[DAMIEN]
Earth as I knew it was a desolate land. It was a thought that plagued me every time I left the safety of the Sectors I called home. The dry fields, with nothing but dirt and rock, were the complete opposite of the stories I was allowed to read as a child. Pages and pages filled with greenery, with trees, and animals of the chittering kind, the stories were only alive when I went to sleep.
The War of Humans left me with what remained. And I, the last human alive, could only wish to live in my dreams. Loneliness was an emotion the machines could never understand.
The silent clock of the rover's dashboard displayed a temperature too hot for a human. For an Attribution, the heat may have done damage to their exterior, but without the pain receptors warning them, the machines could go on and on without the need to stop.
Arvon, the Attribution Lead, needed to acquire all minerals for Sector Seven, and because of him, I had to stay close by. In the heat. Struggling to stay cool within the vehicle's air conditioning. I had fixed the coolant within the old rover at least ten times before my nineteenth birthday. I was thankful that today of all days, it worked without an issue.
As a human, I wouldn't last more than fifteen minutes under the Earth's furious sun.
"Only a few hours until I can get back and eat," I muttered as sweat glistened over my skin, small drops trickling between my fingers. I brushed my palms over my pants before glancing out the rover's window. Arvon was just outside, loading the materials inside the crate for delivery. If the sun wasn't so high in the sky, I would've helped him; I was good at the organization and learned well of the mechanical ways. I had to, considering I was trained to be their mechanic. And in a way, it was my thanks, as payment, for my safety.
The Attributions could have left me for dead as an infant. Being the last of my kind, I would have rotted away within the deserts just outside Sectors one through twelve. But the machines were programmed with kindness, a trait left within them by my ancestors; a programming that kept me alive. The least I could do was learn to care for them until I was gone from this Earth.
"Damien?" Arvon turned and faced the vehicle. He looked towards the window I sat beside and I nodded, acknowledging that I'd heard him. A small smile lifted his human-like lips. "Are you well?" he asked.
I lifted my brows. Had he heard me? He might have. But his smile reminded me I had nothing to complain about.
With the care he had given me since I was a child, it was easy to forget he wasn't a human like I was. He appeared to be; his artificial skin and black hair made him feel real enough. If his complexion hadn't been so pale, he could have passed as my father. But he wasn't; he was an Attribution, like the cyborgs back home at the Sectors.
Still, he treated me no different.
He smiled again as he shut the crate in front of him. "Is it hot inside the vehicle?" he asked
Again, I nodded. Then shrugged. The air conditioner made the temperature bearable, but boy was I sweating. Glancing down at my hands as another bead of sweat formed between my fingers, it was a reminder that I would be comfortable and cool if I had remained at home.
"You can speak." Arvon approached the vehicle, leaning against the hood. "There are no secrets between us, Damien."
I lifted my brows as I looked at him. There were secrets, ones I kept to myself.
They developed when I was young, forming because I had been allowed literature upon request. I had explained how I was human and I needed more to my education than the words of machines. Arvon, filling in the father-figure shoes very well, complied and supplied me with old, tattered books he'd located in an old human library just south of our Sector. And over the years, I read them but kept my questions to myself. Attributions wouldn't have been able to answer them, anyway.
Yet, the last book from the pile, one I opened on my thirteenth birthday, was different from the rest. There was no author etched on its cover or carved on the side. It was without a title, too. Yet, the words inside, handwritten instead of typed, told a different story than the videos Attributions showed me as a child. While the machines told me the glorious days of humans and machines co-mingling in a peaceful existence, the book detailed the disastrous effects of computers built too smart for their own good. The book and the stories I had learned were polar opposites of each other until I reached the end.
Written within those pages was the War of Machines. And it was so similar to the War of Humans, as I had been made to believe.
Arvon chuckled and pulled me out of my thoughts. He pulled open the passenger door, allowing the humid air to slip inside, past the air conditioning. When he sat beside me, he shut himself in. And I blinked, confused.
"Are you done?" I asked him, observing the crates outside. There were six of them, each such and labeled for their proper deliveries. "Do you need help loading them inside of the rover?"
"I do not, no," Arvon said as he slid his hand over his dark, short hair. "But I have noted your silence this morning." He shot me a side glance. "Your mother noted this as well."
Mother. Father.
Arvon was always sure to mention parental titles to make me feel... normal. It worked when I was a child, during the days when I would lay within the arms of a lower grade Attribution and look up at her plastic face. But as an adult, I found I didn't need to lie to myself. Arvon protected me, Attributions treated me well, but I knew I was different.
One day, I would die.
"Damien." Arvon placed a hand on my arm and I stared at his skin, pale and free of sweat or tint from the burning sun. He seemed undamaged, while I, having sat in the vehicle for an hour, had red sweeping over my brown skin like paint. I tugged at the collar of my shirt to peel it away from my chest.
"Damien," he said my name again until I looked at his face. His brows lifted as he smiled. "Your mind is restless, this is something I cannot ignore. Perhaps a walk will ease your mood."
A walk? Biting my lip, I had thought of taking a walk for days. But the walk would've been just outside the Sectors, under the shade of buildings tall enough to graze the sky. What would I do without shelter?
Pointing at the window to my right, I pursed my lips and snorted through my nose. "No disrespect, father," I addressed him as I'd always done, "but it's hot outside."
"I understand." Arvon straightened. Reaching behind his seat, he pulled a small crate I hadn't known was there. I watched as he opened it, revealing a cloak and hood. Grouping both items together with one hand, he handed it to me.
Again, I blinked. "Father," I shook my head, "it's hot. I'll die with this on."
"You won't." Arvon pushed the items against my chest and held them there. The look in his eyes darkened, the blue color deepening their hue. "I have cared for you since you were an infant. Would I ever give you an item that may cause you harm?"
He had once, but it was an accident. No one knew a human child was unable to wield a weapon.
"I would never." Extending his fingers, Arvon let the cloak fall on my lap. "The materials these are made of will keep you cool under this extreme sunlight. I believe a nice walk of forty-five minutes will allow your mood to settle." He reached for the door handle at his side. "I will continue to load the crates for delivery, but I ask that you relieve yourself of stress. Humans would take walks in this instance."
"Walks..." I looked down at my lap, at the cloak he'd given me. Rubbing my fingers over the hood, I found he was right. The material didn't feel like cotton. It was different, thin, even felt cold against my fingertips.
When Arvon opened the door to step back out into the desert, I looked at him, leaning over on his seat with the cloak pressed to my shoulder. "Forty-five minutes, right?" I asked.
Looking down at me, he nodded before returning to his crates without another word. I took the silence as a go-ahead and pressed myself back against my seat. Lifting my wrist, I changed the time on my watch to alert me when the walk should end. Arvon may have been good with time but I wasn't. I could sleep through a storm if I was allowed to.
But this wasn't a storm of nature, rather winds of my heart. Arvon either saw the torrents on my face and spoke to mother about my recent nightmares. Either way, I wouldn't pass the chance of being able to leave his side. Once my watch confirmed the new setting on an alarm, I slipped the cloak over my head.
Perhaps the walk was all I needed, to see the world just as the mysterious book described.
*
A/N: Second part of chapter 1! Now I give you Damien :) the only human living amongst the machines. <3 I'd love to hear your thoughts!