Adam 2.0

And carv'd in iv'ry such a maid, so fair,
As Nature could not with his art compare,
Were she to work; but in her own defence
Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.

---Metamorphoses, Ovid


“You have arrived at Turing Square, Galatean City.”

Soaring skyscrapers, colossal screens with moving advertisements, and busy little robots scattered all over the streets under the steady morning drizzle: Turing Square had always been the heart of the city. At one point, the city had been known for its fast-paced technological discoveries. But now, with as many robots around as living people, Galatean City was now better acknowledged with its nickname: Tin City.

Adam looked like a little boy who’d gotten just what he wanted for Christmas. His eyes lit up in a way I hadn’t seen them before and his lips were parted in amazement. I remembered the same look of wonder on my face the first time I went to see Turing Square. Back then, it had been an excursion. Now, it was the ideal hiding spot.

“Wait here, Adam.” I instructed him after I’d parked on the side of the road. “I just have to check something.”

I climbed out of the car and pulled open the trunk. We’d fled the lab in a rush and hadn’t taken any supplies with us. I just hoped Will had left some useful stuff in his car. With the trunk open, I examined the contents: an emergency flashlight, an old umbrella, a pair of jumper cables, a few bottles of some liquid, something that looked like a phone charger, and a wrinkly old book. I reached for the book and held it my hands.

It was a manual for Adam’s original prototype. I could have jumped for joy realizing that this would be extremely important to read if I wanted to make sure Adam stayed in good condition. There were so many maintenance issues I knew I would have to deal with in a few hours: recharging Adam’s batteries, ensuring his internal circuits didn’t overheat, powering him down at night, etc.

Then of course there was the fact that I still had no idea what the hell I was doing. I had broken into my father’s lab, kidnapped his prized robot, and made a run from the cops. What was I even planning on doing? Was I going to have to run from the cops forever? But I couldn’t afford to think that far ahead. For now, I needed to figure what I was doing tonight and then go from there.

I ripped out the page in the manual about recharging Adam’s batteries and folded it neatly, stuffing it into the pocket of my dress. I grabbed the umbrella knowing I was going to have to hide Adam’s face from view somehow anyway and closed the trunk shut.

There were rooms available in a run-down motel a few blocks down; I could see the bright neon lights flashing “VACANCY” obnoxiously at me. It didn’t look like the most secure place in the world, but I didn’t think I had enough money on me to afford anything better. Plus, Will didn’t strike me as the type of person to have loads of cash stuffed into his glove compartment either. Even if he did, I’d feel pretty bad for using it given that he’s dead. And it wasn’t like we could spend the rest of the day in his car anyway--it was probably registered as a stolen vehicle.

A better parking spot was in order.



The motel room was dark and damp.

The dark curtains were drawn closed, blocking off what little natural light could penetrate through. I spread them open, letting the gloomy weather spill into the room. Looking around, there was a bed with white sheets stretched neatly over the mattress. A small wooden bedside table housed a tiny lamp. There was very little furniture: an archaic looking chair that looked incredibly uncomfortable and a round table with a set of wilted flowers. The retro floral wallpaper was peeling in the corners and the burgundy carpet felt spongy and damp under my shoes.

Adam looked around, disapprovingly. “This place is ugly.”

“Well, I’m sorry that they don’t have your aesthetic taste in interior decoration.” I said, trying to stifle my urge to laugh at him. I picked up the wilted flowers off the table and chucked them in the wastebin. “There.”

His eyes followed my movement carefully and then took in the rest of the room again.

“It’s still ugly.”

“Would you rather live in Will’s car?”

“At least his car was pretty.”

I rolled my eyes at him. He was just as picky and hard to please as Will. Maybe that’s where he got that characteristic from. How much of Adam was really Adam and not a combination of all the people he had ever met and learned to mimic? Was there a bit of me in Adam? Was there a bit of my father?

Trying to be as non-suspicious as possible, I stuffed all the stuff from the trunk under the bed. In case the car got found, I would still have access to the supplies. And when Adam asked what the book was for (I was covering it with my arms in such a way that he couldn’t see the title), I told him it was my diary and that he couldn’t read it. He just smirked at me and I wasn’t sure if that meant he found that fact amusing or that he was secretly planning on reading it later, given his tendency to disobey orders. I desperately hoped for the former.

I collapsed ungracefully into the chair and put a hand on my forehead. I could feel a migraine coming on. Adam was walking around the room as if he was walking on a glass floor and inspecting things, looking more and more displeased as he did so.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked, grimacing when he opened the door to the bathroom and peered in.

“I don’t really know...when I got to the lab this morning, Will was lying dead on the floor. I tried to find you but you were...unconscious. The cops were trying to pin the murder on you since you’re the only one that lives there. And Will was murdered so early in the morning, there was no one else at the lab. That’s why I had to get you out of there.”

“There was a man there.” Adam says, closing the bathroom door and then wiping his hands on his jeans. “I saw him when I woke up. He said he came to visit me, but I don’t remember anything after that. I think he knocked me out because the next thing I remember is you.”

“Wait...did he come into your room?” I asked, my heart rate quickening.

“Yeah. He had a bag with him. I don’t know what was in it.”

“Did Will let him into your room?”

“No, Will wasn’t even at the lab yet. He usually comes around 7. But this man was there a bit before then.”

“How did he get into your room then?”

He looked annoyed. “I don’t know. Are we going to stay in the room the whole time?”

I watched him alertly as he walked towards the door and twisted the doorknob open. There was no way I could just let him leave! People were going to recognize him or call the cops or try to hurt him. I stood up from the chair and walked hurriedly towards the doorway in which he was now standing, surveying the hallway.

“Adam, you can’t just leave. People think you’re a killer! They might recognize you!”

He turned to look at me with a certain mischief in his eyes. “Don’t be so anxious, Dora. No one’s going to recognize me.”

I frowned. He almost sounded like my father when he tried to assure me about something that obviously wasn’t going to work. I decided to use more direct methods:

“Adam, stay here.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not your dog.”

Why did I feel like he’d just kicked me in the face? I started to feel panicky when when he turned to walk down the hallway. I called after him again but he didn’t even bother turning around.

Goddammit!

I shut the door behind me and ran after him. If I couldn’t get him to stay, then there was no way I was going to let him wander around alone. I considered using physical force, but then realized that Adam’s titanium steel frame and pressurized pneumatic muscles were no match for me. So I followed him like I was his robot and tried futilely to talk some sense into him.

“Would you relax?” He said finally, when we reached the motel lobby. “I’m not going outside. I just wanted to meet people.”

“Meet people?” I asked, my voice now sounding a bit more calm. As least he wasn’t going to be wandering around on the busy street. “Why do you need to meet people for? I’m enough company, don’t you think?”

He actually laughed at me. It sounded sort of nice. “You’re kind of uptight, Dora. Actually, you’re starting to remind me of Will. He never let me do anything.”

For some reason, I felt incredibly insulted. “Excuse me? I’m trying to save your ass here and---”

“Hey!” Adam blatantly ignored me and waved to someone behind me. Before I got a chance to turn around, Adam walked passed me and into the motel bar that was on the other side of the lobby, where a group of people sat around laughing and talking feverishly.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at him. He ignored me again and sat on a stool opposite two other guys and a girl with too many tattoos. I couldn’t do anything but grab the seat beside him and try to avert attention away from his face.

“Mind if we join you guys?”

The blond man sitting across from him, surprisingly, smiled and said, “Not at all. We were hoping for some new faces, anyway”.

His friends rolled their eyes at him and the woman muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “douche”.

When the both of us were finally settled, Blondie leaned over the table and pointed to Adam and said, “You know who you look like? You look like that Reese Levine guy.” He was referring the the actor who Adam’s face was modelled after. I couldn’t let this conversation continue any longer.

“Yeah, he does.” chirped the woman who sat opposite to me. “But a younger version of him. Like what he looked like 20 years ago. Now he’s a greedy old bastard.”

“Well, I never liked his movies anyway.” I said, trying desperately to change the subject. “It’s really rainy today, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t think he was so bad.” said the girl, defensively and giving me a once over in disapproval. “I heard they made a bot after him.”

This is now the worst possible direction that the conversation can take.

“A bot?” asked Adam, his curiosity now peaked.

Bots and Tins were derogatory terms for robots in the city. Robots that did very menial and repetitive tasks (cleaning, sorting, waiting tables) were called “tins” , while more intelligent robots that did advanced tasks (security systems, shopping assistants, surgery) were called “bots”. Adam would technically be a “bot”, although he was probably far more advanced than a lot of them combined.

“Yeah, it was on the news.” the guy beside Blondie continued. “I forgot what they named him, but he looked---”

“I COULD REALLY USE A DRINK!” I practically shrieked. I hadn’t meant to sound so insane, but I needed to do something drastic so they would drop the topic. The last thing I needed was for the three of them to do an analytical assessment of Adam’s face and realize what he was right in front of him.

Everyone turned to look at me confusedly. I giggled a little to ease the tension, but it probably made me sound more clinically psychotic.

“No, I think you’ve already had enough...” Adam said, looking embarrassed. Was he seriously feeling embarrassed because of me? He was making it his mission to find new ways to subtly insult me. How can it be possible that I’ve ended up looking more socially retarded than a robot that’s never left his lab?

Tattoo girl looked cautiously from me to Adam and said, “Are you two...like, together?”

Before I could respond, Adam replied with, “No, this is my sister. Her name’s Muta.”

I looked at him incredulously as Blondie scrutinized me under his gaze. “Muta? That’s a weird name.”

“Yeah,” continues Adam. “She was named after the goddess of silence.”

He jabs me under the table as he says the word ‘silence’. I am sure that this is his way to telling me I’m forbidden from opening my mouth ever again. I can’t believe his audacity hasn’t been programmed.

“You know a lot about mythology?” asks Tattoo girl, who is now looking at Adam like he’s a piece of meat. I roll my eyes.

“Oh sure.” He says, seeming excited that he is once again the center of attention. “You know why they named the city ‘Galatean’, do you?”

Tattoo girl leans forward on her elbows and flashes Adam a flirty smile. I try not to laugh. “No, I’ve never heard of it. Tell us.”

“Galatean City was named after the mythological Galatea, who some consider to be the first ever robot---a bit of a stretch if you ask me. She was said to have been sculpted out of ivory by Pygmalion of Cyprus. He was never very interested in women, but the sculpture he created was so lifelike and beautiful that he fell in love with it.”

Adam said all this in an amused tone but I swallowed a little. I recognized this story. It was a tale that my father used to tell me before bed when I was young. I wondered if he was the one that told Adam about it too.

“He wished every day that his sculpture of Galatea would be real.” Adam continued, sounding as if he had heard the story a hundred times, just like I had. “So he made an offering to the goddess Aphrodite and prayed that his statue would turn into a real woman. And when he got home---”

“The goddess brought Galatea to life and they got married.” I finished, remembering the words my father had used.

Adam turned to look me, as if my intelligence now surprised him. I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Our father used to tell the story to us at bedtime. It’s like the original Pinocchio.”

Tattoo girl seemed annoyed that I’d cut Adam off. “How cute,” she said, not sounding like she thought it was cute at all.

The table conversation quickly changed after that and it never once returned to robots or Galatea or Reese Levine, much to my relief. I remained quiet and distantly lost in thought. Mostly because I realized that the stories my father told me, he had told to Adam too. I wondered who he had told the story to first--his own flesh and blood or the one to whom the story relates to? Did Adam know how close the story was to his own?

I doubted it. He seemed happily oblivious to it all.