Beyond The Circuit
Chapter III ~ Love is Pain
Demi was worried. The two Wrens had been doing a lot of catching up on Algol timelines, sure, but she'd been monitoring a few conversations, and she noted that Forren (stupid, irrational twit,) had began talking of dangerous emotion chips.
She wondered if Forren had forgotten his own past, he was far from a prototype himself. The emotion chips had driven many androids to pure madness before he was created. He was just lucky enough to be able to control the emotion chip. Or was he? Demi was a later model, created to perfectly manage the chip, but Forren?
Demi let out the equivalent of a human sigh. What was she worrying about? They'd gone up against three Dark Forces, Zio and the Profound Darkness and even 300 years of utter boredom and Forren hadn't changed a bit. He could control it, and he was probably perfectly aware that it was dangerous to even consider installing an emotion chip in Shirren. Especially that chip.
She sure hoped she was right.
^*^*^
Forren was dewy-eyed and love struck, and he didn't want to tell a single android about it. He skipped up the halls of Zelan like a Palman child, happy to have this feeling flooding through his circuits.
The sight in the control room subdued him quickly, though.
Shirren was sitting emotionlessly at the computer, typing away, staring coldly. Forren walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn't answer, just continuing to type away.
Forren suddenly despised his emotion chip. What had he been thinking? How irrational it was to fall in love with someone who could never even reciprocate his feelings. Forren felt like someone had just dropped a rock on his head.
Forren went back to his room. Now, life was even harder. He just wanted to run away from the whole place, his own feelings, his own stupidity at thinking love was going to be so easy. He kicked the wall angrily, and then a thought came to him…
^*^*^
It had been many years since anyone had ventured to the depths of Zelan. Forren carried a gun with him just in case there were any monsters or miniature androids that decided they were going to reactivate at his appearance.
He reached the lowest bowels of Zelan where all the parts were kept in perfect storage. Once, Demi had had an idea to build them some companions, but there had never been enough parts to make a whole, just replacements for their own broken arms and legs. Not that they had ever needed them onboard the peaceful Zelan.
Forren stood in the square room that was in complete darkness. Forren could see perfectly well in the dark. He moved to the furthest wall and slid a keycard in a slot, a part of the wall moved up, revealing a small hatch. He reached inside and pulled out the box.
"So, it still exists," he muttered to himself. He opened the box gently, and in the metallic anti-static interior there lie the last hope for his dream.
Mother Brain's emotion chip.
He knew Algol's dark history, about the Dark Force taking over Mother Brain, about Rolf and company defeating them both and restoring peace. It was no mistake that this place was the very spot where they had achieved just that, and fought off the Earthmen too. Later it became a climate control station but also a research center. Many parts of the Mother Brain were still stored here, but had never been studied, simply because after the Great Collapse, survival was the only thing Palmans were thinking about, not the sciences. By the time culture returned to what it was, what lie down here had been forgotten by the Palmans.
Forren looked at the chip and wondered how such a small piece of metal could have led to the deaths of so many people. Yet it was Dark Force's fault, Forren reminded himself, for without that foul creature Mother Brain would have always remained benevolent.
Forren knew he was hiding from himself so many facts that he needed to review before he even considered this move, but all he wanted was to fulfill Shirren's wish, and the only way that there would be a chance his love would ever be requited.
He looked down at the chip once more. Feeling the pain inside at not having the one he loved, he closed the box with resolve, and took it with him.
*^* ^*
Forren entered the main control room and approached Shirren, who was still sitting in his chair stony and straight. He placed the box gently on the control room panel and opened it to show Shirren.
"This is it," Forren said, "The only other surviving emotion chip besides mine and Demi's."
"Where did it come from?" Shirren asked.
"It doesn't matter," Forren said, "My only question is, do you want it, or not?"