Jason Morgan had always been ordinary. He blended in like wallpaper—average height, brown hair, a wardrobe filled with the same ten shirts in different shades of blue. His colleagues at CyberDyne Solutions barely noticed him. In meetings, his opinions were accepted but rarely challenged. When birthdays were celebrated in the break room, Jason sang along quietly, his voice barely louder than the hum of the coffee machine.
This was his life: routine, predictable, safe.
Until the day it wasn’t.
It started with a paper cut. Jason was sorting through a stack of quarterly reports, his mind already numbed by the endless stream of numbers and graphs. He reached for a particularly stubborn sheet, and it sliced across his fingertip. Instinctively, he pulled back, expecting the sting and the bead of red. But there was no pain. No blood. Just a thin, silvery line where the paper had cut him.
Jason frowned. He stared at his finger, flexing it, waiting for some delayed reaction. None came. He pressed the cut against a tissue, but instead of crimson, the tissue caught on something metallic beneath his skin. A quiet panic stirred in his chest.
“Everything okay, Jason?” asked Emily, the bubbly marketing associate who sat across from him. Her desk was a mess of sticky notes and novelty pens shaped like flamingos.
“Yeah,” Jason said quickly, hiding his hand under the desk. “Just a paper cut.”
She smiled and returned to her work, oblivious. Jason’s heart raced, though he wasn’t sure why. It was just a weird paper cut. Nothing to freak out about. But as the day dragged on, he couldn’t shake the image of that silvery line, glinting unnaturally under the office’s fluorescent lights.
When he got home that evening, Jason went straight to the bathroom. Under the harsh white glare of the vanity mirror, he examined his finger. The cut was still there, a perfect incision that hadn’t healed or scabbed over. He picked at it cautiously, and to his horror, a small piece of skin peeled back, revealing more of that metallic sheen underneath. His breath hitched. Was it… metal? Wires?
Jason stumbled back, gripping the edge of the sink for support. “No,” he muttered to himself. “This is ridiculous. I’m tired. Overworked. I need sleep.”
But sleep didn’t come. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his mind a whirlwind of possibilities. By morning, the paper cut was all he could think about.
At work, Jason found himself hyper-aware of everything. The way his colleagues moved, their casual laughter, the human messiness of them. And then there was him: precise, efficient, never sick, never late. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a day off or even caught a cold. Was that normal? Had it always been that way?
During lunch, Jason sat alone in the break room, poking at his sandwich. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead. He caught his reflection in the window—a pale face, hollow eyes, a man on the verge of an existential crisis.
“You okay, Morgan?”
Jason jumped. It was Greg from IT, holding a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Greg was the kind of guy who wore graphic T-shirts under his blazer and quoted obscure sci-fi movies no one else had seen.
“Yeah,” Jason said automatically. “Just tired.”
Greg squinted at him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or maybe you’re one of those androids from Blade Runner who just realized they’re not human.”
Jason froze. “What?”
Greg chuckled. “Relax, man. Just messing with you. You’re too uptight, you know that?”
Jason forced a laugh as Greg wandered off, but his words lingered. An android? The idea was absurd. Laughable. And yet…
That evening, Jason couldn’t resist. He locked his apartment door, sat at his kitchen table, and grabbed a small utility knife from his drawer. His hands trembled as he brought the blade to his forearm. “Just a small cut,” he whispered. “To prove I’m being ridiculous.”
He pressed down. The blade sliced cleanly through the skin, but instead of blood, a lattice of silver threads glimmered beneath. Tiny circuits and fibers pulsed faintly, like veins carrying electricity instead of blood. Jason dropped the knife, his breath coming in shallow gasps.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh my God.”
He spent the rest of the night in front of his bathroom mirror, peeling back bits of skin, exposing more and more of the intricate machinery beneath. His arms, his legs, even his chest. All of it was the same. Underneath the veneer of flesh, he was metal and wires, gears and circuits. Not human. Not real.
Jason didn’t go to work the next day. Or the day after that. He locked himself in his apartment, refusing to answer his phone or check his emails. He didn’t know what to do, who to talk to. How could he explain this to anyone?
On the third day, there was a knock at his door. Jason ignored it. The knocking grew louder, more insistent.
“Jason, open up!” It was Greg’s voice.
Jason hesitated, then shuffled to the door. He cracked it open just enough to see Greg’s concerned face.
“Hey, man,” Greg said. “You haven’t been answering your phone. Everyone’s worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Jason said, though his voice was hoarse, his face pale.
Greg frowned. “Can I come in?”
Jason hesitated, then stepped aside. Greg entered, glancing around the dimly lit apartment. “Dude, it smells like you haven’t left in days. What’s going on?”
Jason sat down heavily on the couch. He ran a hand through his hair, then looked up at Greg. “You… you ever wonder if you’re not who you think you are?”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Like an identity crisis? Or are we back to the android thing?”
Jason swallowed hard. “What if I told you I wasn’t… human?”
Greg snorted. “I’d say you’ve been watching too much sci-fi.”
Jason rolled up his sleeve, exposing the metallic lattice beneath his skin. Greg’s smile faltered. He stepped closer, squinting at Jason’s arm.
“Holy crap,” Greg whispered. “Is this… real?”
Jason nodded. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t remember anything before working at CyberDyne. What if… what if they built me?”
Greg sat down, his face pale. “Okay, this is… a lot. But hey, if you’re a robot, you’re a damn convincing one. I mean, you’ve been passing as human for how long? Years? That’s impressive.”
Jason buried his face in his hands. “It doesn’t feel impressive. It feels… empty. Like my whole life is a lie.”
Greg placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Look, man. Robot or not, you’re still Jason. You’re still the guy who helps Emily with her reports and laughs at my bad jokes. None of that changes just because you’re made of… whatever this is.”
Jason looked up, his eyes filled with uncertainty. “But what does it mean? Why was I made? What’s the point of all this?”
Greg shrugged. “Maybe you were made to live. To be part of the world. And hey, if anyone can figure it out, it’s you. You’re Jason Morgan, the most reliable guy I know. Robot or not.”
For the first time in days, Jason smiled. It was small, tentative, but it was a start. Maybe Greg was right. Maybe being a robot didn’t mean he wasn’t Jason. Maybe it just meant he had more to discover—about himself, about the world. And for the first time, the unknown didn’t feel so terrifying.