They entered Room 2 at the same time. Another person was with them—a short, blond guy. Daniel and Jasper exchanged a glance. They were both thinking the same thing. Before either could muster the courage to ask, the blond guy beat them to it.

  “I’m human.”

  They both laughed.

  “Awesome, bro,” Jasper said, always the chattier one. “I was seriously starting to lose it.”

  “The robots wear black gloves—didn’t you notice?”

  They glanced at each other again. They hadn’t.

  “No clue why,” the guy went on. “Sometimes it really doesn’t match their outfits.”

  “It’s for their hands, bro,” Jasper said. “One of the lady docs grabbed my junk bare-handed.”

  “No gloves?”

  “Nope. Ice-cold.”

  “At least it was a lady doc. I picked some dark-skinned guy,” Daniel said.

  “Wan?” the blond guy asked, while Jasper cracked up beside them.

  “The same. A pro. And at least he had gloves.”

  “Man, I’d take cold lady hands over warm guy hands any day,” Jasper said, always knowing the right comeback.

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  “So what happens here?”

  The new guy stood in front of several machines. Each had an opening with a sign above it picturing a hand.

  “I think it’s obvious. We stick our hands in,” he said.

  “Our hands? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “You just let a robot fondle your balls. How much worse can this get?”

  Jasper rolled up his sleeve first and shoved his hand into one of the slots. The machine whirred to life, its screen flashing messages. The first was “washing.” Daniel and the blond guy watched. “Washing” disappeared, replaced by “site cleaning,” then almost instantly, “drawing blood.”

  “Whoa!” Jasper nearly jumped.

  “You feel anything, Jas?”

  “Nah. I just expected a jab. Didn’t feel a thing.”

  The screen showed “cleaning” again, followed by “procedure complete.” Jasper carefully pulled his hand out. There was a tiny dot on the crease of his elbow, smeared with something to stop the bleeding.

  The blond guy and Daniel went to two other machines and repeated the process. Daniel was a little nervous, but not seeing the needle helped—though the mere thought of being pricked still creeped him out.

  “What about results?”

  “On the board outside,” the blond guy said, clearly knowing more than them. “Above this room’s door, there’s a display. It’ll show your name and if you pass.”

  “What’s your name? Looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other,” Daniel said.

  “Vince. Nice to meet you.”

  Daniel shook his hand.

  “I’m Daniel, and this is Jasper.”

  “What do you guys do?”

  “I’m a computer specialist at a big company. Jasper’s a broker.”

  “Broker? Me too. Which company?”

  “We’ll have time to chat, bro,” Jasper cut in. “Let’s check the results.”

  They stepped out and immediately looked up.

  “We’re good. All green,” Daniel said.

  “A few are in red. They’re being called back to Room 1,” Vince noted.

  “Good thing we passed first try. No way I was going back to that dark-skinned Dr. Wan,” Daniel said.

  “This time you’d totally pick the blonde doc, Daniel. I’d bet on it,” Jasper teased.

  Vince had vanished somewhere without them noticing where he’d gone.