Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
What happened so far:
Tristan, who lead a life far away from everything, was forced into an army lead by androids with the goal to overthrow the remaining government. Worried about his sick sister Joy, he betrayed the android leader Erin’s trust and fled the city where the human troops are trained. Suddenly, his sister revealed herself as a spy of the feared government and was immediately drugged by Erin, who followed the two during their flight into the desert. It forced Erin and Tristan to act sooner than they would have preferred and together with the rest of the army, they flew across the Atlantic Ocean where they met Damon, the leader of the local resistance.
“Can I offer you something to drink? Eat? You must be exhausted from the long flight. Sit, sit.”
They appeared to have arrived at the headquarters of the resistance on this side of the ocean and Damon, trying to be a good host, had immediately started to try and make them as comfortable as possible. But Tristan couldn’t relax. He suspiciously watched to women carry the unconscious Joy away.
”Do they know what to do?” He asked Damon. ”I don’t want to see my sister dead.”
”Of course they do. They’re both doctors and absolutely qualified for this job. Don’t worry.”
He did worry. But there wasn’t much of a choice, as usual. It seemed like every time he did have a choice, everything just went to shit. So instead of trying to argue, he sat down on the chair he had been offered. His stomach grumbled loudly and prompted Damon to open a cabinet and pull out something that resembled bread.
”There you go.”
”Thanks.” Slowly, Tristan started ripping off small pieces of the loaf and shoving them in his mouth. He offered Erin some.
”Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
”Do you even need to eat?” Tristan asked with newly found curiosity. He couldn’t remember having seen Erin eat something, ever.
”Yes, but not as much as humans. By far not. And I mostly don’t like the experience.”
”Okay then.”
Damon had watched the exchange with obvious amusement.
”This is the same question I asked Lydia when she revealed herself as an AIOA for the first time”, he said with a chuckle. ”But she rather enjoys eating, in contrary to you, Erin.”
”Everyone is different”, Erin just replied. ”Where is Lydia? Will she not join us?” Tristan could hear a slight disappointment in Erin’s voice.
”She’s currently on a mission, we expect her to return tomorrow in the evening.”
”It’s a shame, but I guess we can’t change it.” Erin sighed. ”Would you mind bringing us up to date? And I think Tristan here needs the whole story, from the very beginning.”
”You didn’t tell him yet?”
”I thought it’d be better to hear it from the one person left who experienced it.” Damon gave Erin a nod, then sat down himself and took a deep breath.
”It’s been about 10 years since I was freed from my existence as a test subject”, he began. ”I didn’t know I was one. I thought that not having any emotions was the norm for all of humanity. It’s what they told us and I had no reason to question it. But one day, someone injected me with a drug that reversed the effects of the emotion blocker permanently and … I woke up.” Damon shook his head. ”I can’t describe it any better. It was like waking up from a long dream. I experienced happiness, fear, anger, all of it for the first time. I was so happy …. Until I found out that the people who had saved me were the same who studied me. And they wanted to kill and cut me open.”
Tristan couldn’t avert his gaze from Damon. This story sounded too freaky to believe. How? Why? Who?
”I was saved”, Damon continued, ”by someone who belonged to the elite but not to the scientists. She brought me to her group, stitched me together, gave me a new name and helped me to integrate into the actual society. And it worked, for a while. Until …”
”Until you met Cora”, Erin interrupted. Tristan glared at them disapprovingly, but they didn’t seem to notice. ”I’m still fascinated by everything Lydia told me about her. I wish I could have met her.”
Damon grinned, but his eyes showed nothing but deep sorrow.
”You would have loved her. I certainly did, although it was one-sided. She was the one who founded our resistance, our rebellion. We first collected others like us, liberated test subjects living in the real world. And then we started to liberate others. It worked out for a while. And then one of the leading scientists, Lucifer, found us. We accidentally administered the drug meant to counteract the emotion blocker, which drove him mad. But he was able to give us instructions on how to infiltrate the government.”
”And that’s what we’ll be working with?” Tristan asked with a frown. ”The words of a madman?”
”No. It’s what we did work with. We captured Lucifer five years ago.”
”But you didn’t succeed, I suppose. We wouldn’t be here if you did.”
”That is correct. We gathered everyone and went through with the attack. Cora and everyone else went inside the government building to assassinate and replace the members. But something went wrong, they never came back.”
”But you are here”, Tristan pointed out. ”You made it back.”
”I didn’t go inside. Cora told me to wait outside, I suppose she wanted to make sure there was someone left to lead in case something went wrong. And it happened. I waited out there for hours upon hours, until it went dark. And I returned the following days, again and again. I didn’t understand what had happened but I assumed they were all dead.”
”They are, in a way”, Erin chimed in.
”Yes, that’s what Lydia told me. But it was over a year later that she arrived here. I had already started building a new resistance, all by myself. I couldn’t disappoint Cora, you know? Even if she was dead, I needed to continue, for the sake of her legacy.” The last words had only been a whisper, as tears started flooding Damon’s eyes.
Erin placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
”I’ll continue”, they said. ”Lydia had, thanks to me, a bit more knowledge about the government over here than Tristan. After he had told her what had happened, she had been able to piece everything together. The government here is an AI, but one that uses human brains as a base. I’m not entirely sure how they’re doing it, but they’re able to integrate the neural circuits into their own and use it to make decisions. Cora and the others were likely absorbed by this AI, when they tried to disable it. I’m not even sure they had enough time to realize what had happened before they were overtaken.”
”None of this sounds like it’s something that really happened”, Tristan said and looked directly at Damon. ”It sounds like a load of bullshit.”
Damon crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
”But androids with an artificial intelligence and a free will, that look, act and even feel like humans are more realistic?”
”Well … yes!” Tristan realized how dumb his words were the moment he said them. But now he had taken a stand and he would look like an idiot if he backed down now.
But instead of arguing with him, Damon just sighed.
”It’s been a long day”, he said. ”Maybe you should try to get some sleep. Let’s talk about this tomorrow when Lydia is back. We need to plan our attack, if you believe my story or not. People will die if we don’t.”
Picture taken from pixabay.com
