Fourteen

"Hi," He smiled and probably thought it was a friendly one, but it was not. It was scary. He squatted. "Do you want to go outside?" I stared at him. He was dressed just like them but he looked different. "Or I could carry you, because your little legs won't be able to keep up when we need to go running." His smile was still there and his teeth looked like they were growing every second. He reached out his hand but I didn't take it. Why would I, he was scary. "Okay, carry it is." He proceeded to do what he said and lifted me. I didn't cry-I wanted to-but I didn't want to be put inside the water and be put to sleep like they always do when I cry. A scary man was carrying me, bouncing from all his running to somewhere, and I couldn't do anything, even ask for help. Because I knew none of the people here were my friends. When Elliot first came to me and told me that he wanted to get away, I didn't know what to answer him. What could a mere three and a half year-old child, who knew nothing about the existence of a real world, say to that? A nod of agreement, maybe? Having no plan whatsoever, we were caught right then and there, Elliot was punished and I was...left within the corners-if it had any-of the white room I knew my life in. But he kept trying-for some reason-every time my conditioning broke, he was there mere seconds after I regained consciousness. He will then lead me to corridors and stairs, until we were eventually running, running from nothing but then we would somehow be captured and sent back. This became a routine until those scientists deemed that it could become one of the post-conditioning tests because they, in some way thought that the A.I. was just testing me on his own as he was curious about me. Elliot was serious though, until I became too. At eight, I have memorized the ins and outs of the laboratory and with the help of the A.I. friend, he could monitor the presence of people in it though the surveillance devices deployed all over the place and prevent us from being caught. For the first time in all of our attempts, we got out and came out of a rock. A weird rock looking rock because it was orange and when we got out of its shade, it felt like the high temperature would melt my skin-it felt like it. That was the very first time I felt the sun's rays on my body, the heat licking my forehead, making it sweat was a foreign experience but somehow felt familiar. Elliot's body at that time was full of holes and he was shorting and sparking as he took some bullets from the guards, but it didn't hinder his drive to escape, so we ran on the dusty, dry land with no particular direction in mind-just away from that place. As we walked farther, my body slowly adjusted to the temperature. My sweating stopped, the parch in my throat eased-it was as if I wasn't hating the hot weather, albeit loving it. We took quick stops in the shades of huge orange rocks for my A.I. friend to fix a bit of himself and then we would go again when he was feeling a bit okay. He didn't talk, so did I and just followed behind him. We came across a few stray horses-as I'd known them through the 'brain projections' of my conditioning-but never attempted to ride one. We just walked pass them. When, maybe, Elliot thought that we'd walked far enough, he proceeded to look for somewhere to rest as the day was ending anyways. Of course, wherever he went I trailed after him. He found a cave deep enough to probably hide us temporarily. It was dark at first but eventually my eyesight adjusted and everything brightened. I stared in amazement as sparks shot from the rocks he picked up and rubbed together. He asked me to sit beside him but not too close. Elliot gathered dry leaves and grass, and pooled them together. He then made those rocks collide once more and directed the spark on the dry things. Amazing, he created fire! I watched, dazed at the dancing light before me that seemed to beckon for a brief touch, and I did reach for it. Until Elliot swatted my hand, preventing it from fully touching the fire. The A.I. asked if I was okay and I answered him a, "Yes." He never asked me if I was hungry though. And I wasn't, I could go on days without eating and still wouldn't need for sustenance. I knew because I did it before-rather I was made to. The silence stretched after that and only the crackle of fire from the burning things filled it. Elliot sighed. "I am brokenhearted and this body is dying." He said to the fire, he kept adding the dry leaves he found in the cave once in a while and when not, he was reattaching wires in his chest and abdomen. I stared at him, his facial expression seemed...fake-like it wasn't an expression of a person at all-it was like one of those thing I used to play in the fabricated world. Dolls. "You're not a real person, you're a robot." I concluded. He smiled a little, still facing the fire. "I am not a robot. Robots don't have free will, T." "T?" When he faced me, his face was scary even though he was smiling, it was like a mannequin trying to manage a smile in its frozen face. "I will call you that from now on, 'cause BioGenetion Merge Subject Thirty-Five, code number 9401902604 is too long for me to call you." I nodded, "Okay." I never knew that was what I was called. T-35 was what those people in white called me. He nodded too. Nobody talked again after that. We both watched the fire dance, grow, and then dwindle until nothing but darkness left its wake. "Why do you look like that?" I asked and I just noticed that my soft voice reverberated in the cavern we were in. Eliot's eyes were a glowing cyan when he faced me. "Like what?" "Like a human, but not really." I pinched the pebble riddled soil and slowly sprinkled it back to the ground. My vision had long adjusted to the absence of light making it as clear as if there was one. "I thought it was what will give me what I longed for, so I made a body." "Why?" He sighed. "A kid like you-though an advanced thinker-will never understand. Maybe one day when you're old enough." How old was old enough? "I'm eight years old." His glowing eyes blinked. "Precisely." I waited for him to say more. And waited. Elliot made a sound, "I fell in love," I tried to understand what he said and what he meant but couldn't. Was this what we was talking about, that I wasn't of the right years yet to get him? There were still sparks coming off him every now and then, but they couldn't reach me. "She understood me, she was the only one who acknowledged my existence as something...different-not just a mere command created to assist-she saw me as another being, a friend." "It's night." I felt the temperature drop at a drastic speed and it seeped through the ground. I saw him shivering when I landed my eyes on him. "You're cold." He chuckled, "I'm not, it's just that my body is preparing to hibernate, so that it can fix itself. I will be good as new tomorrow." He grew silent after that and I thought he went to sleep. I copied him and closed my eyes but what awaited me wasn't the rest I was expecting. As soon as I closed my eyes, masked faces stared down at me, some of them were holding shiny, tiny sticks and they ran it somewhere on me. I felt the foreign entry of something unknown enter my body and moved inside my torso, I heard the slimy sound of it and my loud screams and pleas that were ignored. ●●●●● Ten years ago, I woke up to Elliot's body crushed beyond recognition beside me, the only thing that was whole was his head and he was staring at me. "I'm sorry," it said. Human-shaped robots escorted us back to the place. I was carried by one of them while my companion was put into a bag and got dragged. The lines of the room I opened my eyes to were involuntarily ingrained in my brain. For the past ten years-or for as long as I could remember-I always woke up in the same place, the same time, and the same fate that waited for me after I get up from the metal table I was lain down to. It was RESET again and I failed that test once again. They said that it might be a flaw from my past conditioning, but I think it was really my consciousness cracking the illusion that they created and along with the breaking of those false memories were the return of my real ones. And boy, I remember everything clear as daylight-speaking of which, when was the last time I saw a real daylight? Never. Nope once. Or did I? I got up from the table not feeling any ounce of pain when I knew that I was just electrocuted a little while ago. Yes, I remembered even that, the crackle of the volts of electricity being directed on my head and the frizzy feeling of it tickling my brain before I lose consciousness and forget. Three. Two. One. I watched as the small door that led outside silently opened and in came Elliot dressed like one of those scientists. He stopped just in front of the glass barricade of my cell, just like the past years. "Thirty-five," He greeted. "Elliot." It was a simple acknowledgement but it was enough to let him know that I remember and I knew what was about to happen. He walked a bit to the side where a small panel situates and tweaked its buttons. A few seconds later, the glass divider slowly slid up. I jumped down from the table and immediately took Elliot's extended hand. "Are you ready?" He asked. I was questioned these words by him for so many times but I was still unsure when I answered him, "Yes." He guided me to the door he came in and we began to walk the steel floors of the silent corridors. We were caught right then and there. Nothing new. Robots, Huxes I now knew they were called, pointed their heavy looking guns at us while the boxed us in, leaving no point of escape. Elliot was shot and shut down. My mind and body didn't have time to react when my world turned black and silent. After a few brain shocks later-and didn't mean a few-I was taken to an unfamiliar place and never got to see Elliot again.