That machine being

The sky was more clear than they knew. They hardly saw their nature. It is so unbearable. They stay so ignorant of their surroundings. This question has always roamed my mind. Do they know how do their ground looks. Few days back, I tried to find out trying to relieve my mind of the doubt. Stopping one who walked with the same pace like the others, I asked politely enough fabricating my facial lines drawn to a smile, slowly exposing my teeth and tongue to involve in a dialogue with monotonal minded worker of God-knows-whose-employee, carried like colored briefcase of leather, obliging to halt in response to my call. "Yes. May I help you?" Sweet enough was the beginning of my dismay to be discovered soon. "Yes. I actually wanted to know the weather out as I am new to the city." "It is partly cloudy during the day." He sounded like he just read the weather forecast. I politely said thank you to the unwanted answer and tried to halt few more. As I did with the 5th one, he stopped half expecting and half heartedly and asked as he widened his eyes in surprise, "are you human?" Now this was a shock to me. I couldn't be less quiet and clearly stated my thoughts. He took the choice of sitting beside me on the platform bench which was the only occupied one. I, finding a company for the moment, welcomed him to sit and gossip. "There are same people everywhere," he spoke in soft tone out of sadness, "and the worst part is that you hardly can find out if anyone is human here." My shock pained my loneliness a little more than any human ever did by accompanying me. With remorse feeling and contracted facial muscles as the dropping jaw showed an evident frown, I set all my eyes on the only human, apart from me, that I encountered that day. Carefully picking my words to avoid hurting a human, slowly asked, "why is it that there are no humans in this city?" His dismay had a long incident to reveal. Due to limited free time, I had to leave the conversation in mid of the suspense that he was far from few minutes to reveal. Intelligence and common sense may be synonyms according to situations. You might say I was intelligent enough but I feel I was rightly using my common sense as I thought of noting his number, work details and address. But forgetfulness is the disease of a human which I had in excess. It was not until 15 days over that I recalled of meeting a human. This was more because my medicines had got over and I had to complete the medication. For this, I need medicines. And I can deduce quite well that I am nowhere near to recovery. May be without the medications I might recover. Haphazardly moving things, displacing the organized stuffs, I managed to find the chip. Electronic chip. Sounds strange. I live strangely.

To enter this city, one needs to leave the mentality of social and traditional leaving and sign a contract agreeing to be digitalized in sectors that the city would ask you to. This, for any newcomer would be tempting, especially the one who would had dreamt of an easy and comfortable living. What they overlooked was the amount and time they spent in working. The same mistake that every sound mind human did.

When I had first arrived with many like people but different from me, I had deemed to accept that the work life would be very harsh for which they appear monotonous. Though the form was strange, it seemed like literally entering into a website in a browser. Despite this being common to me in the electronic medium, I was taken aback as it was practically happening to humans. When you know you are capable of making a machine work, how could you accept to work like one?

Huh! This damn small creation of human rests so peacefully on my pillow. It stayed there. Since I began the search, it had managed to reach there. Proudly wasting my time, it sits and winks. Yes, that chip. This is the world I shifted to. And the worst part, I cannot move out. Not unless I finish my termless service of accounting the chip's actions. This was just one. Everyone of us here have a chip. These chips are our basic need. Like the cell phones or the laptops. These chips are our memory. Apart from our timeless memory, these chips carry images and incidents of work and important details related to us. My chip carries my biometrics and all other details that I want it to remember. Earlier these chips were just like a micro SD card which you commonly use. These chips are now movable. They need charge to work. They are electronic. But they are charged by shade. I really do not know how they work. And it is not confided to us in any way. "You are forgetting your medicine. His contact number is C 321/6. You have to leave in 15 minutes for work." Man! This chip. Must say, the team really did a fantastic job of making a demi-human. Things left was its own brain and heart. Overlooking the beeped electronic voice, I sit at the window staring at the clouds. The window looks hazy from the night's cold wind, but the wind is clearer than before.
I ask my assistant without looking at it.
"Jazzy, what is the temperature outside?" Jazzy comes near me jumping on its electronic legs of wire and with a high leap, it sits on my window pane.
"It's summer onset, so temperature expected to rise in the daytime to 24 degree. No wind advancing and winter is well going." Jazzy was electronic like he was made. I say 'him' because that us what his name suggests and his voice is rather high pitched manly. Record shows my so-called companion or assistant (as he is said to be) was made by someone called Jason who was nicknamed Jazzy as he was an avid Jazz lover. He had left the job he held to pursue his love. To him, that was his pursuit of happiness. He had lent his voice to the chip he innovated. This innovation was recently made before I joined which might had been 2.3 years back.
"Hmm. Seems so." I replied after a pause of longing.
"You have only 5 minutes." Jazzy kept nagging about the time.
"Hmm. Jazzy, if you only you could comprehend the meaning of my tone." I really wished Jazzy to be some living being. May be a human being. Someone who would speak in animated tone and not the monotonous boring electronic tone.
"Alaina. Your work time has elapsed." Jazzy gave the good news in a bad way. I had longed to skip work today. After all, my work needed only accounting of the projects and chips, which is not that important at the moment.
Jazzy later reminded me of the paused medication and also to contact Keats. Keats is a human who worked in the department of marketing where he had to use the robots to help him sell drones to the countries that needed extremely efficient drones. What was innovative in the drones were its quality similar to that of an English movie, Oblivion. Other manufacturers might have been using robots and making drones of high efficiency but none like the company of ours. Also the point that helps our company is the fear of other companies. Unlike other companies, our company made the drones self working based on their need and also efficient enough to work on the faintest movement. Your query is rightly made adaptable in the drones. They are programmed and tested before put to actual use. The drones have the capability to identify sounds of various creatures on planet Earth, the air movements, the water and the heat of the sun. It is equipped to be an excellent arms in the use of national security or during wars. Back to Keats, he is that very human whom I met at the travel junction some fortnight back. Upon Jazzy's informing me his contact number, C seemed to be known. On further checking, I found that he belonged to the marketing department and 321 being his floor and 6, his cabin number.

"You are late. Skip work today." Jazzy was considerately a very good companion. I would rather want him as a human than being just an electronic chip.
"Yes. Jazzy. Thank you for this guess." I wanted to really find out if there could be more to Jazzy. Or is he really a 3.5cms chip with 1.5cms electronic wired legs which blinked a blue when he told something. When he received information, he blinked green. While he charged, he would turn totally red. At times in the beginning, he would scare me badly enough to give me a heart attack. He would then sensing my fear, would whisper leaping near me, 'I become red when charging. Do not worry.' It did take time to adjust living with a chip instead of a human.

Jazzy leapt a little more near placing itself in the sunlight on the cushion on my lap. If it were a human, I swear I would had caressed him. I tilted my neck slightly in the sunlight looking at him and he looked outside the window. "If I were a human like you Alaina, would you had been happy?" I know this Jazzy is programmed to speak senses. But I wanted him to feel like I did. I could see Jazzy was getting used to my temperament. But what so ever, a chip stays a chip. I miss the world with people like me. I run to my laptop. I type a mail. In the subject, I type : APPLICATION FOR RESIGNATION. Send address is directly the Boss's e-mail address. I start to type my resignation. Jazzy comes to me with its blue light on. For the first time I feel so attached to Jazzy. I keep pausing as I write the mail. After few sentences I look up to Jazzy. He reads my typed mail. Turns towards me. "Please hold on. Just for a few months. After a few months I will be terminated. You'll get a new chip. You can resign then. Please stay on." Jazzy pleaded in a voice sounded so human like. Not electric. But I want to go. I cannot hold on any longer. I give a sorry look and complete my mail. As I was about to hit the send button, Jazzy leapt in front on the keyboard and hit the space button. It caused no harm to the mail. Only a space moved. "Please a day. Tomorrow too you can send this mail." Jazzy now spoke in a manner human does. Too uncommon for a chip to be. This time I agreed to his plea. As Jazzy asked, I was supposed to apply my resignation the next day which would take 3days for a confirmation mail.

The day goes in packing. Jazzy sat at the window in the night. The next morning showed the light of bliss. I couldn't find Jazzy but did not worry either. I knew I has to wait until night and then after the mail, I am off to my land of life. Out and far from the place of walking deads.
It is around 8PM when I find Jazzy beeping in blue. I knew he had to tell something. But the beep was a new thing. I noticed he also had two new features. He had blinkers as his eyes and wired hands. "Where had you been? And what's all this with you?" I was partly shocked and partly surprised. Over all I was considerate.
He smiled. Another new feature he had was the movement of the speaker which he had as his mouth. He was almost a robot apart from being just a chip. "How do I look, Alaina?" Jazzy was happy with himself. "Does these hurt you Jazzy?" I couldn't be less worried. "You would without me. And I want to stay with you. Alaina I am your companion. A friend. I am programmed, I know. But I asked Keats to recode me so that I can feel joy and sorrow like you do. I'll be able to feel the warmth of the sunlight. Keats told he could do it today because he is good with this." Jazzy spoke like a human. A real human. Not like the clones. Keats had told Jazzy to inform me that he would meet me at the travel junction.

My resignation was granted the other day as the company had successfully found an employee in my place who would stay at my residence from the next night. I see Keats waiting for me. Oops. Us. Jazzy and I. We exchanged Hi's and hug. "All set. Huh!" said Keats. "Yup. Thank you." Replied I. "Hey little master! Should there be any problem, come to me. I'll help you." This was an assurance to Jazzy but was relieving to me too. Keats had also changed few components of Jazzy so that he could escape the metal detectors. Then we leave. Forever. Unless Jazzy needs recoding.