FIVE
Kai 2.0
Jongin came walking into the girl's lab around evening time.
He was casually dressed in a light grey sweatshirt and black sweatpants, matched with black high-top sneakers. He had a navy blue cap and a black cotton mask on as well. Just as a precaution against nosey parkers.
Jongin nodded at the girl in greeting when she saw him come in, and he was careful to lock the door behind himself.
He went forward to where the girl and his mannequin were, some distance away from the window just as he had found her yesterday. The curtains were still tightly drawn, and there was no daylight in the room although the sun was just setting.
Jongin stopped in front of his mannequin, looking over its features once more from head to toe. The resemblance was so uncanny, it was unnerving. The only difference in physical appearance from him as a live human being, was that it had glassy eyes with black irises so opaque they were like two black holes reflecting nothingness unto themselves.
Jongin cast his eyes from the mannequin to the ground, settling for blank-stare mode as he removed his cap and mask.
"You didn't lock the door?"
The girl acknowledged Jongin's question as addressed to her, although he was staring at an unidentified point on the ground while loosening his hair from the cap's hold on it.
"I don't usually lock the door because noone specifically comes here. This workspace is for myself only."
The girl looked pointedly at Jongin, seemingly wanting to hint that his coming here is a huge exception in this workspace which she cherished as hers alone.
Jongin responded vaguely with a nodding of his head.
For some reason, he seemed a little withdrawn today. He wanted this demonstration of the replica's abilities to be quickly over and done with.
From what he observed yesterday, he was quite certain this replica of him could imitate his dance moves. After all, that was what he was known for as an artiste of SM Entertainment.
The girl seemed to be waiting on Jongin's next spoken word, as she stood stiffly behind his replica, her hands shoved into her lab coat pockets.
Jongin glanced over at her and asked, "What's your name?"
The girl seemed a little stunned that he had bothered to ask for her name, but she assumed it was just basic courtesy on his part.
"I'm Hye Won" She replied.
"Ok, Hye Won." Jongin didn't think he needed to introduce himself, so he went straight to the point. "Show me how this works then."
He handed the 2.0 key back to her, and she proceeded to insert and turn the key under the replica's left arm.
The replica's joints whirled into life, and it lifted both arms in front of itself and turned them over to study its palms, as if in awe at its own existence.
Kai 2.0, as the girl would call this replica, was still getting used to his own body parts.
He didn't always have a body. He used to belong on a hard drive as a bunch of sophisticated coding, and it was Hye Won who figured out how to link his programming with his current physical form.
He doesn't know that his appearance is modelled after a certain someone, neither does he know the purpose for it.
In other words, Kai 2.0 does not have a consciousness. He is a product of cold and precise, yet elegant, programming.
He is programmed to do exactly as his coding dictates, and external events will never cause him to deviate from the purpose for which he was made.
Hye Won had programmed him to learn through accumulated experiences. The more he experiences, the more worldly he becomes, and the faster he adapts to new environments.
Still, the core of his programming was built upon modelling himself after the real Kai, and he had thousands of videos of EXO's performances as well as Kai's solo ones downloaded in his memory drive.
He was meant to be the perfect mirror image of EXO's Kai.
The real Kai found it beyond surreal to watch his 17-year-old self rising to full height before him. The robot had the facial features of his teenage days, and that jet-black tousled hair was a recall of Jongin's hairstyle in that teaser video in which he had coincidentally played the role of a robot-dancer.
Kai 2.0 turned away from Jongin to face his creator, Hye Won. Hye Won had included facial recognition in his programming to help him build on his worldly experiences. So technically, Kai 2.0 would recognize a major celeb like Angelina Jolie if he were ever to meet her, and likewise, as a one-way mirrored window came into view when he turned, Kai 2.0 was stunned to see that the facial scanning of this male-gender being he has just met matched his own at 97.8% resemblance.
Kai 2.0 looked at his creator quizzically, unable to understand the significance of this meeting.
Jongin too was taken aback. If robot Kai could address the girl with so much clarity as to be looking at her with expectancy - like she would definitely have the answers to any question - then why can't robot Kai recognize with understanding that here was a person that looks almost exactly like him?
Jongin was initially filled with dread at the thought of seeing a robot execute his dance moves, because what would that make him? Do the hours of dance practice that stretched over years amount to nothing if all it takes for this thing to execute the same dance moves is probably just for this girl to write some motion-tracking program for it to copy his movements from a computer screen?
It just wasn't fair, no matter how he tried to get his head around it. Why did SM Entertainment choose for a copy of HIM to be made? It felt kind of humiliating to Jongin.
But maybe he didn't know enough about the robot to pass judgement on it yet.
And by the look of surprise Kai 2.0 had registered on his face, Jongin wondered if the robot hadn't known of his existence.
"Is it aware of what's going on?" Jongin looked towards Hye Won. "Does it know.. He is... Me?"
Hye Won shook her head.
"Kai 2.0 has no consciousness. He knows now that he looks like you... But he doesn't understand the purpose."
"And what is this "purpose"?"
"To dance and move exactly like you."
"Why me? There are tons of other male artistes in the company."
Hye Won hesitated, biting down on her lips before she spoke.
"Nobody dances quite like you, I suppose."
"Am I supposed to feel flattered?"
Hye Won could hear the tension in Jongin's voice.
"Look," Hye Won finally said in a firm tone. "I know you are suspicious of all of this, because who wouldn't be? All I know is this robot is made to move like you. That is all SM Entertainment hires me to do. I've been researching robotics for a long time, and if I weren't commissioned to make a model of you, it could have been anyone else. I guess it's just that noone has ever had the need for a robot that dances that this seems so entirely new."
"How could you say that to my face so calmly?" Jongin was truly ticked off now. The fact that Hye Won was looking so blasé put him on edge.
"Noone has ever had the need for a robot that dances? Doesn't that sound ironic to you? I dance for a living. There is more to this "pop idol" business than trying to look good on stage. Do you know how much we sacrifice just to keep our spot? Why else would there be a "need" for a robot like me, other than to take the stage in my place?"
Hye Won looked truly troubled by Jongin's suggestion that the robot was meant to replace him, like she honestly hadn't thought of it in that way before.
"I don't mean for it to be a threat to you..." She quietly said. "I've been working on Kai 2.0 for a long time, but not for the reasons you imagine... SM Entertainment didn't require me to deliver a fully functional walking-and-talking robot. The brief was to build a robot that dances, and not one that can simulate human responses. My professor encouraged that I should push the boundaries because I could..."
Jongin furrowed his eyebrows like he was mentally preparing for the worst.
Hye Won noticed her explanation was once again failing to make Jongin feel any better, and hurriedly raised a hand midair in front of herself, like a plea for him to hold that thought.
"It's all programmed though! He's programmed to know standard definitions of human response, but he doesn't know the full application of it. He may show surprise, but that's because he is programmed with such expressions, and they do not come into being on their own. Which means, I can also shut it off so he becomes non-responsive, and only performs for certain commands."
Kai 2.0 seemed to find it unusual to hear himself being talked of so much, and kept blinking his eyes throughout the two people's conversation.
His creator has never had such an in-depth discussion about him with anyone else before. Even when he is asked to demonstrate his capabilities to her professor, she seldom reveals details of his workings to the professor.
Just then, Kai 2.0 received a calender prompt in his system, reminding of the professor's scheduled visit to this laboratory today in 15 minutes.
Hye Won had programmed her personal schedule into Kai 2.0's system, as she found it useful that he could remind her of things on her to-do list.
Without delay, Kai 2.0 informed Hye Won of the reminder he had received.
"Hye Won noona, Professor Lee is coming here in 15 minutes." Kai said to his creator politely with a smile.
Hye Won's expression instantly turned to that of horror, while Jongin shot her a weird look.
"Noona...?" Jongin repeated with a bewildered look in his eyes that soon dissolved into light-hearted amusement, as his suppressed lips showed hints of a smile.
Hye Won was typing on her phone frantically like her life depended on it, and Jongin saw that she was trying to send a text message.
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