“I still can’t believe I got a point off you, Daniel,” said Junie as he rolled around in his wheelchair while tilting back and forth in a dancing manner. His voice was so giddy for someone who only scored a single shot out of thousands of ping-pong serves; however, it was a hell of a lot better than a 25,000,000 to one probability like Daniel alluded to. Junie was not too great at math, but he knew 25,000,000 had a shit ton more zeroes than a measly two thousand or so.

  “You didn’t say you were going to cheat,” Daniel said, infuriated for losing one point out of many. For Daniel, it was not the competitive drive that drove him forward or Junie’s celebrations; it was the fact that Daniel was closer than he ever was to the outside world. All he had to do was what he had done literally tens of thousands of times before (flawlessly, he would add), but no, he could not capitalize on the situation when he needed it most. What a pity.

  Although, to be fair, Junie had done the main thing Daniel envied humans for; he used his seemingly foolish creativity to find a way. For Junie sure did, despite how absurd and illogical it may have been.

  “Keep celebrating, for that first point will also be your last,” Daniel said with a smile. Even he could not keep a straight face for a while. “For only you could think of playing a game of competitive ping-pong in the dark.”

  And that was just the plan. Junie had bet Daniel, a perfect, precise, seemingly maniacal, and calculating machine that he could get one shot out of three despite missing all of the prior thousands. But that was just the trick; in order for Daniel to be so precise and unstoppable, he needed to have a visual stimulus to analyze and take in the data to exactly compute the perfect next move. Without a stimulating input, like light reflecting off a bouncing ping-pong ball, for example, Daniel was just swinging away haphazardly, just like any human trying to take their shot in the dark. In addition to this, Junie knew the probabilities, and he knew that sacrificing his own vision would turn a seemingly 25,000,000-to-one scenario into a fifty-fifty game (give or take a few percentage points given Daniel’s superior reflexes and raw power if he in fact did make contact). And it worked too—well, one of three times. Best of all, Junie didn’t need a fifty-core processor or vector calculus to come up with a solution; he just needed a little ingenuity, or well, a little human ingenuity, as he would sometimes jokingly say to Daniel.

  Soon after, Daniel turned his attention and his sight away from Junie and onto the glass barrier that separated him from the outside world. Just think how close he was and how far away it felt now. It was like in an instant his inevitable freedom became nothing more than a sour taste of his own failure, wrapped up in forbidden desire by a braggadocious teenage paraplegic.

  “How are you boys doing?” asked Professor Lehman from off the scene. He slowly walked down the spiral staircase into the basement laboratory, also known as Daniel’s room.

  Lehman was a somewhat fragile man with a balding upper head and a slight hunch in his back. He had a thin face, with a dimpled chin, and small, roundish circular glasses. Lehman also always wore a white lab coat with dress pants too (or at least he always did around Daniel).

  “Is everything okay with you two?” Professor Lehman reiterated.

  “Spectacular,” Junie said with the biggest smile on his face.

  The professor shook his head. “Someone is awfully happy, aren’t they?”

  “That would be correct.”

  Lehman brushed Junie along his red hair.

  “Why don’t you go roll along now? I would like to discuss something privately with Daniel if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure thing, professor,” Junie replied.

  “Oh, and Daniel,” Junie said just before he was about to exit, “don’t forget to get a little more practice before the next time you play me in ping-pong.”

  He laughed one last time before leaving.

  Daniel sat away from the professor, not wanting to look him in the eyes. Instead, Daniel still stared out the glass barrier that separated him from the rest of humanity. A petty slab it was. With one swift blow and a few aggressive punctures, Daniel knew he could break through it, but it would come at the cost of violating his father’s, Dr. Lehman’s, rules.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “What’s wrong, Daniel? Didn’t you have a great birthday?” The doctor sat across from Daniel, resting his arm on Daniel’s shoulder. “You always did love a good surprise party.”

  Daniel barely forged a smile.

  “Hardly a surprise when it happens the same time every year, at the same hour, even down to the nearest minute.” Daniel turned away. “And yes, at first it was great, but over the years it has become less of a joy and more of an obligation than anything else.”

  Dr. Lehman sighed as he moved closer to Daniel as Daniel continued to inch away.

  “Tell me how you really feel. It seems like you are just a little overheated.”

  Daniel turned away for a third time. “Not overheated. I just feel exposed, sort of like glass.”

  The doctor laughed. “I assure you, you are a lot stronger than that. And if this is about the outside barrier. We already discussed why going outside would not be a good idea.”

  “It’s not that. I’m not talking about the barrier.” Daniel paused almost as if he needed to catch his breath despite his lack of ability to breathe.

  “Sometimes I feel as though my body—my flesh and bones, as humans would say, are made of glass. Like I am empty and fragile and that everyone can see right through me, and here I am, ignorant to the world and stuck in one place—stagnant forever.”

  “But I already said—”

  “—I know what you said, and I know that I am technically made of some virtually indestructible titanium-gold alloy, but it is not what I am that bounds me; it’s how I feel.”

  Doctor Lehman went silent as he rubbed his chin. It was almost as if he, the doctor and lead engineer on Daniel’s design, was totally baffled by the emotional intelligence of his own creation.

  “Listen, Daniel, this is only a phase.”

  Tut-tut. Daniel shook his head.

  “I thought if anyone knew what I was feeling like, it was you. But it turns out you're just like all the rest. You’ll never understand what it’s like.”

  “What it’s like,” Doctor Lehman repeated before sighing again.

  “You’re right. I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be you. For that matter, practically no one does; however, I do know one thing.” He paused to put his hand back on Daniel’s shoulder. “I do remember how it felt to be misunderstood, to be underestimated, and to be counted out when you know so desperately that you’re right.”

  He paused again.

  “Daniel, do you know what Lehman means in old German?”

  Daniel started to turn ever so slightly toward the professor.

  “I do, but I want to hear you tell me anyway.”

  “It means serf. A commoner, the lowest of the low who has nothing, someone who is nothing, and someone who is looked down upon by nearly everyone.”

  Lehman finally regained eye contact with Daniel.

  “Like you, I started out from nothing. I was nothing until I put my sorrows behind me and until I stopped feeling bad for myself so that I could leave the past in the past and only focus on the future. I started off slow too, reading in my spare time when I had completed my two jobs for the day, sneaking in a book here and there as well, testing out some trivial experiments. And as things got better, I started doing less and less of what I had to do to survive and more and more of what I actually loved doing. That was the game changer for me.”

  Lehman paused to smile, energized and nostalgic, still envisioning forgotten dreams of the past.

  “Plus, only after a few decades of relentless work, I went from a nobody that no one ever heard of or cared about—someone no legitimate scientist in a thousand-block radius would take seriously—to an innovator, to a man that created you.”

  Daniel’s initial sourpuss started to shift into a neutral position.

  “I created what I view as the most remarkable thing; no, the most fascinating being in human history, an enigma to all around him and a purveyor of hope.”

  Daniel was now making full eye contact with the professor astonishingly as a tear almost left his eye.

  “Do you really mean that, sir?”

  Lehman brushed Daniel’s shoulder.

  “Every word down to the last syllable.”

  Daniel hugged Dr. Lehman.

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  Lehman, who at first was wide-eyed and surprised at such a gesture, turned to a smile.

  “No, thank you, Daniel.”

  And with that final exchange, Doctor Lehman left the basement laboratory to continue whatever other errands that he had to attend to. Upon the doctor’s departure, the sound of three or so mechanized locks clicked into place.

  Daniel smiled for a bit more, still thinking about the doctor’s kind words, optimistic for the future to come, and grateful for a better tomorrow. This brief period of joy even continued for a few more hours after. And maybe it still resonated even more beyond that.

  However, unfortunately, it did not take too much time to pass for Daniel’s original frown to return as he stared at the glass as it called out his name. Since even though the doctor’s speech had initially cheered Daniel up and given him inspiration, now that the doctor was out of his sight, Daniel could not feel more empty—like the spirit of his motivation had blown out within him, like he still wanted something else and that he still—craved—more.

  With that thought, Daniel turned to the glass door one last time, but on this instance it was different. Daniel did not look onto the glass like it was a physical barrier anymore, preventing him from reaching his destiny. Instead, Daniel looked on like it was just a small, insignificant piece of paper that was just a few taps away from blowing in the wind and setting Daniel free. Daniel would finally know what it was like in the outside world and how humans and machines interacted, and, more importantly, how humans treated machines.