We, The Institute, have declared the legal publication of improved and authentic automatons that are capable and necessary for the assistance of human activities. We guarantee that this new generation of automatons - fully entitled as 2nd Generation EXONs - will satisfy the buyer's needs. We hereby declare that these scientific products and any of our future products will last the length of life desired by the owner during the placement process, and that the implemented chips used in the database of these automatons are highly advanced and relatively interminable.

Join the prospective society by purchasing one of our very own, customizable EXONs to work for your elite family today!

“Do they really have to send us this every week?” I complain as I toss the letter aside. I lazily lean back on the futon and relax my muscles against the soft embrace of the cushions. “I swear. It’s like they haven’t gotten the message.”

“We’re the only family of our class who hasn’t gotten one yet,” my mother points out as she sits on the seat across from me and sets her cup of tea on the glass table.

“That’s not true. Hara’s family hasn’t gotten one,” I protest. “And we’re in the same region.”

“Their case is different,” she replies. She crosses her arms and leans hear head against the couch. She looks tired, but still attractive. My mother is beautiful, unconventionally so, and sometimes I wonder why I didn’t get that enviable side of her genes. To my knowledge, all I inherited from her was her bad temper, something of which I’m not exactly proud.

“Why, because Hara is half of an automaton?” I smirk. My mother glares at me in warning, and I mute my irritation. “It’s true,” I mutter. “She sneaked into the Institute and ended up having half of her body cut against a machine.”

“They sued.”

“I know they sued, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Institute is still allowed to make these stupid robots,” I reason.

“Of course they’re still allowed to make them, honey,” she explains. “They helped her live. Because of their technology, she’s almost as she was before. They helped each other out. The Institute got the publicity they wanted because of their brush against one of the older, elite families, and she got her life back,” she pauses. “Well, half of it.”

“Mom,” I roll my eyes, and she just smiles, the gloss on her lips gleaming underneath the white lights.

“I thought I told you not to call them robots.”

“Why, because it’s ‘unrefined’?”

“Because,” she firmly states, “we’re better than that.”

I understand her implication and fall silent. She leans down and takes her cup of tea, her slender fingers curling around the handle.

My mom is carefully polished. There isn’t anything about her that’s out of place. She gets her nails done once a week, straightens her hair and combs it back in a simple braid, and neatly puts on a thin coat of make up. Her clothes are always folded, always ironed, always pressed. She has a job to do, and that job is to uphold her impressive image. My family – made up of my mother and me - is one of the twenty elite families living in the Argent region. By elite, I mean, we’re rich in money and status. At least one person in each elite family works for the Government, and by working underneath them, they get financially backed really, really well. There are more pros than cons for working for the Government, although the jobs they assign can take a psychological toll on a person. It’s never physically. Mentally, people change. Their demeanor. Their characteristics. I don’t know what it is about the Government and their principles, but they brainwash their employees in such a way that their morality is set askew.

But I don’t think my mom tries to maintain such a pristine exterior because of her high government position. I think she’s afraid of breaking. I think, deep inside, she knows that if she stops trying to act so darn perfect, she’ll crumble and therefore degrade herself to the ‘rest of the world’ – and by the rest of the world, I mean, the pitiful existence of the Brass region.

She blames my dad a lot for her current life status, but in a fond sort of way. My dad was a council member in the Government. I don’t remember him very well. I was two years old when t