Log 5

Carlee's tirade did not take me entirely by surprise. I know my sister very well, and I know she has a temper and tends to say irrational things that she doesn't mean when she is upset. However, her words still hurt.

I wondered about that, how her words could hurt. I was merely an android. If people like Ven were right, then everything I thought and felt were nothing but built in responses from my programming. That would mean I was not really hurt. My programming was simply telling me that I should feel hurt in order to better simulate a human's feelings.

And yet, wasn't that exactly what a human's brain was? A human's brain was hardwired to think and feel certain ways by the time a human was my age. A human my age would feel hurt by Carlee's reaction because the societal programming in their brain told them they should be. Surely a brain was nothing more than a highly complex, organic computer.

The difference then had to be that human's had souls. At least, humans thought they had something called a soul that somehow made them better than all the other animals on the planet Earth. I did not think there was any "soul" circuit board within me, but humans had no "soul" organ. Perhaps I did have a soul, and I just did not know about it.

Soul or no, I felt bad about letting Carlee think Ven's plan was my plan, my desire. But I did not see anything I could do about it. Ven was right. Life would be better for Carlee without me. The only way to make Carlee leave me behind was if she thought I wanted to leave her. I could not lie to Carlee, but the truth could also be used to deceive.

I knew Carlee would want me to run after her, but instead I stayed in my quarters. As painful was this was going to be, I would have to let us separate.

"Carlee was wrong about one thing," Blaue's holographic image materialized in my room.

"Just one?" I asked.

"Well, perhaps more than one," Blaue relented. "But she called herself a fifteen year old girl. It was my impression that Carlee was born on February 16 in the Earth year of AD 1993."

"She was," I answered. I had not been there for the event, but I had been Carlee's brother most of her life. I knew her birthday.

"Well, that day on Earth passed about a week ago," Blaue said. "Carlee is sixteen now."

"I missed Carlee's birthday?" I exclaimed in disbelief. "And Christmas." My instinct was to find some way to make up for it, to through some sort of extravagant party. However, that would probably get me back into Carlee's good graces. I loved my sister too much to allow her to not be mad at me.

"Time is hard to tell when you're no longer on a planet with a set calender," Blaue responded. "Don't blame yourself. Ven should have done something for her for her birthday. I'll have to berate him."

"So I'm eighteen," I said, surprised that I could come of age - be an adult - and not even know about it. My "birthday" was in January, always a few weeks before Carlee's.

"According to your Earth birth record, yes," Blaue answered. "But you were created after Carlee's birth according to your construction record, so that actually makes you younger than her." The earlier date of my construction date did not bother me. Socially I was older than Carlee, and I was certainly more mature than her. Perhaps it was an affect of my more logical, android brain.

"If you could have Ven throw some sort of party for Carlee I would appreciate it," I said. It did bother me that Ven would get credit for the kind of brotherly duty that was normally mine. However, I had to let Carlee go. It was the best thing for her, regardless if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.