Hayden storms off Khaan’s apartment and wanders around the city until she finds herself at the docks. It’s night and she (in my book Hayden is female and MC/Jordan male) finally lets her mind take in what’s happened. An insight on Hayden’s viewpoint, vulnerability, anger…and feelings towards the gang.
As for the “bionic hearts”…I’m not sure if Hayden or Steve actually have bionic/artificial hearts but I used it as a tribute to another VN I was fond of, “Bionic Hearts”, that also portrayed an AI robot x human romance.
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After storming off Khaan’s apartment, Hayden wandered around aimlessly through the alleys of the city. She walked and walked all day until there was nowhere else to go. The ocean finally appeared in front of her: she’d reached the docks. It was dark and a cold yet gentle breeze blowing from the bay caressed her face. She took a seat at the edge of a quay and inhaled the scent of the sea.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down, but it didn’t work. So many feelings were fighting inside her like a wild storm threatening to rip away all the sanity in her.
She forced herself not to think when she was walking: she ran from her own thoughts and feelings like vampires run from sunlight, but now she couldn’t run anymore. Sure, she could dive in the ocean and keep going, but Hayden knew that it would have been pointless. What was haunting her could not be dismissed so easily.
As the city noise slowly faded away, she gave in. She recalled the way Khaan looked at her when Sloane said, beaming with pride, “she’s a Match”. When later he casually asked her about her programming “and he even had the guts to ask Steve too! He really couldn’t see how rude he was?! He acts high and mighty, as if he was so different from Cecile and Rowan, but drop the act, jerk, you’re fucking not: we’re nothing but things to you too. Robots with feelings but still robots. Cables and wires.” Hayden’s hands immediately clenched in fists and her eyes glowed with anger.
“And what about Sloane? My dear friend Sloane!” Hayden clenched her jaw as a tear formed in her eye. “She showed me to her crush as if I were a science fair project. Look Khaan, she can sing, she can dance, she can break a wall with her superstrength and know what? Thanks to the amazing update I installed in no time while we were on the run from some mob guys she can even fly a helicopter! You serious, Sloane? She didn’t even catch my sarcastic line “and it even makes toasts” because she was so wrapped up in impressing Khaan! My friend, my best friend who kept telling me how much she cared about me…when I opened up and said that I was uncomfortable because I never had a sleepover, all she could think was “oh gosh, I forgot to include one to your memories!”. As if that was the problem. God, so smart yet so oblivious, huh? I have memories of a sleepover, but are they real? Are they MINE? NO, SLOANE THEY’RE FUCKING NOT”.
“I don’t care about Nazario, he has always looked me up and down because I’m a robot. An alien, an enemy. I don’t care what he says now, I’m not sure I believe him because apparently everyone thinks I’m just a thing, right? A full-body Savi, what else? But I thought Sloane would have understood, she claimed to be my friend from the very beginning.” Hayden took a shaky breath. “I was a fool. The only one who truly got it was Dames and now he’s gone. I’ve never felt so lonely, Dames.”
Rage tears turned into sorrow tears.
“How could they know? They’re humans. They don’t know, they can’t even start to imagine how it feels. They have their memories, their lives to go back to in times like this. They can get strength or reassurance from that. They don’t realize it, but, thanks to that, they know they had a past, they are real. What about us, Dames? We didn’t ask for any of this and one day they brought us to life and planted someone else’s memories in our brain. Or they could have created them from scratch. We have no past, we just started existing and took over someone else’s life, fake lives that felt so real to us until we found out the hard truth: everything is a lie. Our childhood friends, our mom reading us bedtime stories, our dad beaming with pride when we got our diploma, that day we landed our first job…none of this is real, just a hollow script. We’re hollow, we’ve been played.”
Hayden winced in pain as another thought crossed her mind. “And Jordan…he’d been fooled too, but I’ve never felt a robot with him. He thought I was real, but even when the truth came out he said that it didn’t change a thing. That he loved me no matter what. He…he’s my harbor: the only memories, REAL memories that I have are with him. But he’s human too”. She tried and failed to suppress a sob. “He tried though. I sensed that he knew something was off with me and did his best. He cracked some jokes, squeezed my hand reassuringly, pulled me into a hug but it didn’t work, love. Not this time. You will never understand me, and I will always have these issues because this is what I am, what they made me. Yet I’m not a puppet on a string, I want to be like Jordan, Nadia, Sloane, Damien…I want to be alive, to be real. I want something real, but can I trust my friends? Can they see behind my cables and wires? I-I don’t know, I don’t it anymore. And how can I be with Jordan if I-I don’t even know who I am because I have nothing? I love him but is this even right?” Tears streamed down her face. “I-I am so sorry Jordan, you’re surely better off without me”
Heartbroken, Hayden hung her head and allowed herself to shed all the tears she held back.
“Who knew that bionic hearts break too”.