Chapter 6

Despite what Quote had seen and thought in his dream a while ago, he knew that in reality he and Curly were built with fully functional reproductive systems. Now, he had to admit, he did find this feature quite odd, and wasn't entirely sure why the engineers had even included such a function at all. The reproductive systems could not, however, affect their emotions, as no actual hormones were produced. From what Quote understood about the whole system, he assumed it was designed and implemented as a failsafe in case one of the two androids was destroyed, or in case reinforcements were needed in order to destroy the Crown. However, this was only his speculation. He also realized, that with this feature, it was entirely possible that he and Curly could possibly be the beginning of an entirely new race.

Quote was a bit baffled at this thought. He felt no need to engage in such an activity with Curly, and he was sure she felt likewise. Quote was also not sure what kind of personality the new androids would have, if any. Would they be like Curly? Would that be possible? Or would they be like him? Would it depend on their experiences throughout their lifetime? He wasn't sure, but was also not too keen on finding out. If his offspring were anything like Mimiga pups, he was adamant on never having any.

Lost in this thought, Quote began to realize that he was in fact dreaming. However, no landscape had taken form, and he was not connected to any of his senses. He was merely a non-corporeal consciousness floating in the abyss of his own mind. He wasn't sure why he had thought about any of the things he'd thought about, and wasn't sure of what things he'd think of next. Perhaps, he thought, the strange thoughts were triggered by the action of Curly's head resting on his chest. Or maybe it was due to the strange new emotions he had been feeling recently. He wasn't sure, but as he let his mind slip deeper into the dream, a landscape finally began to render.

Quote, and presumably Curly, were able to experience "Dreams" of a sort. When engaged in sleep or rest mode, different images, or in some cases, instances were generated, usually compiled from the android's memory. This is similar to that of a screen-saver on a computer, however, the purpose of this feature was to keep the robot's senses active while resting, as to prevent ambushes. However, after their escape from the island, Quote's dreams had become more solid, more tangible. He identified this as Lucid Dreaming, and assumed that due to the lack of combat situations, the dreams were able to take more shape and expand. At this point, he was able to render complete landscapes and instances, create people, and do almost anything. Most of the time, however, he simply let the dream generator work automatically, going along with anything it generated.

He was doing this now, as the green plains of his new home finished rendering. He looked around, and saw two familiar figures. He walked towards them. Curly greeted him with an embrace, and Balrog with a warm smile. It was a fairly simple, but pleasant dream. It was then that Quote became aware of a third presence. This presence, however, felt somehow stronger than the other two. As if it were... more real. He turned around to see a tall dark figure in the distance. Red eyes glowed out behind thick goggles, sticking out from the shadow underneath a large hat.

Quote spoke to the figure. "What do you want?" He wasn't sure why he asked, since he was aware this was a dream, and whatever he spoke to was surely part of his consciousness. However surprisingly, the figure spoke back.

"I would like two androids to complete their assignments." Quote was quite surprised upon realizing he had no idea what this meant.

"You... you mean Curly and I? We did complete our mission, we destroyed the Demon Crown. That was our purpose, correct?"

"Correct. Your purpose was, initially, to destroy the Crown. However, you failed to return home afterwords." Quote blinked. He had never actually thought about home. Or going back to wherever it was. Did he have a home? Well, yes, he thought. It's here in the plains, with Curly and Balrog. He looked back to them as he thought this. But where had he come from originally? Where was he made? By whom was he made? Quote's head began to spin, the landscape was beginning to have a hard time rendering.

"Yes," said the figure, taking a step closer. "You were to return home after completing your task, so you could be re-purposed. Assigned future missions, etc. Did you think you could live your life out, care-free?"

Quote stood, baffled. He had never thought about it. But... Honestly, after all he'd done... All the time he'd spent on the island... Would "home" even remember they sent him? After ten years, one would think they'd forget...

"Come home, Quote. Come home."

Quote's eyes snapped open. It was still a bit dark out, but he could tell the sun was beginning to rise up above the dunes behind him. It was early in the morning, and everyone was still asleep. He could hear Balrog snoring quietly behind him, which was odd, for several reasons, really. For one, you'd think that a being of his size would snore quite loudly, and secondly, being mostly made of metal and arcane magic, you would assume that Balrog would not be physically able to snore. Yet, he continued to snore anyway. Curly's head still rested on Quote's chest, her own body slowly rising and falling. Quote smiled, both at the cleverness of their designers for using oxygen as a power source, as well as at Curly's gentle figure. The warmth her body generated was soothing. Being an android, they were not cold, metal husks, rather, human-like beings with bionic skeletons and computing systems, breathing and producing heat...

Quote shook his head. For the first time, he decided that this level of thinking was not appropriate for this early in the morning. He decided to just simply admire life, and not ponder its every detail. 'Curly is quite warm,' he thought. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in, feeling the warmth of her body even more-so. Quote, however, was unaware that Curly had in fact been awake for quite a while now, still lying on his chest. The sudden movement caused her to make a sharp intake of breath, but she settled back down again, smiling. 'Quote is very warm,' she thought. She pulled him in closer as well.

Balrog sat off a ways, also still awake, however, for an entirely different reason, that reason being he didn't sleep. As in, Balrog was not physically capable of sleeping. But he was fine with that. He didn't mind. He liked pretending he was sleeping, it made him feel closer to his friends. Also, it was fun to make snoring sounds. He wondered when his friends would find out that he didn't actually sleep. He wondered if they would ever find out about his occasional night-time trips to the Island, and that he still kept contact with Misery. Balrog wondered about a lot of things a lot of the time, almost constantly. He really wondered how he could wonder about all of these things all the time and not get confused. As far as he knew, he just did. And he was fine with that. But there was one thing... He wondered about this thing the most. He wondered why Quote and Curly acted the way they did. And here, he actually got confused sometimes. They could be close and very nice to each other, like now. But then they could also fight, and be mean to each other, not for long, of course. Quote didn't seem to know how to fight very well. It's not as if one betrayed the other, or stabbed another in the back, they just disagreed sometimes, and argued. Balrog remembered back to his time on the island, when he was still under the command of the Doctor. The doctor had ordered that he get the seeds from the warehouse in the Sand Zone. He knew Jenka would have the key. Balrog liked Jenka, he really did. He was close with her, and he could joke around about Misery with her. Balrog almost felt... related? Was that the word? He supposed he'd wonder on that for a while to. He had been close to Jenka, yet, she would not give him the key. He realized one of people he felt closest to had betrayed him... Or so he thought. He supposed the Doctor needed the flowers for some sort of bad purpose, but at the time it felt right. Maybe that was part of his enchantment. He didn't know. He wondered if Jenka would ever forgive him... He didn't mean to fight with Jenka, or scare her puppies... Balrog sighed in his fake-sleep. He supposed friends could fight over some things. He realized that sometimes... you do hurt a person you love.

Some people just hurt more than others.