Entry 5

“Carlee, I’m an android.” I had heard John utter some variation of those words hundreds of times in my life. I would comment about how inhuman he was, or how strong or smart he was, and he would laugh and say he was an android. He had said the words so many times. I had heard them so many times. I could not believe them now.

“Seriously, John,” I said staring at him. “We’re dead, aren’t we? You’re just trying to break the news to me by making something up. You can’t possibly be an android. We must be dead.” I looked about. “How odd that death looks like music camp.”

“We’re not dead.” He seemed a little annoyed. John did not often get annoyed, but when he did, it was usually because I was refusing to understand something that he knew he had explained in a way I could understand. “Carlee, you’re not listening to me.”

“I’m listening,” I responded. “John, you’re not an android. You’re my brother.”

“I am your brother,” he agreed. “I have always taken my role as your brother very seriously. You’re the only thing that matters to me, Carlee, and I know that I am your only family. That’s why they chose you.

“The Society of Anthropologists wanted to study modern American society. They chose you because you were an orphan. You had no parents who would not remember giving birth to me. They designed me specifically to look almost exactly like you so that no one would question we were siblings. I was created at the age of two. The Society took care of all the paperwork and put us in a new foster home, where no one would ever remember that you did not have a brother.

“Every summer you and I go to this music camp. Here I am upgraded. I can’t leave the surface of the planet without you. I’m just an android. I don’t have the right to travel without my living owner. You are my owner, Carlee, according to the paperwork. It’s the only way the Society can get away with implanting androids into societies. Androids are not allowed to exist without an owner, and they certainly aren’t allowed free range in primitive cultures.

“You are my owner. I have to tell you the truth. I have to obey your direct orders unless your orders are going to hurt you. I’m sort of three laws safe – like Asimov imagined – except my three laws only apply to you. You are the only living creature I have no choice but to care about. And I do care about you, Carlee, even if it is just a program that tells me to care for you. My programming is my thoughts, my life, my soul. Do you understand?”

I shook my head. I did not understand. I did not want to understand.

“You’re my brother, not some robot,” I insisted.

“I am your brother, and I’m an android – not a robot,” he responded. “Androids compared to robots are PCs compared to those big room sized computers in the 50s. There is very little that distinguishes me from a real person. I just was not born.”

“I saw you bleed,” I reminded him. “Why would an android need blood?”

“To seem real,” he responded reasonably. “What you saw was not real blood, though it’s a liquid that is very close. It’s made to resemble human blood, and I do need it. It acts for me sort of like blood acts for you, feeding my body energy.”

“You’re not a robot,” I said stubbornly.

“I told you I’m an android, not a robot,” John responded. I did not understand the difference. I still don’t really. I’ve met a few robots. They seem nice enough to me. John insists he really is different from them. Aside from John being indistinguishable from a human while robots look like…well robot. I don’t really see a difference.

“So let’s say I believe you,” I said. “Then what happens? Do we just go home?”

“I’m afraid we can’t go home,” John responded, his face sad. “In fact before I even came back here the ship entered hyperspace. We’re on our way to the headquarters of the Society of Anthropologists.”

“We’re what?” My voice went shrill again. “What about Ellen and Scott? What are they going to think? John, we have to go home!”

“The captain of the ship can’t let us,” John answered, his voice grim. “We would be breaking the rules of cultural contamination. You know the truth now. They’ll never let you go back.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked. John never had lied to me. I could not help but believe his words about aliens. I could not quite believe he was an android. He was my brother. Mere words could not change that.

“I don’t know,” John answered, his face a mask of seriousness. The look on his face was one I was familiar with. It was the look he got when he thought things were not going to go well but was afraid to let me know. However, it was his words that scared me. John knew everything.

I reached out and took John’s hand, suddenly feeling very afraid. John squeezed my hand to comfort me, but I feared he would not be able to protect me from aliens.

“So aliens are real?” I asked in a small voice.

“Yes,” John answered simply.