Adil was fairly certain that he would have known the AIs to be inhuman even without the matching eye-and-hair colour, complete unfamiliarity with how emotions or the real world worked, and the turning into demons deal to make it obvious.
He'd always loved layers. Even before the sun screwed up and wearing layers was a necessity just to stay remotely warm; he felt safe under layers of clothing despite it not being anywhere near as effective as armour. Covering up made him feel as safe as any normal human could feel.
The AIs he'd met didn't seem to have any real feel for the cold, all of them gathering around that leader of theirs who radiated ice and the wordy one who seemed frozen in every way possible. Only time Adil had ever seen Gale stir was when mentioning Lupa, whose name seemed accompanied by heat and frustration and an almost tribal sense of how things ought to be.
None of them wore much more than their armour and a thin layer of cloth beneath to prevent their skin being chafed and scraped by the plates of god only knew what; he couldn't tell if it was metal or plastic or both in some bizarre mix. Never mind how strange their outfits were in design; the very fact the blue-haired one could walk around in shorts that didn't even reach his knees comfortably without shivering his ass off was just weird.
.
Adil never quite knew what to make of Gale - whether to be comforted by his being the most outright robotic of the AIs, and how that fitted with his view of what people like that ought to be, or freaked out by the fact it was genuinely believable Gale could have somehow just... emerged from a computer.
None of the 'Embryon' group were particularly subtle when it came to matters like sex and food; he'd seen them stagger back to the base with gore all over their clothes and start stripping each other before they'd even found a pile of clothes or something to act as a makeshift bed. And it bothered Adil to no end that Gale in particular seemed oblivious as to any relationship between emotions and sex; the blue-haired one and the girl both were obviously affectionate about their comrades, and even their leader's eyes seemed to soften once in a while. Gale, on the other hand, seemed mostly to be doing it for the sake of the others, as though that was normal - as though on top of being a spokesperson and strategist he was some sort of pleasure-bot.
Honestly, that wouldn't have surprised Adil given what the military were known for - if you were designing the perfect soldier there was no reason to throw in some perks. It grossed him out a bit, in truth; even though desperation had become part and parcel of Lokapala life, most people still at least attempted some sort of romance before getting involved with each other. He suspected the Embryon had discovered sex and just started getting on with it without any thoughts as to what could come with the territory.
.
Alcohol had helped Greg's death fuck Roland up extra; it was maddening given what the man was capable of when he put his mind to it. Adil had been carrying extra weight for Roland for years now, suggesting strategies that he could slur out to the men, but he remembered what Roland and Greg had been like as a pair. And now? Now alongside Gale, Roland was getting things done - getting a hold on himself and finally sorting himself out, and that bothered Adil. He'd been in the background for years, trying to do what the Embryon had managed with only a few sharp-tongued remarks. Perhaps it was their weirdness factor that decided it - Adil didn't want to imagine he could have set Roland straight if only he'd found the right words.
Being patiently loyal to the same man for years without any particular attention being paid back in return had been frustrating, but Adil bit the bullet and kept on going; Roland was a friend and he was helping the rest of the Lokapala through him, a sort of silent leader. Gale, sharp as the knives he wore in his boots, had seized onto that; had questioned it as soon as the two of them were alone together for a moment. For all the lack of emotion in the green-haired Embryon, he was pretty damned swift at spotting it in others even if he didn't understand what it all meant.
.
Adil froze in place when Gale called him into one of the rooms temporarily assigned to the Embryon and found Roland lying there, curled up under the blankets. "Fix him," Gale had said.
For a moment Adil had panicked, pulled the sheets back expecting to find Roland bleeding all over them, but physically he seemed fine; he just kept staring at the wall, curled tight in on himself with an expression Adil knew all too well. "He's not a fucking piece of equipment," Adil snapped back, ignoring that Roland's demon form essentially was partially a piece of equipment.
"He is not functioning," Gale replied. "He requires fixing. You are a human, you should be able to fix him."
.
Gale had walked off after that, left Adil with Roland and a couple of years' worth of conversation avoided neatly via alcohol. "What is it now?" Adil grumbled, rubbing Roland's shoulders firmly beneath his hands given they looked about ready to snap with tension.
"I fucked Fred over," Roland replied, voice quiet and bitter, none of the overemotional slur of alcohol in it. "I should've been there for him. Gale's a better dad than me."
"Gale's a goddamned robot and Fred's known him for what, a few days?" Adil snapped. "You might've been drunk and useless but at least you were around." Okay, not the world's most diplomatic answer, but it was the truth. "He could've talked to you."
"Didn't though, did he?"
Adil sighed, lay down on top of the sheets and inadvertently tucking Roland in as he wrapped one arm around his friend. "Doesn't matter. He could've, he knows that. Kids bitch about anything."
"You should've seen it. Gale just stood there and said something, gave Fred a hug, and he was alright afterwards. How come that guy can sort everyone out and he doesn't even know what the hell empathy is?"
Adil shrugged, moving his hand to rest against Roland's chest and saying nothing about Roland taking hold of it. "Can probably work it out from watching. We're running around feeling everything, he just gets to look at it. We're probably easy to him."
"He couldn't 'fix me' though, could he?"
"No one could, human condition and all that." Adil couldn't help smirking for a quick second before letting it slide. "Lets get some sleep. Can talk to Fred about it later, right?"
Roland nodded, held still, and Adil realised quickly that he was expected to stay too despite the fact he hadn't locked the door; that said, chances were Gale would probably come back to see how the diagnostic process was going. You could probably reboot a broken AI; not so much a human without really selective amnesia. "You're warmer than they are, you know."
"Huh." Adil bit back any comments about Roland getting involved in the ongoing group orgy the Embryon seemed to run, settled himself more comfortably against the bed and started trying to drift off to sleep with limited success.
"Adil?" Roland's voice was quieter again, almost as if worried he might be heard.
"Mm?"
Roland was silent for a moment as if reconsidering his prompting Adil's question, before finally replying, "Thanks."
Adil blinked for a moment before deciding against saying anything in return, just nodded and returned to his valiant attempt at going to sleep.
'Thanks'. If God controlled data and the AI were born of it, maybe they really could work miracles.
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The End