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Lumine collapses into her armchair and shuts her eyes. The temporary darkness mutes some of the headache that’s been tapping at her temples all day.
“Rough day?”
Sighing, Lumine opens her eyes to two pools of molten gold before her, suspended in a familiar frame. Her reflection swims in them, broadcasting her expressionless face to her. The crisp image replicates the scene in perfect precision but evokes no emotion.
If she looks closely, she can make out the reflection of the threadbare armrest. His eyes have captured every detail—every dent where her elbow has rested, every strand of fabric she has pulled loose, every spot her brother had sat—but it misses every emotion that belongs to each of those moments—the exhaustion, the sorrow, the joy.
In his eyes, her reflection is nothing but a facsimile. A beautiful replicant missing the spark of the original, of life.
Briefly, she wonders what, if anything, he thinks about when he sees himself in her eyes.
“Uh, Lumine?”
The low hum of electricity at work buzzes in her ears. The noise is an unfortunate side effect she hasn’t been able to work out just yet. She doesn’t fret though. Everything will come in due time. Perfection is only a discovery away.
She reaches out her hand, thumbing over his cheekbone. The temperature feels normal, and there’s a certain softness to it that rings true. Beneath her fingertips, she feels the subtle bumps of pores and slight blemishes. She tugs at his cheek, digging in with the points of her manicured nails, until he winces before releasing the reddening skin. It bounces back with the elasticity synonymous with youth.
Five red crescents mar the surface of his skin. His eyes water as he massages the spot she has pinched. “Why’d you do that?”
Gripping his chin, she tilts his head closer to her. Their hands knock together. “Dunno. I felt like it.” With her thumb, she wipes away his lone tear. The fleeting thought of giving it a taste test passes as quickly as it occurred. She had achieved perfect accuracy with the saline solution many years ago. They tasted just like her own.
“You…felt like it?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” Crossing her legs, she tilts his head left and right as she inspects. She turns his head to look directly at her.
A frown spreads across his features—a mirror of the original, a twin of hers—twisting up into an expression that has her loosening her grip on his chin. A pang of something she can’t quite name flits through her.
“Well,” he says, finger tracing over the curve of a painful mark, “that wasn’t very nice of you.”
Dropping her hand to her lap, she barks out a laugh. “Nice! I don’t think I’ve ever said I was nice.”
Her laughter, raucous and unrefined, overtakes her to the point of tears. She shuts her eyes and curls in on herself. Her stomach cramps with each heave of her chest.
She continues until she feels the barest hint that something is out of place. Her laughing peters out into silence.
“What?” Lumine dabs at her eyes before looking up at him.
He says nothing but stares at her, through her.
“What,” she hisses, irritation spiking.
He lowers his hand to his side. The five red indents on his cheek fade away, returning to fair skin textured with the imperfections synonymous with life.
A tickling sensation crawls up from the base of her spine to her neck, settling in the back of her head.
The usual hum of electricity fills the air, but it’s louder. Her eyes dart around the room, locking onto the flickering table lamp in the corner. She tries to figure out if the sudden increase in noise is due to her headache, or something else. Her vision flickers. She swears she can taste the sharp tang of static on her tongue, bitter and metallic.
The buzzing continues, vibrating faster and faster like her heartbeat, before spiking into an audible crackle that dies suddenly, punctuated by the boom of the lamp’s blown fuse. Her clarity returns to her. Darkness envelops the corner. Pieces of glass lie on the floor.
“Wow,” he says. “That also wasn’t very nice of you.”
Slowly, Lumine turns her head back to him. In his artificial twin eyes of gold, she sees herself, fingers digging past the worn armrest’s fabric and into the wood.
“What did you do?” she whispers.
“Me?” He points at himself, brows furrowing in confusion.
“Yes, you, AE-6. What did you do? To the lamp? The lights?”
“I didn’t do anything. That was all you.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Also, it’s weird hearing you of all people call me by my model number. Why not call me Aether? I’m your brother.”
“Aether was my brother! You’re not!” Lumine jumps up and shoves at his chest. He doesn’t move. “You’re a clone! One of the robots I’ve made. You’re not him! Your life hangs on a single press of a button.”
“Well, you’re certainly not Aether’s Lumine. Lumine was a nice human.” He rubs at his chest briefly before dropping his hand, revealing a dent that matched the shape of Lumine’s hand. “I doubt anyone would call you a nice robot.”
“Ro…bot?” She gazes down at her hand. To her horror, slivers of skin peel away to the unmistakable shine of metal underneath.
“I think your AI for emotional responses could use some work. Needs more empathy. Wouldn’t you say, LU-10?”
Panic, origin unknown, lances through her. Frantically, she reaches into the armchair’s crevice to grab the deactivation remote she kept around for rogue cases. She finds nothing.
“With my current model, I should be able to achieve a LU with those capabilities in a few prototypes.” Aether aims the remote at her. “To achieve our creators’ dreams, perfection is what we should strive for.”
With the click of a device, LU-10 is retired.