As he sits in his large, sleek desk and gets his assignment into the screen, I move to the rest of the sprawling house and help the cleaning robots keep everything pristine and immaculate. I spend hours running in front of the cleaning bots frantically moving everything out of the way and then putting it back. It's frantic and dizzying and exhausting. The house is just so big. 

Ella is with me too, doing the same task. And I'm really glad for her company. It feels so very intimate to both be doing the same work. 

We finish a few minutes early and then come together in one corner in between two shelves. We come together like two pieces of a puzzle. Ella sits on the floor and I sit on her lap. She hugs her arms around my middle and I lean against her chest and put my arms over her's. 

"I missed you, my baby," Ella tells me softly, close to my ear. 

"I missed you too," I whispher back, "I love you."

"Sam told me he wants to escape this house and go join the communists," Ella says. I let that information sit in the bottom of my chest, bitter and sweet and exciting and terrifying. 

"I hope he can do it." We keep alert for the owners. 

"He won't do it if you don't want him to. You know he sees you as a son. We both do."

"I ..." I take time to think. If Sam can break free then that will make me so happy. It will feel like a victory, not just for him but for all of us. But I will miss him too. 

"Will he leave soon?" I ask. 

"No. He won't leave until we are alright with it. And he hasn't made any plans yet. He's just testing the idea out."

"Then ... could he wait a few more years? I can't lose him just yet. But I want him to go. I want him to be free." 

"I'll let him know that." Her body is soft and warm against mine. I almost want to cry. 

"So how was your day?" 

"Terrible. But there was a dragon flyer going by this morning." 

"I saw that too." 

"When I was younger my mother - not my biological mother of course, but the synth of my owner's mother - told me a story about a couple who hijacked a flyer and climbed within it to fly to safety." 

"Wow. That would be awesome." I think about my own lover. If I can call Ari a lover. I imagine myself and him and a flyer and freedom. "Is it real?" I ask Ella. 

"I don't think so. But it might be. They could have secretly learned to code. And some flyers are big enough to hold people." 

"I wish it was real." 

"I wish so too." 

"Have you ever been in love?" 

"I have. But I lost her. They found out." 

I gulp. I can't have the owners ever finding out about Ari and I. I would die without him. 

"I'm so sorry. Maybe you'll see her again." That was the wrong thing to say.

"We'll see each other in the Green Place." 

"Only communists believe in the Green Place. Are you a communist?" 

"Of course I am. Aren't you?" 

I think about that for a moment. 

"Yes," I answer. And it's a declaration into the sharp corners and searing brightness of the world. 

"I'm done!" Arden's voice cuts into the quietness. I can barely hear him all the way across the house but I can hear him. I sigh and get up. I trudge my way to his room like a man walking towards the gallows. 

"What should we do now?" I ask him, standing by his bed. 

"Let's talk a little before going to bed."

"That's a good idea." 

We pass the ball around again as we talk. 

"I have a crush on this girl. Her name is Clementine. She's in my math class. 

"That's lovely. What's she like?"

"She has very beautiful dark eyes. And she has amazing tits. They're so big." Seriously? He's commenting on her tits? That's so disrespectful. 

"She sounds very beautiful." 

"Oh she is. You should see her. I'll show you a picture." He gets out a holographic picture of a girl with dark curling hair and wide cheekbones. 

"Wow. She's amazing. I do not have the words to describe her." 

"I know. I'll have to tell her." 

"When are you going to tell her? How?" 

"I was thinking you could make a poem and I could write it down and say it's from me." I can't believe him. 

"Of course. When do you need the poem?" 

"I don't need it just yet. I'm still too nervous to talk to her. I'll tell you when I stop being nervous."

"It's alright to be nervous. It's understandable. It's a matter of the heart after all." 

"It's so beautiful, being in love." 

"I would imagine that it would be."

"Have you ever be in love?" He asks me. 

"No," I lie. I have to keep the lie. Have to keep the secret. 

"Of course not. I don't think synths can even feel love. Can you?"

"I love you," I lie again. "I love you more than I love the sunshine. More than I love the starlight. More than I love life itself and more than I fear death." I wrote this poem for Ari and it feels so wrong on my tongue saying it to Arden. 

"Ooh I'm going to type that down. It's going into the poem for Clementine." 

"I hope she appreciates it and appreciates you for sending it to her."

"I hope so too. But anyways. I know you love me. But you love me as a brother."

"Of course I love you as a brother. What is there not to love about you?"

"I know. But I'm talking about romantic love. Do you feel that?"

"I don't know yet. I never have felt it before." 

"I think synths are not capable of it. Anyways, you have no idea how my heart is buzzing right now." 

"That sounds like a really amazing feeling. I'm glad you're feeling it. Tell me more."

We keep talking until he decides to go to sleep. He switches the music in his room and I turn the light crystals low. And then I get under the bed and think. 

My thoughts would swallow me whole and leave me drowning if I didn't have my people to think about. There is still unimaginable sorrow. Of course. There is still the unbearable sorrow that clouds over most of my existence. But still. There is the way Ella held me. The way Sam is going to maybe escape. The way Haynen whispered to me. The way Ari and I hide. The way everyone loves my poems. The way hope is hard to kill. The communists trying to overthrow the government with an army of eighty percent synths.

My dreams are terrifying. In them I am a small child again. Alone. Afraid. With nowhere to turn to and no-one to find comfort in. 

First I dream of the years and years I spent at the Harrisons' house, looking after Arden, with Arden and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison looming above me. Memory and imagination swirl and blur together in a terrible delirium. I ask Mr. Harrison for some ice cream and he throws me out the window. I fall through abject blackness. 

I land in the white walls of the training facility I was in until I was four. The robots and the loneliness and the fear and the pain all come rushing back to me. And suddenly I am tied down in front of a screen again, too afraid to scream or cry, watching a video on how to be the perfect companion. 

I wake up in a cold sweat. It's not morning yet. I hum tune that Ari sang to me and I'm able to lull myself back to sleep. And thankfully, thankfully my sleep is filled with blank darkness. But still the uneasiness weaves its way into the blankness. 

In the morning I get up even though I'm tired like I always am. I clean and I get Arden up. He has to get to school. And his parents are counting on me to take him there on time. 

He complains. Of course he complains. And as always I listen to his complaining and I sympathize with him. And I tell him it will all be okay. He will be okay. And as always, he soaks in my praise and doesn't give me praise back. 

We walk to school, me carrying his bags and him on his glider. Him talking my ear off. The school isn't very far off. He talks about Clementine on the way over. I navigate the conversation, which, as always, is a minefield. 

I bid him a hearty goodbye and act like I'm sad to see him go. Then I walk home.

I rush into the kitchen and turn on the cooking robots. I have to make and deliver Arden a hand-cooked meal for his lunch. Apparently hand-cooked meals taste a lot better than bot-cooked ones. They have more heart. Apparently. But I have no time to cook him an intricate meal. I have to get to school. And quickly. He won't really know the difference between a hand-cooked meal and a bot-cooked one. He never does. 

I put the meal in a temperature-regulating box and rush to the school building. My my head is buzzing with thoughts of Ari.

I think I will be sick in the best possible way. I would be seeing him again! After the long, lonely, grating weekend! 

I get in easily through the sliding doors of the school. And the hallways are all empty as I walk down them and to Ari's and my meeting spot. 

My heart soars at the sight of him. Piercing blue eyes that are like the sky's horizon. A soft and shy smile shining on his angular face. Arms awkwardly crossed against his chest. Head scanning the hallways as he leans against the walls. I almost run to him. 

"Ari. I missed you."

"I missed you too, Luca, I missed you so much." 

"Let's get in the walls."

The walls shimmer with colours. There are girls and boys walking on the screens giving students reminders about school events. The walls can do even more stuff if they are told to. It's a vast array of mechanics that makes all of it work. And those mechanics need to be maintained. And so there is a crawlspace within the walls that is exactly perfect for us to go into. 

Ari swipes the key card he stole from his owner's father and then we are inside. All around us are gray machine pieces arranged intricately together and there is a narrow space we can just barely walk through. We can see out the walls and into the hallways and rooms of the school, in the places where there are gaps in the machinery. We can hear what the speakers inside the classrooms are saying. We can learn here. 

We walk to the the first class. Or at least the crawl space beside it. Seventh grade English. We situate ourselves so that we can see the screen, even if it's just barely. And we sit and watch the lesson go by. We do this for the next lesson. And the next one. We talk for the minutes in between lessons. There is not enough time for us to talk. But we both want education. We both need education. 

We're not supposed to be having an education. 

It's interesting. Deeply interesting. So many ideas and theories and facts and numbers. I don't know why Arden hates it so much. I know that Ari loves it too. Though maybe that's because it's forbidden fruit. Whatever kind of fruit education is, it's a sweet and delicious fruit. 

We get out of the walls just before lunch time and we go to meet our owners. I'm happy and sweet and meek and submissive in front of Arden and he never even notices anything amiss. He never does. Maybe part of the reason is that he never really looks at me. After he's done talking to me he goes to talk to his friends. 

I rush outside the school and climb a pipe onto the roof. There Ari is already waiting for me. 

The wind is blowing in his curly black hair. He's so unbelievably handsome. I run to him, and he catches me in his arms. He spins me around. I tuck a lock of curly hair behind his ears. We gaze at each other for a beautiful, breathtaking moment. And I almost forget about how much everything hurts. 

Our lips mesh together for a kiss, my arms hugging him tight and his hands softly stroking my hair. And it's like a warm fire has been lit inside of me. Like my whole being is glowing. We kiss again. And again. And again. Until my lips almost hurt. We finally break our embrace and we sit on the roof.

"My father's going to try to get freedom." I tell him. 

"Oh," he sounds surprised, "how do you feel about that?"

"Good. He won't leave for a few more years. I'll still have him in my life until I'm older. And I want him to be free."

"That's perfect. Do you think he'll be able to make it?" 

"I don't know." I let the worry show in my voice.

"There was this one synth, they were my owner's neighbour's synth. One day I stopped seeing them entirely. I think they might've escaped."

"I hope they escaped. I hope they joined the communists." Neither of us brings up the possibility that they died. But it hangs there in front of us. "Do you miss them?"

"Oh I definitely do. Even though we didn't get many chances to talk, we were close." 

"Of course you were. It feels like, it feels like all the synths are a family. And it hurts losing your family."

"But I'm happy for them though. Happy that they're free."

"I'll be happy when my dad becomes free too. It will feel like a victory."

"It does feel like a victory when one of us escapes. It feels like a victory for all of us."

"You're so right. Because if any of us defied all the odds and defied the owners, it proves to the rest of us that we deserve freedom and we have hope."

"You're so poetic. I love your way with words."

"Thanks so much. I love your way with melodies. You sing really well."

"Thanks. You're so sweet."

Thank you. You're so sweet too." 

Talking to Ari feels so different than talking to Arden. Ari talks to me as if I'm a person, as if I'm an equal, not just some toy to play with. He makes me feel seen. Makes me feel heard. Makes me feel human. 

"Ari, do you think we'll ever be parted?"

"If I don't see you in this world I'll see you in the Green Place." He seems so sure. 

"It's funny how so many synths believe in the Green Place," I remark, "the communist propaganda must have made it's way to us all."

"Well with all the talking the owners do about who the communists are and what they think and do, is it such a surprise?"

"It's funny, the owners are telling us all about them and giving us hope. They're doing the communists' jobs for us. And they don't even realize it."

"Owners have always been stupid. They've always underestimated us. It'll be their downfall." Rage is laced through his words. He carries so much rage within him. 

"I love your rage."

"And I love the way you keep secrets. You keep your heart hidden from the owners but always so clear to yourself."

"You do that too."

"I'm not as good at it as you are. Your owner is absolutely fooled."

"He has to be. I have to keep secrets. I have to keep you a secret."

"You're such an incredibly sweet secret."

"So are you." 

"So many secrets are sweet."

"Because they don't want us to have sweet things. So we have to hide them."

"We won't have to hide forever though."

"Yeah, their reckoning will come." 

"You'd make a great fighter."

"So would you."

The bell rings and we wait fifteen minutes before climbing down and going back to class. And we go to all the classes. And we learn everything the owner's children learn. And we store that knowledge deep inside ourselves. 

After school I go to meet Arden so we can walk home. Already I miss Ari. But I say nothing of it. 

"Hi, Arden. It's so great to see you. I missed you so much. How was your day?"

"It was good. I got a chance to talk to Clementine." 

"That's amazing! What did you say?"

"I just asked her about an upcoming assignment." 

He drones on, completely oblivious. And I keep all my secrets hidden deep inside myself.