16.
When something that shouldn't be alive takes you in and perceives you—runs you through its mind, assessing and analysing—and forms an opinion—a judgment—there's something uncanny about all that.
At least, there's supposed to be. According to the literature Pascal has provided me, humans did not think of machines or androids as living beings.
They are all I've ever known, and I've always known them to be "alive".
I've never thought of their gazes as unnerving until now.
The feeling of being watched wanes and returns as I wander. I'm intent on seeing Nines but not if I'm being followed by something. It's funny, me wanting to protect him, when in reality: if this thing that is stalking me goes near Nines or 2B, they will easily dispatch it for me because if it's my enemy, it's likely theirs.
I've taken up aimless wandering, hoping the thing trailing me will give up out of sheer boredom. I am a broken android, bumping into shit and getting more and more lost. Nothing spectacular.
But it always comes back. Sometimes I fall asleep feeling secure and wake to the rustle of bushes by my head. I whip up and wait, taut and trying to quiet my harsh breathing. Something is there. Something sits in the dark spaces between the trees and sometimes I stare so hard the black appears to pulse as if it is alive.
It can all be in my imagination. I've left home and that security has been shed, the security of a home, and now my head is playing mind games and making up monsters. When I was little, Pascal said daymares and wild imaginations were normal for me, and I remember wondering if that was so, because other machine children did not stay awake in a cold sweat, imagining strange creatures at their throats.
But of course, machines are afraid of reality, not something that hides deep in their psyche.
Are they?
The machine head sometimes stops what it is doing to stare into the trees, too. Not that it actually does much. The machine stands around and nudges things but that's about it, but as soon as I get that sensation—the eerie prickling along my skin—the machine reacts, too.
Maybe it isn't all in my imagination.
But I really shouldn't be relying on danger cues from an absentminded machine who stares at things all the time for lack of anything else to do.
About four days after leaving the village, I'm walking through the city ruins, using vegetation and building debris as camouflage, when:
"Hello."
I freeze.
It came from right behind my head. It might as well have spoken against my skull.
Wait.
I shrug off the pack as if it has burned me and then turn around. I open it.
There the machine is, staring up at me with tiny yellow eyes.
"Did you say 'hello'?" I ask.
"Hello," he says.
Why now?
Why after four days of silence does he decide he can speak?
I lift him out of the bag and set him on the ground. "You've found out how to use your vocals? Or whatever?"
He stares up at me.
"Are you 'new'?" I ask.
He stops staring and looks over my shoulder. "No. Who are you?"
Bit late to be having introductions considering I've been his chariot for four damn days.
"Hm. I'm Ribbon." I pick him up and hold him at arm's length. "Don't go into a blind rage and try to kill me, okay?" Not that he really can, being basically nothing but a head. "I'm a human."
No reaction.
"How is it?" I say. "Any murderous urges rising?"
"No."
"Good." I set him down. "What's your name?"
"A name." His voice goes wistful. "I have a name?"
"Well, you should go by something, right?"
He says nothing.
I grin. "I'll call you Noggin."
"Noggin?"
"Humans used to use a slang word for head called 'noggin'."
"That is dumb."
Sassy machine. I flick it with a finger and my finger stings. "Whatever. You should've chosen a name, then. Now you're stuck with Noggin."
Noggin doesn't reply. I keep prodding, but get nothing. He has gone back to being silent.
Maybe he's defective? He shuts down now and then?
I drop him back into my bag with a sigh.
Not even ten minutes later, I fuck up.
I usually steer way clear of androids because I'm afraid they'll get clingy or try to take me to the bunker or something.
But I pretty much almost step right on one.
She, like me, uses the surroundings to move around. She must. Why else would she have hidden herself in a crevice that I'm using to sneak around?
As it turns out, my boot just misses her head. It grazes her ear and we stare at each other.
She is lying down, resting, one eyebrow raised.
"Well, what the fuck?" She does not sound pleased.
What's weirder is she let me step that close. There's no way I caught her off guard. I'm not stealthy and my footfalls can't be hidden that well—not from an android who has her head on the concrete I'm trekking on.
I gingerly take my foot away. "Whoops, pardon me."
I go around her.
"Hold on."
I turn, all dread and woe. She senses it, doesn't she? The thing that made Nines stop me.
She sits upright. She looks rough, and she looks—
She looks like 2B.
It can't be her, though. Her white hair is long, cascading down her back, and her eyes pierce in a way that make me feel itty bitty like a kid again. Her clothes—
Wait.
My face gets hot.
She isn't wearing clothes, is she? Aside from a small top—if it can be called that—what appears to be clothing is damaged skin. Her endoskeleton is black through her artificial skin. Is she one of the deserters Nines spoke about? Someone who left YoHRa and is continuously hunted?
She stands now. How long has she been "on the run" if she looks so worn down?
"What the hell are you?" she asks.
I shift and then spark up a smile. "An android. New model. Very authentic."
She frowns.
"Well, bye!" I spin around and continue on my way.
Her footfalls sound behind me.
She's gonna follow me?
"Is that so?" There's something scathing about her tone.
I laugh despite the dire situation. "That's definitely a trait borrowed from humans."
"What?"
"Feeling threatened by the unknown. Humans tended to show shitty attitudes to things that they didn't understand."
"Pardon my 'shitty attitude', but again—what the hell are you?"
I glance over my shoulder. She isn't close, but she isn't far. She doesn't need to be close to kill me in a second, though.
"You already know, don't you?" I say.
She doesn't reply, but she keeps following me through the crevice. We eventually reach the end, and I dart over to a giant tree root and wedge myself beneath it, and the female android appears next to me as if she has been here all along and is only now materialising into my perception. Her expression is placid and we're so close I am sure she can detect my humanness a thousand fold, however it is androids can tell.
Whatever tips them off, I hope it's pleasant. Like a nice aroma, or something.
"Hi." I don't know if I'm nervous because I'm gonna be found out or because she's intimidating as all hell.
I continue on. We walk the narrow space between the root and a building next to it.
She carries on after me. Her expression is very grim like someone has died.
"Look—" I turn, but her eyebrows raise and I shut up.
"I don't want to follow you either, alright?" Her voice is tight. "It's just that I'm getting some abnormal readings from you and I can't exactly ignore them. This is just as unpleasant for you as it is for me."
"I doubt that."
Her jaw tightens and for a second I'm sure she's gonna draw her massive sword and put me out of my misery. But she remains calm. Thankfully. I mean, I should be careful. She can kill me without me even realising she's coming for me.
"So." I make my tone conversational and we both stop walking. "What kind of readings are these?"
She sighs, her hips shifting as she looks to the side. "I don't know, exactly. A pull, or a push, or just some bizarre sensation. You're certainly a model I've never come across. You said you are new?"
"Well, I'm new, but my kind is older than yours. Like way older."
"There's something buzzing at me. It's almost like I want to say you're a—but no. You just derive similarities of that—but that's ridiculous. And I mean, why would one just be waltzing around in broad daylight? With that dirty sack and a machine head of all things?"
Machine head? Is Noggin actually peeking out of the pack at her or something? Does he have no survival instinct?
Oh, well.
"What are you trying to say?" I make myself sound coaxing.
"You just remind me of a—" She cuts herself off.
"A human?" I finish.
She clenches her fists. "Goddamn it. If you knew what I was gonna say, why did you make me word-find like an idiot?"
"Technically you knew the word you wanted to say. You were just trying to stall or—I don't actually know what you were trying to do." I give a great shrug and spin around. "Well, in any case, you win! Ding-ding. I am a human."
Can't really lie about it now, can I?
Maybe if I'm upfront she'll be less likely to do something weird. Besides, she isn't part of YoHRa anymore—I think—so she has no one to report me to, right?
There are no following footsteps.
I stop and turn.
She is staring at me with an expression I can't place.
It hurts to look at.
Like maybe she has dug up something she lost a long time ago and had given up hope in finding it.
She bows her head a moment, and then she approaches.
"My name is A2." She holds out her hand, and strands of her long hair fall before her eyes. "It is nice to meet you."
She is holding back. But what she's holding, I don't know.
She doesn't seem like a mindless worshippy android, but there's something swelling and strange about her.
I take her hand. "I'm Ribbon."
Our hands fall to our sides—and suddenly: I am glad that of all androids, a calm and disquieted one is the one who I almost stepped on.
AN: IT IS BACK.
I am down to having one job like a normal human being so time is mine again. Hurray!
PS - I am excited to finally write A2.