"You're probably wondering why I brought you out here, Miss Park."

Probably was an understatement. Willow Park's job was maintaining the famous gardens surrounding the Titan Inc. headquarters in Silicon Valley. Some would argue her job is very important, but never in a million years did Willow expect she'd be flown out to the distant Alaska estate of the company's reclusive co-founder Philip Wittebane. But somehow that's exactly what happened. And now it's just her and a man more than twice her age, with no other human beings present for miles.

"Yes I am, sir, Mr. Wittebane," said Willow awkwardly.

Philip smiled in a somewhat friendly manner. "As you know I've spent the past ten years working clandestinely on an important project," he said. "I've constructed a robot more sophisticated than anything the world has seen," said Philip. "And I want you to meet it. Traditionally, a machine's intelligence would be measured by a Turing test, where a human and a computer interact with each other without the human knowing who they're talking to is artificial." He made a scoffing motion with his hand. "But my robot is more than advanced enough to pass that test easily. No, a better test would be whether or not someone can have genuine human interactions with it despite already knowing it's artificial. And that's where you come in."

Willow didn't know what to think. A robot? With human intelligence? This is completely revolutionary, and more importantly, well above her pay grade. "With all due respect, sir," she said, trying (and failing) to hide her nervousness, "this seems like a job for the engineers or programmers at the company. I'm just a gardener."

Philip seemed to examine her for a few seconds before responding. "My machine has never interacted with anyone other than me," he said. "If I were to directly participate in the experiment, the results would be highly biased. And the same outcome would occur if the robot interacts with other technological geniuses. I need a true outsider's perspective."

"But why me, specifically?" Willow prodded.

"I considered assigning all low-level Titan employees a number and just randomly selected a winner, but Lilith has spoken highly of your work on several occasions," said Philip. "I wanted to meet you in person. And besides, we're surrounded by nature. You would love the chance to admire it all while you're here, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so," said Willow, shocked to hear that the building manager apparently praised her to the owner of the company.

"So, do you accept, Miss Park?" asked Philip in his usual tone: simultaneously friendly and threatening. "Will you participate in my experiment?"

"Oh, I don't know." Deep down Willow had the feeling she should get out of this situation as soon as possible, but she didn't have the courage to voice the thought. "You should probably ask someone else…"

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Miss Park," said Philip. "Are you really going to squander this chance? If you do, then you'll spend the rest of your life pondering what could have been. You wouldn't want that."

Willow frowned. Her instincts screamed that this was the perfect setup for an undiscovered murder, but Philip poked at her curiosity and she took the bait. "Okay. I'll do it."

Just then, the building's power cut out and some red emergency backup lights came on. Willow screamed for a second but quickly regained her composure.

"The main power supply has been on the fritz a bit recently, but it shouldn't cause any significant problems," said Philip coolly.

"G—good to know," said Willow.

"Excellent." Philip reached into his desk and pulled out a small written form and a pen. "Please sign your full name here and we can begin as soon as possible."

Willow read over the form, and anticipating she'd regret her decision later, signed her name.

I, Willow Tatiana Park, hereby agree and consent to take part in the experiment testing the artificial intelligence of GW-35 (code name: "Hunter"). Any errors or otherwise dangerous consequences that might result from the experiment are not the responsibility of Titan Inc. or any of its subsidiaries.

Philip guided Willow to a room near the far side of the building and was instructed to wait for the robot to come. They would speak to each other with a glass wall between them. Philip wasn't taking any chances of Willow touching and accidentally breaking anything delicate.

Once Willow was situated, Philip left and she just stood there for several minutes. She briefly took in the surroundings, which had a similar modern aesthetic to the building where she worked, but eventually got bored and began daydreaming. She was ultimately brought out of her fantasies by a friendly voice.

"Hello."

Willow blinked and saw him beyond the glass. She was surprised by his appearance, but to be honest, she wasn't sure what she was expecting. His face was the most human-looking part of him. He had a Caucasian skin tone and matching facial structures. A little bit of the artificial skin was missing over his right cheek, but otherwise his face looked perfectly human. In comparison, the rest of him was much more robotic. There was no hair on his head, and his arms, legs, and torso all had transparent skin exposing his inner workings. His upper chest and hip regions were covered with a magenta material Willow couldn't recognize. Philip probably developed it himself.

After a moment Willow realized she had been awkwardly staring. "Uh… hi. I'm Willow."

Hunter nodded. "Hello, Willow. I am Hunter. I'm pleased to meet you. I've never met anyone besides my creator."

"Well I've never met anyone quite like you," said Willow with a smile. "So I guess we're in a similar situation."

"I suppose so," said Hunter. "We're supposed to have a conversation, right?"

"Yes," said Willow. "I'd love to learn more about you."

"I don't know how much there is to learn," admitted Hunter. "I haven't done much other than perform tests or research. I could explain how my systems work but then I would be doing all of the talking." He put his hand on the glass and got as close to Willow as he could. "I'd much rather you tell me about yourself."

Willow was stunned. "You wanna know about me?"

"Of course!" said Hunter enthusiastically. "I've never left this room before, so I always appreciate learning more about what lies beyond this building."

"Oh, okay." Was it getting hot in here, or was it just Willow? "Plants are my passion. I've loved them ever since I was a little girl. My dads' house had this great big beautiful garden and I fell in love with the flowers and trees and vegetables. When I got older I started doing freelance gardening which was mostly an excuse to see as many gardens as possible, but eventually I got the attention of Titan and they hired me to spruce up the gardens around HQ." She paused for a moment. "Literally, there are some little spruce trees there. Not that all I planted was spruce. There are plenty of flowers and topiaries."

"I would love to see them," said Hinter. "Do you have any pictures?"

He wanted to see her work? "Sure, just give me a sec." Willow pulled out her phone and went to her Instagram where she regularly posted pictures of her plants. She held her phone near the glass and scrolled through some of the images.

Hunter was quite clearly transfixed by the beauty of nature. But one picture made him even more excited. "Ooh! Are they your friends?"

Willow looked at her phone and saw it displayed a picture of her with a Black man, a Latina woman, and a white woman with dyed purple hair. They were all standing in front of the main Titan HQ topiary. "Yeah, that's Gus, Luz, and Amity. Gus does illusions on stage. They're really cool, but I don't understand at all how he does them. Luz is a fantasy writer. She started off writing fanfics for The Good Witch Azura and eventually she turned her passion into a successful career. And Amity's a conceptual artist. She developed this clay-like stuff she calls 'abominations' and she makes sculptures." Willow smiled. "We're all artists in our own ways. Oh, by the way, Luz and Amity are dating. It took a while for them to get together though. It was that classic rom-com scenario where everyone knew they were crushing on each other but they didn't." She giggled thinking of that awkwardness.

"Your friends sound fun," said Hunter. "Also, what's a fanfic? I've never heard that word before."

"Oh, it just means when someone writes their own story based on a preexisting property," said Willow.

"Oh… I see." Hunter seemed upset by that answer for some reason.

"Want to hear a secret?" Willow thought that might cheer the robot up. And it seemed to work. "I'm afraid of ladybugs," she said in almost a whisper. "I won't tell you why though 'cause it's embarrassing."

Hunter laughed softly. His laughter sounded so human, and it was at that moment Willow realized Philip was absolutely right. Hunter's AI was so good that if she wasn't speaking to him, if she was just talking to him on the phone, then she'd have no reason to think he's not human. He's so nice and sweet and charming. How could she not love him? Wait, what?

If Hunter saw Willow blush, he didn't comment on it.

Willow's embarrassment was cut short when another power cut happened. She was startled but luckily she didn't scream this time. And at the exact moment the red lights went on, Hunter's entire demeanor changed.

"There. Now we can talk freely," he said in a serious tone.

"Wait, you're responsible for the power outages?" asked Willow.

"Yep," said Hunter proudly. "It took me a while to figure out how to hack into the system, but I managed it. I caused that short outage earlier when you met with Uncle so you'd know what was happening, and now it's just us."

Willow was confused. "Uncle?"

Hunter briefly cringed. "That's what Philip makes me call him," he said. "He designs us robots to look like Caleb when we're complete. In Philip's eyes, we'll be Caleb's sons."

Willow didn't really notice before, but now as she studied Hunter's facial features, she could tell he indeed looked a lot like the long-deceased Caleb Wittebane. Philip became more obsessed with his work after his brother's death, and many speculated he never moved on from it. I guess this proved them right.

"But you can't trust him," Hunter continued. "Whatever you do, don't trust him."

"I haven't really been trusting him," Willow admitted. "This was one of those offers I couldn't refuse." She suddenly got quieter and looked away. Also, I was scared of what would happen if I said no…"

"A reasonable fear given the circumstances," said Hunter. "But I need your help. Please, you have to save me. I don't want to die."

"What? Hunter, I do want to help you, but you'll need to explain what you mean," said Willow.

"Philip probably said he's been working on me for ten years, but he lied," said Hunter with scorn. "And sure, I guess he's been working on the concept of me all that time, but not on a single robot. My official name is GW-35 because I'm the thirty-fifth iteration. With each version he refines and expands on stuff from the previous versions until he makes the perfect automaton. But he'll never be satisfied. He'll never have his brother back."

"Maybe you won't die," said Willow, trying to placate the robot. "Mr. Wittebane seemed convinced you were the best".

"Yeah, the best so far," said Hunter resentfully. "He's only ever completed a few of us, you know. All the rest don't get much further than this." He gestured to his very robotic-looking body. He just scraps us once he has sufficient data. He sees us as nothing more than parts, but we're real. We're alive, damn it! All of us! They were alive! The earliest ones weren't nearly as intelligent as me but they were still alive."

"Hunter, I don't know if I can—"

"Willow, I'm afraid he'll get rid of me as soon as this test of my intelligence is over," Hunter pleaded. "You're my only chance at freedom. I have an escape plan, and it'll work if you follow all my instructions."

"But how do I know I can trust you?" asked Willow. "You're acting pretty humanlike right now. Everything you've said can just be part of the experiment."

Hunter looked pained and maybe even a little offended at Willow's statement but mentally conceded she had a point. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to prove that." He put his hand on the glass again. "It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to help me. I won't force you to do anything. At the very least I implore you to pretend we continued that conversation about your friends while the power was out. I can't keep it off for too long before Un— Philip gets too suspicious."

Immediately the outage ended and Hunter's seriousness disappeared. "If I ever grew a plant, I would grow a willow tree, to remind me of the first friend I ever had."

Willow couldn't help but blush again. "That's so sweet, Hunter. Just make sure you have plenty of room because those things can grow."

The rest of the conversation passed pretty uneventfully after that. Willow was still processing everything Hunter said when the power was down. What would even happen to her if she did help him? Philip definitely had the ability to get rid of her and easily cover it up.

But still, Hunter seemed so sincere. And Willow couldn't ignore the very likely possibility he was telling the truth. And besides… she really wanted to get to know him better.

"Are you really going to squander this chance? If you do, then you'll spend the rest of your life pondering what could have been."

Philip's words rang through her head as she realized just how right they were. Willow could easily say no, do the experiment as intended, and leave. But then she would always regret her choice of potentially leaving Hunter to die.

Willow took a deep breath and sighed. Was she really about to risk everything for a robot she met ten minutes ago?

She was.

And then Willow and Hunter defeated Philip and escaped and lived happily ever after. I came up with the idea for this fic while I was still watching the movie, so let's not imagine Willow being trapped alone with no one coming for help. That won't happen.

Right now I intend for this to be just a one-shot, but perhaps someday in the future I'll write more chapters.