My journey is marked out on my map of Australia. Since the beginning, since I first created my exterior, it’s been that way. It all started in Brisbane, the destination of my curse. Andrew Jr. barely counted as a human lookalike back then, so no one wanted to date him. His skin was too pasty and fake, stretched across his skeleton, assembled from thick iron rods. You could easily tell he wasn’t breathing at all, and that his heart did not beat. Andrew Jr. is a machine. He can’t have a beating heart or real cells. Even I can’t do that much.

Once I’d first assembled him, I ran away from home with a suitcase of belongings to my first destination, Ipswich. Andrew Jr. had a major upgrade there. I managed to piece together a full muscle system out of a spongy material I found in an old dumpsite. It was also the birthplace of my first real girlfriend. Marcia soon gave me away with her petrified screams though, so I moved onto Logan, the next town marked out on my map.

Now, four years later, my exterior is perfect, and my map has almost reached its capacity. I’ve walked, hitch hiked, smuggled and cycled myself across Australia. My final destination is Hobart, Tasmania, before I continue my search for the perfect girl overseas. I have a feeling I won’t make it that far. I also have a feeling that Andrew Jr. will make a decent home for the rest of my life. There’s basically no chance in finding someone over in Tasmania. I’ve already tried the rest of the continent.

As I walk out of the town of Geelong and onto the highway in the morning light, I begin mapping out my next step in my journey of love. Walking across Andrew Jr.’s control room, I flip a switch over to automatic and study the cut out of Australia I found on a brochure a few months ago. The edges are faded and crumpled from the many times I’ve studied it. I place my index finger on ‘Geelong’ and trace the road map downwards, resting the pad of my finger on the nearby airport. I scramble back to the exterior’s steering wheel and press a few buttons expertly. Through the windows of Andrew Jr.’s eyes, I watch as his arm stretches forward to reveal the time.

“Okay Andy, I’m gonna have to set us onto ‘Forrest Gump Mode’ if we’re going to get to Tassie in time.” I mutter, stroking my freshly shaven chin. I smile slightly, stepping around my exterior’s control panels until I reach a giant red button in the corner, near a trapdoor which leads to Andrew Jr.’s left ear. “Here we go, Andy…”

I mash my palm down on the button and the world of Andrew Jr. jolts. As usual, I grip the side of the wall, where there’s a little metal bar installed for me to hold onto as my exterior’s body switches off ‘walking mode’ and into ‘forrest gump mode’. After a few seconds of gear changing and rumbling, which wouldn’t be heard outside the body of course, Andrew Jr. Begins to run steadily down the highway. As cars zoom past him as he runs nonstop at an insanely fast sprinting pace, I program one of his arms to wave. It can be funny sometimes, to live in the cockpit of an exterior like Andrew Jr.

The police never follow me out of town, if they’re hailed by one of my target girls. Even if they did, Andrew Jr. is about as harmless as a fly and wouldn’t be a suspect in a crime like that. Identical to his interior, Andrew Jr. is thin, faintly muscled and hardly the kind of guy whose neck would slide off his own shoulders to reveal his interior. Usually, the girls are dubbed crazy and shipped away.

I wish I could tell them that I’m sorry in person.

As Andrew Jr. runs, I tear my eyes away from the road ahead and walk cross the controller’s room to a fireman’s pole, which I slide down through into Room N. This room’s oddly shaped, for a specific purpose. The arched roof, the two vacuum cleaner-like nozzles at the back. The two open holes before me. Room N control’s my exterior’s nose. Sometimes, on long journeys like these, I come here to smell the flowers… quite literally.

Everything Andrew Jr. smells, I smell. Everything he hears, I hear, and vice versa. I made him that way. Took me a little over a year to perfect, but I’ve gotten him to that stage. Now all I can do is see how everything pans out, with you know… getting a girlfriend and all… or nine hundred.

It takes Andrew Jr. a little over an hour to run to the Melbourne Airport. It’s a record speed, I know, but when I set him onto the ‘forrest gump mode’, I truly mean it. My exterior runs literally like the Forrest Gump in the movie… only triple that since he can’t run out of breath like a human can. One of the benefits of having an Exterior is that he’ll never run out of anything. Because he’s programmed to run on air. Once, I had him take me at a nonstop running pace from Brisbane to Sydney. And that’s over 1000kms flat. It took us thirteen or so hours, without a break.

Once my exterior arrives, I switch him back onto the regular ‘walking mode’ and program his mouth to pant slightly, to ease suspicions about his… well, human likeness. I drum my fingers against the steering wheel I sit before, as Andrew Jr.’s ears fill with the latest pop music. I press a button on the dashboard of one of the control panels quickly, to block out the air conditioning from the vast white walled airport. As the interior, I’m extremely sensitive to the cold.

“I’d like a single ticket to Tasmania, please.” I tell the woman behind the counter, through the speaker box I use to project words through my exterior’s mouth. The receptionist eyes me up and down with obvious curiosity. My exterior doesn’t look out of place, of course, but it’s Andrew Jr.’s distinct beauty that startles her. And his eyes, of course. During my curse, my blue eyes switched to their current, deep honey colour. Through the windows of my exterior’s eyes, I can see the woman swallowing in shock.

“Of course.” She says tersely, before adding. “Do you wear contacts?”  

Quickly, I tilt a joystick back and forth so that Andrew Jr. nods once. “Yeah, I’m going to a… um… fancy dress party in Tasmania.” As soon as I’ve said it, I realise how absolutely stupid it sounds. I laugh out loud in the soundproof control room at the woman’s reaction to my comment. She rolls her eyes lazily and hands me a ticket.

“Sure, kid.” She waves me onwards. Having no luggage with me, apart from an orange backpack which contains spare parts for Andrew Jr, I continue on my way to the loading dock and take a seat to wait for my flight.

Three hours later, I’ve arrived in Hobart. I step out into the cool air and I can’t help but shiver, from within Andrew Jr. I make a mental note to buy some new clothes to fit an interior like me while I’m here. Speeding through quarantine and hastily dodging a metal detector (which would totally bust my cover since I’m the interior of a robot) I program Andrew Jr. so he strides outside the airport and onto a busy city street amongst a clutter of tourists, probably new arrivals like myself.

I weave through countless backstreets to get my bearings before seating myself down in the shade of an old oak tree outside a school. Andrew Jr. props his back up against the thick trunk. I take a step back for a minute to enjoy the scenery, my hands blistering against from continually turning knobs, jiggling joysticks and tugging at steering wheels.

Tired as ever, I rise from my chair in the centre of the control room and walk over to a small collection of blankets and pillows in the corner of the room. Flopping my weary body onto the bed of soft cushions, I take a minute to jab a nearby button which slides the blinds of my exterior’s eyelids shut before falling into a deep sleep.

****

“Hello?” A pause. “Um… I’m sorry, I just needed directions… oh god this is weird…” I snap my eyes open and rush back to the control panel’s seat, tapping a button. Light streams into the room as Andrew Jr.’s eyelids flutter back open. I instantly come face to face with a girl, who smiles sheepishly at my exterior form her kneeling position in front of me. I program Andrew Jr. to straighten himself up and blink twice to ‘steady himself’. Little movements that a human would undertake. Little movements that get me out of trouble and out of sight. From the outside, my exterior is about as inconspicuous as everyone else.

“Oh, you’re awake!” The girl exclaims, still wearing the same sheepish expression. Andrew Jr. nods and rubs the back of his neck with his right hand. I squint through the thick glass ovals of my exterior’s eyes to make out the girl before me. She’s short and thin with flowing black hair and thin black framed glasses. Her eyes are lime green behind them. She looks about my age, actually. “Sorry to startle you.” She continues, sounding a little frazzled. “It’s just, I don’t really know where I am and I thought you went to St Josephs with me so…”

“St Josephs?” I ask through Andrew Jr.’s mouth. The girl stiffens a little and her cheeks flame with embarrassment.

“Um... it’s that boarding school over there. I’m sorry… I’m a senior there. I just thought you, you know, went there too.” I follow her finger as she points to the school, just across from the park we’re seated in. Students mill around the large brick building in the centre, chatting noisily.

“It’s alright.” Andrew Jr. assures her. “I just got off a plane here, actually. I’m from Melbourne.”

The girl nods, after a long, awkward pause. “Cool. Well… I’m Emily, so…” She bites her lip to stop herself babbling. Andrew Jr. moves his lips into a gentle smile. I feel myself smiling too, actually. A girl has never really had that effect on me before. Hope bubbles in my chest as I stare out through my exterior’s eyes.

“I’m Andrew.” I introduce myself through Andrew Jr.’s mouth. “Andrew Lawson.”

Emily opens her mouth into the shape of an ‘o’ and then smiles cheekily. “Really?” She twirls a strand of her ebony hair. “Like the mental disorder?”

“Mental disorder?”

Her smile widens and she leans in close. “There’s this disorder in Australia, apart from Tassie of course, that’s been called the ‘Andrew Lawson’s Disorder’. It’s only happened to girls so far, but the effects are always the same.” Suddenly the air around me loses a few degrees in temperature. I stiffen at the steering wheel of my exterior’s control panel. I’ve become a… disorder now? “It starts with the screaming.” Emily continues, as if nothing’s changed. “The victims can’t stop dreaming and having terrible visions of robots and aliens. Then they go into shock because they think they’ve been dating a guy called Andrew, who’s supposed to be alien. So far, everyone affected has gone to hospital. There have been suicides, too.”

I swallow hard, tears pricking my eyes. I’ve killed people. I’ve pretended to be Andrew Jr. and killed. I’ve driven these girls insane. I’m a monster, just like Mist told me in my dreams all those times. I put my head in my hands, barely registering what the girl is saying. But I hear her story nevertheless through the ears of Andrew Jr, as much as it pains me.

“Apparently, everyone affected brings up this crackpot story about dating a guy called Andrew, and once they’ve built a relationship, the guy, Andrew, tells her he has a secret. And then, according to the chicks, this Andrew guy’s nick slides off and a…” She breaks off in a fit of laughter. Meanwhile, I try to control my terrified breathing. What if they find out who I am? I’d be killed. Dissected probably, because my cursed self would be something the world would never have laid their eyes on before. Emily continues laughing before it turns to a few heavy pants.

“I’m sorry!” She giggles. “The next part was just so stupid! I mean; how could there even be a disorder like this!?”

I bite my lip and lean forward in my seat so I can speak through the microphone connected to Andrew Jr.’s mouth. “What’s stupid?” I ask tightly.

Emily takes a deep breath to stop her fits of giggles before shooting me a firm look. “According to the sites on the internet and all, out of Andrew’s neck, which seperates from his body somehow comes a dude.”

The horrified look somehow manages to slip from my own face to Andrew Jr.’s, because Emily snickers at the reaction.

“Yep, a dude.” She says. “And not just any ‘dude’. Out of Andrew’s neck comes a tiny guy. About three or four inches tall. And you know what the creepy part is? The bit that scares all the girls into suicide?”

Andrew Jr. shakes his head abruptly, causing me to shudder from the steering wheel. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping I can blot out the girl’s piercing voice. But like before, Andrew Jr. is still just as tuned into the conversation as before.

“The scary bit about it is,” Emily whispers. “Is that the tiny guy, the guy who came out of Andrew’s neck is an exact replica of Andrew. Down to the last tiny detail.” She smiles at the reaction still plastered on Andrew Jr.’s unmoving face. Before saying. “It’d be cool to meet this Andrew Lawson, actually.”

Wish granted. I think, before clawing at my face fearfully.

They know my secret…

They know my curse.