This is my addiction:
Hours spent wrapped in blankets in my bed, years of life wasted in meaningless stimulation.
I think it's one I share with so many people.
This is how it starts:
You pick up your phone. It's an innocent thing, at first. Maybe you're a musician, and when you see a video of a wonderful performer playing a piece you've wanted to learn, it inspires you to go do what you love. You learn the piece, enjoy the process, and so, you return to the place you found that inspiration. There's countless tips for practice and performance, countless inspiring pieces to watch. When the “scroll to see next” bar appears at the bottom of the screen, you think nothing of it. This is helping you do things you love.
After that it becomes a daily ritual. When you get home, you pick up your phone and start to scroll. They're perfectly tailored to what you want to see, and so you keep watching. You tell yourself this is good, because they are helping you improve in the things you are passionate about. After seeing a few videos, you go to the piano, but it's never quite the same as the ones you see on screen. Maybe you just need a few more tips first.
So it starts encroaching into your free time. You tell yourself you have nothing else to do, so it's just time that you needed to waste anyway. It feels good to sit there with your phone, watching happier people, more talented people, funnier people. You notice fewer and fewer are about piano. You notice you remember fewer and fewer. You don't even think while you're watching them anymore---it's like drowning in a perfectly curated pool. But it feels good, to not think about anything. So why not keep going? It's not harming anything to spend a little time away from your thoughts.
Now it's constant. There's never a quiet moment in your mind, or it feels like static. If you're not stimulated, you don't feel like doing anything except finding that state of perfectly numb balance again. You still watch those piano practice tips, and maybe once in a while you sit down at the instrument (your phone close by your side, of course). You'll play a few half-hearted melodies; maybe, for a moment, remember why you loved it so much. Then you get a notification, or go to open up your metronome app, and somehow you're sitting there on the piano bench, phone in hand, scrolling your life away.
You don't need sleep. You've counted your hours, and you have more than enough. Anyway, it's a good way to empty your mind before bed. You can sacrifice an hour or two.
So you're not sleeping. You're not doing the things you love. You don't want to schedule plans with friends, because that will cut into your free time, time free to be wasted. You still enjoy your life when you remember to live it, but it's so much easier to sink into the perfect pool of stimulus.
Until you realize one day that it's not just a way to waste time. That you couldn't stop if you wanted to.
Even now writing this, I know in a few minutes when I'm done with my moment of realization, I'll probably be right back to it. It's so hard to do anything else when everything seems to take so much effort for your mind. There's nothing preventing you from cutting it out of your life, shutting off your phone and going outside, going to play the music you used to love.
Maybe I will today.
Maybe I won't.
This is my addiction.
Snooze
My alarm goes off, my eyes open, and I feel instant dread. Another morning, I wake up not dead. An eternal sleep sounds like the ultimate peace.
Sleeping has been my escape for so long. Once I get the noises and chatter to turn off in my mind, I drift away to the safest place. A period of time I am granted permission to be unconscious. I spend too many hours of my day overly conscious. Waiting and longing to turn it all off again. Sleepless nights are like torture, eliminating the one thing I fall back on when everything is overwhelming. Nightmares jeopardize the solitude I seek, and occasionally leave me feeling worse than before. Reminding me that there is no true escape from the things that haunt us. Maybe I should take a pill that guarantees restless sleep? Maybe something stronger that will let me forever be.
When my eyes are heavy, but my mind refuses to shut down, I eventually allow the thoughts building in my head to pour out through my exhausted relief valve. One I don't have control over anymore. I let the words dance from my mind to the blank canvas of a screen, creating something tragic, beautiful, worthless and all that in between. Rhyming, crying, random or heartfelt, it all comes out when I allow myself the time to write it down. When I try to put my thoughts into words, sometimes a wall rises up, blocking anything from connecting brain to page. I suddenly feel inept and speechless, unable to form a basic sentence. Leaving me hopeless and discouraged, I give up. Back to bed until the alarm goes off again.
The Four People
That raised me.
A shitty spring, to a farmer that wants to sell manure is a wonderful crick in words. Rough and tumble, unpredictable, late, early, she comes when she wants. A perfect woman shoehorned out of womanhood. She'd tell me if she wanted me to say more about her - be careful, she may be just around the corner. Or, acres down the way, she runs on her own time.
A blazing summer to a farmer that wants to grow pot is a catch-22. The heat laze combined with the green haze combined with the warmth of summer days means the advertising of summer activities is misleading; summer is for resting. A lazy, perfect woman, allowed womanhood on a technicality. What a lovely time and way of life, to toast everybody to perfection, hold them, warm them, love them gently.
Autumn after summer - I don't have a sibling born in fall, only one who was almost namesake'd the season. Mysterious woman - allowed as the blueprint. Nobody knows what she should have been, and in that, her personality blooms. Shhh - let her be silently unknown and known. It's what she wants. Start layering and covering up for the next, trial your fashions before the next season.
Winter. My best friend. A love hate relationship, as -22 can bite - the real activity season. Despite being ineffable during the entire rest of the year, we all love her for the contrast in temperature. Layers, hot chocolate, wasn't Christmas made to celebrate each other? Would you be more comfortable opening gifts with sweat dripping from your nose? A woman made by comparison - this one's the goat. She doesn't care for the scorn three fourths out of the year. She's only cold to drive people together. A sweet, shy, beautiful old woman who's more than happy to wait her turn.
Head Long Plunge
It's no secret that the world seems to crumbled more each day like a wooden bridge in an adventure movie! I plunge as swiftly as Michael Phelps into a pool of words. My words or other people's words it matters not. Reading and writing help me escape. My job keeps my mind busy but working everyday with children and teens screwed over by society and parents alike makes me want escape more.
So whether it's the sound and philosophical fury of Metalica or absolutely mind numbing creature features or the written word, I get by as best I can... waiting for that better tomorrow I've heard so much about.
Chapter One
Ava clicked her laptop closed and stretched. She felt the tension of the day in her shoulders. Traveling for work functions sucked, but at least she got to stay in some nice hotels. She looked at the time and decided at this late hour, the pool area might be empty.
Ava was right. There was not another person in sight. She swam hard for as many laps as she could manage and then floated on her back, catching her breath. She grappled with the stress of having to give that damned presentation tomorrow.
Like most people, Ava disliked public speaking. However, this was a task she could not respectfully decline (she had tried). Her employer insisted hers was the image the company wanted to represent them in such a public forum. Image is everything these days. She could not fuck this up.
Ava exited the pool and made her way to the hot tub. The beaded strings at the hips of her bikini bottoms slapped against her outer thighs as she walked. She settled in against one of the walls of powerful jets. The pressure of the water felt amazing on her lower back. She felt the tension slowly work its way out of her body. A random and naughty thought suddenly came to mind.
Ava slyly looked left and right. She slowly turned around and positioned herself with her knees on the seat. She brought her hips close to the wall and gasped.
Too much.
She backed off and approached again, more slowly and slightly off-center this time.
Ohhh YES…
She could feel the jet pushing against her. The sensation was delicious and she absently wondered why she had not tried this before. Her clit throbbed as the heated stream pressed in and around her lips. Errant bubbles found their way to tickle her ass. She almost moaned.
Ava imagined she was straddling a man’s lap, rubbing hungrily against the length of his hardened cock. His hands slipping down between them. His fingers pushing aside her bikini bottom to gain better access. She closed her eyes and sucked her bottom lip. Her hips now working in tight, almost involuntary circles against the relentless torrent of pleasure.
…feels so fucking good… gonna come so hard
She was so close now. She leaned into the insistent, rushing water. Ava could not get enough. She arched her back and splayed her hands on the wet concrete before her. She braced herself as she breathlessly approached the very edge…
Someone behind her loudly cleared his throat. Ava pushed off and spun around so quickly, she lost her balance. She inadvertently dunked herself in the center section of the hot tub. Surfacing, Ava wiped the water out of her eyes to see a guy with a huge grin, placing his towel on one of the nearby lounge chairs. Her face burned hot with embarrassment.
Oh my God!
Ava immediately wanted to slide down below the surface of the roiling water and drown herself. Then, with mercurial grandeur, she inexplicably became infused with self-righteous anger.
Masturbation is completely natural, she told herself.
Immediately, a snarky voice countered, Yeah, but fucking a water jet in public is not “natural”, you horny loser.
“Ava, right?” the stranger asked as he eased himself into the hot tub.
Ava froze. Her eyes scanned his face, mind racing.
How does he know my name?
Then it came to her. Her name tag. He must have seen her at the conference meet-and-greet earlier.
”I’m Beck. Nice to meet you.” He winked at her.
Ava dropped her gaze to the water before her and again contemplated the drowning option.
She Made a Suggestion
She Made a Suggestion
May 07, 2024
With the death of the Captain (heart attack), I am in command. To operate the ship with two command officers, I field promoted the only remaining crew member, Lieutenant Robinson, to Lieutenant Commander.
The orbiter has supplies for a crew of twelve for nearly a year. Now, for a crew of two, we have the option of awaiting a rescue in four years. Despite the elevated levels of heat due to our proximity to the star, I give the order to wait.
Dawn (Lt. Commander Robinson) makes the suggestion that uniform clothing should be optional. The atmospheric controls do not need to be taxed until they are repaired. Despite my required adherence to regulations, I am in agreement to her suggestion.
Within minutes, neither of us wears anything. Dawn finds my proximity to her stimulating. She openly tells me so. I find it becoming difficult to disagree with her logic.
I blush as I find the feeling is mutual.
When I awaken, Lt. Commander Robinson informs me of a radiation leak. We are confined to sickbay in quarantine. She has employed auto-drones to stabilize the situation and move us away from the danger. We are to spend the next 48 hours in an area built for one person.
She insists I call her Dawn, for I am under her care. I, once again, ask that she refers to me as Melissa, for I am under her spell. My sentence has no justification from my command authority. Her lips brushing against my lips have no justification from her Doctor-Patient level of care. I am throwing caution to the wind enjoying what most could only dream of. Dawn encourages and then responds to my touch. I am similarly attracted by her boldness.
There is no night, no evening, no morning to which the two of us may awaken. I find her arms holding me as I wish to be held, warm, and safe from harm. She nudges me to activate the habitat computer and urges me to cooperate with the survival acrobatics program designed for one, currently operating for two. Her whisper includes the phrase, “Captain, you might like it.”
I find it difficult to exit the quarantine chamber. The auto-drone performed as programmed although the record logs do not indicate excessively high radiation levels warranting quarantine. I have managed to reduce the ambient temperature only to return it to its previous elevated levels.
Dawn made that suggestion also.
For the next three years, the Lt. Commander made a number of suggestions.
I could not find a reason not to listen to any one of them.
Required
Due to the unbalanced nature of Daniel Moors' testimony, when the drugs had been almost absent, it was readily apparent that psychological dependence had set in. And at the moment he had desperately needed his vice.
However the young man had luckily had enough lucidity to not antagonize the officers or much move when called for a disturbance in the estate.
Due to his incoherence, his erratic behavior prior, due to the fact that the younger brother was petrified with eyes blown wide and drenched but otherwise uninjured on the patio a social worker was called in.
The parents had lost control. Realized so months ago when their son had punched a wall in an exhausted, irritable state one night.
And as it stood had no means or authority as parents to have corralled destructive behavior and violent language.
Olli had become something of a doll, otherwise unaccounted for in matters of the house, in the instances Daniel sober or not deigned to notice him. Sometimes he was in a hugging and crying mood. Other times he was in a venting mood.
He screamed at ten year old Olli on such occasions.
It was scary.
Even though his screams had demanded him to stay there, in one place, far from him while he was so angry.
His eyes had learned to track the movements of those bigger. Take mental note of how they paced, how long their strides, how measured or how agitated.
And from the very start he'd not trusted Dr. Eddal. Hadn't wanted her there.
From the start a requirement to shelve the entire ordeal as resolved was for the parents to submit Olli to a counselor for care.
Specializing in abused children.
She'd been used to horrible. And in some occasions yes, the children did turn into statistics into her mind.
She could only hope every day, try a little harder every day that those ill-suited tracks of thought never showed.
Dr. Eddal first consulted with Olli late at night, not long after Daniel had been detained and formally registered into rehab. Rather than her regular office it had been in a hospital.
The parents or Uncles, the adult family members were often the most common culprits. But there were always the times-- where, "the brother in his stupors would talk in coarse language, extort the child, blackmail and demand from the child to keep his silence."
"We do not believe physical force was applied."
"Marks designated to be 'with intent' are few and far between. Most if not all are now old and partially healed."
She answered his questions.
She asked her own, of how he felt of what he liked and who he liked. What did he do at certain times of the day and when he ate. How was school? There had been a note that he tried out for his basketball team and had been a rat in the Nutcracker show that winter.
Eddal did her utmost to reassure he was a person. A valued person who'd been undeservedly mistreated. In a way no one deserved to be treated.
And with time, in their eighteen months together she hesitated, but ultimately decided that it wouldn't be unprofessional if he considered her a friend.
If it meant his fear of adults all but faded.
Once he'd graced her with his voice, well, she certainly laughed a great deal. She clapped when he showed her the steps for the rat's solo in the Nutcracker. She listened as rules were enforced and the candy and cookie jars were placed out of his reach.
It was a transitionary period: from indulgent negligence to authoritative.
She reminded him it was out of love. She reminded that it was his decision and his alone to see Daniel, to contact his older brother-- his older brother with an illness who had hurt him, who had known so to some level-- when it was safe. Safe for Olli physically and safe for Olli mentally.
She only saw him twice-more after the eighteen months were up.
Three years later and she'd have to correct that.
Setting her purse on the seat beside her a coffee mug had been slid into her hands.
"Thank you ma'am," Daniel said quietly.
Olli had allowed his brother to borrow his phone to call for a consult.
The boys' parents were at the moment, at Olli's school for a conference about recent behavioral issues. Before they were to realize the younger son had set them up to leave.
"Everyone else thinks I was hallucinating what I saw on that road. I'd be a little less pissed if they at least gave me a chance to speak."
"I'd read about that in the papers. You claim to have seen--"
"A ghost maybe, best way I could think to describe it when my head had been cut clean through with my windshield mind you."
Daniel Moors was terse but otherwise composed. He kept his temper and sighed out his frustrations.
"So," he continued with an obstinate shrug, "I hired three high-school freshmen. Okay, two freshmen and my brother."
[R E D U C T E D]
The first time I saw the young man, known as [R E D U C T E D], subsequently known as ‘the patient’, was when he was brought to me in handcuffs. He had an air of gloom I have yet to see in any of my patients. The photo that was shown to me and the man in front of me were like 2 different people. His lush brown hair had turned white and his attractive face had become skeletal.
The first week was spent without much progress. Most of the hour went on in an absolute silence and observation as he seemed to search the room. As if looking for something hidden. Occasionally he would listen to non-existing sounds and tremble. As it was my job to determine if the patient suffered from a mental illness or if he was sane enough for imprisonment, I decided to give him the time he needed to open up.
On the second week, he seemed to get more comfortable and started to open his thoughts to me. He spoke of the night in the woods and the horrors that had made the headline news that next morning.
His opening statement was, and I quote: “There are things in this world, doctor. Horrors beyond our wildest nightmares. And I have seen one of it.”
I pondered if those ‘horrors’ were manifestations brought on by stress or perhaps a genetic predisposition towards schizophrenic disorders? I don’t remember his parents mentioning anything about ancestors with similar disorders. But who knows. Maybe it happened further than the family remembers.
The patient continued by stating how it all begun during an intoxicated round of truth or dare. One of the victims, known as [R E D U C T E D], subsequently known as ‘victim one’, took out a piece of paper and dared him to read from it. He continues by recalling that he found the page strangely old looking and hideous. There was a text written on it in red ink. The patient questioned the victim what book this was from. But victim one simply told him it’s from some old box he found in his late grandfathers attic. It sounded creepy, so he brought it on the drinking excursion.
So the patient read from it a sentence, one he can not remember, as it was in some foreign language. But as soon as he finished the words, a lightning struck near them on the ground. He swears that he is not lying when he describes it as green and almost soundless. His blood analysis seems to confirm that the boys were not on any kind of mind-altering substance, safe for beer. A greenish black smoke rose from the place of impact and started taking on a human silhouette. From it formed a creature of grotesque shape. The patient seemed to sweat profoundly upon remembering. He describes it as, and I quote: “Barely looking humanoid, with a strange demonic twisting on it’s skin.” If one is to imagine his hallucination, the face only contained a mouth with rows of dull teeth, outstretched in a spiral towards the height of trees. Its hands were intertwined appendages of what he only described as, and I quote: “tentacles from an octopus.” Hysteria soon erupted between them. Screaming and yelling. Only victim one, that brought the page, seemed to bow to the ground for the creature. The creature grinned from one earless side to the other. That is the last thing the patient is able to recall before waking up in that same spot, with a knife in his hands and surrounded by the dismembered bodies of his friends. In a more grotesque manner than any horror film he had ever seen.
After this couple of weeks, it is my professional opinion; after spending all this time with the patient, to declare that the man known as [R E D U C T E D] to be psychologically insane and should be put under immediate supervision.
From some deep part of my mind, I have also decided to include a piece of unrelated information. In spite of the new heating installed in the office, I could feel a cold in the room as the patient told his story.
Loathe
How do you forgive someone you hate?
Devastation yawns like a great, gasping pit in my chest.
My head aches, but it's better than heartache which I'm also inexplicably stricken with for a lifetime.
I blame you- so I try to break your every heart beat.
I loathe me, so I soothe with deep cuts and remember every horrible thing I've done,
anticipating every bad dream before it happens.
A psychic for psyche dysfunction. An unholy union, my heart and mind.
Constantly warring- neither winning, leaving the other side bedraggled and begrudging.
They’re watching you.
Clouds of smog roll in on the evening breeze, obscuring the view to less than a dozen feet, and filling the air with choking fumes. In the growing dusk, brought on early by the opaque clouds, lights begin to come on in this part of The City. Due to the rapid expansion of the world's population, The City now covers two thirds of the Earth's landmass. The City has spread as deep and high as it has wide. Deep beneath the Earth's surface, sprawling networks of tunnels and catacombs are home to a thriving criminal underworld, full of potent synthetic drugs, a single dose of which can keep a man in hallucinations for years, deadly faction feuds and infighting, and illicit bionic body modification parlours, preying on the disenfranchised who may be prepared to take any risk for a shot at escaping this hell.
The streets at ground level are normally empty. The toxic smog, full of heavy metals and poisonous chemicals can roll through with less than a moment's notice. Few take the chance of being caught out in it, and fewer survive. If one was to take stroll through this apparent ghost town, one would likely notice the occasional movement in the shadows, near long-boarded-up storefronts and abandoned public fixtures. There are those who live in this wasteland. Few live long. Most are cast-offs of the criminal underworld, and would-be entrepreneurs from the bustling hive of activity above whose luck ran out and whose debts caught up with them. The few denizens of this place who last more than a week become hardened veterans of the shadows. They know where to find food and air, and how to move about unobserved by the uninvited voyeur. If you venture here, take care to look out for these folks, for an encounter with one may be your last.
Above the smog-filled wastelands, rise innumerable towering buildings with massive glass windows. These buildings are packed as tightly as the streets below will allow, and many join up in mid-air, forming a continuous aerial thoroughfare. Within this vast expanse of interconnected buildings, the great majority of The City's residents live, work, and die, many never setting foot outside even once. A well-designed internal transport network removes the need for these people to leave this place, or even think about the outside. This is the domain of the business magnates, a small number of wealthy men who own everything, and care about no one other than their own pockets. If one cares not for their greedy rule, the alternative is to take one's chances on the streets or the criminal underworld below.
In this world, population growth has not just been fuelled by the natural reproduction of humankind, but by unprecedented technological advances as well. Robots, or "synthetic humanoids," as they are commonly known, have become indistinguishable from real humans. Researchers were proud when they first made a robot that could pass as human, but soon they lost track of how many they had made. They say the computer with the records crashed, destroying the hard drive, and the backups were lost in an unfortunate fire on the same day. Same say this is too much to be coincidence.
To begin with, the synthetic humanoids were easy to catch if you had a good eye and knew what you were looking for. There were tells. But over time, they seem to have learnt not only to build copies of themselves, but to improve and adapt their programming with each successive generation. The one thing they always struggled with was romance. It was their greatest tell. For many years, one merely had to make an advance and you could tell whether you were interacting with a human or a synthetic by the reaction. Sadly, over time, this tell too was engineered out to near perfection. But one tell still remains. We call it The Test.
~~~~~
As Justin walked along the corridor, he paused. He had the misfortune to be walking on the lowermost outer corridor on a connection bridge. He hated looking out the window, but he hated his job more. So he stood there, and steered at the smog rolling in. As he watched the toxic clouds gradually hide the grey streets below from his view, he pondered on the news that had been announced that morning. Less than a month ago, there had been an election, an impressive feat for a collection of people the size of The City. He didn't really care who had been elected. They were all puppets of the business magnates, as far as he could see. Already though, there were policy changes. This morning, they had announced a new law that all public servants were required to be chaste. Justin thought it was strange law, and wouldn't really have cared, except that it seemed to have put his boss in a particularly bad mood. Justin was pretty sure that his boss was human, as he couldn't imagine a synthetic having such unpredictable mood swings, but he hadn't done The Test to confirm, and really didn't feel that he wanted to. There were murmurings today that something was wrong, but he didn't feel that it concerned him, so he ignored the rumours and continued on his way to work.
Like most residents of The City, Justin was happy enough with his life. He had a job that paid enough to buy food and clothing for himself, his wife, and his two children. He had a family, and he had a roof over his head. He was also not a criminal, or stuck on the streets outside. Life wasn't glamorous, but it could be much worse. He had almost married a synthetic. He cringed internally every time he thought of it. She had deceived him, persuaded him there was no reason to do The Test until they were wed. He had learnt his lesson from that. He knew his wife was human, and he had made certain he did The Test before he got too far in.
As he sat down at his desk, a news article flashed on his screen. He decided that he might as well check it out, as it meant that he could avoid doing work for a bit longer. As he opened the article, a video clip began playing. A rather large man, in a ridiculously formal, tailored suit, and gold earrings was talking. Justin recognised him as the business magnate who owned the company he worked for. Normally, this fellow was busy gloating about his record profits, but today he seemed agitated. Justin started actually listening. The fellow was concerned that synthetics were taking over the government. Justin found this rather hilarious, as this fellow and his compatriots were really the only ones in control, anyway. But the more he listened, the more Justin realised what the problem actually was.
~~~~~
The only way to be sure you have found a synthetic humanoid is to sleep with it. People say it's not bad, just different. This is The Test. If you don't want to sleep with it, you can take it to a testing house. You can let someone else sleep with it and tell you. But beware, if you go to a testing house run by a synthetic humanoid, you may not get the answer you are looking for. You may need to Test the tester.
~~~~~
Justin didn't feel like going to work. He was still thinking about the video clip he'd seen two days. He'd been unable to concentrate at work yesterday, especially after discovering that he couldn't find the article when he went looking for it again to show his wife. He had a strange sense of foreboding, and he didn't like it. Trying to take his time, he deliberately took a longer route through a major shopping zone. He spent as much time as he could justify gazing at each window and deciding what he'd spend his money on, if he ever had enough for more than the bare basics. He decided on a nice, striped tie for himself, and a new set of painted china dinner plates for his wife.
As he moved on, he passed by Madame Toufrae's, the most reputable testing house in this part of The City. Madame Toufrae herself was standing outside, and he offered a greeting as he went past. She raised her hand to return the greeting, and Justin hurried on, now concerned that he would get in trouble for being a little later than his usual tardiness. Halfway across the the bridge corridor, he realised something. As far as he could recall, Madame Toufrae always wore gloves. Generally, elbow-length white lace. Today, she had not had gloves on. He dismissed it, and carried on. People were entitled to try new things and wear whatever they wanted. It was none of his concern.
~~~~~
No one really knows how the synthetic humanoids were able to resolve their shortcomings in romance. One theory suggests that they analysed human-produced media and altered their behaviour to align with our idealised romantic interactions. Opposers of this theory maintain that this would not have allowed them to so swiftly and transparently integrate into society, as our media is too unrealistic. Another theory suggests that they instead fed us with their own ideals so that we came to expect them to interact in the way that they do, and mirror it ourselves. The final theory, of those that seem likely, is that they achieved it by trial and error. By engaging in dating practices at scale they could have collected enough data to improve their performance and gather more data with another iteration. This seems the most likely.
We suggest to you that if you venture into our world, take care who you trust. The synthetic humanoids are their own master. We no longer know what they desire, or who among us may be one of them. How you choose who to trust is your problem, not ours. Good luck.
~~~~~
When Justin arrived at work the following morning, the normally dreary office was abuzz with muttered gossip, and sideways glances. He tried to find someone who would tell him what was going on, but everyone seemed too preoccupied to talk to him. He sat down, rather annoyed, at his desk, and turned to look at his monitor. There, in front of him, was another news article. The article informed him that, as much as synthetic humanoids were normally indistinguishable, you could sometimes tell when they were impersonating a specific human. It suggested to look out primarily for subtle changes in their dressing patterns. And then the article abruptly disappeared. And that was when Justin realised why his wife had gone to work that morning in the dress that she hated....