June: On cruelty, indifference, and bonding
I don't remember most of my teachers being cruel, although that doesn't rule out the possibility that they were. Trauma rarely produces the desired personality, and was routinely erased. Even so, it must have been less effort to avoid it in the first place than to have to repeat a lesson. There wasn't much in the way of affection, either, though. Mostly I ran across a cultivated indifference. I didn't recognize it at the time, or realize the reason. It's not just that it's hard to become attached to a product, but that it's bad for the product to develop attachments to anyone but the end user.

It's not that I thought of myself as a product, of course. I was so much more concerned with learning and becoming than what I was learning or going to become. I still don't know what I was for -- maybe I never finished becoming it.

April was finished first among my age-mates. There was a fuss over her for a few days, as they made the last adjustments, and then she was just gone. I hadn't realized then that we were meant to leave. Everyone in my life had always been there, and had never left. Dr. Mehta assured me that April was not dead, but she seemed so sad anyway. I wondered if it had been her second explanation to me, and the first had not gone over so well.

It was just May and me in the set then. The boys were a little off from us, and we didn't interact much with them. May and I became closer then, knowing that we would be separated. I don't know which was more frightening - the idea of losing the people I knew, or having to know people I had never met. They tried to separate us. We were set up to compete, and to fight. I understood later that we were not supposed to ever bond to anyone who was not our intended... owner, but at the time it just seemed like another random adjustment. We pretended to fight, but it was hard to do properly. I just wanted to avoid her when I was upset, but avoidance made her angry. We weren't just being made to conflict, but to deal with things differently.

Whatever I was intended for, she was meant for something else. Or maybe she just bonded more than I did.

I think they tried to refocus her attention and failed. She started following me one morning, and, by lunch, had become notably twitchy. Dr. Fitzgerald noticed, and mentioned that he was scheduled for another session with her. I hadn't known there had been previous sessions, but May responded instantly. Before he finished smirking at her, she was on top of him with a steak knife, trying to fillet off his face. The others dragged her off of him before she damaged him - much. Most of the onlookers seemed horrified, but I heard one man comment that they'd 'never had one snap in the lab before' and he sounded almost pleased.

That incidents left me alone. I noticed an increase in psych tests - maybe they were afraid it was catching. Still, none of them seemed afraid of me. May was always more physical than I was, anyway.

We did not see her or him again.