Chapter 10

I can't believe I'm doing this. Standing at the gate of my childhood home, the autumn leaves scattered across the pristinely green grass. The old stone brick, the backyard garden just barely visible from the front. The olden gate creaks with the wind, and somewhere wind chimes play their distant melody.

My hand clutches the front of the gate, staring downwards, why am I even here? What's the point of trying to reconcile with people you've hurt so much, and have hurt you? Maybe they really do want me back, and maybe I miss them, but is it really worth everything else that comes with it?

I jolted back to reality as the front door of the house opens, and a familiar face comes through the door.

"Emma!" the family android Nick rushes up to the gate, carrying a handful of trash bags and a rake, the paint on its face and arms chipping with age, "You've returned!"

"Hi Nick, how are you?" I ask, as if speaking to an old friend.

"I'm...functional. The processing chip in my right arm has been short-circuiting as of late, however the part has long since been discontinued, but I've been...managing," its voice is slightly stilted, pausing and glitching at minor intervals, "your mother and father were not sure if you'd actually come and visit."

"Yeah, that's...understandable," I chuckle under my breath, as Nick opens the gate for me.

"You have...grown up so much."

I turn towards Nick, as it looks at me, the older model of its mechanical eyes not quite as perfect as the newer ones I've become accustomed to seeing. However, even though the artificiality of the plastic and glass of its eyes are more apparent than normal, there's a twinkle, an aged glimmer. Its expression sunken with wisdom even as its face is forever frozen in youth.

Stepping into the house, I take in the house I had once known. Everything is almost identical to what I remember. Rich red detailing along wooden panels, matching the carpet that sweeps down the grand staircase. Some of Dad's records and awards line the walls, although I do notice some of them have been switched out. Some of the human bands like The Whiskey Charmers and Knights of the Black Death have been replaced with android bands, Here4You being the most prominent.

"I shall call your parents, they will be...happy to see you," Nick makes its way up the stairs, but trips on the rug halfway up, and stumbles backwards.

"Nick!" I rush towards him, catching the android mid-fall.

As I prop it back up, Nick's circuitry whirls inside it, recalibrating its position, "Oh...thank you Emma. My spatial mapping has not been...exceedingly accurate as of late."

Having heard the commotion, footsteps come echoing against the marble floor.

"Oh, Emma!" Dad's hair is considerably more gray, although he's still sporting his usual graphic t-shirts and casual jeans.

Mom enters the room right behind him, dressed completely opposite in a fine satin dress that goes down to her knees, with a diamond bracelet and earrings.

I run towards Dad, embracing him in a great bear hug. I also hug Mom, although a little less aggressively.

"I'm so surprised, Emma...you look great!" Mom chuckles, possibly even at herself, compliments from her are rare.

"Yeah, I've been doing pretty well, I guess."

Then, before anyone can say anything else, Mom comes in with the interrogation, "How have you been getting by? We asked everyone in the neighborhood and they all say they haven't seen you in years, we'd thought you'd disappeared off the face of the Earth."

"I just...haven't been spending time with people from the neighborhood. I don't really have a lot in common with them anymore," I explain.

"But that's not true, Leo just saw you recently, isn't that right?" Mom corrects me.

Should I tell them? About Leo breaking into my house? The better question is: would my parents want to believe me? Leo is the son of famous painter and friend of the family Carl Manfred, and even though Carl didn't introduce Leo to the world as his son until he was sixteen, now that Carl's passed Leo's going to inherit all of his wealth. And knowing my Mom…

"I...guess you could say that...he was very...insistent, on seeing me," I grumble, keeping my head down.

"That's great!" Mom practically cheers, but she reins in her emotions faster than they began, "...we should see if Leo would like to come to dinner with us soon. It must be so lonely now, without his father."

"No, Mom, I really don't think that'd be a good-"

"Oh, don't be so shy, Emma, I'm sure he'd love to come over-"

"You don't understand, Leo and I don't exactly get along anymore-"

"Mom...Dad...who is this?"

Everyone turns around. At the top of the steps is a young teenage girl, her hair in a wild, messy ponytail, layers highlighted sky blue and cotton candy pink. She's wearing a loose tank top with a graphic design, denim shorts and a thick studded belt with matching bracelets. As loose bits of her hair sway back and forth, a blue LED becomes visible on her right temple.

I'm frozen in place, and can only watch as Mom looks around nervously, "Oh, no one important dear, just one of your father's executives-"

Dad gives her a sharp look, before wrapping his arm around my shoulder, "Mom is just joking around Ember. I want you to meet your older sister, Emma."

Ember takes a singular step back, "She...she looks old."

I turn to Dad, just as confused as Ember, "You never told me I have a…'little sister'."

"So what is she suppose to be, huh?" Ember's tone suddenly becomes sharp and defensive, "Some kind of novelty act? Don't tell me you expect me to go on tour with her."

Dad shakes his head, "No, no Ember, Emma isn't involved in music, at least, not that I know of. Ha ha, she's just your big sister. You know…"

He turns to Mom, "Do you know if they ever programmed the concept of an older sister into her?"

"I have no clue. Maybe not, it's not like we ever thought she'd need it-"

"I can hear you, you know," Ember interrupts, crossing its arms. It then huffs, "I'm going back to my room."

Whipping around, Ember marches down the hall, but before it disappears behind the second floor doors, it turns back around, "Nice meeting you, Emma. I guess."

It runs off, and as soon as it's gone, I make my thoughts known, "You've been keeping an android child?"

"She's not a child model android, at least she wasn't originally built to be," Dad explains, "don't you recognize her? She's Ember Electric! Teen pop idol sensation!"

"Last year's teen pop idol sensation," Mom corrects him, "when its songs stopped making money, it was just going to be deactivated. But then your father…"

"I couldn't Violet, you should have seen her face when we broke the news to her creative team. She ran off crying, I didn't even know androids could cry-"

"So it's broken as well as outdated too, huh?" Mom grumbles, "Who knows, maybe we'll keep it around and have it go on a comeback tour in a couple of years-"

"And how long has this been going on?" I cut through, crossing my arms.

Dad thinks on this for a little, "Uhm, well, almost a year I think-"

"And let me guess: she's in my room?"

Mom and Dad exchange glances, before they both start nodding.

Glancing downwards, I can't bear to look either of them in the eye, "I see…no, no, that's...that's alright. It's not like I was using it anyway."

"The intention was never to...replace you," Dad insists, "a lot of your stuff's still in there."

I perk up just a touch, "My stuff? Could I...could I go in, and get some of my things? My place looks pretty bare without any pictures on the wall."

"You have your own place?" Mom asks, "So you mean you haven't been crashing on someone's couch?"

I shake my head, "No, no I have not."

Dad tries to lighten the mood, "Oh, well, go ahead! They're your things after all."

I ascend the flight of stairs without looking back at my parents, taking a left and opening up one of the large rosewood doors that leads to a narrow, poorly lit hallway with no windows. With the light off, I flick on the light switch, but the old, yellow-tinted lights don't help much. I walk across the blood red carpet to a particular door. The door itself had already been intricately carved, but to the left hand side, right by the middle door hinge, my initials have been scratched into the wood, crude etchings made by some distant person I no longer know.

I run my hand along the initials, I remember Mom and Dad were furious when I did that. I can't believe I did that.

The door swings open suddenly, and I jerk my hand back before I get hit by the door. Ember peeks her head out from the other side.

"What's the password?"

I raise an eyebrow, "Huh?"

Ember rolls her eyes, "You're not allowed into my room unless you give me the password."

I cross my arms, "Hey, it was my room too, I just want to get my things, and then I'll be out of your way-"

"Password!"

I groan, "Okay...uhm...could you maybe give me a hint?"

Ember pauses for a moment, like she hadn't already thought up the password, "Hmm...what was my number one song of 2033?"

"How am I supposed to know that?! I didn't even know you existed until today-...wait, hang on."

I take out my phone and search it up, "Your top song of 2033 was...Highlights in my Hair...okay…"

"It was more than just 'okay', it had four hundred million downloads, and my Highlights in my Hair tour made a grand total of three billion dollars, including merchandise sales," Ember brags, recounting the numbers with assured confidence.

My hands on my hips, my eyes narrow, "That's...an interesting fact for a teenager to remember."

As Ember opens the door, while I recognize the general layout of the room, the contents have changed completely. Ember's merchandise is everywhere, from posters, to plush dolls, to the bed sheets. Her records hang on the wall, along with pictures of her with celebrities both human and android. She apparently changes the color of her hair a lot, as her pictures, and even her merchandise showcase her in multiple bold, garish colors. All these proofs of Ember's stardom feel cluttered, overwhelming, even suffocating. The walls are completely covered, the hardwood floor almost completely obscured by a large throw rug bearing a full-body image of Ember onstage.

Pushing back the layers of signed pictures and cheap concert posters, I eventually find the few polaroid pictures I'd taken in high school.

"You printed all these pictures out? Don't you have them stored in a digital cloud?" I ask, as I carefully peel away the tape that was keeping the pictures affixed to the wall.

The android nods, "Yeah, but I wanted to make the room my own."

If this thing wanted to make it look like a tornado went off in here, then it succeeded. There's barely any room to move around with all this stuff.

"Oh, these are yours, right?"

I turn around to find that Ember has my yearbooks in a small cardboard box. It takes one out and starts flipping through it.

"I wonder if these people would be fans of mine, they are my target demographic," Ember wonders out loud, flipping through the pictures, "oh, and here's you! Oh wow…"

We come across a picture of me in the Debate Team, my hair was a lot shorter then, and I still hadn't quite lost all my baby fat in my cheeks. And god my skin was bad then.

"That...doesn't look like you at all now. I'll be honest, I kinda expected you to still look like this," Ember admits, pointing to the picture.

"Well, I graduated high school more than ten years ago, you really think I'd stay exactly the same for more than ten years?" I ask, as we both sit down on the bed.

Ember looks down at her hand, flipping it one way, then the other, before looking back up at me, "Well, I did."