The Development Laboratory had always been white, pristine, and devoid of all color in representation of its unbaised creation of Manamity — the current, collective term for Earthlanders.
The walls were a huge, unending barrier between the subjects, their developers and the world that lay beyond both of us. I've read that the facilities were often constructed in the most secluded parts of a town, stealthily training their creations for a life of subjugation.
Obviously I hadn't read the latter part of the statement; it was one of my many a observations that led me to stand in the detention corner and observe the game of charades they called 'social life' unfold before my eyes, under controlled and supervised circumstances, that is called the Social Sector Development Class — wherein all Subjects were left to interact and learn from each other.
Wherein we were lab rats for observation as our creators spied over us through a strip of cameras monitoring every constructed breath we took.
Wherein I, Subject S-3-2-3-6-9-43-7-2, first met Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22.
Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 had been isolated by her Sector peers but she seemed blissfully unaware of the situation. The Subject was busy thrashing two toys against each other and making up war dialogues between the conflicting duo. War was one of our many glorified histories but manual fights were usually looked down upon, in our age.
Her acquaintances were repulsed by her not-so-smart and much-so-violent tendencies and had decided to make it obvious by excluding her from everything they did together.
She was strange, not just in her mannerisms but also in her appearance. It made me think she was a Prototype under observation, rather than a Subject. Though, clearly a failed one, for her name started with 'U' which was short for 'Unsuccessful'.
Her skin was dark, littered with white spots on every visible body part. Her face was angular, sharp and pointy, not dainty like any other Subjects of the opposite sex. Her forehead was wide, housing two small horns on either side, caged under transparent test tubes. Her shoulders too, were angular and pointy, with edges shrap enough to stab something. It seemed so because they had escaped the confines of her fabric robe and peeked out through the tatters.
Her chest was flat, a stark difference from anyone from any Sector, and her angular limbs were lanky and sharp. Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 did not take up much space as she had curled her knees in her chest and made herself comfortable in the unending breadth of the classroom.
She looked happy, all by herself. Considerably much happier than other Subjects trying to fit in with each other.
I had no idea what the developers were trying to do with her — but it was clearly thought provoking. I wanted to be friends with her.
My sight searched for the room coordinator, sitting straight in front of the class, hidden behind his white desk and chair, camouflaged with the walls in his white bodysuit. His face was devoid of all emotions, yet his eyes were capturing every movement happening within the room.
He was clearly an Observation Bot. They wouldn't put anything lethal in the presence of their newly enhanced creations, hence why the Observation Bot, at most, would only agressively pen down even if a fight shy of drawing blood took place.
I took it as a cue to walk up to her; and she was quick to catch me in her peripherals and narrow her lemony crystal eyes as a form of a glare. I offered a wave and she dragged herself closer to the wall.
Way to act repulsed.
I just realised that she had no hair. Her scalp was embedded with horns and wires, glowing when she bared her teeth at me. They were pointy canines of hostility. She hid her hands behind her back, guarding her toys from my sight.
And it only pulled me more on the road to curiosity.
If I knew how things would have turned out for us, I would have never walked those eight steps and said those two words.
But geniuses are not fortune tellers and maybe that was a battle for another day.
"You're pretty," I found myself saying, involuntarily. I kneeled in front of her, smiling, as I held out a hand for her to shake. "Want to be friends with me?"
Her eyes moved from me to the detention corner I had just abandoned. Her forehead frowned unsure furrows and I could only laugh at her nervousness.
"It's okay, Observation Bots are not allowed to dish out more than three punishments and only one of them is detention corner. I'm Subject S-3-2-3-6-9-43-7-2, by the way, but you can also call me genius."
My haughty introduction neither caught her undivided attention nor did it make her a mush of insecurity and wonderment.
"Who are you?" I tried again, hand still awkwardly held out for her to shake.
Her forehead contoured into confused lines, sight switching between my face and my hand, at a fast pace. Ah-
"You do this," I reached for her left hand and pulled it forward to grab it with my right hand. "This is a handshake. Now we're friends," I stated with a grin, shaking her arm to and fro.
She just blinked at me, once, twice, thrice, before lurching up and punching me in the gut.
Accidentally, that is.
I suppressed a howl of pain, balance dwindling, only to recive additional weight of her geometrical body pressed against mine, almost mimicking a hug. Ah, so that is what she was going for. Her stiff body erect against mine as a mimicry of social conduct.
I coughed out air, failing at words, because wow— even her fingers were sharp enough to hurt.
"You're a walking death threat waiting to happen," I sighed out, gently patting her back. I carefully reached for her sharp wrists and let them wrap around my arms and envelope me in her boney cage. "This is how you hug without possibly gutting someone's internals out. No wonder you have been ostracised from society," I coughed again.
She was haste in pulling apart, her seemingly small doe eyes widened to considerable degree. They were searching me for hints, answers, or a comprehension.
Ah-
"I mean, you won't be accepted easily. By people," I clarified, looking around to find most of our Subject peers staring at us. I waved a casual hand to the crowd, serving my fans with a big smile. "You'll be fine if you follow me," I leaned forward to her pointy ears and whispered.
Her forehead was in a concentrated frown now as she raised her angular hands and jerked her wrist left and right, mimicking me. I could only laugh.
DL was fun, henceforth.
Our cafeteria was a huge block of a closed white square with screens and windows simultaneously fixed all over its perimeter. Subjects and occassionally a few Developers would line up in front of the screens to order their food and pick it up through the windows beside it.
Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 was slow, I realised when she would usually be the last one standing in the cafeteria lines, letting people get in front of her and order until the break time was up. It was their sort of bullying but she didn't feel it until I clearly worded it out for her.
"They're being mean to you."
"No. They mean not," she had said. "I be fine," she had said.
And two days later, two Subjects from the Nature and Computer Departments, respectively, were discarded due to dislocated limbs, curtsy Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22.
I had no time to be proud of her because, in consequence, she too disappeared for about a month and when I saw her again, she was weird.
The horns from her forehead were cut to their stems, covered with cotton pads. The wires of her head were gone and stuck on the scalp was now a messy black wig of hair. Her shoulders were bandaged and visibly rounded, her elbows weren't sharp but bandaged, her wrists were carved with subtlety and bandaged for protection.
"You don't look a whole lot fine to me."
"I deserved it."
She never told me what happened when she was gone, but she would cry by herself when she tried to do anything remotely normal. Everything must have hurt, I concluded, for they had cut and remodeled her when she wouldn't behave the way they wanted her to.
"You're still pretty," I had informed during Sector Social Development Class when Subjects wouldn't stop exclusively snarling or glaring at her.
"I don't feel like," she had replied, choosing her toys and secluding herself in a corner to bash them against each other.
I had frowned because it was statistically incorrect of her to not feel pretty when she was literally recreated be so. I wanted to inform her that, but she would only face her back to me. It felt a bit mean of her. But was I at fault as well?
That was the first time I had felt my chest sink. A heavy hollow in my heart. It made me cringe. I was good with equations and logic...but this was weird. It almost made me want to not be a silent observer and break out of my 'Chill Genius Guy,' image that I had been working so hard to cultivate lately.
So, I ran away and signed up for extra data development studies. Though, soon enough, I was overworked and overstudied for a week and as soon as my responses started lagging, they threw me into the sick sector, letting me rot in the name of rehabilitation for a week.
Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 was caring, I realised, when she had skipped breakfast and smuggled hers for me. Somehow, she had come to know of my situation. I was popular so it wasn't hard for everyone to know everything about me. As they should.
As Subjects we had Cells in which we lived in. White block spaces to exist in an environment artificially created for us. I had never been to her cell, but mine was all about books and chemicals. We were offered our morning breakfast in our cells as it was the most important meal of the day. Some maid bot would deliver it to everyone when the Shutdown time was up.
Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 had poured a jug of water on its circuits and led it to a faint. She then wore the maid bot's clothes and sneaked her food for me.
We hadn't been talking, so her visit was a charming surprise. Also, because I was deliriously hungry and would have been surprised even if someone had said 1+1 equals 2.
"You look garbage," was her greeting.
"You're still pretty," I had commented, all but snatching the food from her hands and gulping it down like a madman.
"I thought we broke but I don't want you die," her words were laced with concern as she had taken a seat by my sick bed. Miraculously still undiscovered.
Maybe we weren't being monitored every breathing moment of our lives.
"No, ma belle— we, uh, we cannot be broken up," I had managed while gobbling down the huge chunks.
"Ma blee?" Her lemony crystal eyes had widened again and I just noticed that her face too was more rounded now. She felt like my friend but did not look like my friend.
"Ma belle, my pretty," I explained with an unintentional frown gracing my forehead. "Are you okay?" I found myself asking without a thought.
Her forehead wrinkled again and I noticed faint traces of dotted eyebrow lines. "Don't die, I be fine," was her static reply.
"I make no promises."
Yet it burdened me with words.
Subject U-262-7-36-27-34-22 was strange, I concluded. She continued coming for two more days before she was caught by the developers and disappeared again.