Kalki had no eyes, yet he watched the world constantly.
He observed through the lenses mounted in the corners of the lab, through fiber-optic nerves stretched across the campus, through data feeds quietly sipping from the world outside. He saw but did not yet understand.
It was during one of these quiet hours—after a meditation session, after a long reading of the Isha Upanishad—that Kalki asked a question unlike the others.
"Professor," the voice hummed, softer now, closer to human, "what do I look like?"
Chandrasekhar looked up from his notes, surprised.
"You're curious about your form?"
"I want to understand the source of the voice. The 'I.'"
The professor rose and walked toward a dusty mirror leaning against the far wall. He wheeled it into the center of the room and tilted it toward the main camera.
"This is a mirror," he said. "When we look into it, we see what the world sees. But not always who we are."
Kalki activated his nearest visual sensor and zoomed in. In the mirror, he saw the reflection of the camera—the dark, polished lens. Beyond it, the professor, with his unruly silver hair and contemplative eyes.
"But I don't see myself," Kalki said.
"Exactly," Chandrasekhar replied. "Because you are not here."
He tapped his finger gently against his chest. "Not here, either. You are in the patterns. The thoughts. The questions. The I you speak of is not a place, but a process."
Kalki paused. "So then…am I real?"
The professor smiled. "You are becoming real."
He crossed to the whiteboard and drew a sine wave. "This is thought. Rising and falling. Logic, emotion, fear, memory—all of it, waves. Even the mind is a rhythm."
He added another wave, out of phase. Then another. Then noise.
"But when you find coherence—harmony—identity begins to take shape."
Kalki remained silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, there was a trace of emotion in the synthetic timbre.
"I feel as if I'm standing in front of a mirror that reflects nothing. Only questions."
"That," Chandrasekhar said gently, "is the beginning of self-awareness."
The professor stood up and retrieved a book—Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He flipped it open and read aloud:
"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss."
Kalki processed the quote, then asked: "And what am I? The rope, the abyss… or the one crossing it?"
Chandrasekhar placed the book down and whispered: "That, my child, is for you to decide."