ALMOST HUMAN

I.

Belle's breathing is as fast as the running water that is flowing down from an old and rusty faucet. She tries to look in her reflection on the cracked mirror split into two. Her face is wet, and her eyes tells a story of an impending doom. She knows she's fucked it. Damn it. Tatlong buwan niyang trinabaho ang prototype and now she's here in a comfort room faraway from the other delegates from different provinces and cities, trying to contemplate what went wrong and if this is the end of everything.

She closes the faucet at kumuha ng face towel sa bulsa ng maong na pantalon. Her face becomes red because of the forceful scrubbing which took a couple of seconds. Realizing that her breathing is now, more stable after trying to drown herself in the sink, she discards her backpack, took an old apple ipad whose model is from an era she doesn't know which she found on a trashcan last month and threw it in the bin just beside her.

Dali-dali niyang sinuot ang kaniyang cap and stormed out of the place. In the hallways of the DOST, Department of Science and Technology, Belle walks slowly composing herself, looking down on the white tiles. The strong aroma of formalin began to slide inside her nose. It was too much for her.

She reaches a corner and takes another turn where she is welcomed by different students almost her age, 24-25 whom are all accompanied by naked cadavers sitting beside them in an orderly fashion. One would think that these are real people. But no, they're all dead, their bodies are preserved, and their internal parts are all mechanical. This is the trend lately. In order to get a scholarship abroad, students like her are forced to experiment on dead people's bodies. It was a program launched by the government with the help of China, to reduce the number of the dead lying in the streets. They call it recycling. Belle thinks its madness. But she doesn't have a choice.

She passes by all of them. One girl whose hair is tied up, halos mabanat ang anit tries to showcase her prototype, a dead girl around the age of 10 who has a built-in gun in her mouth. Her face cracks open and splits into two revealing the weapon. The owner of this prototype does this with bravado clicking the on and off button located in her chest. She's too proud to even notice that a jet-black ink is leaking from its behind.

Walang panahon si Belle to fancy herself in this display of extravagance but deep inside naiingit siya dahil alam niyang she will never have enough resources to create something like that. She knows that the girl is showing off. For someone to even pull off a trick like that on her prototype one must be rich. She's pretty sure na may koneksyon na ang babae sa loob o baka naman she is a daughter of a general or a politician. Nepotism is kinda normal in this industry.

Belle finds her prototype sitting at the end of the hallway. He's probably around the age of 70 years old. She sits with him calmly, awaiting the final result. Will she ever get the scholarship? God, knows how? Visible pa din ang dark marks on the old man's hands tracing up to his chest like tire marks of a car after it accidentally grounds itself. Muntik na itong masunog. Belle wanted one simple thing for him which is to see, think on its own two feet, hear, speak, and do translations of different languages. Like a super-human interpreter. She figured that the military might like it since they have many agents scattered across the globe. But to her disappointment, during the presentation, the prototype mixed all the words and phrases. It was speaking rubbish non-stop. Dala siguro ito ng virus since she used an old ipad as its brain and command center. Unlike the others who have the capacity to buy stickers. This is the modern-day memory card and CPU, as thin as a bond paper and as small as a band-aid. It can store any program required for someone who dreams of creating their own robot. A control system Belle will never have even if she works three jobs a day.

Time is ticking and one by one students are called inside the metallic door leading to the board room just across them. Hours passed by. Students are coming in and out, some of them have happy faces, the others painted defeated expressions. It only took some of them minutes after they got the result to the point that she did not notice na lima na lang silang naghihintay. A light appears on the wall with the number ''25''. That's her cue. She stood up, grabbing her backpack and went inside knowing that the worst thing, be rejected, is already looming in.

Three men wearing white coats are seated in an oblong table. Their faces are stern and intimidating. It feels like if you say one wrong word, they might send you to hell. ''Please take a seat number 25'', one of them orders.

Belle follows, taking off her cap and places herself on an empty chair. She saw them scrolling their padtops. A lightweight ipad made up of a rectangular box, the size of a compact mirror. It releases a light on a solid surface making the users tap its graphics on the table. They're reviewing her performance. By the looks on their faces she won't make it.

''Your USP, number 25 isn't really a USP. Tell us why we should buy this prototype and give you a scholarship to the US?''

''Well uhm basically po. My unique selling proposition was its translator. For the purpose of...''

''It's not going to work''

''Uhm.....''

''I was asking the wrong question. Apologies. The idea behind it is good, the intention. But I don't think this will work. Why should we spend millions of pesos in this prototype which will probably take years to be developed if we can just pay translators and linguists to go abroad and do the job? Isn't that much feasible Miss Mariano?''

Belle was silent for a moment. The grip of her hands in her jacket is getting tight sealing her palm on the fabric. She wanted to sink and melt. She wanted to faint or run out naked, then jump in this building out of humiliation. This is her life and she's slowly losing it.