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#13

The idea of death is foreign to me. Too many meanings and not enough good ones. Like a bunch of student essays on an old, boring, crappy, yet worldly acclaimed novel.

"Dammit, the door's locked!" She turned around. "Help! Somebody! Something's going on in the android's room!"

#14

Now that I think about it, the idea of birth is foreign to me too. Very, very gross in my opinion. When a person gives birth through the same hole she uses to piss, then I have to say hello to all the metaphors and hidden meanings I could make with that situation. I heard this was quite painful too...

"Memories... What's wrong with your memories... Why do you hang yourself every night?... NO! You're not serious!!"

"Hold on, hold on... Uh, ah, I know! Christina!! Go get G-4 and G-5 and tell them to bring us something to ram that door open!"

#15

Now what about life? It's really foreign too! Who decided that we should have five senses? Not six, not four, just five! Same with arms and legs. Why two? Why not three or just one? Who planned all that? Almost every human and animal on this planet has four limbs. The only ones to disregard that rule are insects, and they look like aliens to me.

"Hell no, those are all thick steel doors. No way we can do it even if we're fifty."

#16

Dreams! Oh dear God, I forgot about those. I've seen that one in a while, people talking in their sleep and stuff. I heard they were dreaming. But I don't know what that is. An android never sleeps! Well, okay, I'm in some sort of coma right now, but I'm fully aware. I'm not in this weird trance state called sleep. It does look inviting though. People wake up and seem to feel so much better.

"Your daughter! You tried to... You tried to! How am I supposed to respect you now?!"

#17

I just stumbled on an old file about telepathy. I wonder if androids can do that, but then we have the wireless communication system. It's like android telepathy. However, I heard that real humans had telepathy that had no limits. They could communicate with someone at the other end of the universe and everything would read clear. At least that's what I heard.

Dammit, it's always the same people who have everything!

"Wait! Come back! Wait - I'm coming to get you! You'll be safe, I swear! Please, listen to me! Hey!"

The two droids easily forced the door open. Everyone ran inside to find Elise with her body arched backwards and her eye orbs almost out of their sockets.

#77

Sometimes, I saw Shrike during my coma. It was some kind of ghostly figure hovering around in front of me, little conscience that I was. She was very ugly.

She looks like Shrike, she acts like Shrike, she walks like Shrike... but she isn't Shrike...

Xian slapped the android. Elise's head instantly sprung back. Her eyelids went halfway down, and then back up all of a sudden. She gasped loudly upon noticing Xian, as if certain she was in front of her worst nightmare.

Elise looked sideways. She closed and opened her eyes several times, sometimes shaking her head and moaning, before she finally decided to move her arms and escape Xian's grasp. She tried to stand up... Her steps were uneven, going in all directions, eventually making her go back down face against the floor. With much effort, she pushed herself to lie on her back.

"You're the weirdest android I've ever come across in my life." She turned to get out but had one last thing to say. "...And that's not a compliment. Get yourself checked!"

Everyone went out of the room. Elise, dazed and confused, was alone once again without really understanding why.

Slowly, her head turned. She gazed at the TV. Everything had felt weird. For a moment, she could've sworn she wasn't actually in this room, but somewhere else...

I can clearly recall why I was bored. I was in front of the TV - I had gone through each channel three times at least. My shotgun was spic and span, my saber was top notch, and there still was nothing planned today. Thus, I had nothing to do.

My morning had felt like a plotline slowly coming to a halt, so slowly it wasn't noticeable until the pace picked up once again (has it though?) I felt like a hamster in a rolling cage, caught in the wheel and waiting for it to stop spinning before trying to get out. My opportunity was anything actually - a mission, a job, an emergency, anything to get me moving. There was too much dialogue and not enough action in this new life of mine. What's the point of undercover operations if I don't even get the chance to start some undercover? All we've been doing so far was sit down for the whole day, check our weapons, check the TV, re-check our weapons, and wait for something we can intercept from the Department. I soon learned it was the basis of nearly all the Crate's expeditions: wait for an info to be caught, analyze it, and get over there to do our job. We had the same level of activity as the Department, which meant the Department wasn't really running these days (bullshit.)

I had thought of sparring with Xian but I decided my first session was going to be the last. I was using old methods on an opponent used to modern techniques, which meant we hit each other an unusual number of times. I soon concluded she wasn't really considerate of me. She looked at me with some kind of rejection in her eyes - my feminine intuition's kicking in again - and she had a harsh tone whenever she spoke to me. To me, it was more politeness than sincerity. She can stick her politeness in her you-know-what and masturbate with it. I don't want to be the follower of someone who doesn't speak her true feelings to me. Hey, if she has a problem, she just has to speak up! Maybe it's something I can easily fix.

Anyways, after my session, I saw my mutant so-called teammate get in and start up a session of her own. I turned around to check that out for a minute and saw them laughing and giggling and going "oh, sorry!" at each other. Shoot me dead if I ever say that to my enemy. I'm definitely not made for sparring.

In fact, I noticed a bunch of mutants giving me the weird eye since I came here. The humans didn't do anything about it, and neither did the other androids of course. Only the mutants. If I couldn't recognize them through their strange eyes or their pointed ears or their wacky designs, I did by just checking out their attitude toward me. If it seemed negative in the slightest, the person was a mutant. If it seemed positive, the person was a genuine human. At least humans liked me - they wanted me next to them. Of course, some of them treated me as an oddity more than anything else but at least they were social. Now that I think about it, it's no wonder the mutants went to war. They just get too damn angry at everything different from them!

"I have a confession to make. Only you will know about it. I hate my own daughter."

These words were the most memorable ones I had ever heard from Shrike. It's then that I began to feel sorry for her.

She took her head out of the pillow and stared at him with half-closed eyes. "Hi Rage..."

The young man brandished a bunch of odd-looking devices and put them on the table. "I found a couple of things for you. New hard drive, shotgun upgrade, saber upgrade, energy armor upgrade, new shield, new cables, and a few other useful odds and ends. Need help installing them?"

"Nothing. I got these for almost free. They're really old according to today's standards, but with you, I think they will work just fine."

The android grabbed one of the pieces and examined it carefully. There was dirt and dust on almost every surface. She'd have to spend almost the entire day cleaning them... Well, she'll just save them for tonight. She never has anything to do during the night, so this'll be perfect.

Smiling, she put the piece back on the table. "Thanks Rage. I really appreciate it."

The young man replied with an army salute. "I live to serve! All right. I'm heading back home with Exi. We'll check back here during the evening - we're waiting for Works to finish a little program for us and he told us to expect it done by then, so that's about it. Will give me an excuse to go get some pizza too."

Elise suddenly reached for the devices and shoved them in a bag. "I'll go back with you. There's nothing to do here. At least I'll get a view of the city in your apartment."

I keep thinking back about this odd dream. It's not the first time this has happened to me, but I can't recall when it happened the time before. In fact, soon after the dreams end, the gaps in my log files inexplicably fill up with information, and everything is lost - I'm fooled into thinking something completely normal happened. However, I know I had that dream before. It's not an entry in my log files. It's an entry in some deeper memory of mine I still can't explain.

Every time, it's the same thing. I see Shrike, she tries to say things to me but she can't because her jaw is broken. Because of that, she gets angry and starts doing wacky and impossible stuff. Seeing her in such a disturbed state makes me feel weird. I also feel a bit of her anger and depression at the same time, as if those emotions were my own. But the last dream, the one from today, everything was very clear, clearer than before.

"Oh snap, I forgot the CD cases on the lounge table!" Alexanne exclaimed just after entering the apartment. "Hey Elise, can you please do me a big favor? If you could go and get the cases for me, I'd be real happy!"

The android was reaching for her room's doorknob when she turned her head around. "I hope I get to drive the car!"

"Sure. Have your fun. If the cases aren't on the table, go speak to Xian, she might have taken them."

Elise left without a word. Alexanne went into the bedroom. In the meantime, Masahito took off his shirt, smelled it, and tossed it in the bathroom with a face of disgust. Scratching his unshaven face, he opened the box containing his green tea leaves and filled a teapot with some boiling water. With his face over the pot, he took a good whiff of the substance, which made him recall the vast plains and clean cities of his homeland. He hadn't seen his family since coming to North America, thirteen years ago. He was fifteen years old back then - an ordinary exchange student willing to learn everything about politics and philosophy. That's how he got involved with the mutants. It was a cause he took to heart and proudly fought for.

Eager to see some more of his past, he smelled the tea once again, taking away the fog in his mind and allowing him some more time to admire those lost years. How he had enjoyed traveling the paths and fields of Sofia. Sometimes, he and few friend went all the way to the East Asian Republic to check out its countryside. Thinking about it, he recalled how his hometown had felt uncomfortable. It wasn't even a hometown - it was a home city, the immensely spread metropolis of Minasan, the birthplace of modern computers and video games. The city was like a fake jewel, too beautiful to be true. Houses and trees were perfectly spaced apart. Parks were calculated to the square inch. Traffic was almost nonexistent. The country was rich and prosper, and the government spent money with care and wisdom. But this wasn't enough to "Rage" Saito. He was a boy of the fields. He was, as he liked to call himself, a "hardcore peasant", the one who went from town to town on a bicycle and made friends with farmers and their families. Had he not come to the United Provinces, he would've been a farmer, giving his little contribution to the world of good food, living in the middle of nowhere, free to be alone and listen to the songs of the birds and the occasional traveler who passed by, a fellow hardcore peasant who had the same dream.

...But had he been a farmer, he wouldn't have met the love of his life. Slowly, anticipating the beautiful moment, he turned his head towards the sweet voice, cuing the green light to the removal of all rules for the next hour.

He quickly bypassed her and glanced at the front door. It was locked, and Elise didn't have the key. Knock to enter, warn us of your presence, intruder.

Exi stood smilingly naked in the doorframe at the end of the corridor. She glided towards him, sliding her hands close to her body, playing with her hair, motioning her boyfriend to come over. He put his teacup aside and stared at her the same way he had stared everytime she had done that. With her body close to his, she put four arms around his torso and sent the two others at his belt, undoing the buckle as she stared in his empty eyes. She gave him a tiny kiss on the mouth, just to inject some awareness into his look. With the flame of love back in his mind and the stare of lust pushed away, she closed her eyes and kissed him once again, this time deeper, reaching over with her tongue to tease his, while a pair of hands pushed his pants down and felt the readiness of the pride. Interrupting the kiss, Masahito opened his eyes and waltzed her to the couch.

"You know what?" He whispered in her ear. "I can't help but think it's so sexy that you're blue all over."

She giggled. "It makes me feel really weird, to know that we are in danger of getting interrupted at any moment... It makes everything more fun, to think that we're alone for God knows how much time and the evil monster could come back anytime and catch us in the act."

"Oh, but he has already. The evil monster has deceived you." Ragie grinned and suddenly gave a lightning-quick squeeze to her breasts. "Bee-beep!"

This made Exi giggle even more, and she crossed two arms over her chest to parry another attempt. He repeated the maneuver, but this time on her rump. She put two hands there to protect herself. Then he went for the armpits as he knew it was an especially ticklish spot there. She was almost going crazy when he went for the sweeter zones: her two pairs of lower shoulders, nicely aligned one behind the other and a pretty sensitive trigger to her sensuality. He ran his hands up and down her arms, which she held in front of him with all the love of a zealot making an offering to her deity. Close enough to the couch, Ragie reached around once again and gave a light squeeze to her rump, while leaning over.

#19

I have come to the conclusion that truth is an asymptote. Though we can ever get close to it, we will never actually get to it... Or worse, we might even go beyond it and miss it.

#31

A log file is the android's memory. It records all major processings passed to and from the hard drive, and manages to stay at an amazingly small size.

I believe that humans do not have an unlimited amount of memory, as they might think. It's just that getting to full capacity would take a very long time. If it keeps going that way, I will reach full capacity. After that, what will happen? Will I have to forget things? Will I recall the date of my construction? My old memories? My best times and the lessons I had learned?

I fear this day. Amnesia is worse than death. At least when you die, you remember what you did wrong and know how to make it right.

#76

It's easy to consider money the root of all evil. But may I say that we had money from the start? The first money was actually tools and food. An exchange of goods between two people. One who needs an axe, another who needs to eat.

Yet, there is evil in money. It comes in the form of extreme capitalism, bribes, paid sex, frauds, and ugly expensive cars.

There is also evil in talents and mindsets. Some have more than others. Some are gifted, some are cursed. But everyone always wants more.

My intuition tells me I will pull this one out someday when I least need it, when I'm in the worst situation against the worst enemy.