8.

Pascal glances at me. "Ribbon, what is it? You have been staring at me for five minutes."

I'm not even embarrassed the way I would be if, say, 2B caught me staring at her like a star struck moron. Focussing my attention on Pascal isn't invasive or awkward or captivating. It's just . . . staring at Pascal.

"Sorry." But I know it's rude, so. "I was just zoned out."

"I see. You have been spacey lately." Pascal's trying to grow tomatoes. He's standing in his little garden of failure. For whatever reason, he can't seem to get them to appear. "Whatever could be troubling you?"

I'm sitting in the dirt, legs folded. I grab my feet and rock back and forth. I've been trying to ask Pascal about my origins for the last three days. I wake up full of ambient determination ready to spring the question on him. What am I, Pascal? Why don't I operate in any way like a machine if I am one?

I'm so different. Too different. It's illogical.

My throat gets clogged and it's like my airwaves constrict and I can't get the words out.

And it's not because it might be true that I'm a human.

Instead, Pascal might have a very good explanation for all the discrepancies both 9S and I have discovered about myself. Pascal could have the answer: Ribbon, you are a machine and here is proof.

And if I get that proof, I will not be the thing 9S and 2B yearn for.

I don't want to know.

I don't want 9S to stop visiting me.

I gaze out into the trees. Was that—?

"Ribbon?"

I hesitate.

"Are you okay?"

I scramble to get up. "Yes. I've just been restless. I'm gonna go explore for a bit, Pascal."

"Oh, I see. Well, do not go too far, okay?"

"Sure." I dart out of the garden and into the trees, my pulse hammering.

Ah!

Pod 153 is hovering between two twining trees.

I hurry after it.

9S is here.

I'm going as fast as I can but I'm still slow. Until 9S put me to shame I thought I really fast. I mean, not compared to animals, but I was fast. How am I supposed to impress androids if I'm a flop?

The trees whiz by me.

I want to be faster and stronger and smarter.

I want to be equal to 9S and 2B.

I don't care if I'm a machine or a human or a deer. I only want to be whatever will bring me closer to 9S and 2B.

Pod 153 stops and I slow beside it.

"It's still weird to see."

I tip my head back and there he is. 9S' head pops up from above. He's here. My stomach tightens and my heart slams against my rib cage in painful thuds.

He's on a moss covered boulder. He's leaning over, holding his bag so it doesn't fall in front of himself. Sunlight streams in shredded gold across the spot he has found for us.

"What is weird to see?" Why do I have to be out of breath from running? Can't I be flawless like an android? He's going to think I'm an idiot if I'm panting like some deranged bovine animal.

9S reaches down. "You talking to machines like that. The machines, maybe those very ones, killed your kind."

I don't like those words but I like 9S, so I reach up. He grabs my wrist and tugs with an ease that startles me. He hauls me up onto the boulder with him and I stagger.

He catches me with a happy, "Oops."

It's not really a boulder, after all, but a small plateau. We're near the crevice that dives deep. If I ask 9S to take me down there to go exploring one day, will he? What would we find?

9S has one hand on my chest. "You've exerted yourself? Look at your breathing! Ribbon, look at you breathe."

Does he have to be enthralled about my fatigue? I take a few steps towards the edge and 9S grabs me by the back of the shirt.

"Nuh uh. You're like a blind cub. Stay away from there."

"I'm not gonna fall." I spin around and he lets go. Is that what he thinks of me? "But—but you came back."

"Yeah, of course." He grins. "Were you worried?"

My ears heat up. "No."

"Did you ask Pascal about yourself?"

I freeze, and then dawdle a little ways away. "Oh. Well, not really, no. I was busy."

His gaze follows me. "Busy?"

"Yeah."

"Too many rabbits to count?"

I don't say anything.

He grins again. He's joking. Playing. I'm so happy he's not angry. I'm so happy he's just here.

I go back to him and hold out my hand and wiggle my fingers.

He hesitates. "What is it, Ribbon?"

"Um, contact."

He frowns and then takes my hand.

I'm not sure why the coldness of him makes me lightheaded. When machines touch me it's a bit irksome. They don't feel pleasant and sometimes they're uncoordinated. Once Roger gave me his version of a hug which was him just slamming himself into me and he made my nose bleed.

But 9S has hands like mine.

We're both looking at our hands with disquieted expressions.

"It's supposed to be done like this." 9S slips his fingers between mine, wiggling and intertwining. "Like so." He presses our palms flat together and it's all very snug.

It fits, so this might be right. "I've read in old books that humans hold hands to show affection or support."

"Yeah, I guess so."

We stare at our hands.

"So, this is holding hands," I say. This is my first time and although it's so simple and it isn't much, it fills me with an odd sense of humility. The reason I've never done this with machine life forms isn't because they won't. They may want to do stuff like this, but they can't.

They can't understand.

It's not their fault.

I've been looking down on them. I'm not a nice person, am I?

"Yup." 9S tugs his hand. "Oh. We're not done?"

I hold on firmer. "Why do we have to be done?"

He makes a hmm-ing noise. "Anyway, how come you want to show 'affection' or 'support' towards me?"

I blink at him. 9S isn't usually dense.

He says, "I mean, humans are meant to view androids in a methodical way, aren't they? We aren't seen as 'humans' despite our appearances, but more like tools."

"Tools?"

"Essentially, we're just weapons. It's the androids who honour the humans, not the other way around."

I'm meant to look down on androids, too?

Why?

"Well, huh? I don't know if I 'honour' you, 9S, but I really like you and you're fun and you're fascinating. I think about you all the time and I even dream about you."

He starts to furiously shake his hand, which in turn shakes mine—and my entire arm, really.

I hold on tighter. "Jeez, 9S, what are you doing? Is it a bug?"

His hand relaxes. "Ah, stop it."

"You almost dislocated my shoulder. Stop what?"

"Are you done?"

"Huh? Why do I have to be done?"

He dips his head and doesn't say anything.

Is he mad?

I let go and he starts.

He flexes his fingers. "I don't know how to react when a human says he likes me like an equal—and, er, all that other stuff that I won't dare recall because there's not near enough bandwidth down here for me to do a full system restore on myself without glitching to all hell."

What? Is he broken?

He takes in a breath and goes quiet.

"What's a full system restore?"

"Oh. When an android dies, if possible and under premeditated conditions, we need to do a system restore. It's like backing up and retrieving our data so we can—"

"What? But you aren't dying, 9S."

He kicks at some shrubs growing between the rocks. "Well, maybe not die, but I'm afraid I might malfunction or something."

"Well, what do you do if you malfunction?"

"A whole lot of maintenance."

"What kind of maintenance?"

He pauses, looks at me, and then looks away. "Huh. Good question."

Not surprisingly, androids are complex.

I did understand one thing during his weird ramble, at least. "So, 9S? You want to be equals, too?"

He holds out his hands. "I wouldn't suggest—"

"Well, honestly, then you gotta stop being so good at stuff. I can't catch up with you if you're literally leaving me in the dust."

His hands fall to his side. "You . . . catch up to me?"

"Yeah?"

"Like I'm the one who's ahead?"

"Yeah."

He takes a stride towards me, sets both hands on my shoulders, and then shakes me a few times. "Don't you know what you are to androids, Ribbon? Why are you saying such illogical things?"

I stable myself.

He lets go and rubs his face. "Really."

He wants me to look down on him. He's uncomfortable when I don't. What a bizarre dynamic, but at least I'm piecing him together.

"I don't get it, but can we hold hands again?" My voice is so light he might see through it.

He sighs and holds out his hand.

Happy, I grab his hand and try to wedge our fingers together. It feels different this time.

"Not like that." He unlinks our fingers, repositions, and does it properly. "There."

We stand in silence.

"You know, this might shock you, but I did not come here to hold hands." His tone is wry.

Oh, right. There are purposes for him to come here other than to just play. He plays because I want to.

But then—why did he come here again?

He said he wanted to know more about me. Is he going to ask me to go to the place he's from? He has a headquarters and there are a bunch of other androids at that place. I don't know if I can handle a bunch of androids. 9S is already consuming enough. 2B, too. I dream about her a weird amount still and I haven't even seen her in a while, so how many dreams am I going to have if I know, say, ten more androids?

Hundreds more?

I can't. How will I keep track of all of them?

Then again, it could be like the machine village. I'm not overwhelmed by them. I have a few I play with more than others.

Right. What am I thinking so basic for?

Of course I'm wrapped up in 9S and 2B. They are the first androids I've ever met and they'll always be bigger in my life than any others. It's how things go, isn't it?

"Okay, Ribbon, we're gonna focus," 9S says. "No distracting me, okay? We're holding hands and that's it."

I nod. "Right."

"You didn't ask Pascal about yourself?"

I shake my head.

"Why not?"

"I was meaning to."

"But?"

"I thought, maybe, if I really am a machine and Pascal proves it—I thought—maybe you won't come visit me anymore?"

His shoulders slump. "That isn't even an option to worry about, Ribbon."

"Well."

"Do you really believe you are a machine?"

"I—"

He waits.

"I don't know."

He clicks his tongue. "The strength of humans is their intellect. After all, humans created androids, and although androids seem superior in many ways physically, the fact remains that we would not exist without humankind's intelligence."

I scratch my elbow.

"I'm saying you are smart enough to know you are not a machine. Whatever brainwashing they did to you, it's—"

"If I am not a machine, I don't think Pascal told me that out of bad intentions."

We lock eyes.

It's the first time I've made a concrete statement under the consideration I'm human. Maybe he senses this because he doesn't speak at once, and we stand in silence. It's like he's giving me time, like he knows I just need to absorb for a second.

It's a connection.

A connection I could never get from a machine life form.

I could get addicted to connections like this. If I'm not already.

9S opens his mouth, and then closes it. "That—that may be the part I'm most conflicted about."

Above, the trees rustle and an owl hoots.

"I don't understand Pascal. His uncanny actions are why we're tasked with investigating him. He seems to be a pacifist and he has kept you alive. Ignorant, but alive." He has a very incisive gaze when he's focused on something—and that something is me. "Why would a machine life form keep a human alive? How does that benefit him?"

"Well, he has no ill intentions towards me, or humans, or androids."

9S reaches back and his spear materialises. It spins in a lazy circle next to him. "Can that kind of peace exist in a machine? In something created solely for warfare?"

"If there's a machine that wants peace, it's Pascal."

9S flicks a smile on and off. "I'd like to think that, but keep in mind you're biased, Ribbon."

"Well, I think Pascal has been keeping me safe, so Pascal keeping a human safe—if I am one—would be enough evidence he does not wish to kill me, right? Killing me would be a bit contradictory."

We fall into another silence. His spear vanishes only to be replaced by a thin black sword. His weapons don't look friendly, which is a silly thought, because they are weapons. Of course they aren't nice things.

But 2B had a beautiful sword, even though it was sharp and scary. 9S carries stuff out of a novel about curses or demons or something. They look like stuff that needs to be sealed far, far away.

"Um, 9S?"

He glances at me.

"How—um—how is 2B doing?"

"2B? She's okay." His weapon changes for a third time. It hovers next to his back—two giant, circular things. They look like they have animal faces and I've no idea what they are. Does he throw them at machines?

Oh. He's doing it absent mindedly. Cycling through weapons. Maybe it in some way calms him?

"She came to see me," I say.

He jolts. "She what?"

"Well, she came to see Pascal and found me, too."

He puts a hand to his chest. "Ribbon, don't do that!"

"What? Don't do what?"

He shakes his head. "Never mind. What did she say to you?"

"She told me to discourage you from seeing me."

"She knows I've been here?"

"Well, that was technically before we met again, but I'm sure she'd say the same thing."

"So she suspects I'd come here. I guess it's obvious."

I grin. "Looks like she knows you well."

He regards me without saying anything.

"I want to know you well, too. 2B, too, but that seems inconceivable."

He continues to regard me.

My palm gets clammy against his. "Um, right? Because she's really against this, and stuff?" Why's he just looking at me? Why can't I open him up and find his thoughts? Really, why can't he have a manual? An android like 9S needs a manual.

He leans in, slow. "Hey, Ribbon? Did 2B say why she didn't want me to talk to you?" The first time we met he did something like this. His mannerisms and his voice became almost sly.

But also, when we all first met, 2B said it straight to him. Do not stray. He knows the reason but maybe he does not understand the repercussions?

I can't help him with that because I don't understand the repercussions. Most I understood was bad stuff happens when androids stray from Command's orders.

"She told you, didn't she?" My voice is a little high pitched for some reason. "Something about your command not telling you about humans, and there's a reason for that, and that reason should be, um, respected, or—"

"But that's irrelevant."

"Huh?"

"Androids are made to protect humans. How can I protect humans if I don't know about them on Earth?"

I swallow. "I don't know, 9S, but—"

"I understand Command withholding classified information, as much as it frustrates me, but why would this be classified?"

My throat is really dry. I don't know. I don't know.

"And why is 2B so accepting of that?"

"She's worried about you, I think."

He falters.

I haven't seen 2B much but I can't forget how conflicted she seemed back in the fog that day. She spoke about losing something she really, really treasures.

By hanging out with 9S, will we eventually unravel what she's protecting?

I don't know, and in a strange way, I don't care because caring would mean I would have to listen to her and stop being around 9S.

And I refuse to do that.

But I don't want him to be mad at her.

"I don't really know the details, because I'm just piddly old me, but she sounded like she was protecting you."

"Protecting?" His voice is dust.

"Yeah. Don't you think so?"

His free hand goes to the collar around his neck, and it's such an odd, vulnerable gesture. I don't understand it. I don't understand much, but I get that there's something about 2B and 9S' relationship that is way beyond my comprehension.

He drops his hand and his smile is strange. "I don't know, Ribbon, but to me, not knowing something is one of the worst feelings I could have. I need to know."

"Oh!" I grin. "I know all about that. I want to explode sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"I was realising all the things I don't know and I hated it. It's smothering. I feel like I'm in a box and I can't get out and there's no one around me who will let me out to just learn and know and stuff." I wrinkle my nose. "I don't know if it's true, exactly. I mean, Pascal teaches me all sorts of stuff and lets me read a bunch, but things like who I am—if that's a lie—then maybe the most important stuff is being withheld? And that really, really bothers me."

He peers at me and my ears heat up again.

"Yes." He sounds faraway. "Yes, it's the important things that are deliberately kept a secret."

"Yes!"

Another strange smile. He leans back and pulls our fingers apart. Having his hand gone is weird. We talked while holding hands to the point where I wasn't registering it anymore—and it felt like nothing—the contact was simply an extension of myself—where we met and ended didn't matter.

"I really should stay away from you."

"What?" There's no way he can do that. I won't let him.

"But we both know I'm not going to do that." His head drops and he gives a little laugh. "I've definitely gotta know."

"Gotta know?"

"Yeah, Ribbon. Let's talk to Pascal together. Let's find out what you really are, and why you are here."

AN: can I get a FINALLY.