Not far away from William’s workplace, there was a two-storied house in the residential area. It was a small one, perfect for a family of three to live. Its wall was made of beige bricks that emitted a relaxing, welcoming atmosphere. It had quite many windows, allowing a lot of sunlight into the room. There was a living room and the kitchen on the first floor, and three rooms occupied the second. One of the rooms on the second floor once belonged to a particular young lady called Katherine. She was William’s daughter, who had made a major impact on this story without ever being in it. That room had not been occupied ever since she had left this world.


    Another room beside that one was designed to be identical as Katherine’s. William’s family had been using that room as their storage filled with boxes and unused items…until three days ago.


    It was now occupied by our particular young female robot, Chorong.


    William had moved all the boxes to somewhere else, and then set the room up like a typical teenager student’s room: one desk, one chair, one set of drawers, one bed, and one closet. He also had put up some glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling; they were the leftovers from decorating Katherine’s room, which he had found from one of the boxes. Additionally, a map showing a mass of earth—a continent— with dots and labels scattered across it hung on a wall. He had gotten the same copy as the one in Katherine’s room.


    Only after finishing setting up a room did William realize Katherine’s and Chorong’s rooms looked almost the same.


    William pointed at a dot labeled Hyun-Jae on the map.


    “Hyun-Jae”, William pronounced slowly.


    “Hyun-Jae,” Chorong said after him. She was sitting on the chair, listening like a university student taking a lecture.


    “Good. That’s the city we are living in right now. It’s one of the two biggest cities known to us.”


    William had installed some pre-activation knowledge modules into Chorong’s consciousness before activating her. However, she still barely knew about anything in this world. Thus, he was manually teaching Chorong the missing data. He did not find it a chore or annoying; he enjoyed teaching. He still remembered the day when he taught Katherine the same thing in the room beside this one.


    He glided his finger above the map, scanning through a few smaller dots. It stopped above another big dot labelled with the corresponding city’s name: “Mi-Ray. That’s the other big city.”


    William paused for a moment as if he was hesitant, and then added, “The technology I used to make you also came from there.”


    Chorong stared in the text reading Mi-Ray on the map. She stared and stared at it, as if she was being sucked into the map. She sometimes did that over the last few days since her activation, especially when she was actively absorbing new information. William did not like that; the look on her eyes felt…eerie. It was very different from the look on Katherine’s face when she was learning; her eyes used to twinkle.


    Then, however, the engineer reminded himself the robot in front of him was not his lost daughter.


    “Why is the map so sparse?” Chorong asked.


    All the dots representing villages and cities on the map were centered around the Northwest corner of the continent; everywhere else was empty.


    “Humans are the most-daring living species, so I find it unlikely that humans have not tried venturing further,” she said.


    “Outside any cities and villages right now is deserted and dangerous for two reasons. One, there’s an extreme amount of radiation. Fortunately, humans do have radiation immunity, so it doesn’t affect our health, it disrupts any sort of communication. Two, a virus called Alpha made animals extremely hostile. Think that virtually all wild animals are infected by Alpha. They will attack anything they see alive.”


    Chorong turned from the map to William. “Why did that happen? Radiation usually doesn’t come naturally; viruses usually don’t spread to almost every species alive, either.”


    William shrugged. “That, we do not know. I was born into this world, too. Lots of people have been researching, and we believe an important event caused the nature to change, spread radiation, and mutate a virus into the Alpha virus. But, there are no records of it, and it must’ve happened a really long time ago.”


    Chorong turned back to the map, which told William she understood his answer. After a moment, she asked, “Does that mean these dots are all that’s left of humanity?”


    William shook his head. “We believe that there are more human civilizations out there. No, we are sure there are more out there. We just can’t reach them yet.”This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Chorong looked into the map. She suddenly stood up from the chair and stepped forward, approaching it. Then, she slowly reached her hand out, and put her index finger on Mi-Ray.


    William frowned slightly. “…What are you doing, Chorong?”


    “I don’t know,” Chorong answered.


    For some reason, that made William smirk. He thought for a moment, and then rephrased his question: “What are your thoughts on why you’re pointing on that dot?”


    “…People can reach here, right?”


    William nodded. “There are still traders who travel between civilizations.”


    “…Then I feel like I can reach here, too.”


    A familiar voice in William’s memory shouted, Dad, when I grow up, I’m going to be an explorer!


    William had programmed the urge to learn and explore new things in Chorong’s logic module. Obviously, this was a sign that his programming was working well.


    He smiled. However, the reason he grinned was not the fact that his programming was working well. Chorong…just made him smile. He rubbed Chorong’s head, messing her hair. He said, “Of course you can reach there.”


    ---------


    And of course, due to unauthorized use of company materials, properties, and programs, plus causing a building-wide electricity blackout, William was suspended. However, he managed to pull in some strings in the administration to guarantee two things. One, he wasn’t fired. He was simply suspended, meaning he was being forced to have unpaid vacation. Two, the company didn’t learn what he had created; thus, he was able to keep Chorong to himself. Plus, the company couldn''t just completely fire him, because he was an integral part of the company.


    This meant that he could have a long break with Chorong at home.


    Thus, for the first time in the last few months, he woke up at home, in his bed. He sat up, stretched his arms, and then opened the door in his room to go downstairs.


    Chorong stood at the doorway, staring at him.


    “Jesus!” William exclaimed, surprised. He had programmed her to sleep—or to at least pretend to sleep like a human being while she organized and sorted all important data inside her memory.


    “Good morning, Master,” she said.


    “Good morning,” William replied. He looked outside the window. The sunshine lit up the world brightly. A ray of it came through the window and shined on Chorong.


    “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked.


    “If you want me to, Master,” she answered.


    William put on a jacket and went outside with Chorong. They strolled together, just like how they did back at the park. William held Chorong’s hand. He breathed in and out slowly. He hadn’t enjoyed the cool morning air for so long. Everything was so peaceful, and calm.


    Then, a bit of the calmness got ruined when he heard, “William!”


    Chorong and he turned around, finding two men approaching them from behind. William recognized them. He tried his best to hide his discomfort.


    “Patrick, Mathieu,” he greeted.


    Patrick was his subordinate developer in the software team. Mathieu was an employee in hardware department who William had to work together a lot in different projects. William knew that the two were close friends and both lived near William’s place.


    William glanced at Chorong worriedly. He had to somehow tell her to not let the two men know that she’s not a human.


    “We haven’t seen you for a while,” Mathieu said. He saw Chorong, and then bent his back to be eye level with her. “And who’s this young lady?”


    Using her autotune-like voice, she said, “Hello.”


    Patrick and Mathieu froze. They looked at each other, and then back at Chorong, and then at William.


    “My name is Chorong. Who are you?” she asked.


    “I, er, my name is Mathieu,” the hardware engineer replied. He turned to William. “So, this is what—”


    Patrick smashed Mathieu’s back with his palm, interrupting his sentence. Mathieu yelped.


    “Nice to meet you, cute young lady. My name is Patrick,” Patrick said, making a smile that looked forced. He turned to William. “We will be off, then. Have a fun time.”


    William saw the look in the two men’s eyes. They were mixed with feelings of confusion, shock, and…pity. He did not like that. He felt a discomfort—rage—suddenly boiling inside his chest.


    “Have a good day, gentlemen,” he managed to say.


    The two men turned around and left.


    -----------


    The night draped over William’s house. William sat in the couch in the living room, staring into the lit fireplace. He held a glass of brandy in his hand. He weaved his hand around, and the ice in the glass made light noises. He was alone, and the only light source was the fireplace.


    He couldn’t sleep. He had lots of things in his head.


    He couldn’t forget the looks in the two engineers’ eyes. The pity in their eyes stirred his mind. He clearly knew why they felt bad for him; they were thinking he made Chorong because he missed Katherine.


    That was not true; he did miss Katherine, yes, but he hadn’t built Chorong to be Katherine.


    Then, why did I build her?


    Suddenly, he felt like something came up in his throat and blocked it.


    Why did I build her?


    “Are you okay, Master?”


    “AHHH!”


    William almost lost grip on his glass. He turned around, finding Chorong standing behind him with a very straight, almost soldier-like posture.


    “Chorong, please, make some sound when you move in the house,” he said. He then realized he sounded a bit irritated. He shook his head, and then said, “Sorry, that sounded a bit mad. I’m not. But it would be nice if you try to not scare me.”


    “I’m sorry, Master,” Chorong said. Her facial expression didn’t seem sorry at all. “I detected your breathing getting faster to an unnatural rate, so I wanted to check.”


    William scanned Chorong up and down with his eyes. She stood still, staring back at him. Again, he felt this eerie aura from her that he didn’t like.


    “I’m okay, Chorong. Go back to bed.”


    Chorong nodded. She turned around and walked upstairs. He could hear her room door opening and closing.


    He fixed his posture and stared at the fireplace again. Chorong had really surprised him. However, a smile rose on his face. That was because his head felt clearer. The encounter with Chorong had enlightened him.


    Katherine loved scaring his father, knowing that he reacted extremely to any sort of surprise. However, unlike when Katherine scared her, when Chorong scared him, William hadn’t felt any of the warm, tingly emotion in his chest. She just…didn’t feel the same.


    Chorong is not Katherine, he told himself.