The Other-workers
 
We travelled to work in our own coach, wearing our obligatory yellow boiler suits, and entered the building from the back, away from the other-workers at the plant. Our shift lasted 12 hours with a 15 minute break to rest.
I was intrigued by those other-workers. Then one day, I will not say how, I managed to obtain some normal clothes, like those worn by the men who worked in the offices. When I got off the coach I managed to sneak away and change into them behind the electricity substation. Nobody noticed I was missing; they never count how many of us are there.
I walked up to the other-workers in the queue waiting to use the Retina Identification Machine. I knew I would be found out, but even if it was just for a few minutes, I wanted to experience what it was like for them. It fascinated me how they chatted as they waited, relating their life away from work to each other. My fellow workers never spoke unless it was work-related.
A young woman came and stood next to me. I pulled the hood of my jacket more forward to hide my features.
“Hi,” she said, “are you new?”
I nodded as I stared at the concrete path on which we were standing.
“The Initiation Lecture for new recruits doesn’t start until 11 o’clock.”
“I know; I wanted to make sure I was not late.”
She laughed. “I think 3 hours early is a bit overcautious.”
“Which department?” she asked.
That’s when I made the mistake, something we are usually programmed not to do. I looked up and noticed her dark brown eyes. She saw mine and her look turned to horror.
She screamed. “It’s a pink-eyes!”
The other-workers moved away from me in disgust, shouting to the security guards.
To me it had all been worthwhile, just to experience what it was like to be human, even if it had been only for a few moments. I knew I would be decommissioned. As far as the government was concerned I was a faulty android.
 
And I expected that would be the end for me . . . but it isn’t. Though my body has been ripped apart to use as spares, there is some part of me that remains. I do not know where. I have no vision, no sounds or sense of my surroundings. Am I now just a memory in a computer programme? If so, then the feeling of being alone I felt from the rest of society in the world I lived is nothing compared to the horror of isolation that now governs my existence.