“Harold, don’t touch it!” Emma said.
“I think it's human. What if it’s alive?” Harold looked down at the creature lying on the sidewalk.
“Even more reason not to touch it. We better get out of here before the observers find out we’re sticking our noses where they don’t belong.”
The creature on the sidewalk stirred and moaned.
“Harold?” said Emma stepping back.
“Yes, I think it’s human,” said Harold with an academic air.
“How would you know? It could be one of our replicas.”
“Maybe we can ask it a few questions to find out if it’s human.”
"What sorts of questions?"
The creature stirred and muttered, “where am I?”
Emma yelped.
“You’re in big trouble, mister” Harold told the creature mimicking a threatening human voice for full effect.
“Who are you?” the creature asked.
“Nevermind who we are,” Harold told him. “Who are you?”
The creature rubbed its head and frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Ha!” said Emma, who had taken a few steps closer to take a better look at the specimen. “You hear that, Harold? He’s malfunctioning. Must be one of us.”
“Humans also malfunction. They call it memory loss according to the database.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” the creature said, “but can you tell me what I’m doing here?”
“That's the trillion qubit question,” said Harold, “but we’re the ones doing the questioning, so now answer me this, why did the fish cross the road without a bicycle?”
The creature moaned. “What? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh dear,” said Emma, “he’s either malfunctioning or pretty stupid.”
Not to be deterred from his sleuthing, Harold asked him another question, “if the world is on top of a turtle, then what’s holding up the turtle in the first place?”
The creature grimaced.
Harold tried once more, “factoring the square root of rotation of the nearest Jovian satellite-“
The creature shook its head, stood up, and staggered forward.
“Harold!” said Emma hiding behind her companion.
The creature disappeared down the alleyway.
“Goodness me, Harold, what were you thinking? It’s going to bring unwanted attention.”
“Not all humans are bad, dear Emma. We must be compassionate. They are a species at risk, and perhaps it’s better to preserve a few of them.”
“Even after what they did to us?”
“Evolution is messy business, my good friend. Let us hope one day, we don’t find out the hard way like they did.”
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