Further North

My Appologies, Miss: I'm only Human

He quickly hurried to the doctor's lab where he was usually found when not attending to his children. Yet, when Julian bursted through the heavy door, he was greeted with the hum of machinery behind the walls, and not a living soul in sight.

In glass coffins standing upright, human skin silently slept in vibrant green goop. To Julian's surprise, many of them had name tags etched into the glass, and all of them—no matter their age or gender or race—were named Rachael. They weren't even complete humans: some were full grown, others were only infants or children. Some were missing limbs or had their organs floating beside them. Others had massacred faces or shredded skin. Most had their eyes sealed shut, but on occasion, they starred into Julian's eyes and gaped at him.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" A voice whispered behind him.

Julian pivoted to see the doctor smiling at the cylinders. The doctor continued as if Julian hadn't made a face, "no matter how much you learn about me, my dear child, you'll never know my story or what I do."

Julian snarled, "what the hell is going on here?"

"Oh please," the doctor interrupted, "do you honestly believe in the shit I told you in the beginning?" He paused as if he was waiting for an answer but continued anyways, "you're not special, Julian. Sure, you were the first of your kind to be done properly by scientists, but I've been growing humans since I moved to Nevada."

Julian quietly added, "I thought I was special because of my human skin, not my human brain—"

"Wrong!" The doctor shouted, "they've been skin grafting even before the turn of the century—even before the First World War!" He slowly stepped forward, gaining power over Julian with each word. "You're nothing but subhuman."

Julian swallowed his fear before shakily speaking, "you said Rachael was subhuman, but she's as human as you."

"Ah, but Rachael is but a replica of the human species—just like the rest of them here." He gestured to the bodies in tanks.

Julian tilted his head, curiously disgusted, "what exactly do you do with them?"

"I run a business—selling human parts to hospitals and even on the black market. That box I had you deliver; those were in fact eyes he bought from me."

Julian gaged.

Immediately, the doctor worked to redeem himself, "I save people's lives for Christ sake! Isn't that something to be happy about?" He pointed to a boy asleep in the cylinder. "That boy right there is going to save the life of a twelve year old girl with a crushed lung. Just two hours ago I received an order for both his lungs."

As Julian turned to face the boy, the doctor hurtled himself atop Julian's back, biting and choking him—or—at least attempting to bite and choke him. Julian, with his unnatural strength, tossed Doctor Shawl to the ground with ease.

The poor doctor grunted in pain before Julian grabbed the knife from the old mans hand and jabbed it above his sternum.

Through gritted teeth, the doctor growled, "you will be nothing more than just an object—a slave—subhum—" he couldn't finish his sentence as Julian angrily dragged the knife through his face and into his head.

He lifted his finger to catch a dribble of the doctors blood, sucking it rather surprised about its iron rich taste.

A shocked gasp sounded from the doorway: poor Rachael was standing there watching her father die. But as Julian was standing up to explain to the rather perturbed Rachael, he realized she was staring at something behind him. Turning, Julian saw a beautiful woman from his dreams right before him, climbing out of the glass tubes.

"Cleo?" He whispered amazed and almost afraid she wasn't real.

The woman brought her head up to meet his eyes, and in that moment, Julian was innocent again with love in his gaze. He ran to her, catching her slick body in his arms.

"She's not real." Rachael's voice cracked, yet she continued, "she's not human." Repeating it over and over again as she walked forward. "She's not yours. She can't be yours."

When Julian opened his eyes, he saw a broken woman with a missing eye and lung dead on the concrete floor. She had short cropped black hair. Julian looked up to the broken glass where water had gushed out and where the woman had fallen from. She was not his Cleo.

"She's not yours." Rachael hissed in his ears. Suddenly, her throat was in his hands again.

"You did this! This is all your fault!" He angrily spat, pushing her down to the floor.

Despite the pain, she smiled and soon started laughing, "oh Julian, don't you realise what this means?"

He paused for a second, giving her a curious look.

Gurgling her spit, Rachael cynically stated, "this doesn't look good for you." She grunted, "the police are on their way, and it looks to me you've killed a poor old man and assaulted his daughter—"

He let go of her; fear taking over his body.

"You know what they do to robots who don't obey the law."

Julian frantically shook his head, "I haven't done anything wrong."

Rachael laughed, "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." Slowly, she walked toward him as Julian step backwards.

"It was out of self defense!" Julian emotionally shouted, trying to defend himself. "A robot can protect its own existence. He attacked me!"

Calmly, Rachael spoke back, "so long as it doesn't conflict with the First Law." By this point, Rachael had walked Julian into a corner where she spat in his face. "Even if they find you not guilty of these charges, you're still too emotionally unstable to be a robot!"

Police sirens wailed in the distance, and for a moment Julian's face crumbled at the thought of defeat—the thought of dying. Rachael, however, saw his face soften at the sight of her flushed appearance. She relaxed at the torn man, falling in love with the indent on his cheek and the curve of his upper lip and his chiseled chin that began to quiver in fear.

When the police officers bursted through the door, Rachael quickly ran behind them shouting wild accusations that hadn't even occurred...

The police men shouted and soon Julian was pressed against the cold concrete floor as his arms were pulled behind his back and his hands cuffed. At first, the policemen treated him nicely—well as nicely they would a human—but when one police officer noticed Julian's back panel, she muttered into her collar: "we got a ten ninety over here."

The last thing Julian ever saw was a tear drop from Rachael's face and her trembling lips. And then everything seamlessly disappeared forever.