“Are you wearing cologne?”

Naya leans over to sniff me. I give her my shoulder, and she huffs.

“Since when did you start wearing cologne?” Dian asks. Naya gives him a smile. I see they’ve banded together to tease me.

“Yesterday,” I answer, knowing they won’t shut up until something more interesting comes along.

“When did you even get cologne? You’re always holed up in your office. I’ve never seen you venture outside for fun.”

“I ordered it. I wouldn’t leave the Institute just to make a petty purchase.”

“Except it wasn’t petty. You bought it, after all.” Naya blinks, her long bangs getting tangled in her silver lashes. Dian seems to think she’s flirting with him, because he winks at her. This is going to be a hellish night.

“Sorry I’m late.” Riis pulls out a chair across from me, straightening his collar as he does so. “I was approving a promotional design for the 3rd Gen and lost track of time.” He picks up the bottle of wine on the table. “Anyone?”

“Me,” Naya enthusiastically says. Riis fills everyone’s wine glasses but my own. When he gets to my glass, I shake my head.

“Where’s our little spy?” Dian muses as he takes a large gulp of his wine. “She’s missing the party.”

“Why are you looking for her?” Naya returns with hostility. Riis stares at his wine, perhaps wanting the both of them to shut up as much as I do. I’m amused but not surprised that the only common trait we share is impatience.

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” he says, lifting the glass to his lips. “I personally invited her - “  He stops, jaw stiff, fingers loose. “There she is.”

I turn, not expecting to see Emer dressed in the Institute’s anthem color - silver. The dress is casual, yet the way it wraps around her, lifting her up like some sort of angel, brings a rise of heat to my cheeks. I grab the bottle of wine and pour a portion into my glass, needing a scapegoat for my reddening face.

“Where did she get that dress?” Naya mumbles.

“I loaned it to her,” Riis responds, standing up to wave at Emer. He pulls out the empty chair next to me. Emer sits down without once acknowledging me. “I’m pleased to see you at the party. You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Emer responds tersely. She doesn’t know how to receive compliments. “Do you always have parties?”

“Only twice a year,” Riis explains. “It’s a way for us to take a break from the usual conundrum of business. And isn’t there always something to celebrate? In this case, I would say you being here could be the purpose of this party.”

“No … “

“It isn’t, don’t worry,” Naya interrupts. “The Institute doesn’t excel in hosting events like these. The only thing we do here is eat and listen to music. And talk, of course. There’s a plethora of that.” On cue, a bubble of laughter erupts from a table next to us. It seems to be a gaggle of professors from the Financial wing. “They don’t dance here. It’s a shame.”

“You don’t know how to dance, Naya,” I comment. She lightly shoves me, but the surprise causes me to bump shoulders with Emer.

“Sorry,” she says, scooting herself farther away. Despite the things I’ve shared and the efforts I made, I must still terrify her. It troubles me, although I can’t guess as to why.

“Wine?” Riis offers. Emer nods, and he generously pours the red liquid into her glass. “This entire room is filled with our faculty, with a few exceptions. Some are tangled with their own business, as was I just a moment ago.” He smiles. “We have quite the loyal workforce here.”

“Yes. I see that.” Emer stares at the tables and tables of Institute employees, dressed in their black or silver clothes. Emer, dressed in her own silver dress, looks as though she has completely acclimated to our culture. I know what Riis is doing; he is trying to make her feel safe and comfortable; but it won’t work. Surely she knows not to trust anyone but me.

“The Institute is a way of life,” Riis continues. “We live, breathe, and work here. There is no one that takes an interest in anything else, although they have the freedom to venture if they choose to.”

“I don’t see any families,” Emer murmurs.

“This isn’t a place for children,” Riis says. “There are a handful of married couples, but childbirth is highly discouraged.”

“Then where do you get the students?”

“Here and there. Volunteers in a way,” he answers vaguely. “What’s important is what they are learning. They are history makers. They are the most educated people in this state … well, excluding those who passed the test, of course.”

Emer bites her lip, trying to hold back a callous response. “Of course.”

“There’s no reason to leave,” Dian says. “There’s nothing quite like the Institute. Everything else - even the Government - pales in comparison. No offense to you.”

“Would you call yourself a patriot?” Naya questions. “A loyalist to the Government?”

Emer starts to respond, but I answer for her. “If she’s here on the Government’s terms, then she must be.”

“Well, you never know. She did fall for one of our machines, after all.”

Emer goes rigid at this. I comment, “You’ve fallen for worse things, Naya.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t exactly have the best taste in love interests.”

“In my defense, Lay, I’m quite the catch compared to her previous track record,” Dian smirks. “You’re the one who takes zero interest in women. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just didn’t work that way.”

“So,” Emer coughs. “I’m curious. If you don’t go out, what do you do in your spare time?”

“We don’t have much spare time,” Riis answers, gratefully accepting the change in topic. “This work takes up all of our time. Like I said, it’s a lifestyle. We don’t think of anything else because we don’t know anything else.”

“But surely you don’t stay in the Institute the entire time.”

Riis smiles. To a woman, it might seem charming. To me, it looks menacing. “And why not?”

“Don’t you need people to go out and research things, look for answers you wouldn’t otherwise find in here?”

“You’re correct. And we have people for that, so we don’t have to.”

“Each worker specializes in a certain field,” I add. “There isn’t a need to learn anything outside of what we are meant to focus on.”

Her brows furrow. She is comparing it to the Test system, I assume, to how the Government encourages their citizens to know of and about all things - history, politics, mathematics, languages. Yet here we are, insisting that to know all things is to lose all focus. The Institute, at its core, doesn’t encourage specialization. It discourages curiosity.

And now I understand what Ves meant when he said she was a threat. She is too curious for the Government, and certainly too curious for the Institute. She doesn’t fit in anywhere. She is an anomaly, an unpredictable factor, a puzzle.

Well, I do enjoy a good puzzle.

Pushing my chair back, I give a deep bow to those at the table. “I need to work on a few projects, so I will be leaving early.”

“The party has barely started,” Naya says.

“Like you said,” I muster a smile, “this isn’t exactly the Institute’s strongest suit.” Careful to avoid eye contact with Emer, I leave her behind to the Institute Heads. She must feel like I am throwing her to the wolves, but that’s the least of my concern at the moment. The most important thing is to solve the mystery right in front of me, and so far, 2E - 1L - 20 has had all the answers.

On my way to the vault, I pass by my office to retrieve my glasses and my notebook. I juggle hypotheses in my mind over and over, wondering what I could have possibly missed. Emer is not such an idiot that she would fall for a machine if it didn’t love her first. Which means the Exon had to fall in love her. Whether it was caused by the Institute’s mandate or my experiments, I cannot say.

There are other factors, as well, such as when one of the men mentioned having erased all of the Exon’s memories prior to the ownership transfer. How is it that this one memory, a memory that could jeopardize the legacy of the Institute, could stay intact? The Institute is beyond meticulous, and so for them to have missed such a detail is entirely abnormal. Even now, the Institute is working to erase any evidence that they may have influenced independent thought within their machines. The only explanation that such a memory would survive is if the Exon itself consciously made an effort to conceal it by storing it in an area unreachable by mere technology. But such a theory implies cognitive ability, the very thing I had only wanted to test, and the very thing the Institute wants to eliminate.

This explains why the Institute ordered me to craft these pills. Someone must know that I experimented with the 2nd Gen Exons, and yet I still haven’t been publicly condemned. What could this person gain by keeping my unlawful experiments a secret?

I play the Exon’s memories from the very beginning. Having seen these memories so many times now, I can almost quote the conversations exchanged. I compare the scenes to the visceral data I had recorded from the first time, including with it the Exon’s memory prior to the ownership transfer. Strangely enough, there is not even the slightest level of visceral capability contained in that first memory. My theory is proving to be null, and I am not pleased.

There is a possibility I am not searching in the right places. I turn the monitoring device off and instead create a timeline in my notebook starting from when 2E - 1L - 20 was first produced to when it was deactivated. The average time to manufacture an Exon is three weeks. They then go through a test period of approximately a week to ensure they are functioning as programmed. That was when I began experimenting on the Exons. I can assume that after that, this Exon was confined for three months for irregularities, most likely due to my experimentations. However, this is the only Exon out of the 2nd Gen that was confined. Although I experimented on many others, this was the only Exon to show an immediate reaction. If only I could salvage the Exon’s memories from the time it was confined, I might be able to cancel out my other theories.

Perhaps I can. The Institute surely has record of those events, even after the Government’s interference. I have to find it.

I stare at the Exon then, reminded of the Institute’s precision and care. If I hadn’t been trained to recognize the subtle differences between man and machine, I could easily assume that 2E - 1L - 20 is human. I see the appeal, I suppose. 2E - 1L - 20 has the type of innocent yet endearing face that most girls would find attractive. The image of the Exon kissing Emer interrupts my musings, however, and so I shake my head to clear my thoughts. The Exon disappears, leaving behind another image of Emer, dressed as she was at the party - her face bright with joy, looking at me much like she used to look at the Exon.

And for the briefest of seconds, in a way I could never have anticipated, the feeling of jealousy catches my breath.