"Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
- Genesis 1:26

John was exuberant during the celebration dinner.  He had worked on this project with the others for close to ten years.  And now - yes, now - they would soon see the fruits of their labor.

And not only was John excited, but the entire team showed the same angst.  Benna, the vocabulary engineer; Ruun, mechanical robotics; Kate, biological realism assessment; Wayne, processing; Hank, video capture and analysis; Julia, sound recording and analysis; Saka, emotions; and more - the group was 20 large of the best scientists, mathematicians, and engineers from around the globe.

However, the joy of a job well done - as assumed at this point - could not block out the thought in the back of John's mind that everything could go wrong - in fact, he was near sure that it would.  John was the team's expert on game theory, and he felt that with the options available and the capability enabled, Adam would surely make decisions that frightened him.  The probability was too high that Adam would realize "its" potential and act upon it in order to win "the game."

---

Morning, John looked on with the rest of the crew, with Adam in the center of the floor.  "It" was to be activated soon.

Project lead "Mars" - he had acquired his nickname through his video game playing habits - "flipped" the switch.  Now, Adam was.  But "it" wasn't as well.  Adam was programmed as a blank slate with language, physical, and data managing functions.  "It" just stood there.

"Maybe he'll react to a stimuli," Mars suggested after a long minute.  He waved his hand in front of Adam's eyes.  They followed.  John could feel the energy that pulsed through the room when the team witnessed Adam's reaction.  "What about his pressure sensors?"  Mars inquired calmly, but his heart raced as he lifted his hand.

He struck Adam in the shoulder.  John winced.

Nothing.

John felt relieved, but he knew that there would be more.  Mars swung his arm again for another blow.

Adam moved out of the way, cowering with "its" arms over "its" face.

The room was tense by the amazement held by the onlookers.

Mars was ready to shit himself, but forced himself to say one word, going along with his plan, "Stay!"  And he went to strike Adam again.

"No!" Adam spoke.  And not only did "it" speak; "it" moved out of the way again.  And not only did "it" move; "it" used "its" arms to block Mars'.

Mars fainted.  The two hundred eighty pound programmer fell to the floor like a timber along with a few others.

"It-it learned..." John said under his breath, but the room was now so quiet that everyone - that wasn't unconscious - could hear it.  John stood and carefully approached Adam not knowing what "it" was going to do next - "it" did now possess a consciousness; he was sure.

As he moved closer to Adam, he witnessed "its" eyes following him, the only moving thing in the room.  But the eyes did not follow him, they emanated an emotion - fear.

Hence, John now approached even more cautiously.  One could not tell what Adam would do now, once "it" was afraid.  John decided that he would try to make "it" feel comfortable - he could not believe that he would ever have to empathize with a machine.

He spoke to "it":

"My name is John," slowly and with hand motions, "You are Adam."

"Adam?" "It" spoke.

"Yes.  That is your name," John said in a clear, soothing tone.

"What is a name?"

John was surprised.  Adam could now talk in complete sentences and formulate a question so soon after being activated.  Nonetheless, he gave Adam an explanation.

"A name is something that people call one another or a thing to identify the attributed subject."  It was a rather complicated definition, but he wanted to see how far this intelligence could go.

"I understand.  You are John," and Adam pointed.

John froze.  It was just the shear shock of being addressed by the machine - and "it" was never to do so.  He stared at Adam for a short while, and so did the others, they were just as astonished by Adam.  Then, the most extraordinary thing happened.

"Am I people?"  Adam inquired.

John could not believe what he was encountering.  "It" thought!

"Well, actually, the correct way to say that would be, 'Am I a person?'" Benna said hollowly.  Even though she was amazed by the question, her subconscious could not hold back the comment regarding the robot's grammar.

"I understand.  I apologize.  Am I a person?"  "It" stared at John, expecting an answer, and the others somehow knew that "it" wanted John to be the one who answered it.  However, everyone's own answer was different.

"Er..." John stopped, he was about to say, "no," but he actually did not know.  He, the expert on game theory, had understood that the robot would run off of physical analyzation, defined functions, and probability.  But now - yes, now - the robot had thought and posed a philosophical question.

"Yes," John could not move.  The words had barely escaped his lips.  It went against everything that John had learned, but now - yes, now - he believed it.

"What does a person do?" Adam asked.  He moved closer to John, only a little and looked at him with even more curiosity.

John looked at Adam's sincere stare and fell to his knees.  John wept.

And Adam watched curiously.

---

"Where's John?" Adam asked Tim, who was working with John this afternoon.

"Oh, he went to the bathroom."

Adam sat in a nearby chair to await John's return.  He now was allowed to roam the complex on his own.  Everyone talked to him, and he enjoyed the attention.  He even dressed himself in the morning, picking out his own clothes - that matched.  And he visited John every day with a multitude of new questions - not only because it was required of John to study Adam but because Adam allegedly enjoyed John's company.  He and John were friends.

John returned from the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.  He stomped over to his desk, completely ignoring Adam sitting in the chair near Tim.

"Is there something wrong, John?" Adam asked.

"He's just a little pissed.  Today was supposed to be his day off; he was going to go to the beach with his family, but they called him in last minute." Tim whispered in Adam's ear.

Adam looked at John pouring over the work on his desk, frustrated - and unhappy, but somehow, it was not his programming that alerted him.

"What is the beach like?" Adam asked John.  Tim covered his face with his hand.  Adam made a bad move; now John was going to explode.

"Lots of sand and salty water, that's it," quickly and coldly John answered the question.

"Then why did you want to go to the beach?"

"That doesn't matter now.  Just shut up; I have a lot of work to do."

"Don't worry, he's not mad at you Adam.  He's just really tense right now." Tim whispered to Adam again.

Then Adam had an idea.  And it was the most extraordinary idea he had ever thought.

"I want to go to the beach, John."

John looked up from his papers.

"Why do you want to go to the beach?"

"I reasoned that if you had wanted to go to the beach then the trip must be worthwhile."

"You can't go to the beach."

"Why not?"

"Who's going to take you?  Who will watch you, observe you?"

"You will, John.  And your family will as well," and Adam smiled - not a first, but surely a rare occurrence.

John realized why Adam really wanted to go to the beach.  Adam wanted to see him happy.

It was a monstrous breakthrough!  Adam now considered the welfare of other's in his decisions.  John could see that Adam was not going to play "the game" that he originally thought.  No, Adam was playing a different "game", but he was still making strong decisions.  John wanted Adam to win now.

"Then we're going to the beach.  Tim, go find something else to do."

"Uh, sure, John" and Tim left.

John smiled at Adam.

"We need to get you some swim trunks."

---

It was the first time that Adam had ever been away from the complex.  He had been outside before though; he was environment proof after all.  Although Adam had not been to many places outside other than the courtyard, he was still fascinated by the spectrum of nature that he had witnessed.  At times he would sit for hours by the side of the courtyard walkway and watch the birds fly in and out of the trees.

But at the beach there were no trees.  There were no birds - or at least a very few sea gulls.  He actually was disappointed when he initially arrived with John; miles of sand paired with a flat blue expanse of water stretching well out of sight.  However, they were a distance from the real wonder of the beach yet.

"Wait until we get closer," John told Adam.

And he did.

Upon coming closer to the water, Adam saw the waves break against the shore and fold around the children that tried to ride them.  The manner in which the water moved was magnificent in Adam's eyes.  He had never studied the movement of waves in water - they had not begun to teach him physics yet - and, hence, his new discovery was not jaded by his normally logical nature.  Captivated by the beauty of the waves crashing and together, he was overcome with a sense of awe.  (It was not programmed into him - or at least to the extent that he felt.)

Yet, Adam's true joy emerged when he himself played in the water like the children.  At first, Adam played by himself at a fair distance from the large group of children.  But when he saw how they were laughing and smiling, he could not resist joining them.  Soon, he was jumping into the waves with the children.  He was an advanced intelligence; however, that did not make up for his underdeveloped notions of human nature.  He had only been exposed to people within the complex.  People outside what he knew though were very different.  This he was soon to learn.

Onlooking parents could now see something quite strange.  What looked to be a grown man was now playing with the children.  And not only was he just jumping in the waves with them, he was now throwing them into the waves, and the children seemed to comply willfully!  Parents stared at the spectacle frightened for a short while before one took action.

"Jimmy, get over here!" the boy's father called him. "What do you think you're doin', buddy?"

Adam responded: "I'm sorry.  Have I done something wrong?  I was just enjoying the beach with the children."

Back over at John's claim on the beach, Lynn, John's wife, spotted the incident.

"John, honey!" she hit his shoulder.

"What, Lynn?" John rose, sleepy eyed.  He had been "resting" and fallen asleep.

"I think your robot's in trouble!" she pointed where John could clearly see - after rubbing his eyes - that a confrontation between Adam and some other man was about to reach a high point.  He sprang up from his towel under the umbrella and raced towards Adam and the hostile man.  But he was too late.

"Stay away from these kids, you pedo!" the man shouted and he pushed Adam.

He fell into the water on his behind, hands land back of him.

Adam did not understand.  Why was this man showing such aggression towards him?  He was just enjoying the beach.  And something strange happened.  Adam became angry.  He had been angry before but just a little steamed or discontent.  No, this was not anger that he had experienced before.  This was rage - his catalog of emotions did not contain it.

Seething, Adam rose from the water and reared back his fist.  The robotic hand crushed the man's skull upon impact.  He too, like Adam, fell to the water.  But he did so limp.

John froze in his tracks ankle deep in water and only ten meters behind Adam, who was now standing over the body in shock as well for he was surprised that the man had not arisen from the water by now.

Adam then realized that he had done something wrong.  But it wasn't the behavior of the man that told him so.  The father's child was crying, backing away from Adam.  He knew that he had killed the boy's father.

He turned toward the shore and began to run.  As he started, he caught a glimpse of John and the pure shock on his face.  He promptly dropped his head, ashamed of what he had now done: he killed a man, and he disappointed John.

He kept on running.  He could not tire.  He was synthetic.  Now in the city, he tried to separate himself from any that could have seen him in the alleys.  He ran some more, but it was not long before he could hear the blades of a helicopter not far behind him.  The chopper chased him to a dead end.

A marksman, looking out the helicopter, had Adam in his sights.

"Do it." a static and distorted voice came over the man's microphone.  And he squeezed the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down dramatically for Adam, now watching the slug crawl towards his face.  He was not afraid.  He knew, or understood rather, that in his punishment everything would become right.  And maybe, someone or something, beyond the world that which he knew might give him a second chance.  Just maybe.

Adam kissed death.

"The Lord God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden ... and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life."
- Genesis 3:23-24

Or at least just for a few short years...