Summary: Robots aren’t supposed to have this many feelings but somehow he does..
His eyes open.
3:49am.
He doesn’t need to look at the time. Somehow he just knows it is correct…
The percale sheets of the hotel duvet slid over his body as he manoeuvres himself into a sitting position, hand running through the thick shock of hair. Silverly beams of moonlight filter into the room, dancing across the patterned carpet before they are disrupted by the dark shape of his shadow as it glides behind him towards the open window. Here with the cool night air from the open window nipping at his skin, bare from the hip upwards he swears it almost pimples into goose flesh, almost like the real thing, almost as if he was —
He can’t bring himself to finish the thought. It’s too raw, the sensation, the concept that he is not— he stops himself again. He is not ready to face it, not yet. Before he can wonder if he ever will be able to, he forces his eyes to slide downwards, shifting his focus to the city splayed out below him.
From his vantage point, he sees Paris in all her splendour, illuminated by jewels of light that glitter in the darkness, taunting him with her silent beauty, daring him to do something he knows he can’t.
Indescribable.
Paris holds millions of sleeping souls in her arms below him, each one with a life as vivid and complex in ways his never will be. The word for it is sonder, he reminds himself, the concept arising from somewhere in the depths of his mind, another reminder of who — what — he is.
One might compare him to a lycanthrope, a creature of the night, hiding on the fringes of humanity desperately desiring to be one of those he stalks. He wants nothing more than to think, to feel, to hurt, to need, to love like they do and perhaps for a moment he allows him an attempt to imagine that this could be a reality. He dwells in the fantasy, sinking into the concept of being so much more… He goes back into a memory that is not his, that will never be his, to recall the comfort that the night used to give, bringing with it warmth, a and a woman’s laughter he cannot quite place.
His feet have brought him to the edge of the Seine. The waves gently lap within the confines of the banks, the sound almost like a salve against the thoughts that scream and bite the processor that is his brain.
He thinks — wait, how does he think? He is surprised that he can even forming his own individual thoughts and actions — they must have created him to be more advanced than he initially thought. Is it just a series of electrical signals carried through copper wires that attach themselves to the inside of his metal skull? Perhaps it a compilations of purposely implanted memories and pictures melded together by someone smarter than he is, elaborately programming the mechanics of his body until the images are presented to his visual field? Or maybe it’s none of those things? Maybe he is entirely wrong…
A group of drunks stumble out of a nearby bar at that moment, their rambucious laughter piercing through his silent ruminations. He barely receives a sideways glance, as they stagger on into the night in pursuit of whatever peculiar goal their addled minds have decided on, .
In that moment he felt the closest to being human he’d ever felt before. An unknown sensation rushes through him, he can’t quite place it but it comes strong and vivid. If he’s out here long enough, maybe he could convince himself that he is one of them…
Out here anything feels just within his reach. He’s just a man on a walk in the city at nighttime.
The concept is deceiving simple, terrifyingly normal that out here no one but him knows the terrible truth that he’s so much more…
It’s not just him, he reminds himself.
The other, Hayden by name, he has memories of himself mistrusting, mocking the other robot for what he was all the while never knowing that they were one and the same. He sees it again now before his eyes, his own mistrust and bitterness: How can we trust this aberration created by the hands of a madman for purposes beyond the field of reason? This question held fast when Hayden had arrived upon the realization that he was something other than human and he remembers his own sentiment being almost non-existent.
Perhaps it was only fitting that fate would laugh at him next, turn its scornful gaze and condemning finger at him next and when the revelation arrived, it slapped him across the face with the fact that he was the very thing he never fathomed he’d be. When it was his turn, Hayden could have — in fact he should have — treated him with the same disdain, but instead his head had tilted ever so slightly and he swore he saw what could only be defined as empathy etched in the digitised irises that stared back into his own.
Shock and horror had played freely on the faces of Sloane and Nadia — even Alana who prided herself on her stoicism couldn’t hide the raw emotions evoked from the realisation. Until he saw it in their eyes, real and visceral and so intensely human, it hadn’t occurred to him that he should be feeling these things until he saw it so starkly in front of him. Panic had flared at this as he struggled to wrap his head around the concept that they were on two separate planes of existence.
He remembers the sensation of his stomach dropping when they’d made the connection about his true form and he feels it again now — in reality he knows he has none so the machinery compensates for it by turning cogs and spinning wheels, wires sparking to mirror the effect. How had he never… had he just not felt feelings or sensations any of these things…? Never established an independent thought or connection?
That doesn’t seem right… His mind, for all its higher functions, fails him now as he sifts through the memories in his head, trying to remember and put together an explanation to prove himself wrong. When he finds none, he drops his head.
Perhaps the eyes that had hurt the most were hers
… Athena.
He remembers again how she asked him to try, just try and describe the painting at the Louvre and how he tried and tried but just couldn’t find the words. The hurt and sheer fright when she looked at him was jarring enough then and still is now as he recalls the look of utter betrayal that had flashed before she could school her features into something more composed.He feels something inside him stir — more machinery probably — he assumes it would equate to a need, he could almost call it desire to be what she wants, what she deserves, to be so much more for her. So much more than he is than he will ever be.
He thinks about the real Damien, the one he is meant to be mimicking, probably imprisoned and chained somewhere in Eros’ head quarters. He is a fake, a sham in his place. His skin seemed to almost crawl at the speculation of what terrible experimentations and tortures they could be carrying out on his counterpart while he was free to live his life, wear his clothes, walk in his shoes, pretending to be so much more than he is.
In the dark water of the Seine, he find himself, normal every day man, a thin and flimsy facade to what lies in the depths underneath. Would it be easier to jump in and never come back out? Because how his… friends – if he was even allowed to call them that – were in danger because of him, a major possibly deadly organisation on their heels because of him. Would it be better if…
He looks down at the river flowing under him. Should he just take the plunge? Would it even work? Would it feel like dying? Would that equate to anything a human would experience? Instead of the alarming sensation of water filling the lungs and head eventually succumbing to the pressure, he’d feel the coolness deep in through a crack in the iron armour that sat not far below his skin. It would fill up the cold hollow cavity of his body as the wires and processors sparked angrily in protest.
He knows he can’t do that, that the consequences of it will effect more than just himself and for them he stays. He stays so his friends can have a fighting chance. He will never replace the friend he attempts to be, he will never be the killing machine he was intended to be but he can give them that at least.
Something occurs to him:Who or what must he be? Is he even entitled to a choice? A part of him — the more human part he assumes then corrects himself for there’s nothing about him that’s human — whatever part that is wants to do more, be more, he wants to be so much more. His eyes raise to the stars above, asking, begging pleading silently for their wisdom but when none comes, he brushes the snow off his jacket, straightens his shoulders and walks back.
Just a man on a walk in the city at night.