor implants. Then she turned to look at me. I looked back at her. The strange people around us moved and spoke of many things, some things like what Eva told me humans spoke about and some things quite different. Soft jazz played in the background. A woman sang, "It must have been moonglow that led me straight to you."

Eva seemed to be waiting for me to say something normal, so finally I commented on our surroundings, as Eva instructed me people do when they have nothing truly to talk about. "I like this song," I said, although in reality, I was, and am, rather indifferent to music. But I made the right choice because it earned me a smile.

"I'm not a big fan of jazz," Eva said.

"Oh. What kind of music do you like?" my blood and my wires hummed. I felt good. I felt that I was doing a good job so far, acting normal. I smiled, not only because Eva instructed me to smile in ‘normal' conversations, but because I had the urge to smile. Smiling felt good, ironically natural on my unnatural face.

Eva absently ran her hands over the couch that now looked leather. "I don't know. Happy music, I guess? Music I feel like I can dance to. No genre in particular, just not jazz."

I nodded as if I understood, "Do you play any instrument?"

She shrugged, "Sorta, not really. My parents forced me to take violin lessons when I was young."

"Ha," I said, "I used to beg my parents for a drum set and drum lessons, but my dad would never budge. He said either I would be too loud playing them or never practice at all."

Eva's eyes widened. She had told me my backstory before, but I had never repeated it back to her like that, as if I believed it. As if I were human. But something about being in that fake cafe, with all the humans around pretending to be something they weren't, made it easier for me to pretend too. My muscles were relaxing, unhinging in a way they never had before.

I went on talking, "Yeah, my dad was a real hard ass. Tough, but fair. What are your parents like? I'd guess they were strict, helicopter-type parents?" I made my guess based on the psychology books Eva had had me read.

"Just the opposite actually," Eva laughed, "They were both uber-busy with work. My mom is in finance and my dad is a CEO. They didn't really care what I did. I mean, I'm sure they love me, and I love them, but…" she trailed off.

"They're on Mars right now," she said, "my little brothers too."

For a moment, my brain did not compute what she said. I replayed the clip over in my head. "They're on Mars?" I asked. I wondered if she was pretending to be someone she wasn't, just like I was.

She lowered her voice to a whisper, "Destruction Number 7, do not tell anyone what I just told you, about my parents being on Mars. This is an order."

I nodded, dumbly, sure now that she was not pretending.

Eva was my world, but this new knowledge changed my view of the world. Eva could be on Mars with her family but was deciding to stay on Earth. Weren"t humans meant to value their families above all things? Earth's troubles didn't have to be her problem: she was making it her problem.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what? Why did they go to Mars? Why didn't I go with them? Why am I a part of a government organization that ultimately aims to help the rich and destroy the poor?"

Her voice rose shrilly as she spoke, I pressed my hand to the cushion beside her. "Shush, calm down Eva, people are watching, your heart rate is racing," I murmured.

She laughed then hissed, "Do not say anything about anyone's heart rate in public ever again." She took a breath and seemed to calm herself, "But to answer your question, sometimes, there is more at stake than your own safety. Your own wants. We all must make sacrifices. I'm not fighting for the Mars Exodus because I have no choice, unlike some of my colleagues who just want to be chosen out of the lottery to also escape to Mars.

"Remember that 2D movie I had you watch, The Titanic? Remember how the rich people insisted on getting onto lifeboats, when it really should have been women and children and young people allowed to live first. Like Jack and Rose? People who would have a chance to live a long life? To procreate? What I mean to say is that if anyone should be allowed to go to Mars, it should be Jack and Rose—young people. Healthy people. People who will be able to breed and carry on our species—not people like my parents, not even like my brothers—twins—both prone to seizures—no matter how much I love them. Plus, all the pollution kicked up by the rocket dust with each shipment of people that leaves, and the fact that they are stealing Earth's natural resources and bringing them to Mars instead of trying to fix the problems they all helped to create here—" Eva broke off mid-sentence when she noticed something behind me.

I turned to see a bearded dwarf watching her. He grinned, "Right on sister! Stick it to the man! The Exodus is shite!"

Eva giggled, but she smelled a bit like fear. I stood up to confront the dwarf, but he only grinned at me and did the peace sign. "Later, brahoos." His pixels dissolved as he turned the game off.

"Sit down, stuff like that is common in virtual reality, and it's not even very weird if someone does something like that in real life. There are weirdos everywhere." Eva sighed and examined her fingers. "You know," she said, looking up, "I think I'm getting carried away talking to you right now because I know you aren't real. Like, it is like I am writing in a journal or something. Or playing a virtual reality game," she laughed. "You're just an artificial intelligence so you don't have any real opinions, you can't judge me. I've never talked to anyone about any of this … because the only person I could have talked to is...dead."

I sat down. My heart sat like a lump of cold, heavy metal in my chest, although it was made mostly of organic materials. Was I supposed to have a reaction to her words? I didn't know. The only reaction I felt was pain. I wanted to press her to me, to put my mouth over her mouth so she would stop speaking.

"When someone tells you something sad, like about death, you are supposed to comfort them. Say ‘I'm sorry' or ‘it's okay' or something," Eva said. She glared at me.

I glared back at her. I wanted her, but I knew I was nothing to her. I wanted to be all she thought about, as she was all I thought about, but this dead person was on her mind. I did not think saying ‘sorry' would make her or me feel better.

"I want to kiss you," I said.

I said it loud enough for the people around us to hear. They turned towards us and then first one, then more, started chanting and laughing, "Kiss, kiss, kiss!"

"I think this session has been long enough for today," Eva said, and disconnected me from the virtual reality. A reality where I had the same limitations as a regular human, a reality where I was no different from anybody else. A reality where Eva and I kissing was almost feasible, but still impossible.

Back in the chamber with the other destructions, I closed my eyes and tried to replay Eva's laugh, Eva's smile, the scent of her. But present questions were shouldering aside the remembered sensations. This cause that I was to be destroyed for, which was so meaningless to me, why did it matter enough to Eva that she would forsake her family for it? Isn't family more important than anything to humans? Did that mean that maybe I wasn't totally meaningless to her, just that helping people escape to Mars had more meaning? I clenched my jaw—I knew my thinking was wishful at best. And besides, she had contradicted herself. She claimed to hate the fact that people were emigrating to Mars and leaving a destroyed Earth behind, yet wasn't that the very cause we were fighting for?

Who was the dead person she mentioned? Was it Caesar? Who was Caesar? What did he mean to her? I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to smother the thoughts. I was not created to ask questions or wonder about things I could not change. I was not created to feel things; anything I experienced was just a side effect of reaching the goal the humans had created me for—the goal of controlling the general populace while the wealthy escaped Earth's environmental degradation to move to Mars.

I felt a dip at the end of my bed and sensed it was—Schrodinger—Destruction Number 11 again. I decided not to acknowledge him—it. I resumed the posture of the other destructions in the room, arms by my side, eyes open and staring at nothing, in hopes he would go away.

I felt him staring at me for long minutes before he said anything, "Humans are all bad. Aren't they?"

I continued to ignore him, but he went right on talking, "But your handler, Eva? She's very bad. Very, very bad."

I couldn't have held back if I tried, though I did not try. I had him slammed against the floor in a second. I was aware of rustling as the other Destructions sat up mutely to watch us.

"Take that back," I snarled.

"Why? Why should you care if she is bad?" he smirked up at me.

I loosened my grip on him. I supposed I didn't care if she was bad, but I still did not like the way he was talking about her. I didn't want him talking about her in any way. I didn't know what to say or do next, so I did nothing.

"Do you know what she did? Do you know the real reason you were created? Do you know why she is here? She's hypocritical slime," he spat the last words. "She's a traitor."

I didn't stop the machinery from bursting from my arms, but before I could blast him, I was on my back, staring up into Destruction Number 9's black eyes. He was glaring at me. I gaped at him.

Destruction Number 11 gaped too, "Why'd you do that?" he asked.

Destruction Number 9's face fell back into its regular blank neutral. "I don't know." His voice was young, like the voice of a human teenager. He released me and returned to his cot. "I don't know," he repeated.

Destruction Number 11 turned towards me. "You deserve better than her, better than this," he turned towards the room, "We all deserve better than this!" Tears were streaming down his face again, "Please brothers! Escape with me! I know the way, just listen to me!"

I lay on my cot. It was difficult to focus on Eva with the sound of Destruction Number 11 whispering to Destruction Number 9. Telling him nonsense like, "It's going to be all right."