The Human Machine

The Human Machine

         During the night, the small black and white television joined the static of nothingness at exactly three thirty-five just like it did every night. Oriel Huntington blinked once and attempted to process why this kept happening. For two minutes and forty-six seconds the picture goes into a static frenzy and no matter what he does, Oriel can't seem to fix it. He's taken it apart and put it together again. There's nothing missing, not a screw loose or a clipped wire or a single chip in the glass. For some reason, there's still this one thing wrong with it and tonight Oriel is ready with a new theory on how to fix it.
         For those two minutes and forty-six seconds, Oriel sat straight up in the corner and looked around at the rest of his apartment. He didn't have much, no furniture except for a kitchen table and a single chair. But the one thing that Oriel had were books. He had seven hundred twenty-two books; he's read them many times. When he's not watching television or working, he's reading books, sometimes four at a time. He has poetry books, fiction books, language, history, physics and chemistry and even a bit of human biology. He has read them all over and over and over again, trying to understand what it's like to be human. He especially likes the biology books.
         Then the static stopped and 'I Love Lucy' came back. The joke was interrupted and Lucy and Desi had already moved on to other marital problems. It's not that he thought the shows were funny - actually he doesn't know if they're funny - it's that he watches it to understand human beings. He remembered a man from his past once said that the best way to understand humankind was to watch television. Every once in a while, this man from Oriel's past still made the nightly news when people griped about politics. He was 'The Brain' working as the director of intelligence in one of the upper echelons of the government.
         It had been a long time since Oriel had heard Brain speak, but he had all of their conversations recorded and dated in his memory archives. He had everything in his memory with picture perfect clarity. Sometimes, he considered tampering with his memory circuits to try and better understand human beings, after all, humans have faulty memories and that seems part of their development as individuals. But his self-preservation subroutines always prevented this from occurring.
         Morning arrived and Oriel had spent half the night reading and the last four hours before dawn sitting in the corner with television angled toward him. At precisely six o'clock, he stood up and went directly to the refrigerator. He had heard once that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, so he started eating only in the mornings. Oriel had to admit that he had not noticed a quantifiable difference in his performance. He kept it up as a matter of routine.
         The food was not meant to nourish him. A person with a body like his didn't need nourishment, it needed maintenance. He actually didn't even need food but he ate it because it seemed like something humans did. Besides, his oral sensors allowed him to catalogue and organize different foods by taste. Organization was something Oriel was good at.
         At seven o'clock, Oriel arrived at the gallery where he worked. He was never late; he made sure of this by calculating the distance from his home and his rate of walking speed and including any variables like traffic or weather.
         “Don't you sleep in?” George would say. “You're always here at seven on the dot.”
         His employer, George Dance, always applauded him for being so punctual. Oriel knew that most humans took well to praise, so he smiled without really understanding the purpose of compliments.
         “You are here also,” Oriel answered.
         “Don't forget,” George reminded. "That shipment of photos is supposed to come in today. They're supposed to be up on the walls for the exhibit before six tonight."
         “I remember,” Oriel nodded as he went into the back room to punch in his timecard. He never forgot anything.
         The art gallery was known as 'The Lighthouse' even though there were no references to lighthouses anywhere in the establishment. Oriel once asked George why he called the place 'The Lighthouse' and he responded that he had a particular fondness for lighthouses because his grandfather used to live in one. Oriel tried to understand why humans placed sentimental value to specific locations and tried to do it with his apartment, but wasn't really sure he succeeded. Oriel lived day in and day out trying to muscle up feelings only to have to realize that he wasn't built that way.
         It wasn't a saddening experience. How could it be when sad was just a word that meant an abstraction?
         An hour later, Oriel's coworker Tony Huge came in the door to come to work. He was a thin man who didn't seem to care very much for the way he dressed except for his shoes. He was unshaven, unkempt and his clothes were all dirty and soiled except for his spotless shoes. He professed a hundred pairs of shoes in pristine condition; tennis shoes, converses, dress shoes, boots, even a pair of clown shoes.
         Oriel tried to ignore the disarray of Tony Huge's sense of style. He thought maybe that his compulsion to take his clothes and wash them was a feeling. But he had always been organized and he realized that this compulsion threaded itself throughout his entire existence. It was not a feeling, but another subroutine circulating his neural system.
         “Did you hear?” Tony said as they both measured and straightened the giant print photos on the walls. “Marvel is going to be at the exhibit tonight.”
         This piqued Oriel's interest. Marvel was one of Havers Valley's heroes and they had known each other for a time. He often would review his memory logs after seeing an article in the newspaper or a piece on the news about Marvel. Oriel would speculate as to what Marvel was up to currently, aside from flying around the city and saving the day. As Oriel could recall, and he could, Marvel was not an intelligent individual. The other heroes would snicker at his stupidity behind his back.
         He once asked Brain why humans had the propensity to insult each other. His response was, “sometimes there are too many egos involved, too many people who want too many conflicting things and too many others in their way.” That seemed like a valid answer, but Oriel could never grasp what the true form of an ego was.
         “I did not hear that,” Oriel responded.
         Tony shrugged and tried hefting a large framed photo onto the wall. He couldn't do it until Oriel held it up with one arm and Tony measured its place on the wall.
         “It ought to be interesting to see Marvel,” Tony continued. “Might even ask him for an autograph. Wouldn't that be something?”
         “The photo should be point five centimeters to the left,” Oriel said.
         “It's good enough,” Tony rolled his eyes.
         “The scheme will be askew,” Oriel answered as he slid the picture into the correct space.
         “This whole exhibit is askew,” Tony answered as he viewed the picture. It was a photo of a woman in a lewd posture with three other naked men around her. The whole gallery was filled with these pictures of men and women in perverted, sexual positions.
         “Is this exhibit supposed to evoke art?” Tony wondered. “It evokes barfing if you ask me.”
         Oriel tried to comprehend the word 'barf.' He'd heard it before but had never utilized it.
         “Have you ever done that with a woman?” Tony pointed to a picture of a woman speared through the stomach with a pitchfork by a half naked man.
         “No,” Oriel shook his head, a gesture he learned from observation. It meant everything the word 'no' meant, which according to his internal references was a long list.
         “You going to the exhibit?” Tony asked.
         “No,” Oriel shook his head again.
         “Why not?” he seemed surprised. “Supposed to be a lot of fancy folk, the high and mighty of Havers Valley. They might even have a need for a private collections attendant. You know, someone who knows how to keep art in good shape.”
         The conversation was interrupted by a loud slam from George's office. They both looked over to see a red haired woman walking briskly across the gallery floor. She was well dressed and her long red hair hung loosely over shoulders in a fray of fiery color and style. Yet, she was angry, even if Oriel wasn't sure what the feeling was, he could tell. Judging from the rate of speed she'd pass them in eight seconds.
         “Jesus,” Tony said. “Talk about art. That's beautiful.”
         She passed right by them and for some reason Oriel logged that exact moment into his memory files and marked it as important.
         “Hey, honey girl,” Tony said after her. “It ain't all as bad as it seems.”
         The woman turned on a dime and moved so close to Tony that he backed up a step in surprise and a slight mixture of fear.
         “What'd you say to me?” she pointed a finger at him.
         “Uh...it ain't all as bad as it seems,” Tony winced.
         “No, the other thing,” she demanded.
         “Honey girl?” he raised an eyebrow.
         “Right,” she nodded tersely
         Nobody but Oriel saw her hand suddenly shoot forward and land a good punch on Tony's nose. There was a loud crack and he fell to his knees with blood gushing all over his hands, slipping through his fingers and pooling on the ground. The red haired woman turned around and left without a single word. Oriel wasn't sure what the proper form of etiquette was in a situation like this; help Tony, report to his employer, or...go after the girl.
         Oriel looked down at the blossoming pool of blood, he could see that Tony was in pain and would probably bleed over two or three of the pictures before he managed to get up and go to the bathroom. He found himself enhancing his auditory sensors to pick up on the heels of the woman as she walked down the sidewalk; there was a faint sniffling and a slight whimper of sorrow.
         Oriel was distracted for the rest of the day. After Tony was bandaged up and sent home, Oriel and George were left to put up the rest of the exhibit by six. But Oriel kept reviewing the one snapshot he had of the young woman, when she was walking by in anger and frustration. George didn't seem that interested in talking about the woman who slammed his door and broke Tony's nose. It wasn't until five fifty-one when George released him from work that he concentrated solely on the image, drawing it out of his memory files and analyzing it pixel by pixel, piece by piece.
         When he walked past the edge of the building, he noticed her leaning against the brick wall holding a cigarette between two fingers. She looked like she had calmed down and he began to notice the contours of her body. He had noticed that every human's body had some kind of asymmetry and this woman was no different. It wasn't something noticeable without Oriel's eyes, but he saw that one nostril was a hair larger than the other and that her left pinkie fingernail was a fraction longer than her right. His penchant for organization picked up on these asymmetries immediately, yet strangely enough he didn't have the need to correct it.
         Oriel stopped in front of her and she looked directly at him. Her eyes scanned him for a moment and she seemed surprised.
         “You're the guy from earlier,” she said. “Sorry about your friend.”
         “Friend?” Oriel seemed confused. “Friend?”
         “Yeah,” she nodded. “The other guy, I hope I didn't hurt him too bad. I do that sometimes; lash out when I'm angry.”
         “Why are you angry?”
         “That fucker, George,” she sighed. “He won't let me host my own exhibit.”
         “Why not?”
         “Something to do with my artwork,” she said. “Not contemporary enough. Like the shit inside is contemporary. He's just pissed off I won't give him a hummer like every other whore who comes through here.”
         Oriel didn't say anything.
         “I'm waiting out here to see if he actually might change his mind. Here,” she pulled out a folded up picture, “this is a picture of one of my pieces. What do you think?”
         Oriel took the picture and looked at it. There was a painting of giant red eyes on a landscape of green and blue surf. It was very good and he knew that she should be allowed into the exhibit. He searched for the correct word to describe what he saw. There wasn't really a feeling, but what could he say that would give the impression he was supportive.
         “Barf.”
         “What?” she snatched the picture back. “Barf? Gee thanks, you know how to encourage a girl.”
         Oriel didn't understand what was wrong and now she seemed upset again.
         “Fine,” she slung her handbag over her shoulder and began walking away, her heels clicking against the ground and her hair bouncing rapidly in time with her gait. Suddenly she stopped and looked over at him, “You know something?”
         “What?”
         “You should grow a beard,” she gestured. “Not a full beard, just one around your mouth and chin.”
         “Goatee.”
         “Yeah,” she nodded. “You're a pretty vision, but I always preferred men with a neat bit of facial hair.”
         With those final words, the woman walked off and Oriel's telescopic eyes followed her for three miles until she turned a corner and disappeared from sight.
         When men and women started to come to the gallery for the photo exhibit, Oriel took that as his cue to leave. He walked home, a journey that normally took him fifteen minutes and thirty-four seconds but took him an hour and eighteen minutes and fifty-five seconds. He was processing, going back and trying to figure out why this one particular woman seemed so different from every other human.
         He knew from the instant he entered his apartment that somebody was there. His external tactile sensors detected a decrease in room temperature, due to an open window that he never opened for anything. His olfactory sensors detected a slight smell of seeds and rodents from the breath of his intruder. He even heard the slight rustling of feathers and talons.
         “Oriel,” cooed a familiar voice. “Don't you have lights in this place?”
         “I do not need light,” Oriel responded. “Neither do you.”
         “Right,” the person assented. “You have all that night vision, thermal vision, telescopic.”
         “Why are you here, Owl?”
         The man moved from the shadows into the moonlight swimming in through the open window. He was slightly shorter than most men and his body was lighter. He was wearing a black leotard and he crouched on all fours like he was perched on a branch or the edge of the building. Owl's wide eyes swiveled around the room as he observed Oriel in the context of his home.
         “You had a rat running across the room,” Owl blinked. “I took care of it for you.”
         “You are an exterminator now?” Oriel wondered seriously.
         “No,” Owl sighed. “Have you really learned anything being on your own?”
         “I have learned much,” Oriel answered. “Much about the human...”
         “Go ahead, say it,” Owl bobbed his head. “Human condition, right?”
         “I know the phrase displeases you,” Oriel nodded. “But I have learned much.”
         There was a pause as Owl continued to look around the room.
         “You always loved books,” Owl continued. “Do you still have that ornithology one I gave you?”
         “Yes,” Oriel nodded, “In the third shelf with other books of animal anatomy.”
         “You probably know more about birds than I'll ever know.”
         “Why are you here?” Oriel asked slowly.
         He sighed. “I was wondering if you'd be up for joining the Clock Tower again?”
         “I have not gathered sufficient knowledge.”
         “You were the first to leave ten years ago,” Owl continued. “I've asked Marvel and he said he might be up for it, Tori said she'd do it again, but only if the Yellow Jacket didn’t join us.”
         Oriel remembered all these people from his days at the Clock Tower. It was a pantheon of the city's heroes joined together to try and create a more sophisticated and organized approach at fighting crime. Oriel thought it was a good idea in theory until everyone's 'egos' became involved. Tori was a woman who could run exceptionally fast and Yellow Jacket was a decorated soldier who was remarkably good in battle. Yellow Jacket called it the 'science of brawling.'
         “The Brain won't join us,” Owl said. “He's too busy with the government, but Turner might and he's an illusionist. You know how powerful that ability can be.”
         “Why do you want to do it again?”
         “It worked for a while,” Owl said somberly. “I just need us to make a difference again. We're dying off and the city is going back to the pits. Maybe it's a last ditch effort to be somebody. What do you say?”
         “I have been with two generations of Clock Tower teams,” Oriel shook his head. “I have worked with dozens of the city's heroes to try and discover and document human experiences. I worked with the Clock Tower for fifty two years, ten months, two weeks...”
         “Oriel,” Owl snapped.
         “...I have not spent equivalent time acting as a human to truly understand,” Oriel replied as he motioned to the window. “It is the method of anthropology.”
         Owl closed his eyes and nodded his head. He moved to the window and his great feathered wings began to unfurl, blackened in the darkness.
         He looked back at Oriel while perched on the windowsill. “Did you ever think that this directive of yours, 'to learn what it means to be human,' might be hindering you from doing just that?”
         Oriel did not respond and Owl leapt from the window and rose up into the air and let out a great screech that echoed throughout the neighborhood. Somehow, Oriel didn’t believe that he knew more about birds than Owl. He could never know the birds like Owl could.
After taking several moments to review the last six minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Oriel logged the event into his memory logs and sat down in the corner. He opened three books and set to taking apart the television. His mental faculties focused on processing the information in front of him, but when the time came to sit motionless and refresh himself, visions of the redhead woman pervaded his thoughts and he played back the auditory files of their conversation earlier that day.
It was much like sleep. His memory logs would randomly splice together images, sounds, smells, even random tactile sensations to create a single flash. Tonight, he dreamt about the woman while he watched the television. There was a moment of confusion when at exactly three thirty-five the static returned for two minutes and forty-six seconds.
         At six o'clock in the morning, he stood from his corner and went to the bathroom to urinate. It was his body's way of removing excess lubricant from the water he imbibed. He had three stomach packs, one for food, one for fluids, and one for water. He needed water to lubricate his other functioning systems, but there was sometimes an excess for him to urinate. He also could sweat the excess water through porous areas on his chest, back, abdomen, arms and thighs.
         For the first time, Oriel stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. He thought for a moment before small brown hairs started to sprout from his chin and upper lip. He watched as a beard emerged and he grew each hair to an appropriate length so that everything was perfectly symmetrical. He had never seen himself with a beard before, in fact, he had never seen himself with any other hairstyle before. He could grow his hair follicles at any rate he desired; he just never saw the point.
         For some reason, Oriel thought that the woman might return to 'The Lighthouse.' He concluded that she was a determined woman and would not give up until she got what she wanted on her terms. Yet he still thought it odd that she returned just as Oriel was closing the gallery, he expected her to arrive earlier and when the afternoon hours began to wane he started to focus on other things.
         He detected her approach with his external sensors. For some reason, when he knew she entered the gallery, his memory logs began to pull up recorded examples of human happiness.
         “Is George here?” she asked, although she didn't seem to care about him.
         “Yes,” he nodded, “In the office.”
         She walked past him, stopped and thought for a minute before turning and taking a closer look.
         “You have a beard,” she said in surprise.
         “Yes.”
         “That was fast,” she seemed shocked.
         “It was.” Oriel was curious; he had never recorded the rate of growth for facial hair or any kind of hair. He made a mental note to pay attention in the future.
         She smiled and he realized that it was the first time she had ever smiled for him. It was an interesting experience. He recorded the image for later study.
         “Yeah,” she nodded with a questioning look on her face. “Looks good.”
         She turned and he watched her move into the back office. He stood there in the center of the gallery and waited for exactly four minutes and fourteen seconds until she stormed out of the office and brushed right past him. He noted two things; the first was that she had the entire open space of the gallery to walk through and she chose to brush past him. The second was that she muttered under her breath, "fucking asshole," as she went by.
         He had observed that when humans swear they often do so under duress or the effects of frustration. Of course, there were many exceptions; he once met a man who swore seventeen times in the span of a five minute and twenty-eight second conversation.
         Oriel heard her walking down the sidewalk. There was a moment of hesitation before he decided on a completely random and arbitrary action. He turned one hundred and eighty degrees and walked out of the 'The Lighthouse' and followed the redhead woman down the sidewalk.
         It was the fault of his end all, be all directive: 'learn what it means to be human.' That's what he decided. It was the fault of a flush of binary code and a heart of ones and zeroes.
         He followed after her quietly, matching his stride with hers and his footfalls with hers. She walked into downtown and began to expertly steer the slums, taking shortcuts and occasionally cutting through alleyways. Oriel followed her, but he made use of his internal mapping system to keep in mind where he was.
         The darkness settled in the city and Oriel's eyes flared like white discs in the shadows of downtown. His external sensors perceived six men converging upon the red haired woman ahead of him. She knew what this meant and she fought against them as they seized her and held her down. Oriel noted that she battled very well, but could not contend against the strength of six of them.
         He rushed in with incredible speed. The Huntington series had been recorded to run at a rate of forty-two point six miles per hour and Oriel had often used this to his advantage when working on the Clock Tower. Only when one of the men had been flung against a far wall with a broken arm and leg did the others notice Oriel standing behind them. His speed and strength left each man curled up on the ground, whimpering in pain or screaming curse words.
         He was careful not to hurt any of them too much. He had been known to punch a man in the face and, because of his metal exoskeleton, completely fracture the skull structure. He was careful to leave the majority of the woman’s attackers intact, he only wanted to incapacitate them, not seriously harm them. One man tried to stab him, but the knife crumpled as soon as it passed through his skin and drove against his metal plating.
         Oriel detected the damage to his external layer and the slight loss of gear lubricant as it soaked through his shirt. He had two forms of lubricant; the water based that helped to grease the moving parts inside of his metal exoskeleton, then the oil based compound beneath his skin that greased his joints and gears and mimicked the sight of blood.
         The woman looked over at Oriel and the debilitated men groaning on the ground all around him. The fight lasted one minute and fifty-three seconds.
         “You followed me?”
         “Yes.”
         “Why?”
         Oriel didn’t really know the answer to that question, so he remained silent.
         She looked at him strangely and continued. “I walked this way yesterday and I didn’t have a problem.”
         Oriel didn’t respond.
         “You don’t talk much, do you?”
         “No.”
         She thought for a moment. There was a pause of twenty-nine seconds.
         “Come on,” she said. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
         With that, she turned and headed down the alleyway as if nothing had happened. Oriel kept close to her with ease and soon they arrived to the back service door of some kind of restaurant or establishment he’d never been to. She led him through the supply room into a bar that was already beginning to fill with regular patrons and customers. Already there was loud rock music playing and the stench of beer and peanuts on the breath of men and the skin of lady waitresses.
         The woman led him to a corner barstool and told him to wait there. It wasn’t long before she was on the other side of the bar mixing and serving drinks and yelling raucously with the other men. It took Oriel a moment to realize she worked in the bar. She did not fit the pattern of the slightly clothed, high-heeled, hooped earrings of the other waitresses.
         Fourteen minutes and six seconds later she placed a juicy hamburger, basket of golden fries and a beer in front of him. She touched his hand for an instant and looked directly into his eyes, “on the house.” It was the first time anyone had ever touched Oriel’s hand and he noticed how warm the sensation was; exactly seventy-nine point two degrees Fahrenheit and twenty-six point twenty-two Celsius.
         A man beside him touched his arm. “She touched you.”
         “Yes.”
         “Salsa ain’t never touched no man, except Solomon,” the man said drunkenly with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “You be a lucky man.”
         Salsa, that was her name. He had noticed that he never knew her name and he always wanted to. He wanted to put a title on the memory logs and now he could.
         He ate the hamburger. Not because he was hungry but because Salsa had placed it in front of him and he knew the proper etiquette was to eat it. In fact, Oriel was never hungry, he could detect when his food packs were empty which Owl had once equated to hunger, but he wasn’t quite sure they were the same thing. He did have to be careful not to eat too much oil; otherwise it would sit in his food pack and soak into the plastic, potentially deteriorating their carrying capacities.
         The food was filling, he didn’t know if it was good but he knew it was filling. Oriel had never understood how humans developed preferences for certain foods. His tasting sensors were perfectly developed in simulation of human taste buds, but he could not understand the concept of preferences.
         As Oriel was finishing his food, he noticed Salsa talking to an elderly man nearby the bar. He could hear exactly what they were saying, just as he heard exactly what everyone else was saying in the bar, but he filtered out the other noise nonetheless.
         “…watch the bar for me?”
         “You sick or something,” the man said.
         “No, grandpa,” she shook her head. “I just want to take the night off.”
         “All right,” he nodded. “You’ll be home later though?”
         “Thanks,” she said without answering the question. She came directly up to Oriel and said. “Let’s get out of here.”
         He followed her from the bar into the nighttime. He noted the concentrated level of carbon dioxide in the air and the decibels of noise decreased. She led him to an old car with numerous dents and scratches.
         “My granddad likes to drive drunk,” Salsa explained as she opened the door and pulled out a set of paints and a sixteen by twenty inch canvas. “It’s a lemon and only he knows how to drive it without breaking down. He says the secret is being drunk.
         Oriel didn’t say anything.
         “Do you live near here?” she asked.
         “Yes.”
         “Can we go there?” she said. “I have paints and you’d be a good model.”
         “Why?”
         “You have a pretty face,” she said as if it were obvious. “Can we go there?”
         “Yes.”
         “Here,” she said and handed him the canvas. “You’re a strong man, carry this.”
         They together walked from the bar for seventeen minutes and fifty-nine seconds before they reached the door of his apartment. It was still early in the evening and people in downtown were starting to come out and play. Downtown wasn’t as policed as some of the other districts in Havers Valley and the Clock Tower often used to tidy up without much luck. As soon as one criminal or pimp or drug dealer was locked up, another took their place. Downtown is where the infestation of crime begins in Havers Valley.
         He opened the door and she immediately barged in and set her things down on the kitchen table.
         “Where are the lights?” she started looking around.
         Oriel flicked the light switch as he moved into the living room and instinctively turned on the television. It was a matter of routine; he liked a continual stream of information to process in the background.
         “Homey,” she commented as she observed all the books in their shelves and in ordered stacks on the ground. “You live here alone.”
         “Yes.”
         “Got a sofa?”
         “No.”
         “Okay,” Salsa motioned to the only chair in the apartment as she began to set up her paints and canvas on the kitchen counter. “Sit here then.”
         Oriel sat down silently and watched her as she began to sketch his likeness onto the canvas. He thought to take the time to refresh himself and review the events of the day, but she began to talk while she drew.
         “I just realized,” she said while glancing back and forth between her model and the canvas. “I don’t know your name.”
         “Oriel,” he answered.
         “Oriel, what?”
         “Oriel Huntington,” he answered. “OH – 167 – 57902”
         “What do the numbers mean?”
         “Serial number,” he answered. “I am the one hundred sixty-seventh of my model; the second number is the cost of my production.”
         Salsa raised her eyebrows. “Wow, here I thought it was your social security number.”
         “No,” he answered. “My social security number is 357-89…”
         “I was just kidding,” she interrupted.
         They sat in silence for forty-eight minutes and thirty-three seconds while she painted. Oriel took the time to listen to an auditory recording of Mozart and tried to understand why it induced so much emotion in The Brain. He also listened to a rendition of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and the song ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix and tried to comprehend their emotional significance.
         “There,” Salsa said as she turned the canvas around and showed him the picture of himself. It was extremely well done. He thought the likeness of his face was incredibly accurate. He compared the portrait to recorded images of himself and he knew she was very talented.
         “I do not see why George does not accept your work into the gallery,” Oriel said. “You are very good.”
         “Not good enough I guess,” she sighed.
         It was not true; she obviously had a tremendous talent for art.
         “I don’t have another canvas, but I have a sketchbook” she looked at him and suddenly pointed. “You’re bleeding.”
         He looked down and noticed a red stain on his shirt from where he was stabbed earlier that evening.
         “Take off your shirt?” she ordered. He complied and she touched the place on his abdomen where he was stabbed. “There’s no wound?”
         “No.”
         “Why?”
         “My synthetic skin has self-regenerative proteins,” he responded. “This wound was healed in sixty-two minutes and thirteen seconds.”
         “So…what? You can’t be hurt,” she looked confused.
         “I can withstand significant damage of many forms,” Oriel answered.
         She backed away for a moment and looked at him strangely. This was a look that he had never received from another human. In the span of point six seconds, Oriel had cross-referenced this particular expression with his other recorded human expressions and did not find a single similarity. He had to speculate. She did not look angry, frustrated, happy, disgusted, or surprised.
         In fact, it wasn’t her face because her face didn’t betray anything. It was her eyes, a slight shimmer that he thought could only be categorized as interest. She was interested. He did not ever hide who he was, but he never expressed it openly as a precaution against driving human subjects away from him. But Salsa looked interested.
         “I like you, Oriel,” she knelt down beside him and looked at his eyes. She seemed to search his face. “You’re beautiful, did you know that?”
         He shook his head.
         “Normally it’s guys trying to tell me that I’m beautiful,” she smiled and looked down at the floor. “It’s a nice change.”
         Oriel didn’t respond.
         She looked up at him again, “I don’t find very many men that I like, two in all my life.” she touched her palm against his cheek. “Do you like that I like you?”
         He nodded, drawing closer to her touch. Studying what it meant.
         “Have you ever made love?” Salsa asked.
         He shook his head slowly.
         “What does making love mean?” he asked.
         “I’ll show you.”
         They were together that night, in the squares of moonlight on the floor amongst stacks of books and the sounds of the television. She moaned and whispered in his ear as he silently did what she wanted him to do. He had never done this before, never expected such insightful sensor arrays in his nether regions. They seemed to pick up every detail and sensation and soon he lost track of putting them into order; soon he lost sight of organization.
         Their hips moved in perfect synchronization and her sounds escalated to shouts of pleasure many times, and when all was done they lay together at three thirty-five just as the static of the television interrupted ‘I Love Lucy.’ For two minutes and forty-six seconds Oriel and Salsa lay in silence, reflecting on what they had done.
         When the static faded away, she curled up next to him and drew her leg up across his body and placed her hand on his chest.
         “What did you think?” she asked with a lively tone.
         He smiled and looked down at the top of her pretty red head.
         “Barf.”