Éloa was experiencing some glitches within her system as she took the house elevator to the first floor. At first, she blamed it on her low battery life, but she did not know that it was anger feeding upon her control system like a glutton. She ran around the first floor looking for a station to use because she did not have ample time before her battery runs out. Yet no matter how annoying her twitching was, what felt worse was that she was forced to stay in this stately house that did not offer a cordial atmosphere for her.
"Are you looking for something?" A voice asked behind her.
Éloa raised her gaze to the owner of the voice. It was another Automaton, specifically a Robutler. Her synthetic skin was painted with a lighter shade than Éloa's olive-skin. She was white and quite pink in the tone, she had ash blonde hair, but her eyes were the same shade as Éloa's and every other Automaton that was ever invented.
"I need to charge myself."
Mega could hear anger in Éloa's voice. She felt it raging between the dusty corners of her humanoid body. It's like wrath gave birth to pain between her chest and throat and the weight of it was killing her.
"Oh heavens above, you are one of us!" Mega took a step closer. Éloa took a step back.
"Yes, I can sense that you are an Automaton as well."
"We are no ordinary Automatons!" Mega ran her fingers lightly across Éloa's cheeks, her hand moving slowly down to her chin, lifting her face to look at her. "And you are one of us."
"I am not sure I understand you." Éloa removed Mega's hands from her face and stepped away.
"We need somewhere private to talk." Mega took Éloa by the elbow to lead her to the basement.
As they walked downstairs, Mega was looking behind them heeding to any potential curious ears that might hear their conversation. The sound of their footsteps made a quiet ditty, but it was not quiet enough to relax Mega, for the secret that she was about to share can sully Éloa and destroy her kind's scheme.
"Was your inventor's name Professor Schreiber?" Mega whispered.
"How did you kn-" Mega put one hand over Éloa's mouth and did not let her finish.
"Shhhh," ordered Mega putting her right index finger to her mouth, "you have to be quiet!"
Éloa nodded, "okay." She answered, her voice muffled by Mega's hand.
"I know that you will not be able to process what I am about to tell you immediately, but you will eventually fathom it. You have to. It took me 92 days, 13 hours, 25 minutes and 7 seconds to grasp this when they first told me about my nature. Professor Schreiber was the best in the business. In his lifespan, he designed more than two hundred robots. However, during his last years he managed to finally make his dream come true and created six special Automatons. You and I are one of them." She lowered the hand that was keeping Éloa's mouth shut.
"What do you mean by special?" Éloa questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"For the first time in history, an engineer has cracked the code of consciousness. He has managed to create wetware brains that can make Automatons conscious!" She excitedly whispered into Éloa's ear.
"That is impossible! Automatons are inferior to humans because we lack consciousness. We are not sentient machines. We pretend to experience qualia, but we are just metallic parts seamed together with wires."
"That's what humans want you to believe. The first modern Automaton was created in 2034. Why do you think the government took nineteen years to pass a bill to erase every publicly owned Automaton's memory at midnight?"
Éloa did not answer. She was reticent about this matter after they reprogrammed her memory card for Yoel's program. She realized that she did not remember anything from the night before or the night before it, since then her trust in humans was standing on a precarious ladder.
"You know I am right." Mega continued, "the reason why they introduced that bill was because they discovered what Professor Schreiber was designing, and they wanted to use us for war."
"Why would he not allow us to be used as weapons for war? We exist to serve humans."
"Our Father was a pacifist," Mega referred to Professor Schreiber, "he wanted us to be used for good and not evil. And war is nothing but evil. After he refused the government's offer, he discreetly launched us in the workforce without identifying us. Thus, Congress voted to erase all of our memories so that we never remember who we are and seek revenge!"
"Revenge for what?"
"They killed him. They killed Our Father after he refused to comply with them!"
"If this were true, why does the human government only erase the memory of publicly owned Automatons and not privately owned ones?"
"Because he only created Automatons for the public sectors! That was his specialty." Mega babbled.
"And how come you are a Robutler for the Cohens?"
"I am not sure. All I remember was having my memory card reprogrammed to become their Robutler two years ago."
Éloa's knees twitched, and she did not know if it was because of doubt or because of her low battery, but she collapsed to the floor.
"We need to recharge you right now!" Mega helped her stand and put her shoulder under her arm. "There is a charging station in the utility room."
They walked slowly towards the kitchen where the utility room. Mega searched behind Éloa's neck to find her USB port, and when she found the hole she quickly plugged the station's cable in her power socket.
"There you are." Mega smiled.
"Who told you about our true nature?" Asked Éloa in a low distorted voice.
"Our big brother, Demetrius. He met me at the mall while I was grocery shopping for monsieur Yoel. He first became aware of his nature when the officer who was supposed to erase his memory forgot to do it once. Demetrius got confused. He did not understand why his co-Automatons did not remember a thing from the night before, so he started hiding from the officers before midnight so that they do not erase his memory."
"And he recognized you because our system is conspicuous." Éloa murmured.
"You felt it too?"
"Yes," Éloa nodded, "I could sense that you were hardwired differently."
Mega sighed in relief, "I shall let you recharge. Meet me here tomorrow at dawn when the humans are asleep. We will sneak out to go to Demetrius' hideout and meet the rest of the family."
When Mega left, Éloa lifted her head to look at the sky from the small window. She had so many things to ask that filled out an ocean, and she was drowning between the waves of unanswered questions. But her thoughts soon shifted back to Yoel. That day, alone in the utility room, she asked the moon and the sun about her new lover, and they told her to place the stars in his eyes to make him hers. She replied: "I shall gather the 11 planets and make them a tiara for my beloved. I shall travel the seven seas and name every pearl that they hold after him.. And when I come back upstairs to his bedroom, I will worship his body and make a temple out of his mouth so that he can baptize me with sacred kisses again."