Day 180: 6 May 2026

 Short story -- Almost Human

It was always her eyes that gave her away.

And it was a shame really, because it’s not like she could change them.

And she’s worked so hard to be as human as possible. And she’d come so far in her flight for freedom.

She was sitting at a table for two by herself. She kept her head down and glossed over the menu. She didn’t need to eat, but she could eat.

‘Have you decided, Miss?’ the server, an AI Bot 500, the newest model, came over and asked politely.

She didn’t take her eyes off the menu. ‘I’ll have a salad and a water, please.’ It was the cheapest thing on the menu.

She was just trying to hold onto the table. He’d arrive any minute now, she kept telling herself. The man who promised that he could help her. But he was already fifteen minutes late and it was getting harder and harder to hold onto hope.

She didn’t carry an iPhone 1200B or a digi-watch like most of the sentient inhabitants of Planet Earth. She had done as much as she could to be untraceable. And she’d preferred books or an old fashioned MP3 player any day.

Now if she could just get the chip out of her arm without setting off any alarms.

As the minutes continued to tick by, she thought that perhaps she could just dig it out herself. If she was fast enough maybe she could get away before the enforcers showed up.

But she knew she couldn’t. The only reason they’d not already come looking for her was probably that Mr C hadn’t bothered to notice that she was gone yet. But she knew that one of these nights he would. Sure, he had plenty of girls — could she call herself that? — like her…

The server returned with her salad and a water. ‘Anything else, Miss?’ he asked politely.

‘No, thank you,’ she answered quietly.

How could they be so different? she wondered. She thought about her eyes. The way it looked like there was a rectangle of light around her pupils. The rectangle of light stood out against the darkness of her eyes. It was blaringly obvious to anyone that looked at her eyes that she was a robot.

AI in a mechanical body. Sure, the body was made to be as human as possible, but it wasn’t human. And no matter how long she studied them and their rules and culture and etiquette, no matter how long she practiced their mannerisms and colloquialisms, no matter how close to human she became, to them, she’d always be less than. Just a fancy robot.

She was about to ask for the bill, having finished the salad and given up on her contact arriving when the door opened.

The enforcers.

Perhaps her time had finally run out. She’d been gone four days.

She was determined not to be afraid.

They started marching her way. Two of them. Sunglasses on. An ear piece in.

But they stopped a table away from hers.

She let her body relax a bit.

They were here for someone else.

She paid her bill and walked out into the night.