Page 9 of Secrets of the Void
Why? She had no idea. Whenever they woke her, she was tested. Over and over again. They made her code things, write different scripts, see if she could compete with the droids as they spewed out binary code for her to decipher. A hundred things they had her try to figure out, but none of it ever linked together.
She didn't know why he was trying to teach her these things. Only that she had mastered Python when she was five years old in her reality. Of course, her body was that of a grown woman. It had been difficult for her the first few times she'd been woken up. And then he'd built the simulation, and it was even stranger.
She wasn't a child anymore, but she’d never been a child to begin with. She'd had to learn that other people weren't the same as her, and that clones weren't really people, anyway.
She was a doll. Something for him to insert knowledge into and bring back to life whenever he wanted to play.
The room was cold and clean. Malcolm liked things to be just right, and he'd designed this room to have no distractions. There was a panel in front of her, along with a keyboard to type whatever she needed, and then a wall of screens. She could watch a great manner of things there. All of her lessons took place in this room, as she learned theoretical knowledge that sheonly rarely put into practice. The white walls, white floor, and stark fluorescent lights always grated on her, though.
"I'm not late, and you know it," she muttered before heading to her table. "What are we focusing on today?"
"Genetics. Today is all about learning how splicing genetics between humans and undine affects the average body."
Ellie frowned. Hadn't she already learned that? When Romeo leaned forward and pressed a button, she was certain that they had in fact gone over this lesson before. The screens were full of the same content that she'd gone through just last week.
"Romeo?" she asked. "We've already had this lesson."
"No, we haven't. Every day brings new knowledge, unless we're continuing a study that we did throughout the week. This week is a new week, you know that." He leaned back in his chair and pulled out a newspaper.
That was where the algorithm ended. He stayed frozen like that while she flicked through all the things she was supposed to learn. It was exactly the same routine every single day.
The only way she could wake him up was if she had a question. Then, he would turn back on again. Alive suddenly to answer whatever she wanted to know.
The real Romeo didn't know the answer to almost any of her questions. He just stared at her blankly when she was awake. His stare made her uncomfortable.
So she didn't ask him any questions. Instead, she just started staring at the same genetic code she had stared at last week. The more she looked, the more certain she was that it was exactly the same. There were no differences. She'd been doing this kind of testing day in and day out, and this was the same thing she'd already learned.
Come to think of it, she'd been doing a lot of similar things lately. Her lessons seemed longer. She had told Romeo that shehad already done lessons like this a few times, or that she was ready to move on but then couldn't for some reason. He drew out the lessons, but his programming didn't allow him to lie, so she now realized maybe he had been repeating days because... he had to.
She leaned back in her chair, ignoring the squeaky wheel that was literally programmed to distract her.
The lunch had been the same every day as well. Usually, she had a variety of fake food, their simulation was meant to keep her spirits high, given the circumstances of her life. But the lunch had been exactly the same. Almost as though it couldn't change.
No, that wasn't possible. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her programming or the simulation that she lived in. Tau was doing fine in the real world, and she was just paranoid. After all, Ellie was locked up in here by herself day in and day out. A girl was bound to get uncomfortable.
Still, her gaze went to the ceiling as though she could see the real world somewhere way above herself. What was going on up there, though? She hadn't heard from Malcolm in a while. He was predictable. Like clockwork, every two months he would pull her out of sleep and test her again. He was trying to create the perfect specimen, she assumed. Or maybe he liked toying with her. Whatever his reasoning, she just liked being alive for a few moments.
Using real lungs.
Smelling real scents.
Experiencing the world as a real person would experience it was a rare and wondrous treat every time she got to do it. He didn't know the gift he bestowed upon her, or he was very aware of it and thought she should be more grateful than she was. It depended on the day.
Sighing, she continued memorizing the same gene sequence that she had last week until she was certain she could recite it in her sleep. Memorization had always been easy for her. Malcolm said that was because her Original was a woman of impressive knowledge. Her brain worked differently from other people.
She'd tried to scan her own brain once. Malcolm had left her alone in the lab for a few hours when she'd actually been awake, and she wanted to see if there really was more brain activity in there than the average person.
He'd found her almost halfway through the test, and he'd been so furious. "You are wasting resources for what?" he'd snapped at her, ripping electrodes off her head so quickly he tore hair out with them. "You aren't capable of even reading these results! You aren't here, Ellie. You’re just a copy of her."
That was the day he'd sat her down and explained to her that she wasn't a real person. He could dispose of her so easily, and no one would even care. Her death wouldn't even make people angry, and she had to remember that. There were hundreds of creations just like her. Dolls to be woken whenever someone wanted to play.
Leaning back in her chair, she spun around to face Romeo. "I have a question."
He immediately came back to life, but this time there was a strange glitch in him. He flickered a bit, and then one of his eyes started looking in the wrong direction. "I have an answer. What's your question, Ellie?"
She was so put off by his eye that she completely forgot what she wanted to ask. "Romeo... What's wrong with your eye?"
"Nothing can be wrong with my eye. Please state your question, or I will go back to reading my newspaper."
