Just Gil finished uploading all important reference files into my programming today. My first task was to continue organizing the objects on the table I was sitting on. Besides me lay a pile of variously sized screws. Today’s task is to sort them out. Just Gil said I should be able to do this with ease. 

 

The one issue he still had was how I kept calling him Gil Nathaniel Adriano. So he said to call him Just Gil. But when I said Just Gil, he stared at me for a while and turned away without giving any more instructions. 

 

His feet drags behind him and he throws the whole weight of his body onto his workbench. Just Gil yawns loudly and smacks on his face shield as he begins to weld together parts of the metal head. Sparks fly out, but he remains unphased and I am mesmerized by the light reflections bouncing off the clear part of his helmet. He has yet to tell me about the head.

 

Just as I was about to release myself from this enchantment, the little girl I saw two days ago swings the door open, runs in and introduces herself. Her arms and legs look the same as mine.

 

“Hi!” She smiles big and throws out her hand. Just Gil takes off his helmet, going over his work. I reach my hand out cautiously, but she grips it immediately and starts shaking my hand so hard, the bolts begin to unscrew. 

 

“Jaslene, what did I say?” he says, without needing to turn around. Now, a tiny screwdriver has appeared in his right hand.

 

“But I was watching you! You already finished working with him!” The girl whines.

 

“I’m not finished yet, I still need to see how he does with this task.”

 

“Well, he’s basically done.” She says quietly. Her bright eyes scan my entire body, looking me up and down and finally landing on my face. “And anyway, I won’t be that long. I just wanna give him a tour.” Finally Gil turns around.

 

“He can’t be gone for that long. I don’t know how long the charge will last at a time. Just show him your house.” Jaslene crosses her arms and thinks for a moment, before finally admitting defeat.

 

“Fine. Just my house.” Her eyes liven up once more as she says in a cheery voice, “but tomorrow can I show him everything?” 

 

“I’ll have to see.”

 

“Ok! Let’s go Cooper!” She links her arm with mine and drags me off the table. My legs hit a couple of the screws on my way down and they clatter to the floor. I don’t get the chance to pick them up again as suddenly I find myself outside for the first time. 

 

Straight away, an endless sky that was once obscured by Gil’s door has been revealed to me. Telescopic images flash through my mind. Pillars of Creation. Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Butterfly Nebula. Space. It’s everywhere.

 

But the moment doesn’t last long as my head whips forward and I am once again whisked away by the child dragging me across the green belt towards her island. 

 

“Ta-da!” She opens up her arms for the big reveal and before I know it, the two of us stand before her house, almost reminiscent of a dollhouse.

 

There are two floors, and looking through the window, it seems that the first floor is a single bedroom. The second can hardly be called a room. There are no walls, only railings around the perimeter, and it is topped off by the roof.

 

Jaslene runs up to the door and holds it open for me. As soon as I enter the room, I immediately notice the giant Earth rug. Several thick books are opened and lined around the edge of the rug, as if because she couldn’t choose one, she chose instead to read them all at the same time.

 

Tiny lights line the top of each wall. A tall purple bookshelf stands in the corner. A potted plant I don’t recognize sits on top, its green and blue leaves trailing down the side. On the opposite corner is a desk, desk lamp, and a couple eyeballs.

 

Jaslene pops up and startles me, pointing at the wall to my right. 

 

“Look here!” A moving image of Jaslene. But also–

 

I wave the same way Jaslene waves. The image moves.

 

A mirror. 

 

I stand back allowing myself to see me in all of my entirety. I assumed I looked just like Just Gil, or maybe even Jaslene. Two eyes. A nose. A mouth. 

 

And although we have similar bodies, our heads look as if they have been made by two different people at opposite ends of the universe. Instead of two eyes, I have a single camera lens. Instead of a nose, a blue light on the right side of my face. And instead of a mouth, there lies three grates. At least I have two ears. Wires hang out of them and connect to my neck, and although I don’t believe that’s where I hear from, to me they are ears nonetheless. 

 

I stare at myself a while, not even realizing Jaslene has been prattling on the entire time.

 

I look down and it seems she has taken a forearm from below the mirror and brought it over to her desk. What was once silver is now blue as she has taken it upon herself to color it over with a blue crayon. Jaslene removes her current left forearm, and replaces it with the newly decorated blue one. From her chair, she calls me over and waves it around.

 

“Now we match!” She smiles brightly once again, gesturing towards my mismatched blue and silver arms. In my mind, I’m smiling just as bright. 

 

She finally settles on her Earth rug, flipping through the book, “The ABC’s of Animals”, published by a person named Wikipedia. A photo of a small mammal catches my eye.

 

“What’s that?” I point to the page she has already moved on from.

 

“Oh this? It’s a cat.”

 

“What do they do?”

 

“Well, they eat. They sleep. They run.” I read the little blurb beneath the photo, and imagine what it’d be like to see one. The texture of its coat seems hard to fathom. Nothing I’ve seen or felt here even closely resembles how I imagine cat fur to feel like. Even the rug we lay on seems too coarse. 

 

Jaslene opens up a new book, and instead of flipping through the pages, she lays on her stomach and begins to draw with the half broken crayons scattered around her.

 

What starts to appear on the page is what I had seen in the mirror earlier. 

 

“Is that me?” 

 

“Don’t look!” She huddles over the book and looks back and forth between me and the book. I know it’s me, but I oblige her wishes and continue to scan around the room. I see a collection of old papers above her door put together with tape which I hadn’t noticed earlier. At the center of the top page is “Daddy”, and forming a web around it are several other names and descriptors I don’t recognize. 

 

I then turn to a nook within her room containing some drawers, a bed, a clock in the shape of a sun, and a window. The clock doesn’t seem to work.

 

I lay on my back and draw something of my own. Gil had mistakenly uploaded a drawing program which I guess he forgot to remove. 

 

Seeing as how she decided to draw me, I thought it fair to draw something of hers.

 

I giggle to myself, including a small cat in the corner by the bed I drew. He seems to fit in well with the environment.

 

Unfortunately, I realize, I have no way of showing it to her.