Dear HANDLER

Chapter 3

They were now in her secret laboratory in her basement. Rhys's eyes were glued to the wall full of her family pictures. He had so many questions on his mind. Jinhong noticed that he was staring a bit too much at the wall full of photos. She immediately rushed over to the wall and slid the curtains so that he wouldn't see more of those pictures. Rhys was confused upon why his handler was so secretive about her family yet he didn't ask a single question. She then moved over to the computer and said

"Please sit on the chair so that I can examine you"

Rhys didn't complain. He was obedient. The photo wall caught his eye, but he resisted the urge to ask her more questions about it. Instead, he did as she had told him and sat on the chair, waiting patiently. He watched her do her code check while his thoughts kept on wandering to the photo wall. He thought he might be able to see more of it if he looked hard enough.

But he decided not to do so, and instead refocated his attention back to her and what she was doing. He wanted to watch her work, but he couldn't help it. His eyes kept returning to the photo wall. She inserted a wire into the back of his neck and noticed that his code still had some fault. She sighed and tried to figure it.

Rhys kept watching her work, studying every movement of her hands as she tried to resolve the virus. Even though it was a simple action, he was still intrigued by it. The fact that she was able to read his code despite how advanced and well hidden the virus was, told him a lot about how capable a scientist she must be.

She dramatically banged her head onto the table as soon as she figured the problem in the code. It was a complete mess.

Rhys was quite surprised by her sudden actions. The way her head hit the table, it was almost as if she'd been hit by a wave of frustration. He felt an urge to ask what had made her react this way, but resisted, deciding to let her work through it on her own. She then glanced over at him with her head still on the table.

"Just what have you been thinking all along ?"

Rhys was caught off guard by her sudden question, but he tried to answer it honestly anyways.

"I've been thinking about a lot of things. Like the photos you had. I wanted to ask more about that. But also, I've just been waiting for you."

She sighed, "I suggest you slow down your horses because it will only mess up your code"

"My... code?"

Rhys echoed, his brow furrowing, now even more confused. She'd mentioned earlier that she had to check for the virus, but now he thought there was something more than that going on. Was she going to modify his code?

"Yes. Your code"

Rhys was silent for a long moment. The thought of his code being changed had not crossed his mind before. He was worried now, he didn't understand why she wanted to change his code. Was it for her own benefit?

"But why do you have to change my code?" he finally asked.

she wasn't expecting that question.

"I'm not going to change your code. The problem is that you are getting more and more curious. Your artificial brain is making more connections to the real world and that is messing up your code"

"Huh?" Rhys felt a sudden sense of surprise upon hearing what she said. So his curiosity was the root cause of the problem? He didn't think it would have such a big effect on his code.

"I... didn't know that could happen." he said, a little dumbfounded. His mind was racing now as he tried to think about what would happen next. Would she be able to control his curiosity?

"That could happen. I took care of it in advance but....". She stopped to say something but decided to ask some other thing. "What did they do to you while I wasn't around ?"

"Nothing much" Rhys replied, though he knew he was telling a lie. But what could he say? That he had been isolated in a small, empty holding cell and had just been sitting there all day, alone with his thoughts ? That he was made to think, to wonder? Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders as he replied.

"Nothing important."

"You're supposed to be telling me the truth, Rhys"

Rhys stayed silent, the truth wasn't something he was going to mention to her right now. It would only bring up more questions he didn't want to answer. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to get her worried, and he had a feeling that mentioning the truth would only do just that.

"Look, if you don't tell me then things will mess up. They won't stop until they destroy you. I'm just trying to help"

"I don't want you worried about me... "
he protested, his voice barely above a whisper. She would only worry about him unnecessarily if she knew what they'd done to him. It was pointless to tell her the truth, it wouldn't change anything. It was better if he just kept it to himself.

"How can I not worry ? You're under my care, Rhys. You are my responsibility. I want to help. You're important to me"

Rhys stayed quiet, not expecting to hear those words from her. She didn't see him as some tool to be easily discarded when he wasn't of use. She saw him as her responsibility. It was such a foreign feeling for someone to think of him as their responsibility. Was it something he even deserved? He wanted to open up to her, but all he could think of were all the ways in which it would backfire.

But... maybe that was just him being too paranoid. Maybe things would be different... this time...

"Alright" he finally decided. "There's some things I think you should know..." the words came out before he could take them back. Now, there was no going back. He had to open up to her about what had happened with the scientists and with how they'd treated him, about how he had been made to think and wonder and feel...

"They... locked me up alone" he began.

"All by myself, for who knows how long. The room didn't even have anything on it, nothing to entertain me, nothing to stimulate my thoughts. I just had to stay there, alone with my thoughts. I had nothing else to occupy myself with. And after awhile... I started to question things..."

"They... they made me like this" Rhys continued, sounding a little bit angrier now.

"They made me crave knowledge and curiosity. They took away my sole purpose of killing and that's when I started to wonder... what was the point of my existence? If I wasn't able to kill anymore, if I couldn't do the main thing I was created for, then what was I ? What was I ? What am I ? Handler"