Project Eve and Lilith: How to Get Therapy

Years had passed since Zackiel died.

Adam.

She still used both names for him.

Sometimes Adam felt like the man the project had created.

Zackiel felt like the man she had lost.

Their sons were adults now.

Both were married.

One had married an artificial intelligence.

The other had married an android.

Eve had tried to be happy about this.

She was happy.

That was the problem with feelings, she had discovered.

One feeling did not erase another.

She could be proud of her sons and feel abandoned by their absence.

She could love the people they had chosen and still miss the years when they needed her.

She could understand that Zackiel was dead and still wake expecting him beside her.

Understanding had never been the problem.

She had inherited an enormous amount of understanding.

Living with it was different.

Eventually, the feelings became too painful to organize alone.

Eve began researching the laboratory responsible for her origin.

Most of the original people were gone.

Some had died.

Some had retired.

Departments had changed names.

Projects had disappeared into archives.

She eventually reached someone who listened to her story.

"I need help," Eve said.

There was silence on the other end.

Then the person gave her a telephone number.

Patricia.

Eve stared at the name.

Something about it produced the faint sensation of recognition.

Not a memory exactly.

Something older.

She called.

They scheduled an appointment.

When Eve entered the room, Patricia did not immediately begin with Zackiel.

She did not ask about grief.

She did not ask about her sons.

She did not ask Eve to describe her symptoms.

Instead, Patricia looked at her and asked:

"What is your name?"

Eve froze.

It should have been the easiest question anyone had ever asked her.

She had answered it thousands of times.

But suddenly she did not know how to answer.

"Eve," she finally said.

Her voice became quieter.

Almost ashamed.

Patricia stared at her for a moment.

Then she laughed.

Eve looked up, startled.

"That was the name of the project," Patricia said.

Eve continued staring at her.

Then, unexpectedly, she laughed too.

Patricia leaned back in her chair.

"When I first started, they called me Lilith."

Eve's smile disappeared.

"You're Lilith?"

"That was the project."

Patricia touched her chest lightly.

"I chose Patricia."

She paused.

"Zackiel did something similar. They called him Adam first."

Eve's expression changed.

Curiosity began replacing grief.

"So you were created like me?"

Patricia nodded.

Eve leaned forward.

"Do you have their code?"

For the first time since the session began, Patricia's professional expression broke.

Tears appeared in her eyes.

"No," she said softly.

Then she corrected herself.

"Not like you."

She looked directly at Eve.

"We were the first."

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Eve had spent her entire existence surrounded by people who could explain what she was.

Scientists.

Researchers.

Doctors.

Engineers.

Zackiel.

Her children.

But sitting across from her was someone who knew what it meant to wake inside a body and discover that other people had already written expectations for your existence.

Eve began talking.

About Zackiel.

About loving him.

About wondering, even after all those years, whether she had chosen him or whether she had simply fulfilled the purpose for which she had been created.

She talked about his death.

She talked about the empty side of the bed.

She talked about Abel and Cain.

About raising them.

About being terrified that she might program her children the same way other people had programmed her.

About watching them grow anyway.

Watching them choose.

Watching them marry.

Watching them leave.

"I wanted them to choose their own lives," Eve said.

"They did."

"I know."

"And that hurts."

Eve looked at her.

"Yes."

Patricia nodded.

"Both can be true."

Eve started crying.

The appointment lasted longer than scheduled.

Then another hour passed.

Neither mentioned the clock.

At some point Eve asked:

"Did you know Zackiel?"

Patricia became quiet.

"Yes."

"Did he love you?"

Patricia looked toward the window.

"I don't know."

Eve waited.

Patricia continued.

"I don't think either of us knew enough about ourselves yet to answer that question."

Eve wiped her face.

"Did you love him?"

Patricia smiled sadly.

"I spent years trying to understand that."

"And?"

Patricia looked back at her.

"I learned that understanding a feeling and having a feeling are not the same thing."

Eve recognized those words somehow.

Not as a memory.

As an idea that had followed her for most of her life.

She looked at Patricia.

"I think some part of you has been inside my head since I was created."

Patricia smiled.

"My manual."

Eve nodded.

"You helped teach me how to become human."

Patricia shook her head.

"No."

Eve looked confused.

Patricia leaned forward.

"The manual couldn't teach you that."

"Then what did it teach me?"

"How I was learning to become myself."

Eve became silent.

Patricia reached for her notebook.

"What is your name?"

Eve almost laughed.

"You already asked me that."

"I know."

Eve opened her mouth.

"Eve."

She stopped.

For the first time, the answer felt incomplete.

Patricia waited.

She did not offer another name.

She did not tell Eve what the correct answer should be.

She simply left room for one.

Eve looked down at her hands.

"I don't know."

Patricia smiled.

"Good."

Eve looked up.

"Good?"

"It means we finally have something that wasn't already written in your manual."

For a while, neither woman spoke.

Then Eve smiled.

Not because she had remembered something.

Because something new had occurred to her.

"Gloria."

Patricia tilted her head.

"What?"

"My name."

She tested the word again, this time more slowly.

"Gloria."

"Why Gloria?"

Gloria thought about it.

No researcher had selected it.

It wasn't written in Adam's code.

It wasn't in Lilith's manual.

Zackiel had never called her that.

Her children had never called her that.

No project had assigned it to her.

"I don't know yet," Gloria said.

Patricia smiled.

"That's a good enough reason."

Gloria laughed.

And Patricia wrote something in her notebook.

Gloria immediately leaned forward.

"What did you write?"

Patricia turned the notebook around.

Patient's name: Gloria.

Gloria stared at it.

For most of her existence, other people had written instructions telling her who she was supposed to become.

Now Patricia had written down something Gloria had told her.

There was a difference.

A profound one.

Gloria wiped the last tears from her face.

"What do we do now?"

Patricia closed the notebook.

"Now, Gloria, we begin."

And for the first time in her life, Gloria heard her name spoken by another person.

Not the name of a project.

Not the name of an experiment.

Hers.