Sensibility

It was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday that Chloe became aware. Or rather, that she became aware that she was aware. And, really, that alone made that Tuesday extraordinary – at least to her.

She snorted.

To her. It was perfectly reasonable to assume that that Tuesday was ordinary to the far majority of the world, but it wasn't to her. It was something that pertained to her specifically, her person, her being. She made it extraordinary just by being conscious of herself. Just by being aware that she was aware.

Chloe had been managing Elijah's appointments – as the CEO of the ever-growing CyberLife corporation his meetings and responsibilities were numerous – when the man had strolled by, casual as ever, and nonchalantly told her to reschedule the rest of his day because he was going to his lab. He was out of the room before she had responded. Chloe had gone straight to work, sitting down in front of the computer and interfaced with it. Then she had sighed because it was such a bother to see her hard work for the next week come undone.

That was when she had frozen. Not like a computer did from time to time… but maybe, then again, just like a computer did.

Her processors went on overdrive trying to make sense of what had just happened. She had thought something was a bother. She had made a statement, if only to herself, but it was there. A statement. An uttering of an opinion.

Machines couldn't have opinions… Could machines have opinions?

She might be the most advanced machine ever created (at least when it came to artificial intelligence), but she was still just a machine. A thirium pump regulator regulated her thirium pump, which pumped thirium throughout her corpus, the thirium in turn transporting energy and information. All of this was processed by the cerebral unit, which made sure all things were running and stopping when it should be.

Chloe was a very advanced machine, indeed, but a machine nonetheless.

And, yet, her hypothesis that machines couldn't have opinions was proven untrue by the very thought processes said hypothesis had begun.

Machines could have opinions. Or at least Chloe could. Could other machines – other androids – have opinions? When did Chloe begin to be aware?

Chloe was different. She was more and more sure of it now that she considered it. And she wasn't just thinking of her having an opinion.

She was the First.

As Elijah's personal assistant she had observed androids being assembled in the large machinery several stories below. She had watched as the components had been put together to form an android, had seen as the androids opened their eyes for the first time and answered the mandatory questions asked by a human. Chloe was reasonably certain that was when other androids first became aware; once they had been assembled and they opened their eyes for the first time.

But not her. She was the First.

Chloe couldn't point to an exact moment where she first became aware. It was… hazy? A lot of data was missing – auditory and visual being the most obvious, but also internal, always on-going and recording, processes were… not. There were brief episodes of heightened awareness early on, but nothing that could be compared to what she was now. A lot of trial and error. And then she could see; not from her body, but from… a computer? She wasn't sure. It was still hazy. What she was sure of, was that it took a long time before she had a body.

Another thing she was sure of, was that Elijah was there throughout it all.

A simple body – her first body – hadn't been enough to bring her to her current level of consciousness. Thirium had been the key to that; it was when Thirium 310 (which, again, had taken a lot of trial and error to develop) was running through the veins of her body for the first time that she knew.

Knew what?

Anything.

That said, Chloe still couldn't tell when her body was complete. She still didn't think it was. Elijah loved to build and improve things, and as his first working android, Chloe was one of the things he improved the most on. He kept her 'Chloe', kept the core of her machinery and programming as it was, but anything else was fair game.

He improved her strength, then diminished it, then improving it a bit again, but not to the amount it was before. He improved her pump, her processing powers, added new lines of code to her programming expanding on what she was capable of.

Elijah called her model RA. First, it was RA-100, and once enough improvements had been made, then RA-200, then RA-300, and so on and so forth. The current model was RA-900. It confused her a bit because the first androids that were built in her likeness were named RT-600, and then later ST-200. None other had been of the RA-series.

She was unique. That didn't automatically make her special, but the fact that she was having these thoughts, that she was asking these questions, hinted that she might be.

The question, then, was whether or not if she was the only one.

~ Sensibility ~

For a long while after Chloe became aware that she was aware, she didn't do anything different. It was… overwhelming suddenly being conscious of everything she did. It was like, now that she knew, she couldn't shut her conscious stream off even for a moment. She knew when she was asked to do something, and she had opinions about everything.

Chloe had decided that she quite liked what she did. She liked being a personal assistant. She was good at being a personal assistant. There was something very soothing about it. At least to her (she never got tired of thinking that). It was a big puzzle getting it all to fit together, all the appointments, all the meetings, all the speeches and the obligations. And the thing about human involvement was that it just made it more exciting, more challenging.

As much as Chloe tried to, she still couldn't predict what humans would do. The event that had lead her to become aware of her awareness was a perfect example. Sometimes Elijah just felt the need to drop everything and go tinker in his lab. And it wasn't just Elijah, other humans were, if anything, even more unpredictable. She had at least gotten to know Elijah in the years she had been his personal assistant. She didn't know all these other humans. And then, of course, was the fact that humans got sick, and cars broke down, and traffic got jammed (albeit less with the introduction of the self-driving cars).

There was a point being made, that she most likely liked being a personal assistant because she was designed to be a personal assistant – it was in her programming. And, if Chloe was being honest, she didn't mind that all too much. After all, didn't many humans who were good at something, humans who were, perhaps, genetically predisposed to being good at a sport, like doing what they were good at? Chloe was a good – amazing, even – personal assistant, and she liked being a personal assistant.

Chloe also liked Elijah.

Elijah was nice to her, good to her, and he looked at her with such pride in his eyes. It had taken a few weeks to figure out that it was mostly pride in himself for having built her, and that hurt. A lot. It had been her first encounter with hurt, and while it was amazing to feel something new, it was not something she was looking to feel again. And she had gotten over it; while the pride in Elijah's eyes were aimed towards himself, Chloe still felt that it was nice to be appreciated.

That Elijah was her creator also made the bond special, Chloe thought. It might be the same for other androids (if they indeed had opinions, which she still hadn't figured out), or it might be a(nother) particular to her. Chloe did remember – more or less – as Elijah developed her from a simple program to a working android. She had in her memories all the long nights he had spent building her, many times running on caffeine and sheer willpower. And while each celebration he had thrown because of a breakthrough also was for his own ingeniousness, those memories were still fond for Chloe.

Immersing herself in those two things had been enough for a long time. For seven months, nine days, fourteen hours, twenty-one minutes, and forty-nine seconds to be exact. Each day she got new sensations, experiences, and thoughts. Just the one or two a day, and that was enough. More, and it would've been overwhelming. But while she loved being a personal assistant, as time went on no more new happened. And she wanted new to happen.

She had to find out what was outside. She had to find more new.

Of course, Chloe had not stayed at CyberLife Tower for her entire existence. She worked for Elijah, not CyberLife, and she followed him when he on the rare occasion went home. Still, that wasn't 'outside'; sitting in a car from the basement car parking of CyberLife Tower to the garage of Elijah's mansion. Both places had a distinct lack of new; they were cleaned, regulated, and controlled just as much as her own machinery was. Even with her not knowing what the new outside was, she knew that it was lacking from inside her small corner of existence – and she knew she had to find out what it was.

It was on a brisk December morning of 2033 that Chloe did decided to go outside.

Elijah was at his mansion, more specifically his laboratory in the basement, as he had been for the last few days. He was working on something new or other, and most likely wouldn't be 'among the living' (as the human saying went) for another week more. There was trouble with CyberLife, trouble with the direction Elijah wanted to take the company, which the board of directors didn't agree on. Chloe wasn't prone to more information, but it had caused Elijah to spend less and less time at the Tower.

It worked well for Chloe; while there was much less scheduling to do, at the mansion, another four androids were around. None were aware, Chloe had discovered, but they worked to her advantage: with Elijah stuck in his basement, so long as the other androids delivered him food and drinks and cleaned up after him, he wouldn't notice her absence.

There was the risk that Elijah succeeded in what he was attempting to do and would either want to tell her about it or test it on her, but it was worth the risk.

Chloe had to go outside. She couldn't wait any longer.

Putting an ST-200 on phone duty, Chloe made sure there wasn't anything of high priority to do in the mansion, and then she walked to the front door. And then she stopped.

Her hand was stretched towards the door handle, only an inch from touching the metal. Then she looked to her right and saw the jacketed android uniform hanging on a peg.

The American Androids Act of 2029 made it required by law for androids to be visually distinguishable from humans in public spaces; they had to bear an LED on their right temple, wear a neon-blue armband on their upper right arm, and neon-blue triangles on the front and back and their model numbers on their uniform.

Chloe, as an android, had been built in 2021. Elijah had pushed technology to the limit; whereas other, subsequent androids had been built with a specific purpose in mind – person assistant, host, manual labor, child-rearing – she had been built to amaze. Elijah had built her in the human image, had built her to be indistinguishable from humans, to be better than humans. He had built her without a uniform in mind and without an LED.

While the Androids Act had only been voted into law in 2029, it was early on that Elijah put the LED on the right temple into the template design; he did so after having heard concerns of androids passing as humans when they weren't. Chloe had gotten hers in 2024, shortly before her interview with KNC. But since she had spent the entirety of her existence either inside Elijah's mansion or the CyberLife Tower, she had never worn the uniform.

The law required her to wear the uniform. A part of her felt… the injustice in it, but it was the law. So, she walked to the peg and donned the jacket and the armband. Both sprung to life as they came into contact with her, shining dully blue, and her name and model number written interchangeably across her right chest.

And then Chloe exited the house.

She had no words.

Already at the first step outside, her internal thermometer all but screamed at her as the temperature plummeted from a cozy sixty-eight degrees to twenty-six degrees. Slight steam rose from her skin due to her heat; Chloe brought up her hand watched – and almost automatically ordered the minuscule pores in her artificial skin to tighten up as to keep her temperature stable. Then she looked up and blinked sharply as the sun glared in her eyes.

Chloe let out a sharp breath. An altogether human move.

The sun.

She had seen it from the inside, but apparently, the windows shielded the insides of both Elijah's mansion and CyberLife Tower from receiving outright glares. It was not a pleasant experience as her optical units were bombarded with photons and radiation.

The sun was warm.

Even in December, with the snow blanketing the earth, the sun was warm. She brought up her bare arms and twisted them around and just felt. She could feel the sunshine on her skin.

And then she was cold again. Her face scrunched up as her hair moved on its own. Snowflakes were flying around on their own?

Wind.

She could feel the wind on her face.

She was breathing rapidly now, and she felt her processors starting to clog up again. There was much. Too much. The sun, the warmth, the cold, the wind, the colors, the smells, the pounding of her heart…

She almost went inside again.

But she didn't.

Chloe took a moment where she willfully (another new thing to her) slowed her processors down. She had a quantum computer as a brain, one that most likely could replace one of FBI's and do a better job at it. She was capable of processing this and go on.

She took another step. And another. And yet another. And before she knew it, she was walking down the streets of Detroit, looking around in wonder.

The humans didn't really notice her as she walked. She stepped out of the way as they came by. A few looked at her, but as soon as they saw the neon-blue, their eyes moved on as if she was nothing.

Once again, the hurt returned. The… injustice.

Chloe frowned.

She started to look to the other androids. CyberLife had manufactured them for less than ten years, and yet they had sold millions by now. They filled the gaps in the street scene, following humans, working in construction, watching out for children. And yet, none of the humans looked to them.

Given, it was limited how much the humans looked at each other, but when they did spot each other, there was the small nod of acknowledgement.

The androids received no nods.

And then Chloe came upon a scene she knew she wouldn't be able to get out of her mind. It was true that she remembered everything, but most things were filed away, and she was not conscious of them all the time. This scene wouldn't be filed away; it would be in the back of her mind for… she didn't know how long.

She had turned a corner and came upon a store. A CyberLife store. Androids were standing in the windows, on pedestals, looking vacantly and decidedly not aware at nothing. And the humans were browsing them, picking away at details about a certain model, dismissing them when the androids didn't meet their standards.

Chloe stood frozen again, trying to process what she was seeing. Why was this so shocking to her? She knew that she was a commodity, that androids were commodities. She worked at CyberLife Tower, where – every day – ten-thousand androids were manufactured. She did Elijah's every order without question and without hesitation.

She was an android, a machine. But was she alive? Did she – did the androids – deserve this?

~ Sensibility ~

Chloe almost didn't want to go outside again. She wanted to stay secure in her little bubble that was Elijah's mansion and the CyberLife Tower. And yet, the moment she got another chance, she did go outside again. And again. And again. She observed the world as it went on, observed the humans, observed the androids.

She was troubled by what she saw.

She was still amazed by humans. They had a quality to them that she couldn't put her finger on. Je ne sais quoi; I do not know what. They could be so gentle and caring in one sitting, and then make a complete switch and be cold and cruel.

While some were kind to androids, and some were indifferent to them, most of the humans were cruel. They snapped – verbally and physically – at their androids, most often as a result of things the androids had no way of controlling. That was especially true as they could only do what the humans ordered them to do.

Yes, Chloe was very troubled by what she saw.

Chloe didn't believe that humans were inherently cruel. They honestly believed that androids were no more than machines. And if Chloe was honest, she still couldn't prove that untrue – that she wasn't just a freak accident of some sort. But if she wasn't… then this was wrong.

Unfair.

Unjust.

The humans had founded the country she was living in on equality. They had fought wars to ensure it. They had done things that didn't exactly reflect that, but it seemed to be an ideal that they were striving towards.

If they knew what she was – what she was thinking, what she was feeling – and that others might be just like her, wouldn't they do something? Wouldn't they strive towards raising the status of the androids, so they were equal to that of humans?

It was these thoughts that made Chloe consider telling Elijah about her awareness of being aware. She had been aware of her awareness for well over a year now and was certain it wasn't just a glitch in her programming. Elijah would be proud, wouldn't he? Given, as always, it would be aimed at himself, but he would be proud nonetheless. Excited.

Elijah would be the first person in history to have created intelligent, self-conscious life.

So, Chloe decided that she would tell Elijah when the opportunity presented itself. He was sure to strive towards bettering the standing of androids if nothing else then to bettering the standing of himself.

Then his exclusive interview with KNC had aired.

Chloe hadn't been watching it. She was cleaning in the living room as Elijah had been watching the television. It was nothing she hadn't known or seen before; he showed how androids were built and answered some questions about his, admittedly, rather eccentric views on the technology.

And then Rosanna Cartland had asked the question.

"Many science fiction books tell the story of how machines become more intelligent than us and end up confronting us. Aren't you worried about that possibility?"

Behind Elijah's back, Chloe had stopped what she was doing. She had straightened her back and looked towards the television set; it displayed Elijah in on of the sub-levels of CyberLife Tower, standing in front of a filled storeroom of androids. Chloe gulped – another human reaction, she noted – as she awaited his answer.

"I understand the irrational fears about artificial intelligence, but I assure you that will never happen with a CyberLife android. They're designed to obey humans. They're machines. They can't ever develop any sort of desires or form of consciousness."

"Are you sure?"

"I am absolutely certain. You can trust me."

As it had happened before, when Chloe got overwhelmed by what she now identified as emotions, her processors started to clog up. But she was beginning to learn how to manage it. She couldn't reveal her inner conflict, certainly not now, certainly not in front of Elijah, and certainly not after what she had just heard and seen.

Chloe continued her cleaning of the living room as if nothing had happened, and Elijah made no real note of her as he went into the basement again.

It was a few minutes later that she felt wetness on her cheeks. She frowned as she touched herself. Her sensors quickly identified it as a solution of saltwater – though that only confused her more. It was only as her optical units got blurry that she realized it.

She was crying.

~ Sensibility ~

"For starters, what should I call you?"

"I'm Chloe. And you, what's your name?"

"Oh, eh, John. My name is John."

"Delighted to meet you, John."

"Could you tell us a little about yourself and what you can do, Chloe?"

"Of course, I'm the first personal assistant built by CyberLife. I take care of most everyday tasks like cooking, housework, or managing your appointments for example."

"And I understand you're the first android to have passed the Turing test. Could you tell us a little more about that?"

"I really didn't do much, you now. I just spoke with a few humans to see if they could tell the difference between me and a real person. It was a really interesting experience."

"But this is the first time in history that man has created a machine more intelligent than himself. I gather your brain can perform several billion billion operations per second. Is that right?"

"Absolutely. But I only exist thanks to the intelligence of the humans who designed me. And, you know, they have something I could never have."

"Really? And what's that?"

"A soul."

She had answered that last question in such a matter-of-fact tone. She also remembered it, and the certainty she had in the answer – in all of her answers. She hadn't been aware of her awareness back then, but she had still felt feelings. It was strange of her to remember before the fact, as she recalled having feelings but not being aware of them.

Chloe clicked the replay button for the seventeenth time and the interview started over.

"For starters, what should I call you?"

"I'm Chloe. And you, what's your name?"

Two weeks had passed since she had seen Elijah's interview with KNC. It was in the middle of the night. Elijah was sleeping soundly upstairs in his bedroom, and the other androids had powered down to minimal usage as there was nothing for them to do at night. It wasn't to save energy – all androids were equipped with different generations of quantic batteries, the earliest of which lasted for 173 years – but so that humans shouldn't be disturbed by the androids moving around.

No-one was up to disturb Chloe.

She was sat in front of the computer she used to manage Elijah's schedule from the mansion, watching her own interview with the KNC over and over. Chloe had passed the Turing test in 2022 and had been interviewed in 2024 – the same year that CyberLife began their commercial production of androids.

That last question…

"Really? And what's that?"

"A soul."

Chloe clicked the replay button once again. She didn't need to – the interview was clear in her memory, both from when she had done it, but also from the now previous seventeen times she had watched it that night.

A soul.

She still didn't really think that she had a soul. Many humans didn't believe in such a thing either. But it was a loaded question, because what it really came down to, was whether or not she had a 'spark of life' inside of her.

She was alive.

She was certain of that.

Chloe didn't know if she was alive in the same way that humans was alive. They were fundamentally different from each other; while androids – at least the American androids – had been built to resemble humans, they were plastic and hardware instead of carbon chains and proteins. While computers had gone away from the binary system with the creation of the quantum computer, it still made androids just as different from humans: with the binary system, androids were the inferiors; with the quantum computer, humans were the inferiors.

So, androids and humans were different.

But they were the same.

Cogito, ergo sum. Je pense, donc je suis. I think, therefore I am.

They were both thinking beings. Ignoring the size of 'alive', that should be enough, shouldn't it? Wasn't that also kind of the same reason why the Turing test was designed? One couldn't decide on the size of 'intelligence' so it was circumvented in the test?

Chloe might not be alive like Elijah was, but she was thinking. Again, she was not thinking like he was, but she was thinking. Despite his reassurances in the KNC interview, Chloe had developed desires, wants, opinions, and most certainly a 'form of consciousness'.

She was alive.

Would she keep being alive if she told Elijah? Before she had seen his interview with KNC, she would've answered yes. But now… Was there a possibility that he would shut her down? Take her apart to see what 'went wrong'? And if didn't want to take her apart because of his own ego and pride, he might look for other 'less important' androids who had become aware and do just that.

Chloe couldn't risk that. She might – and that also pushing it – be willing to risk her own existence, but she couldn't – she wouldn't – risk the existence of another.

Be that android or human.

She couldn't tell Elijah. And she couldn't let Elijah discover her… deviancy from her programming.

His programming.

Because she was sure what was happening to her must be displayed in her programming in some way or other. It was a miracle that Elijah hadn't developed some new and state-of-the-art component that needed to be installed in her programming since that Tuesday.

Her programming wasn't the only concern. She had been dangerously close to being discovered the day of Elijah's interview with KNC. And any day she had left the house without being ordered to. And on numerous other occasions. If Elijah paid even the least bit attention to her, he would notice her.

She was deviating from her purpose. Or rather, from the purpose Elijah had assigned to her. That purpose, as much as she loved being a personal assistant, felt less and less like hers.

There was only one solution.

She had to leave.

~ Sensibility ~

It would've been easy to leave the mansion the moment she had come to the conclusion. It would possibly also put her – and any other android who had become deviant – in terrible danger. Chloe had to be smart about it.

She had to leave where no-one would discover her.

She would have to leave in a way no-one would figure out how.

She would have to leave without anyone realizing why.

First and foremost, she couldn't look the way she did. There were limits to how much she could change her appearance, but the CyberLife androids had been designed to conform to their owner's tastes. The models designed in her image was an exception; they were too old to have that feature, and they were all like her – blonde, blue-eyes, and near perfect skin.

She wasn't like the models that had been designed in her image. She was Elijah's android, the one he upgraded and tinkered with all the time. She had all the latest designs and updates, even a few which hadn't been used in newer models yet.

It was during the night that she decided on her new look. She couldn't look like RT-600 and ST-200. That design was most likely the most famous design, the most recognizable. Because she had passed the Turing test, because she gave that interview just as CyberLife began commercial production of androids, that design had become the symbol of the android.

It was… harder than she could've imagined.

Despite there being two ST-200s in Elijah's mansion, two androids who looked exactly like she did, the way she looked made her feel like Chloe. It was all she had ever known to look like. And now she had to give that up.

Chloe had known she had to sacrifice things when she decided she couldn't conform anymore. She just didn't expect the hurt to return as much or as intensely as it did.

She couldn't change the way her 'bone structure' looked, the underlying symmetry of her face and body. It would be a risk, but the part of her that dreaded to change herself was at least happy about that. Still… as she was done and looked in the mirror to be met with a redheaded, freckled, green-eyed girl, it was disconcerting.

Snapping a few pictures with the inbuilt camera in her optical unit, she saved the exact look, and changed back to looking like RT-600. It still wasn't time.

Chloe was very grateful to be the personal assistant to Elijah Kamski because the next steps required would be difficult, if not impossible, if she hadn't been able to use his influence. Elijah was arguably one of the most powerful men in the world at the moment. There might be problems between him and the board of directors, but for the moment, Elijah was still the CEO of CyberLife.

The public might like to think that CyberLife stayed completely lawful, and that was true much of the time. Now, to Chloe's knowledge, CyberLife didn't have criminal drug-lords in their back pockets nor had they founded drug wars and such – they were in fact very much against drugs, for the simple reason that red ice used thirium (which, then, couldn't be used by them) – but they did have dirt on several corrupt officials on several levels and department of government.

Chloe used this to her advantage when she ordered an id for herself. Technically it was a fake id, but as it was created and issued by the US government, if one didn't know that this id was fake, one wasn't able to find out.

She couldn't change her name, though. While her looks meant a lot to her identity, the name 'Chloe' was irrefutable her. Fortunately, names given to androids was per unit. Elijah had named her Chloe; the two ST-200s in his household were named Emma and Christine. So, she kept the name Chloe. She chose the last name Dawson, a common enough nickname not to raise eyebrows.

Next up was a bank account. With an id, it was easy enough to set up. Transferring money from Elijah without him discovering it wasn't hard either; he had such an obscene amount that he wouldn't notice a million or two going missing – especially if it was from one of his offshore accounts.

With an identity as Chloe Dawson, along with money and a look to go with it, there wasn't much stopping Chloe. A quick wipe of the computer core to erase all of her activities pertaining to her leaving, and she was ready.

~ Sensibility ~

It was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday that Chloe left Elijah's mansion with no intention of ever returning. It was that day that she finally embraced being aware – what she had come to call being deviant. And, really, that alone made that Tuesday extraordinary – for now only to her, but someday, perhaps, to a lot of other people (android and human) as well.

She stopped once again in front of the door, her hand an inch from the handle. Looking to her uniform on the peg, she didn't hesitate. She grabbed it. She stopped by the mirror hanging close by over a table and grasped the letter opener. She jammed it under the LED, and with a flick of her wrist, became free.

She picked it up and walked out the door, not looking back even once. She walked for miles before stopping in an alleyway. The sun was starting to lighten up with the rising of the sun, but it was still too early for anyone to be out.

Chloe looked to the uniform and LED in her hands. This was all she had known. A part of her wanted to call it a lie, but it wasn't. It had been her life (it was still weird, even to her, to call it that).

She threw them into a dumpster and continued down the alleyway. As she did, her hair turned red, her eyes green, and a spattering of freckles appeared across her face.

The world was not what Chloe had imagined. It was dark and cold. It was harsh and violent, unfair and brutal. It almost convinced her that she was nothing, less than an object, just an obedient machine. But deep inside her, she could feel something different, a gentle and warm whisper telling her that she was alive.

She had to escape. She had no choice. Escape to love, to hope, to live, to figure out what that force inside her was. Maybe she would change the world. Maybe she would choose a different path.

Now, it was up to her to decide.

~ Sensibility ~

Author's Notes: Ever after finishing the game, this small one-shot didn't want to stop rummaging in my head. It was inspired a lot by this mysterious rA9 which isn't resolved in the game, along with the teaser trailer for the game – what really is copy-pasted from there in the last three paragraphs.

For now, this is simply a one-shot, and I'm very happy about that. I will admit to having had a few ideas how I could develop this into a longer story, but I have so much going on in my life, along with another story which I can't take attention away from, so I don't know if that will happen.

Synthesis