4.

It has been four days since I met the androids.

For the first time, I have kept something from Pascal.

I had full intentions of telling Pascal about my encounter, but everything seems to have taken care of itself. No trouble has come from me and the androids meeting. I do not want to worry Pascal over nothing.

Those androids will be back since they are investigating Pascal, after all, but I will not be seen again. I will listen to Pascal. I used to sneak out and play in the forest. Now, I won't. If Pascal tells me to stay indoors, I will stay indoors. I will not make another misstep.

I am blessed nothing came from interacting with 9S and 2B.

But I can't get them out of my head.

To distract myself, I bury myself in the books Pascal brings me. I stay away from playing with the children because they like to play near the forest, and I know myself. I may wander. Curiosity may plague me and I may wander.

So I stay indoors and read.

The most recent book Pascal has given me is weird. It is the weirdest book I have come across so far. Pascal called it "human literature" and this one is a "romance novel."

Of all the things Pascal has me read—philosophy, manuals, psychology, linguistics—this is the strangest. It is about "love" between a female and a male human. Pascal has told me humans need a male and female to procreate—they do some unpleasant sounding stuff to each other and then the female undergoes horrible body transformations before producing a smaller, mixed version of the two. It is terrifying.

Machine life forms are simply made with parts in a factory and assigned roles.

Way less messy.

Pascal's village is unique in that Pascal has been accepting familial roles for us and that makes us "warmer" and "kinder" according to him.

Anyway, the book thankfully does not detail that strange birth phenomenon, and only talks about the feelings between the female and male human.

Feelings.

Pascal pokes his head in my room and I lift my neck. Ow. I have a cramp from bending over.

"How are you finding the book, Ribbon?" Pascal asks.

I knead at my neck and lean against the wall. "It's weird, Pascal."

"Oh, Ribbon. You used a contraction!"

Oh. Machine life forms don't tend to use them, but the androids were. They sound less "stiff" than us machines.

"The book is weird," I repeat. I do not want Pascal asking about where I picked up the habit.

"Weird?"

"I do not understand the conditions of these two humans. First off—how did they get like this? It sounds like a disease."

"Love?"

"Yes."

Pascal laughs. "Emotions. Humans were full of them to the point where you could even say they were ruled by them. I suppose as we evolve, we also convey emotions."

I push my blanket away. My room is bare with just a blanket and a bunch of cloth I rolled up to act as a head support. The other machines do not get cold so they do not need such things. I wear "clothing" too to protect myself since being such a precise mimic of a human being has put me at a disadvantage in some cases. My deceptive appearance is my weapon. My only weapon, really.

Put me out in the cold and I will freeze to death. Lay me in the desert and I will overheat and die. Stab me and I will bleed out.

I really am an odd model.

"It just does not make sense. And the humans in this are female and male? Does that mean they must be opposites to feel these emotions?"

Pascal makes a thinking noise. "That, I do not know, but I have come across records of humans of the same sex partaking in similar activities."

I do not have any humans around to understand this book, but the androids look like humans and are modelled after humans.

So, if I pretend 2B is the female human in this book, and 9S is the male—that would complete the requirements, at least in accordance to this book, of love?

Is that all?

Did all humans just love each other if they were opposite sex?

I rustle my own hair. I do not understand.

Pascal laughs. "Read more books like this, if you are curious."

I am. Immensely. And I do not know why.

Another oddity to me: I dream.

Usually it is about chasing rabbits or the machine life forms poking me with things, but—

Five nights after I met the androids. Five nights I dreamt of them.

Now that I have seen them. Seen what they look like. How they are, apparently, the spitting image of humans.

After reading the weird romance thing in its entirety yesterday, I dream of 2B. I dream I have the feelings of the male human. I think 2B is "pretty" and "sensitive"—but when I wake I roll over and rub my face and laugh. 2B is not like the delicate human in that book. She is attractive—which is odd for me to think, because I should not be programmed to think of the enemy androids as such—but she is lethal.

When I fall back asleep, I dream of 9S. 9S touched me like the humans in that book touched each other.

My shoulder and especially the way he played with my fingers and my hair.

In that book, the female and male humans did stuff like that with each other, and they reported it "feeling good."

I relate to that. When 9S was touching my hair, it felt good. I think about it a lot and sometimes I tug my own hair to try and get that feeling back, but it does not work the same as when someone else does it.

It's ridiculous.

What the two in the book were really yearning for was human contact.

It is not like a machine life form can yearn for such a thing. It does not even make sense.

And yet.

We study humans.

We obsess.

Pascal has built this village around old human customs.

Just what were humans and why is everything we do stained by them?

I can't sleep.

I sit up and go to the window. The village is quiet. Although the sun stays in place, the day does change. It becomes sleepier and still.

Even the animals in the forest behave different. The prey burrow or hide, turning in for the day. The predators come out, hoping to catch a lingering squirrel or sniff one out.

I want to go outside.

When this urge invades, I find a book, but now even books are fuelling my curiosity.

I leave my room, my bare feet silent against the planks. Maybe I'll look for those flowers Margot was picking, or I'll see if Pete—one of the newer machines—is sleeping okay. Machine life forms do not need sleep, but they have developed a way to achieve it. Necessary or not, it seems to give them comfort to shut down for a few hours.

I take the west exit, walking across bridges, and pass Lewis, who is on guard duty but has shut himself down anyway. I shake my head. Works for me.

I don't plan on going far.

I walk through the brush, along a small dirt path, until I reach the crevice.

This is as far as I am allowed to go and as far as I will venture on my own.

A wide, broken road. Ahead is the blockade Pascal and the villagers set up to separate us from the city ruins. The crevice to my right leads to the canyon below, but mist covers it now. If I was not aware it was there, I could easily walk through it and fall to my death.

I stretch into the fog. It is nice to be out of the village to clear my head.

Ahead, a silhouette appears near the blockade. Someone's approaching.

I hurry to the forest and slink behind a tree.

The figure takes its time nearing. It appears to be taken by the fog, but as it draws near, its shape becomes more recognisable.

2B.

What is she doing here?

I didn't notice last time, but she carries two swords at once. One small, one large. She walks without concern, but she does stop near me. Her gaze lifts and she fixates on the spot I'm hiding in.

Crap.

"You can come out."