Trying to find home

2

I walked up to the large building, a half smile on my face. That's the closest I got to a smile at this point. I pushed the doors open and waved at the woman at the front desk. She smiled brightly before turning back to her phone. I pulled my ID card out of my pocket and showed it to the elevator doors. They shot open and I stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief. I had made it with little incident. I pulled out my ear piece from my backpack and plugged it into my ear. "Hey Lilith!" I said, excited to be back working on her program.

"Hello Celeste!" She replied, finally not sounding robotic. I had figured out how to make her sound half way normal. I mean, you could still tell she wasn't a person, but it was a step up from what it was before.

"Ready for the new update?" I asked her. I had been planning out this for at least a month. I was going to add in a lie detector to Lilith. I was going to program her to recognize the signals most people had when they lied. I had gotten a lot of video footage to test her on her knowledge and I think I finally had it down. All I had left to do was test it.

"Yes." She replied. "But how are you going to test it? I can't do it on you, so what am I going to do?"

"I got plenty of clips from the internet, so we should be fine." I swear, Lilith acted like a real person sometimes. She comes up with questions on her own and she always has something to say. I loved her, but I couldn't have her on all the time. It would look really weird if I talked to her all day, it would just look like I'm talking to myself. So I take out the ear piece any time I'm not in the tower. I also had a clip on microphone and contacts that acted as a camera. I left those on all the time just in case something happens and I need to look back on it.

The elevator doors opened with a loud beep and I stepped out to immediately be trampled by Nora, another intern. "Sorry!" She called out behind her, her arms full of files. "This all needs to get to the top floor ASAP!" She took my spot in the elevator as the doors shut. I sighed loudly as I turned back around. Nora was always running up and down, bringing things everywhere. She seemed to think doing all of that would somehow impress someone important. The only person she impressed was Andy, the weird security guy, who just enjoyed looking down her shirt through the elevator cameras. The only reason I know is because I temporarily hacked the the security feed and watched him zoom in on her chest. He was disgusting.

"Celeste!" Rick yelled as I walked through the studio. "Can you help us out for a second?" I sighed, wanting to get to Lilith as fast as possible, but still stopped to help.

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I finally made it back to my corner of the large room with my computer. It hadn't taken me long to fix their problem, but it felt like eternity. I was about to set my stuff down when I saw the backpack. It was sitting in my chair. Now, we didn't have any assigned seats or anything like that, but I sat in the same spot everyday. No one took my seat. I stared at the bag for a while, waiting for the dipshit to come back.

"That's the new guys stuff." Someone said from behind me. I turned around to see that Nora was back. "I'm sure he'd be more than willing to move." I sighed, but turned around and went off to find coffee. It was the only thing that would keep me from falling asleep later.

As I was pouring myself a cup, I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

"Are you Celeste?" A brown haired boy asked me.

"That's me." I replied, glancing up only briefly.

"You were be girl that created Lilith, right? That super advanced AI?"

"Yup." If he was expecting a longer answer, he wasn't getting one. I hated explaining Lilith to anyone else. I hated people in general.

"I didn't know you worked here! I would've come down earlier if I had known you were here!" I turned my head to the side as I put the lid on my drink.

"What do you mean you would've come do....... oh! You're the Stark kid!" Everyone knew that the great Tony Stark has adopted a kid about a year ago. It was all the news could talk about for months. He blushed.

"That's me! My names Peter!" He stuck out his hand to me, but I just took a big gulp of coffee. It burned my mouth and throat but it was too late to back out now. He blushed even redder as he pulled his hand back. "Well, see ya!" He waved as he walked away. I gave him a small wave before I picked up my bag and went to go find the idiot in my spot. Lilith had been strangely quiet these past few minutes, usually she never shut up. I froze when I saw who was sitting in my place. It was that freaking Stark kid! I clenched my hands into fists, but I took the seat opposite of him.

"We can take him, Celeste!" I pulled out my computer, ignoring Lilith's comment. "Come on Celeste! We can do it!" I lightly shook my head as I began to download her new update. The whole lab was silent, staring at me and Peter. They were wondering when I would snap and yell at him to get out of my seat.

"Close your mouth, Rick. You'll catch a fly." His mouth snapped shut at my comment. Peter seemed to finally see all the eyes on us.

"What?" He asked, his voice quiet. Nora walked up to him, taking pity on him.

"Thats her spot." She pointed at me. I didn't look up, pretending not to hear her. He glanced around, confused.

"Just tell him to move! Then I can get my update!" I ignored Lilith again. I was already beginning her update, so I don't know why she was bugging me about it. I plugged in the last bit I needed and began to pull up all the videos I had.

"Oh! Sorry! I didn't mean to...." the boy looked guilty as he stared at his feet. I continued to work on my computer, trying to ignore all the distractions in the room. It grew harder and harder to concentrate as Peter kept trying to talk to me. "Here, you can have it back!" He stood up and began to pack up his things. I stood as well, but I just grabbed my stuff and left the room. There was another place to work down the hall. It still wasn't my spot, but it would work. As long as it was quiet.

I brought up the videos for Lilith to go through and hit play.

"Lie," said Lilith to the first video.

"Why?" I countered. I needed to know why she picked each option to make sure what she was using to figure it out was correct and could be used in other instances.

"His heart rate increased significantly and his breathing became more rapid." I nodded indicating she was correct.

Lilith said something else, but suddenly I couldn't hear her. My head was spinning and everything seemed really fuzzy........

My head hit the computer, snapping me out of my daze.

"You seem to be suffering from malnutrition, would you like me to seek help?" Lilith sounded concerned.

"No, I'm fine Lilith. I'm fine......" I played the next video, but I knew she would bring it up later. She never forgot about anything, which sometimes was a pain in the ass. I focused back in on Lilith and her new update, trying to forget the hollow pain in my empty stomach.

(Now I see that I changed perspectives during this chapter for no reason. Sorry about that but I'm honestly too lazy to fix it)