The white is smothering.

Blood trickles into my eye and I rub it away until the stinging sensation subsides.

Adam walks ahead like an elegant host and I watch him through one eye. His hair flows behind him, swaying like a telling pendulum. He has hurt me. He has hurt me, sure, but that isn't what bothers me.

It's his lack of awareness of this fact.

The white on all sides is blinding—beautiful like the moment a light is turned on: all awareness, a frantic search to take everything in all at once.

He's human, right? Maybe he is a human with higher pain tolerance. Maybe through some kind of sped-up evolution his body is able to withstand inflictions such as the one he gave me, but . . .

If we are from the same "colony", would he not be aware what he did was wrong? Would he not, at the very least, ask me if I'm okay? Or apologise?

His appearance is that of an adult, and while I am considered one too, he seems to be older than me.

"Adam," I find myself saying. "You hurt me."

He slows. He continues to face ahead for a moment and then he tips his head back. "Oh? The blood, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"You are right." His tone is suave and calming. "That is quite a lot of blood. I will have Eve patch you up." His next words are said in the same tone, and it is because they don't appear to be mocking that it hurts all the more: "I did not know you were so weak."

There's something innate rising. A shame that isn't new, but refreshed. Like when Nines kicked my ass at a race, or how he could always detect my presence no matter how stealthy I thought I was being. I'm less able, and I'm aware it's because androids out-class me to a disproportionate degree—but why does another human?

Is it the knowledge crater between us?

Adam has been leading me, but he's keeping a better watch on me. "My," he says now. "That is quite a lot of blood."

It's warm and hard to ignore.

"Are you okay?" His tone is soft but there's something prickling at me like an insistent insect.

I've always trusted the literature. I've been in the heads of thousands of humans. I've read their words, heard their thoughts, dissected their culture. Our culture. The messy, titillating, contradictory culture of humankind. A series of feelings and thoughts and truths that would not make sense to any creature other than the one that embodies it.

And I guess that's me, because I am a human, and I understand it in a way I don't even understand on a subconscious level.

I do not feel kinship with this man.

Being blind is a benefit and a crutch.

I want, so badly, to keep being blind. Enough to tear my own eyes from my skull.

But it's just a metaphor, and I am no longer a child.

I've learned pain just comes with living. Maybe more so for me.

I haven't told Adam about A2. I needed a possible out. A2 will find me. She was likely observing since Adam approached, just waiting for me to do something stupid. Even if she wasn't, I'm sure she can tail me. She'll find Noggin and get her first clue.

With the capabilities of androids, surely she'll find me.

I stop and peer back from where we came. The elevator is far away now. The sight of it may even be a mirage.

Adam's footfalls cease. "Is everything alright, Ribbon?"

I'm buying time. "Yeah, I'm just admiring this place." I turn to him with a grin. "It's so pretty."

Taken aback, he stares at me for a moment. "You think so?"

I keep grinning.

"Let's continue. Eve will be delighted to meet you."

Eve is Adam's twin and although they are identical, they are also very easy to tell apart.

Eve's hair is platinum like his brother's, but it's short and masculine, and his smile is sharper. Well, it's more like a permanent smirk: sardonic but not unfriendly. His red eyes fixate on me from the moment he sees me.

He's sitting idle on a floating white block. His legs are spread, hands between them in a languid stance. There's something about him that reminds me of the children from the machine village.

The playfulness.

Eve is playful and—

Why does "sweet" come to mind?

Right. I'm associating his traits with the children.

Schema, schema, schema.

Sort things into compartments. Associate to better understand the new and strange.

Are humans really so different from machines?

We are pliable.

I know Eve is not a child.

I can change my perspective of him.

"Ribbon, are you feeling off?" Adam asks, and I jolt.

Adam is standing next to Eve with a slight frown on his face as he regards me.

"No." I put a hand to my mouth and close my eyes in a show of sheepishness. "I'm just shy."

"Shy?" Eve finally rips his attention from me to place it on his brother.

"I can't believe it." I accentuate my voice with emotion. "I've finally met other humans after all this time."

They are silent for a moment.

Eve's red eyes seem to glisten. "Brother, is this what I think it is?"

"Yes." Adam isn't phased. "A human."

I don't speak or move.

"Huh." Eve sounds disinterested before he grins, showing off perfect teeth. "All the hype for you?"

I offer my hand, hoping my human customs will translate. "My name is Ribbon."

Eve peers at my hand for a moment before accepting it. "Brother, he is greeting me."

"Yes," Adam says. "He's exceptional."

I smile.

I'm a specimen, not kin.

Shit.

I'm not kin to these two.

Eve steps up next to me. He's warmer than Adam. There's an innocent curiosity to him like Nines had. He looks at me like he sees me as an individual, whereas Adam views me as an abstract puzzle.

"This is a relief," Eve tells me. "Brother is always going on and on about things I don't particularly care about." He gives a soft laugh. "You are the exact thing my brother seeks and yet you don't seem all that complex to me."

I want to throw up.

Whatever these two are, they are not what I'm looking for.

I hate this.

I hate hating this.

A perfect world where I've been reunited with my humans.

But I know there's something corrupt here, like the feeling of disease crawling beneath cells.

I wanted to believe after so much time being alone, being the Only One, that I've met my own kind. I bow my head and clench my jaw. I'm still just a stupid kid. Is this a trait unique to humans? No matter how many times we get torn down, hope just resurfaces without a reason? Is hope something we come armed with despite all odds?

Wait.

Those aren't my thoughts.

Not originally.

I close my eyes and in my mind's eye Nines stands at the edge of the machine village: the first time I ever saw his eyes.

This is not a trait just in humans, then, because he's the one who taught me about hope: about how thin and how resilient it can be.

"Hey?" Eve sets a hand on my shoulder. "Are you shutting down?"

And that confirms it.

I lift my chin and Eve's face is full of concern and it's a beautiful and painful shock.

"What are you?" I ask.

Eve frowns like he doesn't understand the question, but Adam's sigh distracts me.

Adam glances at us with little concern. "Human instincts seem quite sub-par, do they not, Eve?"

Eve shrugs. "Brother, I truly can't tell the difference, either. We seem so similar."

Adam's laugh is surprisingly kind. "You're a different type of intellect than I am. We are yin and yang."

"Brother, wait," Eve says.

But a pinch in my neck makes me fade.

When my eyes open, I'm not shocked and I am not sane.