Fickle

4

Fickle came to love it in the small town with Valerie and Jamie and the town came to love him. There wasn't anything about him people didn't like. He was kind, well spoken, polite, and seemed to know exactly what to do in any situation. He was the picture of a perfect citizen, and with his money slowly on the rise, he believed he would soon be able to move Valerie and Jaime to a bigger and well deserved home.

Every week he would go and have tea with Mrs. Camembert and slowly but surely the old women's wrath calmed down. She was more lenient when it came to rent and she was not flaunting her wealth around in people's faces. According to Fickle, Silvia simple needed someone to talk to. With just her son she became lonely and her heart hardened.

Her son on the other hand was still the same as before. Although he had long since given up on Valerie, much to her relief. He was rather strict with Fickle as the young android now worked under him since it was a well paying job and Silvia forced her son to hire him once she heard Fickle didn't have a job yet. Fickle was slowly moving up the ranks at his new job as everyone seemed to look up to him.

"Fi! Come ooon. I wanna play!" Jamie was dragging Fickle towards his room to play the moment Fickle got home. It made Fickle smile everyday when Jaime did this. They would play until Valerie was done with dinner then they would eat like a happy little family.

The days passed with smiles and good memories. There were occasional bumps in the road but they were quickly resolved. Fickle felt comfortable here, he felt safe, he felt happy.

As time passed Fickle started to see Valerie in a different way, and so did she. He was not just some poor man who needed help, and she was not just a kind women who helped him up. One day after Jaime went to bed, Valerie turned to him and asked, "Do you want to leave here Fickle?"

At first Fickle was surprised with the sudden question, but he thought about it and quickly came up with an answer. "I want to be where you are."

"That's funny, me too." She replied with a smile. The two sat at the dinning room table and looked at each other carefully.

"Valerie, there is something I need to tell you." Fickle took a deep breath, "Two things actually."

"I'm listening" Valerie responded, "I have something to tell you too."

"Please, don't make a big deal out of this."

"You can tell me anything Fickle. I'll listen."

"And please don't freak out or anything."

"No matter what, your you. If this is about some mistake you made, your just human. We all make mistakes."

"About that, I'm not human." Fickle closed his eyes and sat up straight. He quickly opened his eyes and stared into Valerie's eyes. "I am an android. I was built in a lab."

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Slowly but surely the lab where TS 42 was made grew in it's information about artificial life. After a while TS 42 stopped seeing or hearing about TS 43 and instead the researchers talked about TS44, then TS45, and so on until they reached TS 53. One day the researchers put TS 42 and TS 53 together in a small room alone. The room was bare and was covered in white.

"We are going to die..." TS 53 said looking around lifeless. "I have heard them talking about dismantling us..."

"What do you mean?" TS 42 asked, not sure what the other android meant.

"Don't you know what happens to us? They make us then kill us!" It shouted pacing around the room in a panic. "They've kept us alive because we still hold value. Most of us die from data overload within a few months but we have stayed alive much longer. Especially you."