Taemin drew in a deep breath and let his gaze linger up to the ceiling of the car he was sitting in. He just arrived and the venue of the interview and his car was already surrounded by people with cameras and news reports holding microphones up to the glass as if he would actually answer then through the glass barrier of the window between them. He sat in the car and waited until the police escorts successful pushed through the crowd and cleared the doorway. He gathered his paperwork in his hands, got out of the car, and walked with the two officers into the news station.

These people were like animals on the hunt; each of them was from a different news outlet and they wanted to be the first to get a statement from him, but his first interview has already been sold to the highest bidder and he’d vowed to keep his mouth shut until then. Once they were safely inside of the building Taemin was led into a small recording room laced with cameras that all pointed toward a set of chairs on the other end.

Taemin felt more alone in that moment then he has ever felt in his entire life. He was the only person left who could adequately give any sort of statement on what happened; Arti-K was long gone, and Jonghyun was locked up in a high security prison cell awaiting a trail that would undoubtedly send him back to a similar facility for the remainder of his life. This was the only interview he would ever do on the matter and after this interview was over and the truth was presented to the world it was up to the public to place fault, or at least that what Jonghyun said in the string of letters he’d sent to Taemin.

The interviewer entered the room and shook his hand before inviting him to sit down. She was wearing a tight red dress and a pair of black heels. Taemin couldn’t see from where he was sitting but he was sure that the bottom of the heels was red to match her dress.

“We’re sitting here live with child prodigy and robotics expert Dr. Lee Taemin,” The news reporter was giving him no time to ready himself.

Taemin looked up at the camera positioned directly to the left of the interviewer’s chair, the red light on the top of the camera told him that it was recording and from this moment on everything that he said would pretty much be up for public interpretation.

“I’m hardly a prodigy.” Taemin replied with a laugh. He glanced down at the folder in his lap. Placed neatly inside was everything he need for the interview; all of the notes from the experiments, Arti-K’s full schematics, and underneath all that a handwritten letter of apology from Jonghyun addressed to anyone who may have been hurt in the wake of his ‘lapse in judgement’.

“So let’s start from the beginning.” She crossed one leg over the other and sat back in her chair.

Taemin nodded and waited for a question but when he received nothing more than a stare from the woman across form him he realized that he was supposed to just start talking. This was the kind of interview where the just wanted him to talk and then they would cut in with questions when they needed it. “There are a lot of beginnings so you’ll have to be more specific.”

“Start with the robot then, what exactly was he?” she asked. Taemin flipped the folder open and pulled out the condensed version of Arti-K’s schematics.

“Atri-K was special. He was the first of his kind.” Taemin replied.

“Please specify,” she cut in.

Taemin nodded. “He was a humanoid robot equipped with a fully functioning emotion system and memory recall programming.”

“What does that mean?” she pressed.

It’s mean that we took a machine and we gave it emotion and memories…it’s like we gave him everything that separates humans from machines.” Taemin let his hands fall into his lap and waited for her next question.

“So you all were playing god essentially?”

“No,” he said.

“So, who can up with the idea?”

“We did,” Taemin replied quickly.

“We as in?”

“Dr. Jonghyun, Dr. Kibum, and I.” Taemin answered.

“So the three of you got together and decided that you would build a human being out of a machine, and you say that you weren’t playing god. What exactly did you believe would come of this?” She asked.

“No,” Taemin said shaking his head. “Arti-K was only intended to be an upgraded version of the AI system we used for billing and coding in the lab. We called her Janise, and we wanted to make her mobile…She would be a personal assistant that could tap into the internet from anywhere in the world under any circumstance, she would be versed in every single language, educated on every culture and subculture in the world, and completely customizable to her primary user.”

“She was meant to be an assistant?” the interviewer asked.

“Yes and during her development and construction something changed.” he said

“When did everything change?” She asked.

“The accident,” Taemin replied. “Everything changed after the accident.”