The other workers seem friendly when they greet me. I try to seem friendly when I greet them back. They speak of things I do not know about: budgets and schedules and spreadsheets and inventories. But all the time they are watching me eat. They remind me of the way Gina observes me when I perform new tasks, such as assembling a jigsaw puzzle or figuring out how a yo-yo works. They are paying such close attention to me that I think they’re trying to hear my jaw hinges whirr.

“So, Cog,” says Nathan. “What can you tell us about the X-module?”

I review my memory and find that I know nothing about anything called an X-module.

He squints at me. “You must be able to tell us something.”

I find it confusing that he wants me to give him information that I don’t have, but I do my best. “Platypuses lay their eggs in watery—”

“What do platypuses have to do with the X-module?” he interrupts.

Gina never interrupts during learning sessions. I transfer a forkful of eggs into my mouth.

Nathan taps something on his tablet.

“Maybe Gina called it something else,” says another uniMIND worker. She wears little round glasses that magnify her eyes.

Nathan rubs the bridge of his nose. I have learned that he does this when he is processing. “Cog, what did Gina tell you about your programming?”

This is a question I am able to answer, and I am pleased.

“She told me that I am programmed for cognitive development, and to learn by consuming information with my sensors, which are similar to human eyes, noses, ears, tongues, and skin. I am capable of learning through reading, through smelling, through hearing, through tasting—”

“This is going to take a long time,” says the woman with the magnified eyes.

“—I also learn by taking risks and engaging in bad experiences. In addition, I have, at last count, seventy-three bugs. I will list them for you. One: I swallow gum. Two: I sometimes consume biofuel too quickly, which results in gas bubbles within my biofuel container. Three: I release my biofuel gas in loud eruptions that are considered nonstandard. Four—”

“I think we’re going to have to try another method,” the woman says to Nathan.

Nathan nods and types something on his tablet. He and the woman and the other uniMIND workers engage in conversation. I continue to list my bugs, but they are not listening.

I wonder what the X-module is.

Nathan brings me to a laboratory that smells of machine oil and burning wires. Three uniMIND workers are there, drinking coffee from paper cups. One of them leans in a relaxed fashion on a hockey stick. In the center of the room stands a ladder, about my height.