Chapter 16 - Chandra

V's POV

The next day at my office, I nearly tore my hair out trying to make sense of my notes.

After nearly a week with the Love Machina, I felt confident I could answer almost any technical question about it: how it was built, how it functioned, and everything about its maintenance requirements. I could have even contributed to a research study I'd recently read, titled "Idle Time Utilization in Love Machinas: Patterns of Behavior and Resource Engagement."

Indeed, she had found ways to occupy her idle time.

Yet, every night, as I walked home, I still asked myself the same question: did the machina finally escape?

But every evening, without fail, Sade was still there.

Back in my office, I flipped through my notebooks of observations. The words stared back at me as if mocking all my efforts.

I made sure the machina had all her needs taken care of. My negligence couldn't cause her escape. No, it had to be because of me, because of my own nature.

My unnatural existence would have to trigger a bug in the machina's program. A bug that would cause all her programming to fail, making her only purpose impossible to achieve.

A Love Machina incapable of loving.

Of loving me, particularly.

And yet, she had not escaped... yet.

What was she waiting for? Did I-

"Knock, knock."

I jumped out of my seat, even though I recognized the voice.

The incriminating notebooks scattered on my desk were too many to hide in time. I took the lead instead and walked straight to the door.

"You scared me," I said, popping my head in the doorway and stopping her from opening it further.

Chandra stood there, her eyes narrowing on me before trying to take a look inside my office.

"You didn't answer any of my chats. I was starting to get worried!" She crossed her arms on her chest, the embroidery on her white lab coat moving up: Dr. Chandra, Psychobiological Engineer.

I shrugged off her accusing stare, locking the office door behind me.

"Sorry. I was busy," I replied curtly, brushing past her and heading down the hallway. My heart raced, but I feigned nonchalance as much as possible.

Chandra tried to match my long strides, her long black braid bouncing on her shoulder.

"My wife made these."

She held up a clear glass container with something that looked like delicious sweets inside.

I would typically decline office snacks, mindful of my nutrition stats, but Chandra's wife worked at the Health and Nutrition Center. Besides, homemade cooking was an increasingly rare luxury, and her wife's culinary experiments always lived up to their reputation.

We found a quiet bench on the semi-covered rooftop, where the sprawling cityscape of Piao Aasman stretched out before us.

Chandra popped open the lid of the container, offering me a piece.

"She called them Power Bites," Chandra said, taking one into her mouth. As she chewed, her jaw seemed to work harder than expected. "Supposedly packed with all the fiber and protein you need... Made with ingredients that use the least power to produce," she added, rolling her eyes. "Or something like that." She shrugged, already reaching for another.

I took a small bite, savoring the nutty richness of sunflower seed butter as it melted on my tongue.

"Good, right?" Chandra asked, her cheeks full.

"Very good," I had to agree, taking another bite.

"So, tell me... What's wrong?" Chandra cut straight to the chase. "You've been locked in your office all week. Are you even getting any sleep?"

She must have noticed the large, dark circles under my eyes. Indeed, I had prioritized the research project over everything else these past few days. Late nights spent researching Love Machinas were followed by early mornings after a restless sleep.

"I'm on the verge of a breakthrough," I answered, straightening up and adopting the self-assured tone I often used when discussing work. "But I can't talk about it because it's of the highest lev—"

"Super-duper-mega-secret level of research," Chandra interrupted me, rolling her eyes dramatically. "And when will we get to read this super-mega-important study?"

I released a long sigh, my shoulders slouching. That was a question I had been grappling with myself.

My research project was being challenged.

Up to a certain point, I could prove every point of my hypothesis with precision and confidence, whether it was genetics, molecular biology, or epigenetics. Those fields were my comfort zones, where data and systems made sense.

But when it came to the psychology and human behavior part, the foundation of my work felt shakier.

Luckily, I realized I had an expert sitting next to me.

Gathering my courage, I asked the one question no microscope or data model could help me answer.

"How did you know Dionne was in love with you?"

Chandra recoiled on her neck, her expression a mix of shock and disbelief. Her jaw dropped as she nearly choked on a Power Bite.

"Are you dating?!" she blurted out, scandalized.

I straightened up, a slight frown forming between my eyebrows. I wouldn't exactly call the current situation dating, but for the sake of a productive conversation, maybe pretending wouldn't be such a bad idea.

"What if I am?" I pouted, feigning offense that she couldn't believe such a thing was possible.

"Who? WHO?!"

Chandra snatched the container of Power Bites between us, holding it hostage against her chest.

"Why would you assume you know who it is?" I shot her a glare. "Do you know everyone?"

"Well, I know everyone you know, that's for sure!" she answered truthfully, before shoveling another handful of bites into her mouth.

That was probably true. I met Chandra on the last day of graduation, when we were introduced because we had both been assigned to the same government program. Everyone I knew already knew her. She had always been one of the popular ones.

"Tell me more!" she nudged her elbow against mine.

"She's..." I thought of how to fabricate a story that wasn't too far from reality. "She's from out of town."

At least that part was true.

"Well, now I know it's a she," Chandra's eyes lit up with interest. "And that will knock some socks off in the break room!" she laughed, clearly amused by the gossip potential.

My eyebrow rose high up on my forehead. I wasn't exactly surprised that my sexual orientation was being speculated on, but I felt oddly relieved to learn my coworkers assumed I had a sexuality at all.

"Is it the girl from the Agora?"

My eyes shot back to Chandra. She could hardly contain the mischievous look on her face.

Of course, I should have known.

"Come on... You couldn't expect my wife to keep a secret from me. Mostly one about my favorite coworker," she rolled her eyes out with the same devilish smile.

When I met Dionne at the store, she had been curious about the woman with me, but I had asked her to keep it between us.

How unlucky this encounter had been? Out of all the people I knew, I had not expected anyone to be out and about in the Agora during working hours. And even with free time, I had assumed contributors would surely be doing something more productive than shopping.

I must have been wrong on this assumption: not everyone was as dedicated as I was to being a contributor.

Chandra's wife had to be out shopping, where I had taken Sade to buy new clothes.

"She said she was very pretty..."

I glanced back at Chandra, quietly munching on another bite, expectant eyes waiting for any new information I could give her.

When I noticed passersby taking long looks at Sade, I feared for a quick second they were seeing what she truly was: a machina, made of artificial tissues and fake blood circuits.

However, I quickly had to come to terms with the reality.

The explanation was simpler: I wasn't the only one seeing Sade as uniquely attractive.

"Yes, she is," I simply answered with a small nod, crossing my arms over my chest.

There was no point in denying the truth.

Chandra pinched my shoulder under the lab coat, and I flinched with an audible sound.

"I knew these hours at the gym would pay off," she sneered, poking at my biceps again.

I shooed her nasty finger away, not wanting to entertain her.

"Do you want to help me or not?" I scowled, wanting to seem annoyed, but truly interested in what she would say.

It wouldn't be the first occurrence for Doctor Chandra, Psychobiological Engineer, to help me navigate tricky social interactions. Chandra was well-known for excelling at two things: connecting with people (obvious in her vast network of work friends) and tackling unique challenges (evident in her unusual research choices).

I suspected she had recognized an opportunity to excel at both by persistently pursuing my friendship.

Despite my respected work, I knew I was often viewed as an eccentric one. I didn't interact much with people at work, and when I was forced to, I usually regretted it (or worse, I made others regret it).

On the other hand, Chandra was widely popular and admired in our field. I had noticed that having her seal of approval on me made my life easier at work.

And I did enjoy our banter far more than I'd like to admit.

"Fine..." she offered the box of Power Bites again, a silent cue for me to continue. "How long have you two been dating then?"

I munched on it, thinking of how to discuss the issue with as much information as possible, without the evident secret I had to keep.

Secrets, actually, plural.

"We're not really dating..." I confessed, deciding it was probably better to stick to the truth as much as possible if I wanted the best advice in return.

The rare dating experiences I had only lasted a few weeks. Three months at most. I was no expert, but I knew enough to realize dating wouldn't be the right definition of the current situation.

At best, Sade and I were roommates.

"We just met," I continued, trying to remember my notes. "It's not..." I cleared my throat, reminding myself I had to use a person's pronoun to fit the situation. To be entirely honest with myself, I confused "it" and "she" more often these days. "Well... She's not really talkative—"

"Wait!" Chandra's gaze narrowed on the weirdest of her weird friends. "Does she even know you exist?"

"Yes, of course!" I answered defensively. Dionne probably didn't accurately describe what she saw at the Agora. Did I look like I was stalking Sade? "We talk... every day," I added, second-guessing myself already and wondering if giving instructions about the cooked box or the printer could qualify as conversations.

"And what do you talk about?" Chandra asked, her eyes still suspicious.

I gulped audibly.

"She encountered... challenges... with her printer," my eyes blinked rapidly.

I recalled that day I explained to Sade how to follow instructions for multi-material printing. After all, a toothbrush could do more harm than good if the bristles were made of the same hard material used for the wand.

I didn't mention that next part, for obvious reasons, but that was the day I realized I should order a toothbrush for her instead of letting her struggle with the printer.

Chandra didn't seem impressed by the story.

"I see..." she winced. "And what does she talk about with you?"

I adjusted my glasses, trying to remember any meaningful conversation. But all I could recall were her responses to my questions.

Yet, one thing did come to mind.

"She did mention she found my neighborhood pretty."

Chandra scoffed.

"I think that's the first time I've heard you say the word pretty."

"She's the one who used it," I quickly defended my reputation.

"I would have guessed."

Chandra adopted that disappointed tone she often used with me when offering advice. "Did you ever ask her any questions? About herself?"

I crossed my arms again, holding my chin as I thought about it. I had never really considered that to be important for the research.

"What should I ask her about?"

Chandra chuckled, giving me another endearing look.

"Ah, well... I haven't been dating in a while," she brushed loose hairs behind her ear. "But, I guess... Ask her about what she likes. What does she dislike? Try to get to know her better."

I frowned again, confused.

"Will all of this help me assess whether she loves me?"

I turned to her with a serious expression.

And she laughed at me!

"Love is maybe a strong word here..." she said with another chuckle, wiping the tears from her laughter. "Don't think about love for now. Maybe try to see if you even like her first."

Chandra gave me another one of the looks she reserved only for me, one with a mix of sympathy... And maybe just a bit of pity.

There was only one problem with Chandra's advice.

She didn't know Sade was a Love Machina.

The company's pamphlet was clear on its promise: a machina will adapt to its owners and make them fall in love quickly. Each machina was fine-tuned to learn what its owner wanted. If someone preferred gentle reassurance, the machina would exude calm and patience. If passion and intensity were what they wanted, it would reflect that emotion.

Love and affection had been decoded, optimized, and made programmable.

I didn't doubt I could get easily attached to the machina. The affection would be artificially created, but it could probably exist.

Maybe that was why I was so wary of it.

Despite all of that, I still hoped I could prove it wrong.

I had to prove it wrong.

"Is that how you knew Dionne liked you?"

"V..." Chandra sighed with a smile again. "It just... happened. I don't know how to explain it. You'll just... feel it."

I released a long, heavy sigh. There was not much information here for me.

Chandra knew I often struggled with vague answers like, "It's different for everyone." I would usually counter back with studies showing patterns in human behavior, and she would regret trying to give me a generic answer. I started to reconsider her expertise in this human psychology matter.

"Okay, sorry. Sorry!" she laughed again, holding her hands as if in defense in the air. She must have felt my disappointment because it seemed she was looking for a better answer. "Let me think..."

She looked away, her lips becoming a thin line as her brain gears appeared to grind.

"I guess we had a lot in common," she said.

"What did you have in common?"

I felt genuinely intrigued by this answer. Chandra and Dionne didn't seem to have much in common at first sight. The first was an award-winning research scientist, and the second was a recipe creator at the Health & Nutrition Center.

"We both came from the Stans," Chandra explained as if it were obvious.

"Dionne comes from Azaristan, too?"

"No, another stan country. But a similar culture, yes."

I frowned, not sure how that could be so significant. Being from the same place as someone didn't seem like enough common ground to me. After all, most people I knew were from New Yuan City, which didn't make me like them any better.

"Same-sex love is prohibited where we are from," Chandra added as if she had guessed I needed more concrete reasons. "We both found a safe haven in the City. But we also both felt different from the local queer community," her stare got lost on the horizon as if deep into her thoughts now. "It felt like they didn't know... They didn't understand how lucky we were to live here. To be free to love anyone we wanted," she smiled at me. "The chance given to us to live here, in peace, and as equals... Dionne and I do not take this for granted."

I slowly nodded.

Now, that seemed like more interesting common ground indeed.

I was grateful to Chandra for helping me, but I also couldn't imagine how to apply this advice to the machina. How could I bond with someone who was born earlier this week? What kind of shared experience could we both relate to? She was like a blank canvas, and I was on the complete other side of the spectrum.

But also... How could anyone ever relate to the strange story of my life?

"Time to go back," Chandra announced, closing the lid of the empty container now.

She had to return to her team and wanted to walk me back to my office first.

As we went down the hallway, we passed the lab where it all began.

Just a few months ago, I reached that wall for the first time. Upon reviewing all the results of my research, I realized they were insufficient to validate my initial hypothesis.

I could have done all the sequencing, mapping, and analysis of the world, but it would never be enough to reach the conclusion I had been dreaming of for most of my life.

That day, Chandra had given me the idea of leasing a Love Machina.

She just didn't know she did.

"I'm completely lost," I remembered telling her honestly when she asked about my research. "I know I need to add a psychological dimension to my research, but I'm afraid... I'm afraid I'm not skilled enough to do it. I'm too biased for that part of the research."

I had explained this problem to her, but couldn't tell her the whole truth about why I was probably the most biased person in the world on that specific matter.

"And you're sure you don't want to add more people to your team? No one works alone here," she had repeated for the hundredth time.

"I'm sure."

She released a long sigh before telling me the one thing that would shake my whole world for the next weeks.

"Then... Try to get things wrong."

I frowned, confused, but intrigued.

"What do you mean?"

"If you think something is true, try really hard to disprove it. It's simple scientific reasoning. Instead of looking for evidence that supports what you already believe...," she grabbed one of my notebooks on the table, and before I could say anything, she opened it on a blank page at the end, "...look for evidence that could prove you wrong."

Her fingers tapped on the blank pages, a sign for me to start over, on a completely different path than the one I had been on for the past year.

"If you try hard to disprove your idea and you still can't do it... Then your hypothesis might actually be valid."

She dug her hands into her lab coat, a satisfied smile on her lips.

I looked down at the blank pages in front of me, much different from the thousands of scribbled pages I had been reviewing all day.

Was I seeing only what I wanted to see? I remembered thinking that day.

The next day, I joined the government contract with Love Machina Inc. I realized that, for the psychological part of the research, I should try to disprove my initial hypotheses.

Today, I was hitting that wall again.

"Wait, when did you say you met her?" Chandra interrupted my thoughts when we reached my office door.

"A week ago."

"Just a week?" she laughed again, rubbing her temple with an exasperated wince. "V, come on... You have too many expectations for someone you just met. Take your time and try to get to know each other."

Again, I couldn't tell Chandra that my contract with Love Machina Inc. was only a three-month lease. Time was running fast, and I still had no idea how to lead this experiment.

Chandra interpreted my silence as confusion and continued her explanation.

"Try to be vulnerable around her. It'll give her space to do the same. And be yourself. That's how you'll connect on a deeper level. At this stage of the relationship, you're both just planting seeds and seeing what happens... If the environment is favorable, it will happen," she concluded with a reassuring smile.

I didn't answer anything and waved her goodbye before locking myself up in my office again.

Our conversation gave me some answers, that was for sure.

But these answers now swirled confusedly in my mind.

Vulnerability. Connection.

You'll just feel it, she said.

No.

I wasn't able to feel any of these.

And I couldn't tell her the reason why. I couldn't tell anyone.

I collapsed into my chair and hid my face in my hands. My head spun with all this new information, trying to find a way out.

Planting seeds and seeing what happens, she said.

Should I give it a try, at least?

Plant a seed... And watch it rot.

I sat there, the realization beginning to sink in. I might have overestimated my ability to conclude this research myself.

A notification popped up on my desk tablet, startling me.

New message, it read.

From: Director of Research.

A shiver ran down my spine. I opened the message, my anxiety spiking through the roof as I read the words from my manager.

End of semester meeting has been moved up to next month.

Next month! My blood ran cold.

Detailed Financial Reporting will be required for the final report.

No more high level of confidentiality.

I froze, the news hitting me like a punch to the gut.

It took a moment for this new reality to sink in. Still in shock, I slowly reached for the keyboard.

Love Machina Return Policy, I slowly typed, my fingers trembling.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO VOTE 🥺

🗓️ Next chapters: TOMORROW 🥰 Tuesday, July 22nd 🗓️

Thank you for being here ❤️