The first thing XIV ever saw was the face of his maker, looking up at him from the surface of the polished laboratory tile floor. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was elevated off the ground and held into place by a mold built into his spine. The rest of his body was supported by mechanical tentacles and valves that surged with power leading to his first coherent thought.

He blinked at his creator, who returned a gaze full of expectancy. XIV’s mind was too fresh to be able to comprehend the weight of the hopefulness in his spectator’s eyes, but he did recognize the identity of his master. He opened his mouth to speak, generating dozens of tiny cogwheels in the structure of his jaw to move in unison, pumping oil through his mechanical throat, lubricating it and readying it for what would soon be his first words. But suddenly he winced and his jaw slammed shut with a loud clink, his teeth gnashing forcefully and emitting small sparks as he gritted them. The last thing he saw was his master’s panic-ridden complexion as he grabbed a sharp forked tool from his nearby desk and leapt forward with his hands outstretched. Then it all went black.

XIV opened his eyes again, and found that his memory had not been rebooted. He still very well remembered his first encounter with the human who built him, and had already catalogued his first emotions into his endless lexicon: anticipation, anxiety, and fear.

His aperture irises shrunk in their sockets as they adjusted to the bright fluorescence, and he soon realized that he was standing on the same level as his master had during his previous attempt at consciousness. But this time his maker wasn’t occupying his field of vision, instead a vast room appeared in front of him, the same one he’d already seen, but from a different perspective. To his left seemed to be some sort of an operating table resting under an intricately built mechanism. The machine descended from an opening in the ceiling in the form of four multiple-jointed arms, glinting with metallic sheen as they hung limply from their fissure. On the other side of the table stood a lamp, a mechanical sunflower with its illuminating pores unlit, looking like the reflective eyes of an unfinished android as they loomed over the surface beneath it.

A thick nest of cables s across the floor from the bed-like apparatus to a messy work station. It was encircled by computer monitors facing away from XIV and underneath them lay different shapes and sizes of metallic scraps. He could hear small ventilators spinning away in a nearby engine, and lowered his eyes to the source the sound. He focused on a couple of rectangular cases scattered on the floor beside the desk, various colorful lights blinking from small crevices inside them. He zoomed in on them in an attempt to decipher their pattern, calculating the frequency and duration of the flashes... Morse? He enlarged his ear canal to allow higher sound penetration through the hollow tubes by his temples, hoping to discover perhaps a phonetic variable that would help him decode the signal, but his ear drums vibrated in indication to a different sound. Breathing.

He himself didn’t need to breathe. His chest rose and fell solely thanks to the oil racing through his steel lungs and robotic diaphragm, but no oxygen infiltrated his nostrils. On the contrary, XIV knew that oxidation was always a hazard and had to mind the dangers of strong oxidants and water- another piece of information that had been pre-wired into his brain.

He turned his head to the direction of the subtle inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale,  and found his maker standing on his left, observing him once again with… caution, as XIV classified it. He didn’t look much different from the last time they “met”. He was wearing a different set of clothes but he still held that wistful expression he did previously. He was still hopeful, though XIV couldn’t determine the source of said hope.

“Hello master,” XIV said, his voice a low tenor. The residual static in his vocal cords was barely audible but there was still something unnatural about his tone. “How can I serve you?”

This was the default greeting XIV was wired to say, and this was also the greeting he had meant to utter beforehand if he hadn’t malfunctioned. But the creator’s mouth curved downward in… disappointment? Disdain? XIV checked off two more emotions.

“Hello… XIV,” He responded with narrow eyes, hesitant. “Do you know my name?”

XIV didn’t even need a moment to ponder it about it. “Master’s name is Lee Hongbin.” He answered as a matter of fact.

Hongbin sighed. “Then please don’t call me master.”

“Please” is a request, XIV noted, or in other words, an order… but it seemed to conflict a prewired setting.

“My default setting states that I am a service droid. Doesn’t that make you my master?”

Hongbin seemed to be taken aback by the question, but his bewilderment soon turned into a wide smile.

“Spot on inquiry!” He exclaimed. “Indeed you are, XIV, but I don’t want to think of myself as such.”

XIV pondered for a while before responding with a genuine offer. “May I suggest the title ‘sir’, then?”

 “If you wish,” He sighed again with an absentminded hand wave.

“If… I wish?” XIV mimicked, meanwhile running the request/order through his system, searching for a match that could help him respond accordingly.

Hongbin looked up at him as if he suddenly remembered something crucial, but let his expression settle into a soft smile.

“Yes, XIV,” He said. “You have the option to choose.” XIV then began to work on a smile of his own. “It’s difficult in the beginning, but you’ll find that free will is an amazing privilege.”

He didn’t completely understand his master’s explanation, but found it easy to smile back.

“That’s the spirit,” He responded to XiV’s soft grin. “Try to move your legs.” He then suggested.

XIV looked down to find that he was clothed with a white thin T-shirt and a pair of khaki slacks ending just above his knee. The floor was chilly under his bare feet, and he wiggled his toes in response, focusing on the strange sensation of both solidity and coldness under his sensitive skin.  XIV then bent his knee, feeling his joints flex under the layers of flesh and tissue and metal, and straightened it out before him, setting it on the ground heel first.

“Very good!” Hongbin exclaimed, clapping his hands together once in excitement- the second positive emotion XIV had catalogued so far. XIV felt his facial muscles curve into another smile, which he understood was a response to a positive occurrence… and his first conscious choice.

“Here,” Hongbin moved to stand in front of XIV, just a few feet away, his hands upturned in an inviting gesture. “Walk over to me.”

 XIV repeated the bending and straightening motion, alternating between his legs, until he was standing in front of his master again, and he ticked off another emotion: pride.

“Good job, Leo—“ Hongbin began to say but stopped midsentence. His smile was then replaced with a look that XIV would later catalogue as sadness, but for the meantime he only managed to match up the title “Leo” with “name”.

“Would you like for me to be called Leo, sir?” He asked, oblivious to the sudden change in the atmosphere.

Hongbin looked at XIV with an expression he couldn’t map out, so instead he just smiled at him, hoping he’ll smile back again. He didn’t.

“Would you like that?” He responded, his voice lacking the enthusiasm it held a mere moment ago, his eyes cautious again.

XIV stopped to think. Would he like to be called something else? XIV meant fourteen in Roman numerals, but from his knowledge it wasn’t customary for people to be numbered. He wasn’t “people” per se, so perhaps the number was appropriate… but his master had a name, and he wanted one too; the same way XIV wanted to smile when Hongbin introduced him to the concept.

“Yes, I would.”

And only then Hongbin smiled back, but XIV… Leo, was confused. Hongbin’s lips seemed to display happiness, but his eyes were full of that new unfamiliar emotion.

“Welcome to earth, Leo.” He then said with that contradictory expression.

“Thank you, sir.”