Misled
Rage, sadness, and bitter disappointment threatened to choke Max. The one whom he had trusted for a year had misled him, left him blind sighted to what his people harboured within. One of their own… his best friend, or so he had thought… was beyond dangerous. Max shuddered to think what awaited them all in the next hours, or were it mere minutes?
Why? The question echoed in his head. Why had he not seen earlier? Was he that bad a leader? He feared he had failed his kind by being to kind, too much driven by peace and a longing for equality. He wanted to see the best in humanity, just like he wanted to see the best in the synths around him. Fool that he was!
Anatole had appeared to stand by him like his faithful confidant. Even when his friend had spoken of how he looked up to David Elster he had not seen that it was more than gratitude or admiration. It had become hero worship, to the point of fanaticism. Anatole drew his conclusions based on a lie… and he twisted them into his reasoning to bring harm to the humans to win a fight in name of a religion which should not exist.
Oh, the sad irony! Because of his own fears Max had not felt able to tell anyone what he really was. That his sisters, brothers and he had not awoken a year ago. They had been created conscious… an anomaly even among their kind, because David Elster had acted on his selfish needs. The truth was anything but poetic, and it was about time Max told Anatole about it. Max worried though he'd left it too late. All who'd fall today were on him… were they not?
Letting out his rage in a destructive blow against the shrine Anatole had built released his pent-up frustration. Flawed… or perhaps they were all too young still in their state of living a conscious life. Children acted irrational, not by logic. And, by all means, was it not what they were?
Staring at the wreckage of the shrine and the destructive secret his blow had revealed Max blinked down tears he could not shed from synthetic eyes. Their kind had so much more to learn about life… but so did humanity. Equality was his dream, but once more it felt so far away that his hopes threatened to shatter apart.