A little social experiment
He twisted his face and smirked. The tall building towered
over him as if it challenged his existence. He looked around him. Creatures
looking like him walked steadily, crisscrossing each other, entering and
exiting by lanes, sneezing and coughing, whispering into chords hanging out of
hand phones, headed to familiar banal destinations for familiar banal
objectives. Andre smiled again.
Andre started walking towards the mall. Paula waited there
at the entrance. They exchanged expressionless knowing greetings and headed
inside. The mall was a huge towering building. It had been built recently when
the city suddenly expanded to accommodate new companies, tourists and people
with lots of money. It had large branded stores stacked with clothes, shoes, jewelry,
electronics and other stuff that made large cities go round. Beautiful shops
dressed like brides welcomed visitors playing wonderful peppy music to lure
shoppers.
There were gaming arcades and bowling arenas again replete
with peppy music that immediately caught attention and attracted you inside. Andre
felt tempted to check one of them but he knew he was on a mission. He did not
have any time to waste. He looked at Paula. She was equally determined and
focused. They quickly entered the supermarket with its huge aisles and barrage
of products on offer.
Within ten minutes they were out with packets of processed
food and beverages. They hailed a cab and got inside. The cab driver looked at
them suspiciously. They both looked out of place, in their business suits,
holding grocery bags. They were not smiling or emoting. He raised his eyebrows.
Paula handed him a small piece of paper. He checked it out. It was the address
of one of the swankiest parts of the town. These were must be people loaded with
money and they will really tip him well. He was happy now. He started driving.
The traffic was not at its peak since it was almost noon
time. Andre looked outside the windows. He got to step outside the building so
rarely that everything seemed exciting to him. He wondered when was the last he
had stepped out. Each of the scientists in his department got the grocery duty
only once a year and the rest of the time they had any time to do anything
forget go to malls. This project was so big that each of them had forgotten
that they had a life outside.
But the good times had just begun. The first prototypes were
out and seemed to be satisfactory. He looked at Paula proudly. She sat there,
looking totally human, though she needed to show some form of emotions at
least! He will make some recommendations to the head scientist today itself about the modifications in the robots' design. But
he still felt so proud that their experiment at taking the robot out for a
walk, during the monthly grocery trip had been so successful. Nobody, at the
mall, at the store, on the roads, anywhere had suspected Paula was not human. Plus,
he had bought favorite foods of all the other colleagues and they will all be
super happy with him. They all deserved the best after all that hard work.
Andre relaxed in his seat and decided to take a power nap.
image from pixabay
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