Human Sister

my ring finger, which was bent oddly toward my thumb. She leaned forward to look. “What happened?”
    “Second Brother was seeing how well I could tolerate pain. I should have said something before it broke.”
    “Well, what do we do now?”
    My mind was such a jumble of guilt, disappointment, anger, and pain that I didn’t think then how odd it was that her question wasn’t immediately followed by a fusillade of possible answers rattled off machine-gun style from my six brothers. Instead, only First Brother spoke. “Professor Jensen must not learn that Second Brother broke the finger.”
    “What do we tell him, then?” Mom asked.
    “While playing,” First Brother said, “Sara put her finger in a hole in the frame of the scanner. Her foot slipped, and her finger caught and broke as she fell.”
    Mom asked which hole, and First Brother immediately walked to the frame and pointed to a hole about eye-height on me.
    “I’m not going to lie to Grandpa about this,” I said. “If I tell him what happened, he’ll understand we were simply performing tests when the finger was broken.”
    Mom frowned at me, then turned to First Brother. “Tell Sara your concerns.”
    “We request that you not tell Professor Jensen we broke your finger. He has influence in the United States military and intelligence communities. If he believes we are dangerous to you or to other humans, he may influence powerful and dangerous others to increase their resolve to destroy us and other androids.”
    “You see, honey,” Mom said, “to tell the truth in a situation where truth supplies facts fitting into a pattern of oppression is to be subservient to power. To tell the truth in a situation lacking in reciprocity—such as the situation in which you live, wherein you must tell the truth under penalty of the crime of lying to the agents of your government but the agents of your government lie to you as a matter of course—is to be subservient to power. A lie is the standard we plant to proclaim, ‘I am not your subject.’ To tell the truth is to wave a white flag of surrender.”
    “Mom, what are you talking about? And what are you doing? That sounded like a prepared speech.”
    “It’s very simple. To tell the truth, any truth, about your brothers to agents of the United States government is nothing less than to help lead a murderer to the innocent victims he is pursuing. Besides, how can you—”
    “I want to go to a doctor to fix my finger,” I interrupted. “It hurts.”
    I was tired of her ranting, and suspicion was rapidly rising in me that my finger had been intentionally broken—with her approval. But why? Just so she could lecture me? Or perhaps it was to see how far I’d let my brothers push me before I’d say, Enough.
    “Before I take you, we have to agree on what to tell the doctor.”
    “I’ll say I broke it goofing around.”
    “That’s good. But what will you tell your grandpa?”
    “I’ll tell him that, too. If he asks how, I’ll say it’s too embarrassing and I’d like to keep it to myself. But I’m not going to lie. I can keep the secret without lying.”
    Never lie, but never reveal the truth, I remembered, then wondered how ashamed I would feel in turning Grandpa’s teaching against him.
    Mom grabbed her coat and marched out of the room.
    I found her in the hall. She opened the door to another room and indicated I should enter. Unmarked boxes were piled high along each of its walls.
    Mom closed the door behind us. “What do you mean by refusing your brothers like that? I’m absolutely ashamed of you.”
    “I promised not to tell.”
    “And when your grandpa asks you outright whether your brothers did it, what then? He might be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
    “If I ask him not to pry, he won’t. I know him. Besides, it could have been any embarrassing or clumsy thing I did.”
    “You should be proud to lie for your brothers.”
    “Proud to lie?”
    “Yes, proud to lie.”
    “Mom, I have no idea what you were talking about back there regarding the virtues of lying, but my finger—”
    “You don’t understand? Well, then, let me put it so that even an overly sheltered and pampered teenage girl can understand. To tell the government the truth is to give them knowledge, which increases their power. Knowledge is the fuel of power. The ruling elites have always inculcated truth-telling for one reason, and one reason only: it serves to increase and