4 - Artificial

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I couldn't believe my eyes. My mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but there were no words that formed in my lips. All the while, the girl just stared intently right back at me, unmoving.

"A-apple?" I stuttered when I finally recovered, taking a step closer to her just to make sure I wasn't imagining things. But there was no denying it. "How... W-why?"

She moved for the first time, her head tilting slightly to the side with her round dark eyes still fixed on me. I couldn't say how many times it touched my mind how she made it alive after being ripped to pieces by angry Ethereals back in the Halo. It made me nauseous too, how I couldn't help but think why it had to be her who survived and not Rosario.

It was a sick, sick idea. And I knew I shouldn't let false hopes linger in my head. Rosario was dead. I had seen her, held hr in my own arms as she turned into a million fireflies. She wouldn't do a Gandalf comeback no matter what I did.

"Apple," she repeated the name pensively, her shrill girlish voice strangely flat. Her dark eyes went blank for several moments then she suddenly blinked, her eyes focusing on me again. "Codename APPLE. Autonomous Prototype Purge Liaison Equipment. Status: non-functional, damaged beyond repair," she recited mechanically.

I shook my head. It felt like I was listening to an automatic recording. "W-what are you talking about?"

She was acting totally strange. Well, the Apple I knew was strange too, but in a different way. She was emotional-perhaps too much at times-like a little girl and I could barely understand anything she was saying most of the time during the short period we had spent together in the Halo. Yet, the girl in front of me seemed like a completely different person. The poker face, the weird movements, the almost mechanical manner of speaking unnerved me.

Warily, I took two steps back, lowering my stance. "Show me your mark!" I demanded.

Almost automatically, she stepped toward me with an innocent facade. My instincts kicked in and I leaped backward to maintain the distance between us. The Reapers couldn't have found me. They shouldn't. The Helcium should've prevented them.

My legs tensed to run but my fierce longing for any information about the rest of the cabal prevented me from making my escape. I had to know. I had to hear that they were still alive, at least. Or else, I was afraid I would lose what little sanity remained in my thick skull.

"Your mark!" I insisted, not taking my eyes off her as I began to harness my Bind. With some effort, I felt the weak force leisurely pulsing, flowing down to my right arm. "Slowly!"

Carefully, she took a small step to where the light of the moon wasn't blocked by the branches of the trees. She didn't even look intimidated by my suspicion when she gathered the thick red mane off the left side of her neck and pushed it back. Even without the moonlight, I could see it clearly on her neck-the Eleventh's mark-glowing faintly red in the dark.

"Tell me," I started, just to buy me more time to accumulate enough life-force to summon my scythe. "Had Hector switched alliance? How did you find me? Why are you here, Apple? Tell me."

A flicker of life momentarily lit her dark-brown eyes at the mention of her master's name. But other than that, her face was still unreadable.

"Sorting inquiries according to importance. Sorting done," she droned on. After a short pause, she began enumerating the answers to my questions. "Master Hector's affairs are... confidential. Target-Aramis Rayne was found through the Infallible Detecting Program (IDP) installed in this body at specific date-eleventh of May, Tuesday- and specific time-five fifty-eight in the morning.

"Only such program is capable of locating you within two point zero thirty-seven seconds duration of visibility," she assured me.

I placed a hand to my chest, feeling the weak chill given off by the Helcium's crystal. Then I remembered how it had fallen off of my hands when Alessandra took over my body yesterday. It wasn't even that long-two seconds according to Apple-and Hector already knew where I was. Supposedly, I was untouchable. All the same, Vincent's confidence in the stupid old necklace had just been proven wrong today.

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