Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: I don't own Gorillaz.
A/N: Ok, summer. I've had a MAJOR writer's block for this chapter, and this chapter alone.So, guess what I did? I turned it into ANOTHER memory! So you've got two mems in a row, and I want reviews. Rawr.
Noodle released her single, DARE! in June. It was one of the coolest songs on our album. As a reward, I took her on a round-trip on the Island, something we had never gotten to do before.

We packed our bags, bade our farewells to Murdoc and Russel, and climbed aboard our spot, with it's trees and flowers and grass and windmill. Us, with our gallons of water and matches and sleeping bags and lanterns and bugspray and clothes and radio. When all is done, she unties the rope and pushes off, and the trip begins.

The week in the air was fun, but it was the last day that really left an impression on me. It shaped me around a different person than the Noodle I had thought I knew.

The last day. We were heading back, the Island's cycle complete. Sunset falling, day's last, weak, golden rays of light struggling to stay afloat amidst the rapid approaching night. There is a cool breeze, but some heat from the afternoon stays around, making me uncomfortably warm in my shirt. If Noodle is hot, she doesn't show it.

Kong is coming in to view, and I stand and prepare to drop the anchor, though we have a ways to go. Noodle is lying under the branches of a thick willow, watching life go on around her and not saying a word. She shifts, glancing around.

"Ya okay?" I ask, catching her eye.

She nods, but the look on her face is something else. "2D-ku', remember how I said I wanted to tell you something?"

"Yeah?"

"Well... I think I can now."

I stop. Suddenly, it doesn't really matter how close Kong is or how I need to pack. We could spend another month here, a year here, if that's the time she takes to tell me. There's a hopeful expression on her face - I owe her an ear, too.

I decide against questioning further, but sit down next to her. She smiles, but won't look straight at me.

"I once told you I was raised by nurses. When you threw up, I said I saw people throwing up everyday. Do you know what that means?" Her voice was omnious, and there was something dark growing in the air. All of a sudden, I wasn't so eager to hear this, but I'd have to.

"Tha...That ya were raised inna bad place?" I asked, sheepishly. Her eyes glinted, crushing.

"Close, but no cigarette," she said. This dark thing growing, tangible. I could smell it. She was holding something back. "But since you don't get it, I'll just have to say it."

Wind picked up. Her hair blew softly, covering her face.

"I'm a project."

I did not know what she meant. A project of what? What was any of this supposed to mean?

"A wha'?" I asked. Her bangs, covering her eyes, which I knew lay under there, dark, shining, perceptive. She caught every movement, the waves of the grass, the pulse in my neck.

"A government project."

She rolled up her shirt, and there, tattooed on her belly, was a tiny number. 23.23.

At first I wanted to stare at her. I hadn't heard her correctly. Or maybe, I had. A government project. Couldn't be. Wasn't possible. But there, clear as day, was my proof, inked into her otherwise-spotless body, permanent. They had dared to brand her, as one would brand cattle. I cant believe I hadn't noticed it before... but then again, there were slim to none oppurtunities to see it.

"...Noodle..."

She rolls her shirt back down, and pats the soft ground next to her. "Sit."

I sit, silent.

"I was born in Japan, like I said. When I was two, I was taken from my parents to a government institution. They told us it was a school for the advanced. That's all they said."

She sighed. "That's all they said," she muttered to herself."I can't remember any of that, but that's what I was told."

"When I was five, the experiments started. They were... so, so bad. There was one I remember. They tried testing our bodies, to see if we could handle radiation." She paused, and her voice hardened, cracking, shaky. "We lay on tables. They were cold and metal, and we didn't have clothes."

"They scanned a beam through us. My hair started falling out. I was throwing up for... days. One or two of my friends died when I was there, more or probably dead now. One girl I knew was fine. In the middle of the night, she started coughing up flecks of... The next morning, she was dead, in a pool of blood and that stuff she choked up. Lying right next to me, too. Only six."

Her tone was lying, she wasn't really as uncaring as she said. It was one of the mysteries about her, how you could teach yourself to show no remorse for your murdered friends. But it's kill or be killed, every man for himself, and I was just glad she was here now.

"When I was eight," she continued, "Eight to thirteen, I went into training. Almost as bad as the testing. Hell. Nobody should ever feel that stuff." She pauses, and I know something bad is going on in her mind, something I can't control. "Shut up," she says, to no one in particular.

"And when I was thirteen, it was all done. They handed me a plain white plastic card with my number, 23.23, and told me to use it if I ever needed money. And that was that."

"Noodle, I... are ya' serious?"

"Why would I lie about something like that?" Her anger flared. "Did you not see the tattoo?"

"I'm sorry! I jus'... What did they do ta ya'? Did they change you 'round inside aw turn you inta a robot or summfink?"

She took a deep breath, calmed herself. "I have an idea, but I don't exactly know. You wanna hear the long version?"

"Hit me."

She smiled a bit. "Well, y'see, there was this one test, it was the worst one. In fact, I was the only one who could handle it, so far I know. This is what I heard from the researchers."

"The scientists had created a human-computer project, one that tried to improve the human body's strengths beyond known limits. By injecting a series of nanite computers, they could make a superhuman. So they knocked me out and gave me a shot with some nanites. Then, they opened my head and attached a tiny computer chip into the skull, where the nanites would react. Now, whenever I become 'activated', the computer sends a shock to the nanites and stimulates them to absorb into my muscles. It makes me 100x stronger."

She took a long breath, and laughed at my face. Advanced reading. Whoa. I couldn't even fathom being that strong.

"Of course," she said, "just having them in me makes me stronger than a normal person, a side effect, but it isn't bad. So, I guess I'm not a robot, if that's only what you wanted to know. I'm a..." she searched for the word, "...Hybrid?"

All I could do was blink.

"2D? You still in there?"

The first words I spoke were not choice.

"I...I'm dating a robot?"

Noodle gave me a playful smack upside the head, or maybe it wasn't playful. "No, you're dating a human with a pc in her head. I've got parents, I've got organs, and I don't run on batteries. Don't think of me as a hybrid. No one's perfect."

"But they just turned ya out on the street with a littl' card? No shelta'? No seein' ya off? Aren' you too powaful t' go out alone?"

"Hey, relax! Take a chill pill. Money's all you really need out on the street, right? You can buy whatever you need so you don't remain on the street. This card has more money than I can imagine on it. $7 billion, at least. I'm being funded by the Japanese government, remember. The people the PPCDA and I am fighting. And I, excuse me, we, were emancipated, so we're technically adults... I was all set to go."

"Was?" I ask. It sounds like something had happened...

She pauses, then stands up. "Oh, look. We're at Kong."

"Noodle, wha's goin' o–"

"That's for another time," she says, kissing me briefly. I feel the heat rising, but can't help thinking. She has three legs out, but is still in her shell. I need the fourth. The fourth will give me the full picture of this one who stepped into my life and won't get out. Who I won't let get out.

She drops the ladders, not unlike a boat.

"Don't worry," she advises me, "Had I not told you this, you wouldn't have thought any different of me than when we met. I'm happy with who I've become."

But, you're wrong, Noodle. I don't really think any different of you. Because it's you who I've fallen in love with. Same as always, and will never change.