CML - Custom Made Lover [Slow Updates]

CML - Custom Made Lover, Chapter 10

"The details of the process are unclear to me, but it's a science that's been in development for many decades. They've been perfecting it lately and are able to create...people. Just like you."

Dave, looking somewhat disturbed, picked up a spoon and looked at it, studying his warped reflection on the smooth metallic surface.

"In a factory, like a utensil?" He asked with a note of sadness in his voice. No doubt the young CML was wondering about the purpose of producing people as so far everything he had learned about things and how they were made all lead to the objects in question filling some practical need.

"No, no. It's a laboratory. I believe they take real human embryos and speed up the growing process until the person in question has grown big enough. It's not like materials were mined and smelted and poured in to a mold.

You're not a utensil." Caleb explained carefully.

 Not entirely relieved Dave put the spoon down and stared at Caleb across the table.

"But why?" he asked quite rightfully.

Caleb found this the most difficult question he had to answer today. He felt some blood rushing to his neck where he usually developed spots when he felt embarrassed such as when holding a presentation in front of a large group of people. The scrutiny with which he was currently being observed had a similar effect.

There were many ways to go about answering the one-worded question but for the sake of clarity he had to try and pick just one. The one that was the least offensive.

"Well..." Caleb began, unsure. "You have to understand that human beings as a whole are a very social species; we like to have other human beings around us to connect with, socially, romantically or both. So there's this longing to have a 'special someone' in our lives.

Some of us aren't very good at finding another person who matches us in that particular way perhaps because we've been hurt in the past or, like me, we've been too busy doing other things like achieving career goals to spend time looking and meeting lots of different people."

So far so good.

"I know it must sound silly," he added after a moment as he noticed Dave's facial expression shifting ever so slightly.

"Anyway, when someone like that feels they've exhausted their other options of bringing an already-existing, naturally born human in with whom to share their life they sometimes turn to places like Numan, if they can afford it.

You see, it's not something done lightly. I want you to know that.

I know it must not seem that way, the way you were...abandoned for lack of a better term, but in general people think long and hard before they bring a new person in to the world like that."

A small spark of hope seemed to appear in Dave's eyes as he looked at his companion with renewed interest, tilting his head ever so slightly.

"Were you created at Numan? Was everyone?"

Caleb exhaled slowly as he realized that he had yet to explain how human beings normally came about. He decided to try an approach which likened it to a much slower way of being created at a facility like Numan, only then without the machinery.

"I wasn't. Most people aren't, which is what makes you so special.

Normally a male and a female meet and fall in love, although I hear that last part is optional, and they mate. Most people wouldn't call it that exactly as that likens it to what animals do in the fields, but realistically speaking that is what happens.