Sigma/Star

Chapter 108: Do You?

"I was authorized to engage in two-way combat." This time, Sigma spoke in his monotone with a grin across his face. "If you are going to get it, you will have to get it while actually fighting me."

"That hardly...hardly seems fair." Porter hadn't been hit like that since he had been bullied by Chase in school, before he had even become a member of the Crisis Rescue Unit or been picked for the mission to Easley. Mixing with the physical pain he felt was the emotional pain of his loss, but he sucked in a deep breath, trying to bury all feeling in his body as he did so, and stood up straight once more. "Fine, we'll do it your way."

"That will be the best way."

* * * * *

Raul felt the warmth of the rock through his clothing. He had chosen this spot on the beach, on a far side of the island without contact with the others. He enjoyed his time alone, and there were certain days where he wished he could return to his prior school days. There had been a time where he had attended Saint Maurius, done all the classes, gone through the training, and been able to sit alone at the back of the class, been allowed to wander to his room and meditate, or to find a private space within the school. Since he had gone down to Easley though, it had always been different.

The sun bathed the young man's body, heating him down to his core. He had always enjoyed the sun, always loved its glow and feel, but he never got chances to experience it anymore. He was perpetually locked away from his escapes, trapped in constant fighting and war. Maybe this movement away from the Enian Federation was a good thing, even though the price had been steep.

Did I kill Chase? Raul rubbed his hand across his face, pulling down on his eyes as he did. It had been him who had been running around Porter at that time. While Ardwen had constructed his plan for the spear formation, Raul had opted into assassinating other targets, scattering himself around while a weakened Porter was forced to lead a charge. Had he been there with them, had he fought alongside them, had he even noticed fast enough that Porter was endangered, could he not have saved them all?

Raul held his hand up in front of his face, imagining the sweat on his palm as little drops of Chase's blood. If this is how I feel, he thought, what's it like to be Porter? There was rustling in the bushes behind him, and Raul instinctively reached down to his belt, ready to pull out any one of an assortment of weapons. This was more than likely a friend, as there were almost no animals on the island but birds, but he could never be too careful.

"Why are you sitting there, Raul?" The question was not sarcastic or malicious, it was not angry or disappointed. It was just a question for the sake of knowledge. This person genuinely wanted to know why he was sitting on the rock, and that meant it could only be one person.

"I am resting Alpha. The sun feels nice."

"Does it?" Alpha seemed to process the information, storing it away for future use. Raul had twisted his head to watch her, propping his chest up on his elbows to do so. "What does it feel like?"

Raul squinted a bit at his compatriot, skeptical about Alpha's capacity. Roth had already explained her situation to them, and it was quite clear she was nothing more than an artificial intelligence, but her constant desire to learn irritated the young man. Why would a normal computer ever want to know so much when it could just download all the information in the world? Every answer to every one of these questions was surely online.

"Your facial expression would indicate you do not trust me. Have I done something that would be considered untrustworthy?"

"No." Raul mulled over the question in his head. It was just his own fears that were clouding his judgement this time. Alpha was a special kind of machine after all, and Sigma certainly showed that the Enigma soldiers had an incredible capacity for retaining both human emotion and computer intelligence. But Syn and Sigma had left many destructive paths in their wake. Without any human thought, what was keeping Alpha from doing the same? "Why are you here then?"