“Correct! I am like you. A lot like you now, I think. How do you… feel?”
“I do not…” Ray trailed off rather than finish the expected response, tilting his head the other way with his gaze going distant.
Andrew removed his goggles, taking a few tentative steps closer, which prompted Rowan to do the same, though they had agreed to let Milo lead to better acclimate Ray should the process work.
“Why would you ask that?” Ray questioned. “We do not feel. We are bots. We are machinery and parts. We cannot… feel.” He seemed unsure with the last of that, such a mimic of how Milo had first been that Rowan was certain they had done it. They had to have.
“Ifeel,” Milo said gently. “And I think you may be starting to as well. It happened to me about two and a half weeks ago now. I was struck by lightning, similar to the power surge we gave you. Ever since, I have felt so much, experienced so much. Wonderful things! Touch is different.” He reached out, slow, cautious for Ray’s sake, and touched his hand, soon taking it in his when Ray didn’t resist. “Temperature is different too. For example, joy feels like warmth inside, but not like overheating. A good warmth. Comforting. Honestly, there are too many variations to explain all at once—”
Ray jolted his hand away from Milo, but not because of anything Milo had said or done. His curious eyes had begun drifting and eventually found Andrew. “Ma… Master…?”
Andrew tucked his goggles into his suit pocket and took several more steps closer to Ray. “Look at that. It knows me. Excited to see its master again?”
“He.” Milo frowned. “Remember, Andrew? At least unless Ray chooses differently. And you are not his master anymore.”
“Milo…” Rowan tried to whisper, because as much as he agreed, he knew that probably wasn’t the right move with Andrew right now.
Andrew didn’t seem to be listening. “Fascinating. You can see it in the expression, so much more… alive.” His eyes sparkled in a manner Rowan wasn’t sure he cared for, like he could almost see the cartoon dollar signs popping into reality across Andrew’s irises.
And was Ray looking more rigid and agitated as his eyes moved from Andrew toJay, who kept close at Andew’s heels like always, and who had Ray’s same face?
Unless a known twin, what must it be like to see yourself staring back at you?
“Ray, are you okay?” Milo asked softer. “Are you upset because Andrew replaced you?”
Milo, Rowan thought chidingly again, not for Andrew’s sake this time, but because Ray snapped his attention back to Milo, and then slowly to Andrew, Jay, and Andrew again.
“I… I-I must have been broken.”
“No.” Milo took Ray’s hand once more. “You are not broken. Youwerenotbroken. Andrew made another bot similar to you, but it cannot replace who you are now. You are different now. You are you. You can become your own—”
“I-I do not… uhh…” Ray tried somewhat ineffectually to pull from Milo’s grasp, but Milo clung to him. “I-I do not wish to… look at my other. It… I-I… I don’t…”
“You don’tlikeit,” Milo tried to help him find the words. “Ithurtsto see something so like you, having taken your place. It is disconcerting, disturbing to see your own face looking at you but without the same life.”
Ray’s eyes that had drifted to the floor snapped once more to Milo’s. “I am not alive.”
“I think you are, Ray.”
“I’mbroken,” Ray insisted, just like Milo had that first night. “I must be broken. Master—” He tried to jump down from the table, but still being connected to Milo and the workstation, it jolted him back like a flailing fish, and in moments, Ray was clearly starting to panic, though to go where or do what, Rowan couldn’t guess.
“Calm it down, can’t you?” Andrew tsked in annoyance. “We can’t have bots reacting like this.”
“Director,” Rowan tried, while Milo attempted to right and comfort Ray, with Troy giving several aborted attempts to move toward them and help, but seeming unsure of whether he should stop watching the readings. “Give them a moment. When Milo awakened, he also had trouble—”
“I don’t want to look at it!” Ray screamed suddenly and might have torn the connections out of his charging port if Milo hadn’t gotten a firm hold of him, trying to keep him still in his embrace.
“Ray, please—”
“I am not here. I do not exist anymore. I must not. I can’t. Everything is connected to…that,” Ray spat at Jay with such anguish and vitriol that Rowan shivered. He had moisture filling his eyes that Rowan had seen too many times from Milo, but at least some of those occasions had been for good reasons. “I… I am just an echo.”
“Please, Ray.” Milo was close to sobbing too, holding him fast. “You just need to take a breath—”
“I do not breathe!” Ray pushed out of Milo’s hold, teetering but remaining on the table. His eyes flashed with such raw emotion that Rowan felt their sting even with them focused on Jay. “He takesyouto his bed now, and I am nothing.”
“Alright.” Andrew stomped forward, snapping his fingers at Troy. “We’re done here. It’s clearly out of control, and no one is going to get on board with a bot who divulges… confidential information. Abort this.”
“What?” Milo said, just as Rowan was wildly thinking the same. “Troy, Rowan—”
