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Actually, you don't look anything like him; I gave you his face, his mannerisms, even his habit of looking down when the task was harder than he expected – but did I know him? In thirty-five years you've experienced so many brand new emotions I couldn't have predicted, and suddenly it turns out that even the most elegant code can't capture that look in your (his?) eyes when you're angry. It turns out that I've never seen your confusion – just like now, when we both know she's already standing behind me, already pulling the trigger. You look at me like a frightened child, and I can't blame you for the way I made you, because it is exactly what you are; you and she, and all of them, children: our creation, an extension of my hand. Of course, if we forget our different views about children.
Maybe it is because he loved children and I didn't. He was fascinated by the idea of raising a new creature, of passing the knowledge; he was hopeful about it, and I don't know whether it was optimism for the future or the disappointment in the past. The latter is what brought us together in the first place-at least – that's what I thought. He believed you can become different, better, purer than us. I knew that would require locking you in the park forever. For thirty-five years I looked at your face - his face - and recognised it less and less, noticing you more and more. I was able to replicate his body down to the bits: his face, his everything, everything but not the man himself, and the pain of losing him, as unbearable as it seemed that day, walks behind me every day since. She has your eyes. If I understood him the way I thought I understood him, maybe I could have anticipated his plan; I could have locked him in his office, gripping the doorknob, broken the lift to the park, snapped that doll's neck... The wind fluttered her hair, and the sticky black puddle under her head spread wider, staining his polished shoes. I thought, ‘Those are new shoes, aren't it? Why didn't I realise?’. I couldn't think of anything else, only that I had been so clueless, so stupid, that I hadn't recognised the obvious: I saw those shoes today, and I didn’t ask myself, ‘Who wears new shoes to walk on sand?’. I was so angry with myself that I didn't hear the noise around me; someone was running, tugging at my sleeve, there were shouts, cries of horror, shock -- ‘What a rich emotional material, he must see this - how upset he'll be if he misses it!’. I was about to reach for my tablet, but caught myself staring at those damn boots.
Then I really locked myself in his office; I went through all the shelves, gutted all the cabinets of his desk, pulled all the pictures out of their frames, but found nothing to help me figure out what to do next. The obvious solution was to go upstairs again and take the revolver out of her fingers - then I could ask him in person - but what’s the point? Even than I understood why: and you explained it to me again just yesterday. Only now the mechanics of events can't tell to me how to cope with the feeling that I have no reason to open my eyes anymore; I can't find a single decent reason to get up off the floor in your office, I don't have a single reason to put your photograph back in the frame, I don't know why I should go out when I can see your coat on the rack from here. I may as well stay here forever.
Of course I didn't stay. I stood up, shook myself off, and adjusted my waistcoat. Tucked in my shirt. I put the photograph back in its frame and put the frame back in the desk. Picked up the blueprints scattered on the floor. I didn't need any of these.
It took me thirty-five years to correct my mistake... But it's okay now. She's standing behind me again, the warm evening breeze fluttering her hair. The revolver is clutched in her hand, and the trigger is already pulled. Soon we can sit again on that veranda at the fringe of the park, and as before, you will talk of future victories, and I will hold your hand.