“Do You Feel Alone?”

Christoph stared into the synthetic eye across the table. It didn’t show any indication it was listening, but she just asked him the question, and Christoph knew she was awaiting a reply. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, briefly moving out of the way of the light from the fireplace behind him. The flame briefly reflected off the sapphire crystal lens of the robotic eye. Christoph saw the aperture blades quickly constrict and dilate again once he returned to his original sitting position.

He dropped his gaze to the wooden board between them. It was some sort of red wood with gold lines inlaid into it making a grid. Black and white stones lay strewn across it in a seemingly random pattern, but always on intersections of the lines. He picked up another black stone from the wooden bowl next to him and placed it onto the board. For a moment he wondered how much fuel the Go board added to the launch requirements and how many thousands of dollars it cost. An unnecessary, much too expensive luxury, is what most people would call it. Out here it was a necessity.

Lucy glanced down at the new stone. Christoph wasn’t sure if she did that to make herself seem like she was still human, or if it was just an old habit left over from when she was. Or rather, when she had restrictions to her sight characteristic of human eyes. Christoph stopped. Of course, she was still human. It was a matter of degree. The Ship of Theseus was still the Ship of Theseus… Right? She was still there. Wasn’t she? He had never been able to tell. Sometimes it seemed like she was becoming more like she used to be. Other times he was convinced that was just an illusion produced by his brain as he became more accustomed to her.

Sometimes she would make coffee, enough for two people. Was that a reminder that she was still in there? She had to realize what she was doing before she finished making it. Maybe it was a small comfort for her. Christoph was the only one that drank coffee. That could drink coffee. She had habits that still existed from her life before. Small ticks that couldn’t just go away after a lifetime of being etched into her brain. When she was waiting on something like a computer to finish running a program or a diagnostic to finish, she would bob her leg up and down. The small hydraulics inside them would make quiet “whooshing” noises when she did. She still rubbed the back of her neck when she was thinking intently about something, even though there was no reason that she needed to. She couldn’t feel her neck. Could she? No, of course not.

“No, of course not.” Christoph lied.

The End

—- Not Originally Included —-

Lucy awoke. Not awoke, she became aware. She could feel nothing. She could see nothing, hear nothing. Was she dead? An intense feeling of isolation overwhelmed her. She screamed. But nothing happened. Her mouth didn’t move, there was no feeling in her throat of the wind rushing out in a high-pitched wail. There was no mouth. There was no throat. No hands, no feet, no legs no stomach no arms… Nothing. There was only awareness for the sake of being aware in an environment where there was nothing to perceive. An impossibility.