The Sudden Appearance of Hope

by Claire North

He wants to show that you’re real. If he finds you – if Rafe finds you – I think you may end up on the dissection table. Please be careful.” I stopped, fingers on the doorhandle. “Don’t you want to know how I work too?” “Yes. Of course I do. But you’re human, whole and true, and whether your condition is artificial or naturally induced, it is… extraordinary. In Tokyo I gave you my bracelet. I have no memories of you, but I can conjecture based upon the data that is given. Sometimes there is cognition without words; a reading of a situation that cannot be rationalised by the artificial merits of logic. Words complicate things, sometimes. Numbers are simpler, but only black and white. Thought is… constrained, and we never really see it. But with you, I saw myself smile. I – I sometimes make myself smile, because it’s what people expect, smile smile smile for the camera smiling all the time because it’s what… but with you it seemed real. I think, for a few hours, you may have been my friend. And even if you weren’t, you are still human, still extraordinary in being human, and human is a species which is currently under threat.”