"Matsuka, coffee."
He needed a lot of coffee, and fast.
"Matsuka!" he called again when he couldn't hear a response, the one so well-known it seemed a system message on the screen.
He raised his head and stared at the door, suddenly realizing Matsuka would never enter.
Whyever did you have to do it, you idiot?
Machines don't need coffee.
For a moment, he felt as if he was suffocating. It had nothing to do with the attack of that Mu boy. He was operating all right; all functions within norms. Then, why it seemed to him that something was squeezing his chest and taking his breath away?
He leaned back in the armchair.
So, Matsuka would never come again. All right. He should be glad he had finally got rid of that monster he had to be constantly vigilant around. He should forget about him once his heart had stopped beating. After all, he had planned it himself: to remove him once he had no use for him any more. It was the better this way; he hadn't killed the kid with his own hands.
He couldn't put it out of his mind: the last words he had told him, "Get out!", preceded by a stroke.
It hurt.
And bothered. Bothered in the first place, he thought, stubbornly clinging to dry analyses, instead of feelings. He didn't know why he couldn't focus on his duties. Keith Anyan, a leader of Humanity, a protector of the System. He was about to stifle the resistance and fight the dissidents... Instead, he couldn't think of anything but the face of his late adjutant, so calm and firm that moment. Something was off here. Keith Anyan had been thought as a perfect being, emotionless extension of the System whose tasks were clear. He didn't exist to care, or to feel, or to suffer.
He clenched his fists.
Mother Eliza would have said he didn't need any doubts, and then she would have brushed them away with one wave of the hand - one command in the program. He tried to imagine her, to recreate her picture in his mind. Maybe he wanted to hear her voice again... But Mother Eliza had been buried along with the Educational Station E-1077. And, in fact, there was nothing she could say to him any more.
He could no longer recall her face. She hadn't had gold eyes, had she...?
Matsuka had kept saying many things to him, first and foremost the ones Keith had never wanted to hear. He had perversely provoked with each and every word, dancing at the precipice and never going too far. He had kept throwing the most complex truths of the universe as if they just belonged to any daily conversation.
Keith hadn't wanted to listen to him, only he had been listening. He had. Now, all those words kept coming back to him... He didn't want it. But, somehow, with Matsuka, it had always worked not the way he had wanted, not the way he had thought he had wanted.
He had always believed - known - he understood himself and the motives of his actions. Why, there was nothing to it: the orders of the System were his motives, and the System was part of himself. However, now, for the first time in his existence, he wondered if there was something the System didn't know and didn't control. Something beyond Keith Anyan's analytical ability, although it seemed to be so close that if he could stretch his hand, he would reach it. Something that had always been obvious for Matsuka.
'You're not a machine! You have a human heart...!"
He clutched at the edge of the desk.
If being a human meant to feel as if he was going to fall apart, he didn't really want it... did he?
He raised his hands. They were shaking. For a moment, he couldn't even see clearly. Irrationally, suddenly all he wished was to run away, leave everything behind, hide in a dark corner where no-one could see him and he couldn't see himself as well. To disappear.
It seemed as if a star exploded, far away - or maybe right here, under his eye-lids. He blinked. It got a bit lighter.
He clenched his fists, feeling the tension of forearm muscles. He couldn't waste this life; this one thing became clear to him. Not this life that had been given to him, like a new one.
He shook his head.
If only he could remember... Well, he had tried to forget; he had managed to, but... When that Mu boy had started strangling him, he hadn't really resisted. He had wanted to leave, hadn't he? He had been so close to end it all... What had happened next? He didn't remember - but he felt. All of the sudden, he had wished to live. There was something warm and familiar in that feeling, something... friendly... peaceful and... supporting? He had wanted to try again, but the emptiness had already swallowed him, he had been left no strength to come back... And then... Yes, now he remembered. Then one smile obscured everything with its light.
'I will not let you die.'
Something warm rolled down his face and fell on the uniform. He didn't notice.
'Is it really impossible for Humans and Mu to live together?'
He closed his eyes, shutting his eye-lids tight.
After all, they are all the same.
*politicians* they are foolish and cowardly *Sam* they are friendly *Suena* they love *Jomy Marcus Shin* they are open and idealistic *Mu woman* they are lost *Serge* they are ambitious *Mu boy* they kill *Matsuka* they give life
Matsuka, why did you go?
Where did you go?
For a moment, he envied the humans. They had a thing called a religion, a relic of a past allowing them to believe in some almighty force guiding them in their lives. Religion gave faith, and faith gave hope... For a moment, how ridiculous, he wanted to believe he would meet Matsuka again.
'I leave the decision to you,' Grandmother had said.
What should I do, Matsuka?
The remote control of the Meggido Systems seemed so strange in his hands. Never before had he felt like asking what he was doing here. Never before had he felt so discouraged from doing anything. Now it was the case - for the first time in his life? It made sense; after all, it seemed to him as if he had been born again. As if he had been born as a human.
Still, he felt tempted to let it all end.
Another supernova exploded under his eye-lids, and then something changed.
It was as if he looked at his life with new eyes and asked himself what he had really done with it. The answer was simple: nothing. He had never had dreams or plans, and his goals had never been his goals, only programmed aims. The only thing he'd had was a young adjutant who had never got a good word from him, but it was not what he had expected either - for the only thing he had expected was Keith to be honest with himself. Who had insisted to see in Keith what Keith himself could never see: a human heart. Matsuka was supposed to embody everything Keith despised, and instead had become someone who had saved him. Who, until the very end, had believed Keith was a human.
No-one sacrificed themselves for machines, right?
He had always done well without emotions, so it took him quite a while to realize this pain in the chest, this feeling that he would never be able to take a breath, that sobs shaking his whole body - all this was a grief after losing a dear person. Never before had he felt so confused.
'You are pathetic,' a voice of a boy rang in his head, the one he had never forgotten. 'Keith Anyan, great leader of Humanity, can't make a decision. Ludicrous!' Seki Ray Shiroe might as well stand next to him, so clearly could Keith hear his words. But then they were drown out by another, "We are all friends,' Sam called with a smile, slightly embarrassed.
He raised his head, as if he was able to see Sam, too... Impossible. He had sacrificed them both for... He didn't know any more. Everything stopped to make sense.
'I will not let you die.'
He twitched. He believed he could really see him, standing there, in front of the desk, like always. Speaking his mind.
'I will not let you die.'
Resolved. Calm. Words of a man who decided on his life by himself. Who chose his path himself. Keith had thought he'd had Matsuka's life in his hands, but it was the opposite: of them two, it was Matsuka who had always be free.
'What are you trying to say?' he asked, but he already knew.
He could remember the smile and the warm look of the gold eyes when giving the order to hang fire. Making one's own decisions was easier if someone else approved them. He felt tired. He felt he was but starting the fight. He felt he had moved onto the path he didn't know - so unfamiliar. And, how strange, he felt the load in his chest eased a bit.
'Live and make your own choices.'
He had still time. He would think it over. He would analyse it. He would listen to Jomy Marcus Shin's postulates. And then he would decide. After all... It seemed more and more obvious... He hadn't been given a new life to do thing the old way.
And... If they were to meet again... Then, maybe, he would be able to face Matsuka and, really believing it, tell him he was grateful.