Making Friends

On his twenty-first birthday, Oscar the mechahuman emerged from the
womb and was given a cellular phone. He'd been educated in numbers and
was aware of the concept of buttons, but that still made the purpose of
this device beyond his understanding. Released into the world, Oscar
the mechahuman had nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and
the phone in his hand.

Experimentation and exploration being key facets of a mechahuman's
sentience just as they are a human's, Oscar stood in the shadow of a
shop doorway and pressed the buttons on his phone. He liked the number
8 because of the way it had no start and no end but seemed to curl on
forever, so he pressed that a lot. He also liked the number 4 for the
complete opposite reason, so he pressed that too.

"Hello?" said someone at the other end.

"Hello," said Oscar the mechahuman. "Who is this?"

"This is Mike."

"Are you a mechahuman?"

"Yes."

"Will you be my friend?"

"Sure. Come round and let's meet."

So Oscar the mechahuman went round and met Mike the mechahuman. Mike
the mechahuman introduced Oscar to several other mechahumans he'd met
much the same way as Oscar had found him. Oscar made friends of them
all. Then they called their mechahuman friends on their phones and
Oscar made friends of them too.

It was only when his own phone rang for the first time that they all
learnt of Oscar's frightening inadequacy.

"I don't know my own number," he admitted.

It had never occurred to him that he had one.

"Well, aren't you going to answer it, then?" said Mike.

"Hello?" said Oscar into the phone.

"Hello. My name's Ben."

"Hello, I'm Oscar. Are you a mechahuman too?"

"Yes, I am. Will you be my friend?"

"Yes. Why don't you come round? We're having a party."

And thus Oscar's new friend Ben the mechahuman made friends of the
friends of Oscar's other friends as well. But they, meanwhile, had not
forgotten Oscar's recent confession and decided to confront him over
it.

"Do you know my number, Oscar?"

"What's my number, Oscar? Don't you know?"

"Don't you care?"

As they drove him out of the building, Oscar the mechahuman looked to
Ben to save him from the encroaching loneliness. But Ben the mechahuman
had found his place amongst the friends of the friends that were now
Oscar's ex-friends. He knew his own number. Now they all knew it too.
But nobody knew Oscar's number, not even Oscar, who didn't know
anybody's.

Oscar the mechahuman walked alone through the night time streets. He
had lost all appreciation for the numbers 4 and 8, so keyed in 5s and
9s instead. A female voice answered the phone.

"Who's that?"

"I'm Oscar the mechahuman."

"Oh! Do you want to be friends?"

"Can we meet?"

"Yes. Come round. I'm all alone."

"Before I do, what's your number?"

"It's 5995559."

"Do you know mine?"

"Yes. It says 6367179."

"Thank you."

Sally the mechahuman lived in the park where she turned out to have
plenty of friends and no need to phone for new ones. This time Oscar
wasn't going to make the same mistake and told all his new friends the
number Sally had told him on the phone.

One day he saw Ben the mechahuman come into the park but Ben didn't
know Oscar's number anymore so Oscar didn't know Ben either. Ben had
been driven out by Mike when Mike learnt Ben had sold his phone. Ben
hadn't thought he'd need one now, seeing as he had all the friends he'd
want or need. Now he had none, and none that would replace those he had
lost.

Then one day, Oscar's phone disappeared. At the same time, Sally the
mechahuman disappeared too. He wanted to phone her whilst he still had
her number but of course had no way to do it. The park was full of
mechahumans, but without his phone Oscar could not tell which were
Sally's friends.

He left the park in search of his phone wondering who might be trying
to call him at that very moment. All of his friends would think it was
he who had disappeared and that scared Oscar. That scared him a
lot.