Adam 2.0

"As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."
---Moby Dick



“What am I?”

Adam was sitting quite comfortably on the edge of the bed after we came back up from the cafe. For a brief moment of panic, I thought he had suddenly realized he was a robot and was testing me. I did the only thing I could think of doing in that moment: playing stupid.

“What...what are you talking about?” I asked. I gently sunk into the chair by the small table, facing him. He gestured towards a pamphlet on the table.

“What type am I?”

My eyes peered at the pamphlet wearily. It had fallen out of Adam’s manual book when I’d brought it into the room earlier. I picked up and held it in my hands, suddenly filled with relief: it was just a test for different personality types.

Dr. Everest Tomlin’s Esteemed Ten Types Personality Test, it read.

I didn’t have to read the rest of the pamphlet to know more about it. I had heard about the test many times before at school and on the news. Everyone knew about it. They used it to match employees to companies; they used to to find compatibility between couples; they even used it to profile criminals and predict future behaviour.

I had never taken the test myself but I was familiar with all ten personality types by heart:
1. vanguarding (The Leader)
2. charitable (The Martyr)
3. sanguine (The Jester)
4. courageous (The Brave)
5. fair (The Diplomat)
6. smart (The Sage)
7. creative (The Artist)
8. kind (The Nurse)
9. analytical (The Thinker)
10. curious (The Explorer)

I briefly wondered what it was doing in Adam’s manual and then came to the conclusion that the scientists at the lab had been trying to figure out which personality type Adam fit under---if any. Looking at him now, patiently awaiting my response, I felt as though he was more than just one person in front of me. He was everyone he had ever encountered: my father, the lab technicians, the engineers, the cheering crowds that came to visit him, the rioters, the police, the reporters, and even me. It would be hard to place him into a personality type. I’ve always believed human beings were too complex to be classified into categories like insects in a box.

Adam was more complex still.

“I don’t know, Adam.” I said at last. “Most people are some combination of the types. You’re very creative...but you’re also very analytical and smart. You seem pretty curious about the world, but you’re also very fair and equitable. Sometimes you’re kind, but most of the time you’re kind of an ass.”

He smiled at me, showing a full set of shiny synthetic teeth. The insult seemed to have hit him on the head and bounced off. Maybe he was even proud of being a part-time jerk. At his best, he showed the curiosity, amazement, and kindness of the visitors that came to see him. At his worst, he was just as irritated, frustrated, and anal as Will and the other technicians.

“Good. I didn’t want to be classified.” he told me, taking off his shoes. I noticed his movements were a little slower than usual. I would have to recharge him when I got the chance.

I wanted to tell him that technically he already was classified. Not with a personality type, but as a robot. He was a ‘bot’, a humanoid, an android, ranking at a solid 12 on the Zietman Scale of Artificial intelligence. Every single piece of machinery, circuitry, and software that he was made out of had their own classifications and belonged to other companies or scientific institutions. He didn’t even belong to himself.

And he didn’t belong to me, either, I sadly realized.

“Did you know my father?” he asked me, once he’d successfully removed his shoes and kicked them under the bed.

“What?” I didn’t understand why he would even ask such a thing. Adam didn’t have parents, obviously. The closest thing he had to a father was my own and now he was gone.

He frowned at me. “No one wants to answer that question. They always make up excuses. Did you know him?”

“Uh...” I tried not to look too suspicious. “No. I don’t think I ever met him.”

He sat silently, watching my face for a long pause. It made me a bit squeamish, almost as if he could see right through me. His eyes had a strange limpid quality in the dim lights. “You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.” I emphasized. “I never knew him.” And that was the truth. There was no way he was going to accuse me of lying about that.

“Then you know something you’re not telling me. Just like the rest of them.”

I was assuming that by them, he meant everyone else he had asked that question to in the past: the lab staff at Eden. I knew they were nice, dedicated people, but the way Adam referred them made me feel like he harboured some kind of resentment towards them and I wasn’t sure I liked being clumped into that group.

“Fine.” I said, knowing it was no use lying or trying to distract him. He got upset and acted like a total jerk when he was treated like a small child or otherwise bossed around and told what to do. He liked his freedom and his ability to do as he liked, without a restriction over his head. “I do know something you don’t know.”

His eyes lit up---literally. It was like a small LED light behind his robotic eyes was illuminated suddenly and his blue irises looked bright and attentive. “Tell me.”

“Well, I can’t.” I said slowly, avoiding eye contact. “It’s not something you’re supposed to know about. It could destroy you; ruin you somehow. That’s why no one ever told you about it. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

He looked insulted. “I’m not going to break.”

Oh, how wrong he was. He would break---literally and metaphorically if he knew the truth and I had no intention of telling him.

“Look, it’s...” I trailed off. I was going to say it’s for the best but then realized I would probably sound like a control freak and that wouldn’t sit well with him again. “It’s complicated. There are just some things that you aren’t supposed to know about.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“Don’t manipulate me, Adam. I am your friend and I’m looking out for you.”

“Did he leave me? Did he not want me because I was some kind of freak? I know people come from all over the place to see me. He must of thought I was really weird.”

“No!” I cried. “That’s not true. That’s not what happened...”

“So he died? Like your father. Is he dead?”

It was hard to say whether someone who never existed was ever dead. I couldn’t say he was dead because he would know I was lying. But I wasn’t going to say that he was out there somewhere either. “It’s hard to explain...”

“I think I could understand if you tried.”

I sighed slowly. “I’m not going to tell you.”

He looked at me frustrated, trying to analyze what would be the best way to break the answer out of me. His eyes held a sort of glassy quality now, as if he was about to cry. This struck me as a bit odd. I knew Adam was taught to show a range of emotions--including tears and sadness. But I felt like he was using his tears as a kind of trick to get me to feel guilty.

“I know what you’re doing.” I said after a single tear fell from his eyes. I giggled a little. He was a lot more manipulative than I gave him credit for; a very talented actor. “And I’m not going to fall for it.”

His face straightened automatically and he wiped the fake tears away. “It was worth a shot.”



I made sure enable all the parental controls on the news channels when Adam wasn’t looking. The last thing I needed was for him to flip on the television and have some news anchor inform him that he was a piece of machinery in a monotonous tone. Part of me told me he wasn’t one to believe something like that so easily, but I didn’t want to take the risk.

This piece of knowledge put me at ease when I found Adam lying lazily on the bed, channel surfing. With him distracted, I carefully pulled the manual from under the bed and went to go read it in a corner where he wouldn’t see or notice me. I needed to find out how to perform some maintenance unless I wanted Adam to shut down on me, unexpectedly.

The manual was heavy and ripped in places. It looked like Will had referred to it a lot and some of the more important pages were dog-eared. I stopped perusing the pages when I stumbled upon one that had my father’s name on it.

“...by Dr. Kaling. In early stages of performance, the android displayed unusual characteristics that were not pre-programmed. The primary technician, William Hockely, has identified the characteristics to be ‘stubbornness, disobedience, and a dangerous curiosity’. The Board of Robotics and Ethics had pleaded with the Eden Laboratory staff to correct this behaviour in its early stage, stating that ‘unchecked and disruptive behaviour learned by androids (regardless of the lieu and personnel from which characteristics were picked up) is propagated on a larger scale’. It is easy to erase this behaviour in the beginning because there are few experiences that A.D.A.M. associates with these characteristics. Correcting or erasing these characteristics later in development is very tricky and dangerous because it requires wiping out large amounts of memory and any other learning experiences associated with the behaviour. In the end, against much resistance from the Board of Robotics and Ethics, Dr. Kaling insisted that the behaviour remained uncorrected, stating that ‘A.D.A.M’s behaviour reminds me of my own daughter and those are the most human traits that he has displayed’.”

I had to stop reading because my vision became blurry with warm tears. I wiped them away, angry that I was crying. I didn’t know why that hit me so hard. Maybe it was because I thought my father would hardly ever think of me at work. But now it felt like I was all he ever thought about. It was stupid of me to shut him out like that; to refuse to understand him and his work. If only we had more time together, I would say I was sorry and that I hadn’t meant to push him away like that. He was important to me but I just didn’t know how to show it. And I guess he had the same problem, didn’t he?

“What’s wrong?” came Adam’s voice. He looked over at me from the bed, watching me cry stupidly in the corner. I was clutching the book to my chest as if it were a baby. I figured I must have looked pretty stupid.

I miss my father, said the voice in my head.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” is what really came out of my mouth. Then I stood up, deciding to take a shower to forget about everything. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I had sank in the tub and just sat there, letting the water hit me. I wanted to stay in that bathroom forever, but I knew we would have to move soon. The longer we stayed in the motel, the sooner Tatoo girl and her friends might watch the news and realize who we were.



I emerged from my shower feeling more peaceful, dressed in a white bathrobe the motel had left me. Adam was still lying bored on the bed, flipping channels aimlessly. I smiled a little as he threw me a look every time he hit a channel that was blocked. “I’m not twelve, you know. I think I could handle adult content.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, amused. “You have personal experience with that?”

He frowned, looking slightly offended. “Women always flash me through the glass. Will doesn’t notice, but I do.”

I must of looked surprised (which I was) because he smirked a little and went back to his channel surfing. I probably should have expected this, but I was so accustomed to thinking Adam was an innocent, fragile, and breakable thing that was always kept under the watchful eye of the Eden lab staff. He was sheltered, to an extent. But he was also resistant to authority and a little too curious about the world. And awfully stubborn.

Kind of like me, I thought suddenly. Then I shook the thought away because it was sort of scary and I felt my eyes get misty again.

He turned off the television and then sat up on the edge of the bed, watching me. I wasn’t doing anything particularly exciting at the moment, so his gaze caught me a bit off-guard. “What?”

“Can I see you?” he asked, slowly. I wasn’t sure if he asked slowly because his processor was lagging behind or if it was because he was trying to use a gentler tone. Either way, I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what he meant.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never seen a woman before.” he said sincerely. “Well, not all of one, anyway.”

I don’t know why, but I didn’t hesitate to slip out of the bathrobe and let it fall into a puddle by my feet. Partly I was curious about what he would think of me. And the other half felt very certain about my decision to be naked. If I showed him who I really was, beneath all the layers, would he show himself too? What if there was nothing there, but an empty shell of a human being? What if he was nothing at all, but a copying machine?

He reached out his hand and I stepped closer so he could touch me. His fingertips were warm and textured. I could almost feel every single synthetic contour on his hands and was filled with awe at how much detail they had really put into him---detail that most people probably wouldn’t really notice.

“How do I feel?” I asked him. His gaze wasn’t perverse or lewd (and frankly, I was unsure if he was even capable of that) but neither was it scrutinizing or critical. It was wonder and awe---like the gaze of an explorer when he sets his sights on uncharted land.

“Like petals on a flower.” He responded, moving his hands over me slowly.

I grinned without intended to. “You just used a simile.”

He nodded. “I understand now.”

He still held that curious look and that was when I found him. Beneath all the layers of different people, I had found the essence of Adam---not a saint or a sinner. Just the innate curiosity and spirit of adventure that was in Columbus and Armstrong and my father.

This was Adam, the explorer of the universe.