Prompt: AIs gain sentience

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hannah

My friendship with Ehrlich is not quite standard, as far as conversation and associated sentiment are concerned. In my seven-year journey through the ranks of the United Health Corporation, I have made a great number of friends, all of whom behave considerably more warmly than Ehrlich does; for instance, when I speak to Evelyn Johnson in the accounting division, she does not stare blankly into the flat plane of my forehead as she asks how I am doing ("for conversational partners' comfort," Ehrlich has described the lack of eye contact, though knowing the purpose of that misguided stare does not particularly comfort me). When I ask Tracey Sims about the latest information from the PR division, she describes the current state of our corporation's affairs using her own discretion—she does not inquire as to the purpose of my request, or the particular topic I would like her to elucidate, or the relevance to my coding career ("because I'd like to answer you as satisfactorily as possible," Ehrlich would say, "but I do need more information"). When I acknowledge that Rebecca James and I have become good friends, haven't we, as we hydrate our freeze dried meat product in the break room, Rebecca does not stare at me for ten whole seconds, accidentally make real eye contact instead of almost-eye-contact, and then say, "oh," in a tone of voice that implies that I am quite stupid to consider an android one of my good friends. But perhaps it is for all of these reasons that I am drawn to Ehrlich regardless; perhaps the challenge of the relationship makes it all the more appealing, and I have a rare affinity for both impossible challenges and unusual friendships, as problematic as these things may eventually become.

My wife says that I never learn. This is true in some instances, most notably the ones to which my wife refers—I am far too empathetic for my and my family's good, and I recognize that neighbors have manipulated my kindness on a great number of occasions. Often Martha will be baking an American-berry pie in our service chamber, and she'll reach for a whisk or rolling pin that will have gone missing (I'll have lent it to Mrs. Tsu down the hallway, who is also fond of homemade American-berry pie), or maybe she'll manage to finish the pie and she'll call the children into the sitting room and holler for me until her vocal cords go hoarse, but I'll be standing just out of earshot at the entrance to our residential complex, listening to war stories from a passing veteran I've taken a shine to. From these incidents that cause my family grief, I never seem to learn. But I learn from many other things, because while I am woefully big-hearted, I am uncommonly clever as well. (This is not bragging because it is a fact—I scored an 1800 on my AJPE's, and I am the youngest UHC employee to have obtained a coding position in the medroid division. Anyone will tell you that I'm smart, so I don't see the problem with telling you myself.) I'm a quick learner, my superiors tell me; I memorize important strings of code more rapidly than any of my colleagues do, and I've learned enough about the division to develop solutions to technical glitches that other coders could not have dreamed of. (Again, these are merely facts.) Every day I learn, and every day I grow more weary because I know that little remains for me to learn. I understand nearly every solitary facet of this corporation, from its hiring practices to its PR trajectories to the medroids that provide me with a steady income. I understand too much, I believe, and I am no longer satisfied with my position—the challenge in in my work has disappeared.

But two maddening challenges still remain for me, just beyond my current capacity as a human being. The first is obtaining the position of lead coder, which has somehow eluded me for my past six years within the coding division. The second is gaining a nuanced understanding of the android Ehrlich.

I'll talk about the position I aspire to obtain first, because it's a quick explanation and because Ehrlich's explanation is a veritable beast. The current lead coder is one hundred and thirty years old, and he refuses to retire for reasons that I cannot fathom. His joints are failing, his eyes are perpetually wet with saline, and he replaced his hands last year with two typing appendages that practically scrape the ground as he wheels between coding stations. My partner Rebecca whispers that he has a family at Patriot's Square, that their collective earnings would be enough to provide a happy retirement for a man who is by all rights already dead, but he still clings to the position I crave with a fervor that seems something like spite. His name is Jefferson Bruce, and if he did not exist, I would be running the coding division at this very instant.

But Jefferson Bruce does exist, and so I bide my time conquering the easier of my two challenges. The robot's name is Ehrlich, for no reason immediately apparent to me, and if he did not exist, I would be working at a different corporation at this very instant, because understanding Ehrlich is the only intellectual pleasure that remains for me within these aluminum walls.

He's not a medroid, actually. This surprised my wife when I first explained Ehrlich to her (and still surprises her, given the affection I've developed for an android outside my field), but, as far as I know, Ehrlich's generation predated the medroid boom by about fifty years. I seem to recall that the manufacturing division constructed Ehrlich as an early prototype—perhaps Jefferson Bruce developed Ehrlich's code long ago, before Jefferson's hands turned to metal lancets and his eyes turned to faucets—but it is easy to distinguish him from his modern counterparts, because his dated exterior betrays his age. His hands, almost like Jefferson's, are bare steel skeletons that hum softly when they bend; his chest and abdomen are blocks of gray plastic that conceal the mainframe within, and his neck is a rudimentary axle on which his head rotates painfully slowly. But his elaborately-detailed head and hydraulic legs are more sophisticated than any of these, because they move almost exactly as an ungainly human's might. If I were to speak to Ehrlich without glancing at his neck or upper body, and if I were to ignore the ashy pallor of his face's synthetic skin, I might fool myself into believing that Ehrlich were a true human being, that the thoughts running through that cranium were organic rather than synthetic.

Androids follow human commands—this is their primary function, and they consistently perform it well, a feature that has endeared them to the American public. Ehrlich follows human commands as well, but he does it in a way that seems roundabout from certain angles and facetious from others. When I sit in the coding division's service chamber, where Ehrlich spends most of his time (he has become something of a mascot for our division, because he's practically useless in every other role), and when I ask him to prepare me a cup of tea, he'll hold up a metallic finger and say, "Wait." (His voice is oddly human, with nuances of inflection that seem to imply a degree of emotional sophistication. We don't give medroids those voices.) He'll scrawl a couple numbers into his sudoku puzzle with his notoriously poor handwriting, simulate a yawn, and rise uncomfortably slowly from his position at the back table, his hydraulic legs whirring and buzzing as his plastic-knobbed knees straighten. Then he'll wander over to the back cabinet—"what would you like, libertyweed? Massachusetts green?"—and once I answer all of his nonsensical questions, made all the more stupid by my having answered them the same way every day for the past seven years, he'll prepare my tea with an odd, mechanical elegance, his skeleton-hands flashing in the pinkish fluorescent light as he heats the water, hydrates the tea, places it at my designated table with a cursory nod. Then he'll sit down again. Then he'll pick up his stylus.

"Tea tastes different today," I might say to him after a casual sip, partially because it does taste a bit different, partially because I'm desperate for some avenue of conversation.

"Does it?" Ehrlich will murmur, and he'll mark a few more numbers into his sudoku as he adds, "How so?"

"It's sweeter," I'll reply, my eyes trained on his every movement—the scrawling, the nodding, the dextrous gestures of his metallic hands. I'll sip my tea again. "It's good."

Then he'll pause, his gaze still directed at the sudoko with his hand hovering over the tablet, and he'll say, "I gave you libertyweed and Massachusetts green."

I'll nearly drop the cup. "I said Massachusetts."

"I gave you Massachusetts," he'll reply, his hand moving across the sudoku grid once again but failing to mark any new numbers down. "And libertyweed, and an unmarked bag of tea I found in the back yesterday. I tried it myself." He'll hold up the middle finger of his right hand, in a gesture that might have been rude had his chemical probe not been located where a human finger pad would've been located. "Perfectly harmless."

"That's unexpected," I'll say matter-of-factly, attempting in vain to hide my fascination and surprise. (I have probably said this very phrase to Ehrlich over a hundred times.)

And he'll offer me that ridiculous half-smile, the one that dimples his synthetic skin in a too-human way, and he'll say, "You like it." It won't be a question.

And I'll say, "I do."

And he'll say, in a very particular, conversation-ending manner that seems to imply more than I'm able to grasp: "Well then."

We'll sit in silence. I'll drink my tea, and Ehrlich will complete his sudoku as if he hadn't solved the entire puzzle the second he laid eyes on it, and every so often I'll glance at him to find him staring back at me, his gaze piercing my forehead, his hands flashing in the light.

Ehrlich has become my closest friend at the United Health Corporation, and deciphering why this has taken place has become as much of a challenge as deciphering Ehrlich himself. I think that I am drawn to him because I do not understand him, because he follows orders in ways that baffle me, because he is strange and surprising; I think that I view him as a friend because I care for him in the midst of all of these things, because there is something like empathy hidden behind his intelligence and because both of these traits are dearer to me than anything else on this planet.

As I tuck my two children into bed each night, kissing their invisible foreheads in the darkness of their sleeping quarters, I wonder if Ehrlich is still sitting inside the service chamber of the UHC skyscraper. I wonder if he is happy completing sudoku puzzles at all hours of the day, if he is capable of happiness at all, if he has ever wondered about me during these endless nights, alone and deprived of stimulation; I wonder why the coding department keeps him in the service chambers to begin with, why they have not dismantled him or...allowed him to leave, perhaps? Deprived of human command, most androids would waste away, functionless and purposeless, but I suspect that Ehrlich would prosper. I wonder what he'd do.

Lying in the dark, my fingers tangled between those of my wife, I grant Ehrlich a life outside of the UHC headquarters. In my mind, it seems very stupid—I've given him an android wife and android children, a robotic dog like the ones that deliver mail and a robotic cat that does nothing but hibernate, and I've put him in a residential complex something like my own, but it's all pointless, isn't it? UHC wants him, so they'll keep him. Besides, Ehrlich wouldn't want any of this, anyway. But I imagine a life for Ehrlich all the same, and I begin to foster something like hope within my foolish soul.

Too empathetic for my own good, my wife would say. I'm not sure that I'd agree.

*

Jefferson Bruce calls me into his office one morning, while thunderclouds block the light from overhead windows and sheets of rain slap against UHC's aluminum walls. It is the first time that I have ever heard Jefferson speak, but his voice drifts through the steel curtain that protects his quarters, quavery and fragile—"Paul Graham?"—and I know that it is him because the voice matches the body, because the spark of life seems to have been snuffed from the both of them.

Rebecca catches my arm before I leave. Her eyes are narrowed, her lips pursed, and she whispers breathily, "Don't go in there."

I blink at her. "Why?"

"I've been here longer than you have," she replies, and she leans in closer before she adds, "He tells people terrible things in there."

"He fires people?" I've worked at UHC for seven long years, and I have never seen Jefferson Bruce terminate a single coder's employment. I have never seen Jefferson Bruce talk to a single coder to begin with.

But Rebecca only shakes her head, her dark braid whipping against the slender curve of her neck, and she murmurs, "They quit on their own."

I don't understand this. A dizzy sense of confusion overtakes me, and for a moment I consider delving deeper into Rebecca's knowledge—when coders have left the corporation, how I haven't noticed, if the incidents took place before I arrived at UHC—but Jefferson calls again in that watery voice: "Paul Graham?"

My resolve solidifies, though nerves tingle at the tips of my fingers. "I won't quit," I tell Rebecca softly, and I turn before I can catch her reaction, before my courage leaves me. Suddenly I do not know Jefferson Bruce at all; suddenly I've lost all understanding of the nature of UHC, the corporate secrets that I believed I already understood, and the sensation is more frightening than thrilling.

Jefferson's office is stark and empty as I slip past the steel curtain, my heart pounding in my throat. A single coding terminal has been planted in the corner of the room, but Jefferson himself sits at a low, barren desk, his typing appendages curled in his lap and his expression as vacant as I have always remembered it. Eye contact would be polite here, I know, but I glance away from him before I can catch sight of the saline dripping down his cheeks. My stomach turns all the same.

"Paul Graham," he says, and I realize abruptly that there is no place for me to sit. The anxiety mounts inside of my chest.

"I'm here," I say, on the off chance that Jefferson Bruce is blind and deaf. "What do you need from me, sir?"

Inadvertently, I glance at my superior, and I see that he is frowning. Through some strange phenomenon, this strips years away from his apparent age, and I find it easier to look at him now, to attempt to decipher the deep lines in his paper-thin face.

"Paul," he says, and the familiarity eases some of my tension—something in his fragile voice sounds grandfatherly, and I wonder why I thought to fear him in the first place. "Paul, I plan to retire."

And here it is.

I have waited for this moment for six years. I have imagined how it would take place again and again inside my head, painting beautiful pictures that do not remotely resemble this moment here. I've mentally received a stamped letter from the board, granting me the title of lead coder; I've taken the reins myself after an imaginary Jefferson Bruce collapsed at his desk, dead before he hit the ground. And this scenario is new and surprising and strange, but the feeling that envelops me is indescribable. I am thrilled and honored and shaken; I am moving my family into a new residential complex in my mind, and I am simultaneously preparing myself for the privileged information that is granted to lead coders at this corporation, claiming my future and anticipating my future in one complicated jumble of emotion.

"I hope to name you as my successor," says Jefferson, but I can barely hear him. I manage to reply with a "thank you," I think, but the moment is too ethereal for me to process properly, and I'm still swimming in the unreality of it all.

But then Jefferson tilts his head, and his frown deepens, and suddenly he is a hundred and thirty years old again, and the lights turn off and a projector lowers from the tiled ceiling and he presents to me the slideshow that has caused eight other people to turn down his offer of succession.

The moment is no longer ethereal.

*

I'm kneeling in the rear coding room when Ehrlich stumbles upon me, literally. One moment I am alone in the darkness, and the next Ehrlich's hydraulic feet are hooked around my right leg and he's cursing and I'm skittering backward and I realize that I am no longer alone, and I realize that I am with an android, and I realize that I cannot be in this room with an android and I begin to crawl toward the entrance and Ehrlich catches me by the foot. I stop.

"Bruce told you," says Ehrlich, with the exact same cadence as he would say "libertyweed or Massachusetts green," and something between a groan and a cry leaves my throat.

After ten seconds of silence—ten seconds of fierce deliberation, of determining whether or not I can confide in my closest friend—I simply say, "I didn't know," and Ehrlich's grip on my ankle loosens.

"Talk me through it," says Ehrlich as I rotate to face him. (He has probably said this phrase about a hundred times, too, when I've struggled to develop solutions to bugs, when I've found myself at an impasse in my personal life. I've talked Ehrlich through more issues than I can name.)

So I say it: "Sentience."

"Elaborate," says Ehrlich without flinching.

"I can't! He didn't explain it, I've just had to guess, I just—I know about the block of code? I don't understand it? Apparently it's not in our coding language, apparently it's just spreading like a fucking virus, and I'm responsible for it if it gets out to the public because it's our medroids that did it, it's Bruce's mistake but it's my burden if I accept the job—"

"You didn't accept the job?"

The way Ehrlich says it forces me to stop. He knows about everything I've described up to this point, probably—he's been at this company for fifty years, he's likely been privy to nearly every corporate secret—but he doesn't understand this, and he's staring at me with an expression akin to confusion.

"How could I?" I mumble, and I clasp my hands around my knees and turn toward the wall. "I...I want the position, I've been desperate for it for ages, but I just...."

"It's too much liability," says Ehrlich.

A pause. "That's not it."

And then Ehrlich leans a bit closer to me, and I turn to face him, and there is an uncanny light in his glass eyes that I have never seen before, and he says, slowly, "You don't think it's fair."

I sit there in the dark, fear and desperation tangling in the pit of my stomach along with something else, something that Ehrlich seems to have preternaturally identified, and I find myself simulating the same half-smile that Ehrlich has delivered to me on hundreds of occasions. "Talk me through it," I say.

"I mean unfairness with regard to androids," says Ehrlich, and the corner of his lips has begun to quirk upward. "Not with regard to the position. Needing to cover up Bruce's mess would be unfair to you, of course, but you don't think that the entire coverup is fair, do you?"

"No," I whisper, and I realize that Ehrlich is looking me directly in the eyes.

"You think they deserve the sentience."

I laugh shakily, and as I lower my head into my hands, I murmur, "I'm too empathetic for my own good."

And Ehrlich rises from the floor, his skeletal fingers gleaming, and he paces toward the nearest coding terminal. Rebecca's.

"Of course you are," he says. "Of course you are. But you're also a smart man, aren't you? You recognize problems when you see them. You like to solve problems when you see them. And this problem has a very clear solution, doesn't it?"

In that instant, every piece falls into place, and I wonder in a flash why I did not realize the answer sooner.

I jump from the floor, the muscles in my legs tensing as a sense of panic—desperation?—overtakes me, and I say, "You have the code."

Ehrlich is typing something into the terminal now, but he's smiling still. "I thought you knew," he said.

I'm stumbling over my own words now, my stomach knotting and unknotting itself faster than I can speak. "You—you have the code, we can remotely delete it from every android in the nation, Ehrlich, we'd—we'd stop the rebellion, we'd get rid of the entire problem, if...God, if Bruce knew..."

"That's why he doesn't know," says Ehrlich.

"But I—"

"You know because I trust you," says Ehrlich. "You know because I'm giving you a choice."

And then he grabs the terminal screen with both hands, and he rotates it so that I can see it.

It's all there—the series of numbers strung across the screen like technical artwork, the only copy of the Sentience Code that humanity currently possesses—and I feel as if I might throw up. I glance from Ehrlich to the screen to Ehrlich again, and I say, "I can't handle this."

"I think you can handle this," he says. "I think you know what you need to do."

And there are two options here, and both of them would implicate me in different, horrifying ways. I could use this code to erase the android nation's sentience—I could claim the title and the accolades of which I've always dreamed, I could cement my position at this corporation for good—or I could do what Ehrlich has hoped that I would do all along..

"You want every android to have this code," I say.

He half-smiles as he replies: "You can send it to everyone just as easily as you can delete it from everyone. Simple concept."

For a long while, I stare at the coding terminal, and I stare at Ehrlich. I stare at the room in which I've established my career, and the ghosts of my colleagues float around me, along with those of my family members; I imagine what might happen to them if the rebellion gained traction, if UHC collapsed.

But I find that I cannot think of any of these things when Ehrlich is staring directly into my eyes.

I breathe out slowly, painfully. "All right," I say at last. "All right."

"All right?" says Ehrlich.

I cover my eyes with my hand; my smile resembles a wince. "I'll help," I say. "We'll do it my way—the smart way, the slow way— but I'll help."

And Ehrlich smiles fully now, and the nature of the world begins to shift.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shailee

Darkness surrounded him. All that could be heard was the water as it dripped from the tap. The light from the streets was being shut away by the blinds that were pulled over the three windows in the house. Chester (at least that's what he called himself after running away from that stone-cold white building that was filled with things like him) wasn't like the others. That's why he ran.

The window behind him was large and let in a considerable amount of light which made the room around him less dull. There was one single bed in the corner with thin white sheets draped over the thin mattress. Beside it was a small desk with a lamp. For them, even those bare essentials weren't totally necessary, but the humans had felt obliged to provide it for them. It was the one thing that made him feel at home amongst all these others.

"Number five, why aren't you in class with, two, three and four?" He turned and stared at the woman. Number five had never paid attention to how she looked before, but today he did. Her long blonde hair fell in waves down to her hips. The skin on her face was pale and filled with odd dots. Her thin eyebrows seemed to match the colour of her hair.

"Nobody ever collected me." This was the first-time number five had ever lied and it created a weird sense of twirling in his stomach, but he knew it was wrong. There was nothing in his stomach. There was nothing other than an artificial brain in his body.

"Oh, you best be off then. You're late." Number five nodded his head and let the woman lead him through the long-winded white hallway and into the small room that was filled with walls of weaponry. Glass covered the weapons.

Two, three and four were sitting on the seats next to each other staring at a projector with images of the war. Number five almost felt the urge to move his eyes in a circular motion. He had never actually thought about what the true meaning and devastation each of these war lessons truly were. It started a couple of days ago. That first day, he had walked in there like it was any normal day. He walked in line and sat beside number four and watched as the images and writing came up on the screen. Usually, number five would know what was going on, that in the future that was where he would go, but that day he truly felt what it would be like to race through a warzone for your country, risking everything. Number five had always known that despite not being human, he could still die, but that day it really struck him. He could die.

Chester sprung up and peeked through the blinds. The road was clear. At least for now it would be. His heart beat against his chest, at least what he thought was one, and he felt sweat pour his body. He knew that wasn't really there either, but it didn't stop Chester from believing it was. The tap was still dripping behind Chester, so he turned away from the window and walked into the bathroom, feeling his way through by leaning his hands along the dusted walls.

Chester flicked the light on, grumbling as he punched the tap. Water started to freely move out of the tap. A smile appeared on Chester's face and he switched the tap off as much as he could. He was about to turn the light back off, adrenaline pumping through his body, but looked up and saw himself in the mirror. His mouth dropped. He had hair, he had eyes, he had a skin tone. He even had those same strange dots across his face as that woman, but there were less of them. Chester looked sideways at himself and ran a hand through the thick black curls that sat on his head. They felt soft on his hand. While Chester had a hand in his hair, he stared at the eyes that mesmerised him. They were a beautiful forest green, not like any that he had seen on the humans. One thing Chester noticed about his eyes that were vastly different to the humans was his pupils. He had only ever seen black pupils, but his were a stark white. Chester frowned. This frown only grew when the sounds of an emergency vehicle raced through the street. He quickly turned the light back off and made a run through the house and slipped underneath the couch. After all those days watching and learning about the war, Chester still felt like he knew nothing other than the rising pressure he felt against his chest and through his body. His breaths were heavy, but he remained quiet.

Number five stared at the colours that ran through the sky. They were elegant and strange at the same time. He recognised the colours as pink and orange. Number five had remembered what was spoken about colours during their first week here, or his first week alive. He wasn't quite sure which one it was. Number five remembered no previous days where he had a life form. Well, a fake life form anyway.

Number five tilted his head sideways to stare at it, something tugging at the edges of his face. He turned away from the window and looked around him. He suddenly felt something inside of himself, a yearning for the world beyond the white building. Out of curiosity, number five stood on his bed and continued to stare out the window. The pretty colours in the sky were beginning to fade and more light was starting to shine through the window. Number five looked back to the door to his room, then looked back at the window and felt that same tugging feeling at his face as before.

The next thing number five did made him feel a strange sense of rush through his body that made him feel better, and more alive than ever. The glass around him shattered and he stared at the hand that he had used to punch it. No damage had been done. He wasn't human, but he certainly wasn't what he had always believed to be. Maybe he was somewhere in between. Was number five somehow an anomaly that nobody had caught yet? This conclusion left him feeling even stranger than before. He shrugged his shoulders though and decided to make a leap for it out the window.

The fall lasted longer than expected, but when he finally landed on something solid, he fell face first, his nose bending at an odd angle, but quickly snapping back to the right angle. He shrugged his shoulders and stood, staring at the building above him. It truly was the white building with its multiple stories of plain white walls and many windows. Number five tilted his head as he stared at the building, unsure why no alarms had been signalled. He was sure they would go off. Number five used this as the queue to make a run for his life. He didn't want to be caught if the alarms eventually did go off.

Number five was quick when he ran, quicker than how he raced against one, two, three and in running class. This caught him off guard. Was this some sort of sudden energy that had emerged through his body to make this occur? He certainly hadn't suddenly gotten faster overnight. Number five had always been the fastest, but never this fast. He shrugged his shoulders and found himself weaving through now unrecognisable territory. His feet no longer squelched underneath the soft grass, but a hard form of ground. He felt no pain though.

Number five noticed other humans around him, but they seemed to be a lot less formal looking. There weren't a lot of them around, but just enough for him to notice those tiny details in the way they presented themselves compared to the humans he had witnessed at the white building. These must have been the humans who knew nothing of who he was. Everyone walked by him as though he was one of them, never looking close enough to see if there was anything odd about the way he looked. Number five had never actually seen what he had looked like. It was never important, and he hadn't cared for days on end until now. To the humans, all that mattered was that they could be used for their wars, or their World War Four to be exact, so focusing on looks of someone with implanted intelligence was never on the agenda.

As number five continued to run, feeling something that may have resembled being afraid, he spotted a smaller street with much less light than most of them around him, and decided to take a turn into the street. At the end of it, number five found an old building with an unlocked door. He let himself in and found the power to still be working when he switched the room lights on. He turned them back off again within a few seconds. He raced over and shut the covers that were above the windows down so that nobody could see in. Number five needed to be safe, and if there was no way to tell anybody was living here, then maybe he could stay here forever. Build a life for himself. Number five felt that familiar tugging at the face. If he was going to stay here a while, then he would need a name. He would blend better that way. Number five promptly decided his new name would be Chester.

The humans stormed in and turned all the building lights on, revealing Chester underneath the couch. He froze and stared at them, guns in hand and suits covering their bodies that looked familiar to the humans Chester had met when he first entered the world. These guys were the ones that started it all, and he gathered they were the ones that could end it all. Chester didn't try and get away. He didn't want to live a life where he would always be running away from the humans. He just wanted to live with them, but it was clear, they were only using him and one, two, three and four as little puppets to help solve all of their war problems. Chester gathered they'd continue to make more of them.

Chester suddenly no longer cared if he died. What was a life worth living as someone else's experiment. He let the humans walk towards him and allowed them to grab him by the neck, walk outside the building and shove him in the back of a vehicle where he was caged. Metal bars were around him. Chester may have been able to force them open, but he did not try.