the last book I ever read (Olga Ravn's The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century, excerpt nine)

from The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken:

STATEMENT 068

Why should I work with someone I don’t like? What good could possibly come from socializing with them? Why have you made them so human to look at? I completely forget sometimes that they’re not like us. Standing in line in the canteen I sometimes suddenly realize that I feel a kind of tenderness for Cadet 14. She’s a redhead. Or maybe you developed them like that intentionally, so that we’d feel this sympathy for their bodies and the beings they are, if you can call them that, and make working with them easier. Yes. Only now you want me to, you want to change the nature of my assignment? So what you’re asking me to do is supervise Cadet 14’s movements about the ship, without her cottoning on? Because we share a bunk room together. Is it because she won’t talk to you? I’m not very comfortable with it, obviously. What you’re asking me to do is the same as surveillance, isn’t it? I don’t like her, but I still think about her all the time. So in that sense I suppose I’m the right person for the job. I try to understand her, who she is. She’s not just an embodiment of the program. There’s more to her than that. Is that the kind of thing you want? In the report? Whether she speaks to any of the other humanoids, and what they say to her? All right, I’ll keep an eye out. How I’d characterize her? Cadet 14 is humanoid, fifth generation, female, a well-liked employee. Does her work impeccably. A rather meek and docile version, like many of the fifth generation. She’s fond of the freckles on her nose. She looks at herself in the mirror in the bunk room before going to bed, and puts her finger to her freckles. How human, she says. To think they gave me freckles. What more could someone like me wish for? I think I love her. I need to work that out of my system, obviously. No, you don’t have to transfer her to another bunk, I’ve already told you, I’ll keep an eye on her for you. Isn’t that it? Isn’t that what you want? If I’m to be perfectly honest, if that’s where we’re at, I can say she’s a much better worker than me, we all know it’s the truth. What have I got left other than a few recollections of a lost earth? I live in the past. I don’t know what I’m doing on this ship. I carry out my work with complete apathy, sometimes even contempt. I’m not saying this to provoke you. Perhaps it’s more of a cry for help. I know we won’t get away from here in my lifetime. Cadet 14 hasn’t got a lifetime, or rather hers spans such a gigantic stretch of time it’s beyond my comprehension. She’s got a future ahead of her. So now you’re saying my job’s changed? That now I’m to watch her? I think this might save my life.