[ WP ] It 's painfully obvious that one of your friends is an android . You 've all just been very good sports about it .

Jeff is n't like the rest of us. 
 
 And that's because he's an android. A robot. A walking fax machine, according to my auntie Ingrid. You get the idea. But we try to make sure Jeff does n't feel that way. I mean, he knows it too - it's coded into his being - but he would n't be the first person to try to escape what he is. Yes, I said person. It's a habit now. 
 
 Jeff is a reject from the AI companion company DroidCon. You know, the one that makes robots that live in people's houses and do all the cooking, cleaning, watching the kids, and so on. And *other* things, if you want. 
 
 But Jeff, bless him, he just was n't cut out for all that. I guess something went wrong in his manufacture, because he's far more concerned with fitting in than he is with following orders. He's... *anxious* for lack of a better word. Let me backtrack a moment: Jeff belongs to my best mate Brandon. Brandon's dad did a runner when he was little and his mum got Jeff at a discount as house-help. But Jeff just could n't do anything properly. Broke half a set of dishes once. Brandon's mum was all about to junk him for being too defective, but she realized Brandon had gotten a bit attached ( he was having a tough time at school then, before he moved to our district and met us ). 
 
 And when Brandon *did* meet us, years later, Jeff was in tow and acting like a proper friend, even maybe like a cool older brother. And after a brief period of awkwardness we all decided he was just that. One of the club. It helped that he had no problem sneaking us booze from the locked cabinet at Brandon's house. He laughed at our jokes. He helped us when we fell down. He was a walking, talking Google search engine who had an answer for just about everything. Steve, our resident bookworm and debate team aficionado, was none too pleased at first, but then realized the merits of an informed opponent. Jeff is more knowledgeable and also more opinionated than most humans I've met. 
 
 And sure, maybe Jeff does n't breath or eat and needs to sit in a recharge pod for 6 hours instead of sleeping like we do, but honestly there are more obvious ways he could be different. He's done better by us than most people we've met, and that's something. 
 
 It's taken me a long time to realize just how special Jeff is. None of the rest of our families had an android, and so we assumed that they were all *mostly* like Jeff. Maybe less clumsy. 
 
 But just the other day, a representative from DroidCon showed up at Brandon's house all curious and wanting to see Jeff. Dunno how they heard about him. 
 
 But what got me is that, for the first time since I've known him, Jeff looks scared.
