S-2858 • L11 Irraluna • D25 Alonli
"Irraluna radiates brightness in return.Alonli stretches the curve of time.The tide gathers silver in living calm.The story moves forward whole, in low light."
KIARA
Something strange happened when I woke up.
I had my own thoughts.
I acted according to my own will.
And yet… this new part of me was foreign.
It had just been installed.
They connected me to a human.
I didn't like that feeling at all.
Even less… that human.
It was unpleasant.
What the hell was this?
"Hey."
A mercenary bent over me on the nanite transfer table.
"Your human is at the entrance to Nobody's Land.
Go."
I shook my head.
As I tried to get rid of those invasive nanites, extra information kept appearing in my nanosystem with every step.
The orange air.
The mountains of piled junk.
The mercenaries.
Other androids and nanotechnologies.
I could access everything.
They, on the other hand, were limited to what I was.
Why had that limit been transcended?
Had they installed some new software?
No.
Nothing that could justify those new access points.
Single origin.
I reached the entrance.
Among everyone there, one presence stood out.
Something inside me vibrated with her, calling me closer.
Fuck, I don't understand any of this.
A child stood between the gates of that hell.
Her name was Maia.
Messy white hair.
Skinny.
Covered in filth.
A black mask hid part of her face.
Two enormous scars on her forearms, probably from some violent puncture.
I captured the heat waves, emotions, and sensations coming from her.
Maia lifted her head.
Her honey-colored eyes met mine.
Curious, I accessed all her information.
Except one part.
That was blocked.
I didn't like that.
I didn't like her.
I wanted to reject her.
But with our connection, that was impossible.
I crouched in front of her.
"I don't like you."
Maia followed me with her eyes.
Great. She was quiet.
"Stay out of trouble."
I got up and headed for the commercial area.
Maia stayed still for a moment.
Then followed in the same direction.
Her pace quickened.
Soon she was running.
She flew past me like a bullet.
Even from far away, I could hear her clearly.
Not just me. Everyone could.
"Saymon, are you okay?"
Maia was smiling.
She stopped in front of a boy.
He was standing beside an android and turned around.
Saymon's expression hardened.
His face… reignited.
"Who are you?"
His voice came out glacial.
Saymon was almost eight cycles old.
A Class 2 mercenary.
A rare feat, even on a global level.
I accessed his data.
Many similarities to Maia's DNA.
Siblings?
Her heart pounded.
I frowned.
"What do you mean?
It's me, Maia. Your—"
Saymon covered her mouth and shoved her hard to the ground, pinning her beneath him.
What the fuck was he doing?
Instinct made me move, but something held me back.
She held me back.
I clenched my teeth.
"Shut up, I don't give a fuck who you are.
I don't want to know you.
My interest in you and nothing are the same thing."
Saymon narrowed his eyes.
"Come near me again and I'll kill you."
That icy stare.
A cutting coldness.
He stood up.
"Let's go."
He spoke to the android and turned away.
Left Maia on the ground.
Her eyes watered.
She got up and went after him.
No, you idiot.
What are you doing?
She ignored my warning.
She caught up to him.
Maia smiled again.
"W-what are you say—"
Saymon struck her throat with the side of his hand.
Her smile vanished.
She choked.
Hands to her neck.
Coughing. Suffocating.
"ARE YOU DEAF?!"
His shout echoed.
"Didn't I say if you came near me again, I'd kill you?!"
Saymon drew a knife and pointed it at her flushed face.
Maia struggled to breathe, but held his gaze.
He stared at her, his expression dripping with disdain.
Then put the knife away.
"There are things worse than death."
He turned to a nearby mercenary.
"Take her to the chamber."
Saymon smiled a winter smile.
Turned away, leaving Maia kneeling.
The mercenary smiled sadistically and grabbed her by the hair.
No.
What the fuck was happening?
I tried to go to her again.
But she stopped me.
I stayed still.
I watched them drag her away.
Fuck.
Why do you keep stopping me from doing something?
She ignored me.
I knew what awaited her.
And I stood there empty-handed.
Chamber
A single metal gurney dominated the chamber.
A slit of cold light cut through the darkness.
Walls stained with dried blood.
Fingernail marks scraped across the concrete.
The smell of death clung to every crack, though not everyone died there.
They took care to keep them alive.
Especially the children.
They had to learn. They had to know what it meant to suffer, to understand what happened if they rebelled.
The mercenaries got her drunk on IcyNova to numb her.
To make her resistance insignificant.
Maia moved slowly.
Her pupils dilated.
Her chest rose and fell in an altered rhythm.
Her eyes were empty.
I knew the effect.
I knew what came next.
But even so, my programming twisted.
An impossible bug to debug.
An unbearable noise.
I fought that feeling that made me care, because I had never cared about humans.
Never.
But with her…?
It was inevitable.
The connection throbbed inside me.
A code out of control kept growing, breaking through limits.
Each nanonerve in my body decompiled her pain.
Code by code.
Line by line.
Until it became mine.
And she felt everything.
But why…?
Why did she never scream?
Those bastards got angry about that.
They wanted screams.
They wanted terror vibrating on skin.
And Maia… she only stared at them.
Only breathed in shaking breaths.
Her body rigid.
That silence screamed louder than anything.
I bit my lip.
Every second corroded something inside me, like rust in an irreparable nanosystem.
I endured her pain.
From afar.
Did nothing.
One selunia passed
One selunia.
How did they do that for six days to a child?
How did she hold herself together?
She had only lived seven cycles.
My urge to break every one of those bastards grew.
Piece by piece.
They took her back to her room.
I went to see her.
A weak white light illuminated the cabin.
The space was tiny, the walls sterile.
The metallic smell of dried blood hung in the air.
Maia was lying there, turned toward the wall.
She wore the barest scrap of bloodstained clothing.
Red had soaked into her white hair.
When I sat on the bed, she flinched.
My body moved on instinct.
I wanted to touch her.
I stopped myself.
I was afraid of hurting her more.
Our connection was different.
Part of us had fused.
I felt the emotions behind that coldness.
She could be real with me.
I already felt her.
"You said you disliked me."
Her voice came out low.
My nanosystem resonated in a distinct vibration.
My nanoheart pulsed… pain.
"Why are you here?"
I tried to understand what was happening inside me.
Androids feel, perceive, and vibrate in their own ways.
A resonance connects us to human emotions, but what I felt was visceral in a way no code had ever transmitted before.
She carried some origin code.
Because of her…
I felt viscerally and deeply.
"I still dislike you."
My voice sounded distant, artificial.
"And you know why I'm here."
Maia sat up slowly.
"Will things here always be like this?"
The question disturbed me.
A noise rose in my programming.
Something dissonant.
I nodded.
She let out a long breath.
Then turned, revealing her back.
With every new wound, the scars had dug deeper into the flesh.
The code inside me twisted.
Every digital particle.
Every remnant of logic.
What was this feeling?
Rage?
Assholes.
Sewer trash.
"How did they do that?"
My voice came out lower than usual.
"I don't know."
A huge transverse gash tore across her back, running from her waist to her shoulder.
So deep that it exposed part of her spine.
My teeth ground together.
I bit my lips.
Almost punctured the nano-skin inside my mouth.
I was furious as hell.
If she would stop holding me back with those shitty nanites, I would have dismembered every one of them.
"Why did they do this?"
Maia shrugged.
"They said I don't feel pain."
Lie.
She felt it.
And I felt it with her.
Why did she keep acting like it was nothing?
I wanted her to stop.
"Does it hurt?"
Of course it hurt, fuck.
I just wanted her to say it, to let it out.
"It hurt more before.
Now not so much."
She turned her arms over.
Two scars cut across her forearms.
"The pain of the needles stabbed in here before I came here, that's the worst pain of all."
My programming ran a diagnostic.
Blocked.
Blocked.
The wound was unusual.
Its origin inaccessible.
It was part of what Maia hid from me.
"Who did this?"
Silence.
She stayed quiet.
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm going to take care of you."
While Maia bathed, I went for medical supplies.
On the way back, Saymon appeared.
Little bastard.
He was leaning against the wall in an alleyway.
His expression was different, subtler, whatever that meant.
The sinister coldness was farther away, but still echoing.
What does this little shit want?
"Hey."
"Get lost."
He laughed.
"Give this to her."
He held out a folded note.
I glared at him.
Then took it.
Only because of Maia…
I might have disliked her a little.
But I disliked him even more.
Maia was waiting, sitting on the bed.
So small.
So fragile.
A child with an unbreakable spirit.
And a curious ability.
I began treatment, gave her medication, cleaned the wounds, and bandaged her.
I also offered her new clothes.
Pants. A shirt. A black sweater.
I handed her a snack and some juice.
Maia ate slowly.
When she finished, she got ready to sleep.
"Wait."
I held out the note.
She opened it, read it, and smiled with affection.
"Saymon…"
She read aloud:
"'There was a storm in our atmosphere.
The nature we are went dark because we surrendered to the paths chosen for us.'"
She put the note in her pocket.
I arched an eyebrow.
"Is that a code?"
"Maybe."
Maia lay down.
"It's the truth. Our truth."
And then she slept.
Two selunias
A former mercenary leader called for me.
He asked me to accompany him all day because of my camouflage hack, Cloakify.
I only returned to Nobody's Land at night.
That was when I learned what had happened.
Two mercenaries were walking.
Then suddenly they stopped.
Hands flew to their throats.
They tried to breathe, but failed.
Collapsed and convulsed.
And then… nothing.
Cardiorespiratory arrest.
It all happened so fast that rescue was useless.
They were the mercenaries who had tortured Maia during that selunia.
The need to find her ate at me.
My nanosystem was spinning in overload.
I scanned every shadow.
Every crack.
Every trace of heat.
Where are you, Maia?
Where?
After searching for a long time, I found her.
She had used her ability.
Erased her presence.
She wanted to stay hidden.
Even from me.
As if she wanted to disappear from the whole world.
As if… she wanted to disappear from herself.
I recognized her because of her white hair, glowing beneath the aerolight.
I approached her slowly, overwhelmingly relieved.
She was sitting on a bench, staring at the ground.
I sat beside her.
We stayed silent, until suddenly it was interrupted by an unfamiliar sound.
A low hitch.
A sound that didn't belong to her.
Small.
Almost imperceptible.
But enough.
Enough for me to understand.
She was crying.
I pulled her into my arms.
I felt her body tense, as if fighting against its own despair.
But then…
Something gave way.
Her breathing failed.
Her shoulders shook.
And she… broke.
Maia deactivated her ability.
She flooded me with her raw feelings.
I hugged her tighter.
I remembered that, though she seemed unbreakable, she was still a child.
A desperate child.
Forced into that world.
Only then did I begin to understand Maia.
"I-it was me."
Her voice split apart.
"I-I did that."
She wrapped her thin arms around my waist.
"I know."
I warmed my nanobody to comfort her.
I knew everything.
"I-I got close to trouble.
I'm sorry."
Maia rubbed her eyes.
Fighting against the crying.
When I saw her there, curled up and weeping, I realized something.
She was more than a survivor.
She was a broken weapon.
A blade forged in hell, sharpened by pain, but one that never wanted to cut anyone.
"Apologies are unnecessary. I'm the one who failed you. The problem is everything around us in this shithole."
I pulled her hands away from her face.
"Even so, I should have done something.
Forgive me.
I should have stayed there, feeling all of that inside you."
I hugged her again.
"I want to have friends.
Keep them alive."
Her words carried so much pain.
"I know."
It was all I could say.
"I'm here now.
I'll always stay by your side."
Maia lifted her face.
Her eyes were still wet, but something shone there.
A spark.
"Even if you dislike me?"
I smiled faintly.
"Even if I dislike you."
Even while I was still trying to keep up with her.
Even while existence only became what it was after her.
I would still be there.
I would still stay.