"I'm not afraid of God, I am afraid of man."
-
The world is cruel and unfair, Korra knew that and never thought anything would be able to change it. But the arrival of an RK-800 android in her lab on a late November evening would prove to be the cat...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"You look like you need sleep, not coffee."
Yesterday had passed, and it was Sunday now. Just like the many weeks before this one, I stood inside a café with one of the few people from college I still spoke to.
"Good to see you too, Ivia," I rolled my eyes at her and her tardiness. For the past few years, we had always met at this coffee shop in Capitol Park every Sunday at noon. But just as always, Olivia was approximately twelve minutes late.
Back in 2026, we had met at UMich while I was getting my forensic degree and Olivia (Ivia for short) was getting her engineering degree. Ivia was one of the smartest people I knew, she was frank and she had a big heart and was always rather shy. She was a petite girl, with espresso skin that turned a light umber in the freezing Michigan wind. She always wore a big, woolen grey scarf that she tried to use as a shield against the cold, yet the Detroit weather seemed to always push through. Her calculating eyes scanned across the chalkboard menu, framed by her cat-eye shaped glasses. She looked over to me and smiled, then giving her order to the Android barista and paying it.
"You're always so chipper for someone who's always late," I noted as Ivia moved to stand at the end of the counter, waiting for her coffee. Pushing her chestnut dreads off her shoulder, I watched as Ivia looked me up and down, scoffing in a joking manner.
"If it took you almost a decade to figure that out, I'm not sure how you got through college," Ivia laughed and gave me a quick, playful look. I pretended to be hurt by that, thinking back to the stressful years and cringing a bit on the inside.
"You know exactly how I got through it," I smirked as she bumped her elbow into Ivia's. "More instant ramen and box wine than I'd like to admit." Ivia let out a quick burst of giggles as our drinks came out.
We quickly found our way to the usual table by the window, the one that gave us a good view of the rainy street, and sat in silence.
The shop was a bit bigger than a typical café. It's walls were a combination of painted drywall and old, crumbling bricks. The entrance area was large and spacious, with a straw stand directly to the left, the line for the barista right ahead, and a set of various sized tables lined up against the aged walls. The entire front wall was made up of glass, so when you pass by, you could look in at the patrons at any perspective on the street. You almost felt exposed in there, yet the warm atmosphere swaddled you into a sense of security.
Taking a few sips of my tea, I impatiently set down my cup and began to catch up.
"How's work going?" I asked, watching as Olivia set down her coffee and let out a dramatic sigh.
"That good, huh?"
Taking off her coat and scarf and hanging it on the back of her chair, Olivia chuckled and a took a deep breath before unloading all the events of this week onto me. Ivia loved her job more than anything and I always admired her for always keeping her enthusiasm. After she had gotten her engineering degree, she managed to land a small position at Cyberlife before it became such a massive corporation. But after making her go back to school, the company promoted her to the head of their prosthetic's program.
