Chapter Five

Aaron

Aaron is sitting alone in the dark back of one of the armored personnel carriers in the main hanger. He’s trying to remember what it was like to be his old self, and human. Maybe if he can remember, he might be able to hold onto it, as if what is happening to him now will eventually pass. Over the last month, since they’ve moved to SSS, things have gradually gotten worse and worse. There seems to be so little of his previous self left anymore. He’s been slipping down into a darker place nearly every day.

Valerie, Marco, and Gabriel had all designed his new body to be as absolutely human-like as possible. At first, it felt like they had done an incredible job of it, but subtle differences are starting to become much more noticeable lately. There are clear advantages to having mechanical body, but there are sobering drawbacks as well.

While he closely looks over his hands, he counts all of the new scratches and marks on them. Quite a bit of his palm and fingerprints are missing their color and are showing the black underneath. His body isn’t even two months old and it’s already showing its miles. Using his new strength was fun while it lasted, but he’s going to have to be a lot more careful with himself now.

Even though he’s no longer mortal, stronger, and tougher, he often feels more vulnerable. His has a battery life now, and will forever be tied to that damn scanning station. People don’t look at him, or treat him like a man anymore either. He’s become that machine they’ll send into the worst combat situations, nothing more.

Whenever he doesn’t like something, or gets fed up, the other guards mock him and say that Sy should have gotten a regular robot, one that doesn’t complain. Even Valerie has told him to buck up and quit being so difficult. She thinks that just because he never gets tired, he won’t burn out. She doesn’t want ot be around him when he’s angry, and that’s becoming most of the time. He’s tried to tell her that he can’t turn it off, but she won’t listen to him when he’s worked up.

Ever since the night of all the killing. He hasn’t been able to concentrate on the life that he’d been brought back from. That persistent lingering rage is always there. It never left. He feels like tearing someone’s arms off nearly every waking moment. Luckily, it staves off the guilt of what all he’s done. He tells himself that he did what he had to, and that the rioters deserved everything they got. But then, he remembers so many bloody faces looking up at him. They were just stupid kids, but they still would’ve killed him if they had the chance.

If Marco were still around, he’d maybe talk to him about what’s going on, but not Valerie. There’s no way he’s going to tell her that they screwed something up, that things aren’t right, and never were. It wouldn’t do either of them any good. He’s not about to ask them to rewrite his mind right now. He imagines her telling him to grow up and quit making excuses for his shitty attitude. He’s supposed to be their rock, not their moody burden. She’s definitely annoyed with him enough to say something like that.

He tells himself to quit being a sissy and to keep focusing on his job. If he can do that, and not let the anger out, he might be able to pull himself back together. People have expectations of him and he means to meet them. He will do his job, and he’ll do it better than anyone else can. That’s why Sy brought them all on. If he doesn’t prove his worth, Sy will move on, probably without any of them.

Despite there never really being anything specific to be angry about, he still has to fight back the urge to destroy something. It doesn’t matter what, anything will do. More often lately, he finds himself giving into the temptation. Yesterday, he snuck away to try satiating the nagging rage that had been pestering him all day it was getting bad.

Ashamed, he relives it in his mind, finding the stack of heavy cargo pallets in the garbage dock and smashing the hell out of them with a crowbar. He poured all of his hate and emotion into it, even throwing them against the walls and going completely ape-shit. It was pure bliss while it lasted. It has to have been what being cranked high on drugs is like. Alarmingly, nothing changed, except for the newest marks on his hands. He looks down at them again, thinking of how stupid he’d been. Not being able to satiate the rage makes it so much more worrisome.

He thinks about Marco again. When he pictures the old man in his mind, it only brings on the memory of him being hamburgered all over the room by that bomb. Marco would’ve been able to tell him what was wrong, help him through it, or maybe fix the hardware problem. He thinks about Valerie again. This stuff is way over her head. If it really gets bad, he’ll have to tell Gabriel, but that’s an absolute last resort.

He clenches his hands into as tight of fists as they’ll make and tries to consciously let go of his anger when he relaxes, but it doesn’t help. It never does. He can’t tell Valerie he was brought back in such a tortured way. He has to work this out on his own. Either that, or wander off and die somewhere. Maybe if he off’s himself, they’ll get the hint. He imagines them shelving him for a while and never eventually getting around to bringing him back because of skill or funding. Some excuse like that.

He wonders if maybe Gabriel did something to him. He shakes his head. If he told Valerie anything like that, she’d kill him for sure, and then they’d all be screwed. What he needs is a vacation, but it’s only been a month. Ever since the day he was brought back, he’s been either killing, or training to be better at killing. Sy made it very clear that if he isn’t every bit worth the money, he’ll find himself without so much as a wall plugin in the machine shop for accommodations.

Without the need for physical exercise or doing muscle memory skills, he continues to blaze through his training far ahead the others. Vaun has taken him on full-time, leaving the others to Tony. He’s already heard Vaun telling Sy that he often finds himself afraid for his own life during their lessons. Some of the other guards think he’s going to fly off the handle one day, like a Pitbull, and people will get killed. He knows he even overheard Sy asking Valerie if he’s always been so aggressive. No one minds saying this kind of shit right in front of him either, as if he were the kind of machine that doesn’t know the difference.

When reflecting on his last stint of knife training with Vaun, he rests his forehead in his hand. He shouldn’t have done what he did. He still scoffs, thinking how all the SSS guards are supposed to be so tough. It’s become annoying how slow normal people are, now that his artificial mind can think so much more quickly. All of his artificial neurons are direct electric now. It has its plusses, but the drawbacks are really biting him in the ass nowadays.

Vaun has been trying to beat martial arts into his mind, but he’s been cocky and resistant to it. He’s always been able to counter every move from Vaun, on the fly without needing any skill at all. He though it was stupid, until Vaun made a good point yesterday. Vaun threatened to come back as a robot to teach him a lesson in why he’d better learn his training. Said he’d break him in ways that could only be done to a robot. He likes the idea that robotic people will still learn a lesson when they’re killed.

During his first month review this morning, he tried to talk to Sy about how the others feel about him, and that he doesn’t mean anyone any harm. It didn’t go well. Even though he’s way ahead of everyone else, Vaun gave him poor marks for being difficult. On his way out, Valerie was waiting to go after him. He overheard Sy joking with her whether there was an on-off remote for him. She actually said that she wouldn’t have to worry about what he’s getting up to in the middle of the night then. He hasn’t been able to look at her the rest of the day.

Running things like this through his mind over and over is also becoming a problem. When his thoughts get overwhelming, he has to find a dark and quiet place to slow down, tune out, and be alone. He can get riled up so fast, but it takes hours to cool down. His mind doesn’t work the same way it used to, and it’s something he needs to find a way to work around. If he doesn’t find his way back to his old self, he’ll become whatever SSS is shaping him into.

The last few times he’s had some time alone to disappear, he’s tried meditation. It’s his third time trying it, and it might be helping some, so long as he can quit letting his thoughts drift like they are now. It’s not easy. The idea of it sounded stupid at first, but it’s become a last ditch effort to set his mind straight, and he’ll take anything he can after today.

He forces all current thought out of his mind and concentrates on the darkness in the back of the APC. His memories of fighting and killing are always trying to force their way to the front of his thoughts, but he’s getting better at keeping them at bay. He focuses on memories that make him calm.

As much as he loves Valerie, she has not been very kind to him lately. When she woke to him getting out of bed in the middle of the night, she asked him if he actually did want to be brought back, or if it was just something Five and Arma had made up. She didn’t turn to face him when she asked either. She knew it would hurt him, and she did it anyway. He could tell it in the tone of her voice, and that made it all the worse.

He picks Five to think about. She is always so kind and gentle. He’ll always be able to trust her. Simply the look of her face in his mind is enough to calm him down. Yesterday, she and Arma had told him that if he didn’t want to stay at SSS, she and Arma would leave with him. The three of them promised that they would always be there for one another, no matter what. He lets out a deep breath and slumps down in the seat, remembering back when Five was shy, and had to work up the courage to even approach him.

Unlike when he was human, his perfectly still body now assumes the same ambient temperature as his environment. The metal jump seat he’s sitting in doesn’t feel cold. The heavy armor of the truck keeps all the noise out, and he can completely disconnect from the world. With the side of his head leaning against the steel side, he lets the weight of his body completely relax and disappear.

He can no longer feel his body, or see anything that might distract him. He imagines himself floating in complete darkness, alone, as if he were dead. The beast that hides in the dark is not there, it’s a blank slate. He wants to shut his new life out and revert back the old one. In some way other than merely imagining it, he reforms himself from everything that was lost. He died without regret, having fallen in love with Valerie. The feeling of it washes over him. It’s the closes thing to heaven he can fathom.

As he draws on the sensations of his crisp memories, things begin to pull together like they used to be. He’s back in his old clothes. He can feel his boots laced tight on his ankles, the cold air trying to get in through his jacket, and the fatigue from a long day sinking in. When he feels human again, he opens his eyes, as his old self, walking along his trail the forest. It’s getting cold out, and the daylight is fading into darkness.

He’s pushing himself to get to where he’s going, but he doesn’t know where that is yet. It feels like he’s getting close though. The wind of a storm is blowing strongly through the trees and pushing against him. He squints his eyes and leans into it. One foot after another, he shoves his way up the trail. The sound of the wind in the leaves and branches becomes almost as alarming as wildfire.

It’s nice to feel cold again. He can feel the warmth of his own body when he folds his arms in front of himself. After a while of trudging his way up the soft dirt trail, to a small crest where he can see a broad little field of ferns under all the tall trees. He stops to take it all in, glad to be out of the shitty city. He almost feels like he taints the pace by even being there.

The trail gets steep again on the other side, and he’s tired, but he keeps going. Struggle is something that he has always needed. It makes him feel accomplished. A sliver of his pessimistic conscious mind works its way into his dream. He doesn’t need to accomplish anything anymore. He thinks about the wind, the hill, and the coming nightfall. None of them really mean anything to him anymore. He lets go of that feeling that he was supposed to be going getting somewhere.

The roaring in the trees calms and goes silent. Everything around him turns still, not in pause, but as if he has disappeared and the world is no longer serving him. The feel of it is mocking him. The world doesn’t serve his existence. He’s always known that. It reminds him of how small he is. Just because he’s beaten death doesn’t mean he’s the master of anything. Time will still ultimately take him in the end.

Something out of place catches his eye. To his left, there is something small and dark, tucked in under some of the bright green leaves covering the ground. Whatever it is, it was moving a second ago. He hunches down to check it out, and pushes some soft fern leaves aside to get a better look at what it was. He sets his knees down when he discovers it’s only a small dark brown chipmunk all balled up on the ground. It’s makes quiet chirp, as if it might be hurt. It’s unresponsive to his presence, and looks like it’s cold.

Stricken with compassion, he reaches down for the small creature, to care for it. He scoops it up in his hands and tries to keep it warm, but it has gone still and quiet. He runs his finger across the soft fur on the top of its head to soothe it, but it’s no longer alive.

“No.” He’s upset that the world would be so uncaring.

Tears run down the front of his face. One drop falls and beads on the animal’s fluffy dry coat. He feels guilty for wanting some peace of his own, while the poor little animal was down there alone, freezing to death. If he hadn’t been wrapped up in his own pity, he could’ve done something. When he looks back up, he finds himself cast in shadow. A darkness has come from the depths of the forest and is looming all around him. It’s the darkness that always finds him. This time, he is not afraid.

He wants to tear the horror apart with everything he has, but it completely ignores him. It’s almost as if it can’t see him. Maybe it’s because he no longer has a soul and can’t tell the difference between him and a damn rock anymore. He turns around to face the shadow that has now shrouded the path he came down in gloom. He can see it, but it’s not his own death that has come this time. The darkness patiently waits for him, as if in understanding and sympathetic of him. Whatever kind of being he is now, can’t go where the darkness does. He is the one that will forever be, left behind, lost, and alone.

He lays the small dead animal on the ground and places a protecting hand over it for a moment, giving it a remorseful farewell. He stands up, turns around, and continues on down the path through the forest, resenting the way things are. He wants to take the innocent little animal with him, to tell the darkness that it cannot have it, but he knows it’s not his place. He has caused enough of a mess as it is already.

Stopping himself at the start of counting how many others he has hurled into the darkness himself, he returns his focus back to the trail. The storm is picking up again, and this time, it’s becoming violent. The branches in the trees all around are creaking and snapping. When the night falls, he is left standing in complete blackness again. The sound of the rumbling wind is all that is left.

What starts as distant frightening thunder becomes a loud metallic banging, encroaching closer and faster every time it sounds. He jerks awake at the sight of Arma smacking something against the inside of the vehicle, trying to wake him up. She’s clearly keeping her distance from him, as if he might be dangerous. She has ditched her SSS jumpsuit and isn’t wearing anything again. Her sleek almost black figure is nothing but a smooth silhouette against the light coming in through the open rear door.

“You’ve been missing for over four hours Aaron! We had to find out where you were by going over the security footage. They sent me cause the others are too chicken or something, like you need to be talked down off a ledge or something. Are you ok?”

“Yeah… just needed somewhere dark and quiet.” His tone is calm and quiet with her.

“K… Well, Sy-n-Vaun want you in the office, like now.”

Rather than being pissed off and kicking the back doors of the truck open, he unexpectedly finds himself feeling rather down, of all things. It’s been a long time since he hasn’t wanted to throw something in a fit. He doesn’t feel great, but it’s at least not the ususal. He’ll take what he can get while he can.

While he stalks down the length of the main hanger, Arma enthusiastically trots along after him. Her long ponytail is swishing wide from side to side. She almost never wears her long orange amber hair anymore, so she must be in a good mood today. It almost makes him smile for a second. As much as she can be a sourpants about being stuck at SSS, she still manages to lift his mood from time to time.

As much pressure as they’re all under to earn their keep, Sy seems to have given her a pass for some reason. She hardly shows up to any training sessions, and mostly slinks about here and there like a feral cat. It seems that she’s always watching though, watching everyone and everything. Completely opposite form their original interests, the rest of the guards seem to pretend that she is invisible. They’re probably trying to not be caught staring most of all, but might be avoiding confrontation with her. Her tall form is easily as menacing as it is incredible.

She didn’t necessarily lie to him, but he’s pretty sure she knew damn well where he was the whole time. Other than with him and Five, she doesn’t speak much to anyone else. Neither of them are probably very good influences on her either. Five is the only one she truly has unwavering allegiance to. He would take comfort in that, if Five weren’t becoming a little bit of a wild card too. He was quite shocked to see her with her vest unzipped nearly all the way down yesterday, dawning a massive phoenix tattoo across her entire chest. She didn’t even say anything about getting a tattoo.

Five was acting all normal in the morning, and by time to turn in for the evening, she had a bird of fire crossing her chest, shoulders, and even most of the way up her neck. He had always been adverse to tattoos himself, but it appears even that part of him has changed as well. She made the point that it will only last as long as her skin does this time around anyway. It makes him think of doing it, but he will wait. He wouldn’t dare deface Evan’s work.

At the end of the hall to the lobby, he notices a couple extra guards loitering about at the front desk. They’re talking to Clarice, but they openly stare at him when he walks by. He wonders if Sy has them there, in case he flies off the handle upstairs or something.

After he takes the elevator up to the office, he doesn’t bother sitting down in the empty chair next to Vaun. Instead, he walks over to the windows overlooking the main floor lobby, and stares down at the two lunk-heads who were watching him. He expects Vaun has been complaining about him again.

Sy leans forward in his seat and pretends to scroll through information on the surface display in his desk. “Vaun here, has been telling me surprising things about your training. Now, I understand that there’s less of a need for you to do much of the regular crap everyone else is put through, but you still have to do what you’re paid to, right. It’s simple.” He looks at him for a brief but not punitive moment.

Sy takes another puff off his cigar and looks through some more comments. “From what Vaun has been telling me, it looks like you’ve been willfully performing beyond your level of training at nearly every turn. That can be dangerous. Neither I, nor probably even yourself, probably give a damn if you get hurt pushing your limits, but it’s not necessarily you that I’m worried about in all this.”

He turns around from the window. “I understand that.” He looks over at Vaun, who is twirling the sphere of ice in his glass of bourbon. “I just get a little frustrated when he repeats himself, like over and over. I only need to be told once. Dear god, please.”

Vaun’s tone is a little snotty this time. “Good, good, then we won’t have to have this conversation again.”

He was able to hold his attitude back for the most part, but it abruptly goes full banana-slip this time. “You think you’re a bad dog huh. You aint shit, fuckin… lil puppy. I could rip through you and your fools like a paper bag.”

Sy is still calm as can be, blowing smoke in his direction in annoyance. “Where was your big talk when my boys handled you a month ago? You may have forgotten that you did not walk in here touting a resume and a list of expectations.” His voice gets louder this time. “Do not think for a moment that I don’t own your dumb robot ass! Sure, you can leave. See if I give a shit. Crawl back to Werker, see where that path goes.”

Vaun is doing his best to not rile him up, he knows better, but makes another important point that he needs to hear. “You know we can make another one of you dude, right? One that isn’t such a smarty pants though. Maybe Gabriel can tone you down a couple notches next time.”

They should know better than to say something so stupid, but he knows the reality that they have him by the balls. Threatening to kill Gabriel and tear the entire place down won’t not be taken with a grain of salt right now. He wouldn’t even make it to the lobby. He doesn’t even hate Sy or Vaun. He actually likes them. He just needs to get ahold of himself.

“Son of a bitch, I knew I was gonna blow it. Sorry Sy, I didn’t mean to snap back like that. I;ve just been struggling with anger issues since, you know, the change.” He drags his hand over the top of his head in frustration. “I’m still adjusting to my new brain alright. Do you have any idea what it might be like to have your fucking mind sliced into deli meat and then put back together! Hmm?”

He turns back to the window and looks down at Clarice, to see if she might be listening in on them. “You know what. Forget about it, alright. But don’t you say a damn word to Valerie or Gabriel.” He lets out a deep breath. “I’m only two months old you guys. I’m fukin workin on it alright.”

He wonders if Vaun was just trying to make a point, or if they really are that kind of sick. Sometimes he wonders if he’s already had to be put down and brought back already, only to end up in this same place. It feels like it. Maybe Sy is just going to keep hitting repeat until he and Valerie want. All they would have to do is restore his mind to a previous scan and try over. he wouldn’t be any the wiser.

He wants to kill Sy so badly sometimes. All he would have to do is give him a quick punch to the face and it would all be over. There would be nothing Vaun could do about it either. It’s only been a few minutes and his anger is already back in full swing. If they had any damn idea what this stupid little office visit has cost him.

Still, to make his own point, he turns to lock eyes with Vaun. With a very subtle tilt of his head towards Sy, he makes sure Vaun gets what he is thinking about. He holds his palm up, and pretends to flick something like a sunflower seed out from between two of his fingers. Vaun slowly readies his hand to draw his pistol. He knows damn well he wouldn’t be able to stop him in time though.

Realizing he’s crossed the line, yet again, he relaxes his posture to let Vaun know he’s ok. “You guys need to remember that I have my boundaries, the same as any of you would. Don’t fuck with my life. I work for you, just an employee, nothing more. We have a little bit more elaborate of a room and board agreement, but that’s all.”

Sy was already going through the training footage before he and Vaun showed up. “You know there’s a good camera down at the mats, for replaying session footage.” He brings up the recording of his and Vaun’s last knife spar. The holograph of the two of them projects over the desk and starts playing. Vaun is slowly waving his hands and knife around, obviously explaining to him how a certain move is made. Sy doesn’t have the volume on and doesn’t really plan to turn it up either. He just wants to watch it while they’re there.

Both he and Vaun have the same standard issued black dagger that all of the guards swear by. Vaun slowly makes a few attack moves, explaining how to do and then protect from them. After a few minutes of this, they attempt it at a more moderate speed. Sy keeps looking back and forth between him and Vaun. He isn’t quite sure what the big deal is.

After Aaron tries to show Vaun how flawed the moves are, both of them end up getting into an argument. Vaun is trying to train him like he has everyone else. After Aron is too bullheaded to simply shut up and listen, Vaun tries to teach him a lesson the hard way. Without warning, he makes the same moves on him, but with full aggression and speed.

Sy cringes when things quickly escalate from there. If he didn’t know better, he would surely be under the impression that he was actually trying to gut Aaron’s wires on the spot. In a more than fair response Aaron throws it right back in his face. Every slash and stab that Vaun makes is deflected and answered with a slash from his own edgeless blade. When Vaun still refuses to let up, Aaron continues to escalate right along with him. He eventually resorts to grabbing ahold of Vaun and starts thrashing him around like a grizzly bear.

At first, he’s not very aggressive about it and is satisfied with only putting Vaun in his plae. When one of Vaun’s wilder attempts actually come close to doing real damage, he finishes the brawl with a shocking and serious body slam to the floor. To anyone else, it would look like the little spat would surely over then and there, but it’s not. Sy knows Vaun all too well. He props his head up with his hand and lets out a sigh as the playback continues.

Though Vaun is just about gassed, he still has one last trick left in him. Aaron sees it coming and picks up his big tungsten knife from off the nearby table. He stands there calmly and says something to him. Whatever it was, it ends Vaun’s advance immediately. Vaun clearly cusses him as best he can and throws his dagger right at him before storming off.

Sy is not impressed with either of them. He closes out the video and reclines back in his chair, thinking of what he can even say to them. He exhales the big breath he’s been holding and runs his hands down his face. He knows it could have easily turned out much worse, but only out of luck, it didn’t. Still, he and Vaun both need to work their shit out. It’s a nice example of just how nasty Vaun can get, while Aaron somehow seems to have been the one with self-control this time. Everyone’s been talking about how he’s going to snap, but it really doesn’t appear to be founded.

Sy looks up at both of them for a moment. “Well, you aren’t quibbling like children right now, so I can assume you’ve reached some kind of mutual understanding. I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing any more of this shit again. I won’t make you hug it out, but seriously...” He motions for Vaun to sit back down, but not him. “Thank you Aaron. You can go.”