-1-

The room is so silent.

Everyone is waiting for me to say something, so I say the only thing I know to be true.

“You’re wrong.” 

The words catch in my throat.

Sara approaches me slowly and for the first time she looks cautious. She puts an almost loving hand on my back. I shrug her off, but she puts her hand back and I give in and let her  guide me to sit on the couch next to her. She hands me  one of the half full wine glasses sitting next to her.

I take a sip and I can taste the notes of the wine, I can feel it burn down my throat. It leaves a rough and tingling sensation in my mouth.  I can feel. Robots don’t do that. She’s wrong. I know she’s wrong, but somehow I’m still afraid.

 Sara’s just watching me and she’s being nice about it and to be honest her niceness is what’s  freaking me out the most right now.

“Alan--,” she begins.

“You’re wrong,” I interrupt. “You’re wrong ! Tell her Jean, tell her what Luce did with that gun--”

“Gun ?,” Sara asks alarmed.

“Nothing. Minor situation,” Jean says carefully.

I don’t know why he won’t tell her about what happened, about what Luce did. It makes me angry. I put the wine glass down harder than I expect and it shatters across the table. The liquid crawls across the table and drips on to the hardwood floors.

“No ! Listen to me-,” I shout.

“Alan, I need you to stay calm, okay ?,” Sara says.  “I’ll explain everything. Just calm down for me.”

“Why  are you talking to me like I’m a child ?,” I spit at her.

“Sorry,” she says. “Sometimes when people hear these things they get…unstable and even...violent.”

I don’t feel violent. For some reason I’m shaking. And I’m crying.

Minnow and Luce are just staring at me with nothing to say.

They’re normal. They’re  human. He moved a gun without touching it. He's normal. But I’m not ? It doesn’t make sense.

Sara looks around nervously and her eyes land on Luce.

“Luce, come here,” she says.

And for once he comes to her without a second word. She pulls him down until he is sitting on the other side of her on the couch. Her hand brushes the back of his hair and he stiffens.

 “Let me stay-,” he starts, but before he can finish, Sara has cupped her hand on the back of his neck and the boy’s body goes limp. His head  falls into her lap.

 “What did you do to him !” I scream,  jumping up and taking my gun out. I don't know what I think I'm going to do with it. “How am I the science project ? Answer me !”

I remember the gun is empty and reach for the gun she was holding, but she gets to it first.

I don’t trust anyone anymore, I feel spooked. I don’t know if this is some bad joke or if everything I know is a lie. Either way, I think I’ve snapped.

“I’ll explain in time,” she says “There are just some things I still don’t think Luce needs to know--”

“Like what? That his Dad committed suicide ?,” I supply.

Her mouth tenses.

“Yes, like that.”

She takes her screen off the coffee table and projects an image of the man with the fire logo on the wall.

“What is that logo ?,” I ask. I'd been seeing it everywhere since I took the chrome.

“It’s the logo of the Prometheus Project,” she says. “This file was everything I knew about The Promethus Project, the project that created you. I discovered it a little bit after Derek’s death. These are mostly Derek’s handwritten and transcribed notes of resignations and budgets. It’s  his theories and suspicions but nothing specific. He just knew the project was about illegal human creation and  biological androids”

“So you knew this the entire time you knew me ? You knew what I was ?”

“No, Alan. I swear. Our meeting was kismet. My research into Prometheus has been cold after a while. For the past few years, I figured the project had been cancelled or failed after Derek found out about it. I looked into occasionally, which is why I was in the East on New Year’s, but even that came up dry. It was on the backburner because I was always tied up with Rayne. Until the Morrissey job.”

She moves the images on the screen and I see the front cover of a confidential  budget report. Stamped on the cover was the logo and the text:

Tempus EU: The Prometheus Project

“You see, for the longest time this budget was the only original official evidence I had Prometheus existed. I’ve combed through it thousands of times, but it’s just numbers. I always thought the EU stood for Eastern United State, since that is where Tempus headquarters is located. That’s where I focused my search.”

“It turns out I had it all wrong," she smiles. "See, when we went to the Eternus Unlimited headquarters and I saw their EU fountain it all clicked. It was standing right in front of me.  Eternus Unlimited is usually shortened to EtUn, so I never put it together.  I hacked into the EU file room  when we were there and and it all came together.  Eternus was founded as part of Tempus, they've secretly been the same company since Tempus' inception. Tempus funnels all their controversial projects through them. Like the Saint project. When though the Saint project failed, Tempus kept its hands clean. Well, in that EU file room I found  encrypted files with everything about the Prometheus Project. Including your photo and I started to put it together.”

My mind is reeling and putting all the pieces back together.

 This is why she was so absent during the Morrissey hit

This is why she asked Morrissey about Derek and let him live.

This is why--.

“After the Morrissey job.” I say. “You knew what I was, but you never told me. You said you’d let me go home. Was that a lie ?,”

“I just didn’t need you to run away.”

“My Dad works for Tempus,” I finally say. “Was he in the file ?”

“ I don't know, you never told me your father’s name,” she reminds me. “There is nothing in the documentation to suggest you’d  be raised outside of the lab with parents. Nothing IDs you except a photo. It doesn't even have your name.”

I should tell her my dad's name, but I still can’t get myself to. Sara turns the pages of the document until she gets to an annual report. On the second page is a list of all the people involved in the project. I notice a few have red X's by their names, I assume they are dead.

“Is your Dad on here ?”

I scan the page of the twelve  scientists and executives and don’t see my Dad’s name. I don’t even see Mr. Kyto’s name.  I’m both relieved and confused. Until my eyes fall to the footer of the page and I see the  special thanks section in smaller print.

Cielle Rousseau, PHD Student.

Mom.

-2-

A plate of perfectly cut apples sits in front of me. I have no idea what kind they are because the skin has also been meticulously removed. It’s unnerving.

Sara encourages me to eat one and I ignore her. She encouraged me to talk yesterday, she encouraged me to say something on the armored car ride all the way over here. She knows I only want one thing. The thing I asked for last night.

Proof.

Blackbird brings me to the lab and then abruptly leaves to get something. I’m ready for scans and needles, I don’t expect the television he rolls in. He turns on the screen and I see a full color HD surveillance video of the day I walked here with Sara and Luce. We are all at his front porch.

“You were recording me ?,” I ask.

“I record everything in this place,” he says.

He plays the video. We watch up to  the part where I pass out.

“I said I wanted proof.” I remind him.

He sighs and replays the video and pauses it at right where I pass out.

“This is your proof. Whenever companies try this sort of thing—and believe me this sort of experimentation happens more than the government wants you to know-- they always leave this, the most obvious flaw. Come on look, look at your face and look at the Graces.”

At first I don’t see anything , except how spent and weak I look. I  concentrate on our faces and I see it. Sara and Luce are about 20 different shades of pink and red in the face. I’m not.

“My face,” I breathe

“The blush reflex, “Blackbird says. “It’s the cheapest way to spot any android.”

I turn to Sara sharply.

“That’s why we walked here ? You were just experimenting on me--”

“I had needed confirmation,” she explains.

Blackbird messes with the television and the screen flickers to two colorized sonogram images of the human body.

“This is your body and this  an, er, let’s say normal person’s body,” he explains.

The images look the same to me, just hazy masses incased in blackness.

“You are a mix of synthetic biological computer parts, so to speak. Your organs and bones look and work just like Sara’s and I’s, but  they were  created in a lab by some of the most intelligent, if not a bit misguided people in the world. Now, this kind of thing is legal in extreme cases, if someone needs a temporary lung and doesn’t have insurance at a Biofarm or something.  What’s not legal is all the bionic connective tissues and scale at which they…essentially created a human. ”

There’s a silent lull in the room. I’m still so confused. I want to know everything.

“Tell me about my brain.” I say. “How can that work ?,”

“Well, brain cells are hard to create on their own. According to the file they probably took a brain that was still growing, modified it and gave it to you. I think it’s best not to get into gory details. Really Mr. Gray, except for a few glitches in the programming like the blush reflex you are very close to human.”

“Except everything about me was written by a bunch of scientists.”

“Not necessarily. I mean functionally speaking, sure, but acccording to the file, they decided it easier to make a smaller body. You were only the size of a  two years old when they activated you. The mind is a fluid thing, experiences always overcome science. You can’t let the circumstances of your creation define you. Yes, you represent some perversions of science, but you also represent it’s perfection. I can’t imagine why  they stopped the project.”

“Government raid,” Sara supplies. “They shut it down and I guess they gave him away to their intern.”

This thought is still odd to me. I loved my mother and she took care of me. She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t  what I called smart. 

She spent her days getting beauty modification and catering to my Dad and I. She  hated technology beyond it's basic function and that it let her watch her soap operas. The fact that she had this former life where she was getting a PHD in bioengineering  is still an adjustment. 

I never really knew her and now I’m afraid I never will.

“You got off lucky then.” Blackbird smiles.” They terminated all the members of the Saint project including the subjects. Guess not even the bastards running your government could terminate a child.”

I shudder at the thought. But, all the Saints had gone crazy. I was just fine

“Any last questions ?,” Blackbird asks.

I have so many, but they all feel insignificant and I know they can’t answer them. Questions like why they’d do this ? What’s the point ? Did they take my mother because I got kidnapped ? What does my future look like ?

“So, you’re telling me everything about my physical body is written in code in my organs ?,” I ask

Blackbird nods.

“When does the clock stop ? When will my heart stop beating ?”

At this Blackbird smiles.

“This is the best part; it doesn’t. With regular maintenance, the parts are designed to continuously work and are upgradeable. Just as long as you don’t take chrome, that shit really messes you up because instead of having a little bit of computer in you, you are all computer.”

I tense at his meaning behind the words.

I could live forever.

***

“I need to find my mother,” I tell her. “She’s missing and maybe it has to do with this…with me.”

Sara puts a dark pinkish flower into my cup and as the flower blossoms,  the tea effervesces and  I can smell raspberry and maybe green tea.

“ You know, technically, she’s not your mother,” Sara whispers.

I want to hit her, but I don’t. There are too many delicate things around and It’d cause attention I don’t want.

The tea shop is mostly quiet, I have no idea why Sara brought me here of all places. I think it has something to do with the bullet proof glass and armed waiters.

We'd left Blackbird's because he had other appointments coming in who preferred their privacy. He sensed my unease with leaving and told me I should come  back when I can and he'll try and explain more about what I am to me. I have to admit, I'm more curious about Blackbird now, he seems to know a lot about this type of thing.

 “It doesn’t matter if she's not my biological mother," I explain. "She raised me. I have to hear her side. It must have been hard for her live this lie.”

“Well, you need to prepare yourself… You must know all those scientist involved were put to death. If the government has been tracking  your family and they think us taking you was some kind of trick… they may have found your mother and ki--”

“I still have to know.” I interrupt her before she says killed. “Rayne has resources. I’m sure he can--”

“Don’t tell any of this to Rayne,” she hisses. “He’ll also want to keep you for himself if he knows what you are.”

“You know Blackbird told me not to trust you ?,” I tell her.

“He was right,” she smirks.

She drinks her tea and looks out the window cautiously. We’re not far from Treasure Island , I can see the smoke stacks from here.The tea shop is owned by the Shy Cartel, but it still feels unsafe. The Mjollner are still pissed off at us and I now always look over my shoulder for red.

“Is It hard ?,” I ask. “Lying to Luce about his Dad. ”

She shrugs.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world. Derek literally lost his fucking mind after Tempus questioned him. It wasn’t his fault. They tortured him and he snapped. But I had to ask for a divorce. For my own safety. You know what happened the day I went to get the divorce papers ? I came home to Jean on my front door vomiting. I go inside the house and find Derek dead in our bedroom with a gunshot in his head and Luce on the floor with 12 fucking bullets in him--”

“Shit” I said.

“Yeah, shit. Luce was only seven. His bastard father shot him in the chest and when Luce tried to run away Derek just kept shooting. For whatever reason Luce was smart enough to play dead so his father wouldn't kill him.

“There was so much blood and I knew there would be question so I  called my friend, Ivy and ran away from it all. Her family knew Rayne’s. Rayne gave us a place to stay  and connected me to Blackbird and a few other ripper docs and they were just miracle workers. They saved Luce’s life in exchange for my hacking abilities. I started killing later because it paid more.

 When Luce woke up months later, he didn’t remember any of it so Jean and I told him it was Tempus mercenaries that came after Derek. We told everyone that so many times it just became real.”

“Is that why he is so..,” I start, but don’t know how to finish that sentence. So temperamental ? So insane ? So violent ?

“Yes. Luce is 57% cybernetics, most of which are illegal. Sometimes his body and brain feel like they are at war.”

“So what's with the off switch,” I ask, thinking of the times she's knocked him completely unconscious with a touch.

“He has a soft spot on his neck to a machine that sends signals to his brain to shut down and sleep. It was for when he was younger and couldn’t sleep. I know I shouldn’t be controlling his body anymore and it's not exactly safe, but ...you know how Luce can be."

“ He just looks so human. I'd never guess ....it's  kind of impressive,” I say.

“No it’s not,” she responds tersely. “Luce’s operations aren’t  sophisticated like yours. Some of them are made out of weightless metal and he has to inject himself with alloys to slow down the corrosion process. Luce  doesn’t have forever, which he knows.”

I turn my now empty cup in my hands. It’s all so much to take in.

“What would you do if Luce ever found out it was his Dad that did that to him ?”

“Alan, don’t you dare-,”

“I won’t. I promise.  I just want to know what you’d do.”

“I don’t know…I’d just hope he understands why I lied.”

“And if he doesn’t ?,”

She turns to look at me and I think she’s wondering if I’m talking about her and Luce or me and my mom. I’m wondering the same thing.

“Time to go.” She says.

-3-

I get a day to adjust to having my entire existence pulled into question.

Rayne comes to Treasure Island nearly every day to oversee Sara’s operation.   Everyone operates as if nothing has really changed. Except I take off once a week to see Blackbird for a few hours.

I’d heard everything Sara and Blackbird had to say to me, but I knew I needed answers of my own. Things that Blackbird and Sara can't tell me, things they don't understand. After  2AM when everyone had gone to bed or passed out, I went and stood outside of Treasure Island. The air is a little bit cooler at night and the city has slowed down.

I wait at the front door a good 4  hours before I see Saint jogging up towards the door. He comes to a slow halt when he sees me. Bowing his head slightly, he goes for the door.

“Have you heard ?,” I ask.

He wasn't around for the big announcement and spends most of his time outside guarding the door or out running.His eyes turn to me and they seem just as lifeless as before.

“Yes.”  His voice is deep and undulated,  each letter sounds like a calculated effort.

He is the only person I haven’t seen or talked to since this whole thing happened. If Luce was cybernetic and Minnie a pathetic drug addict, that left Saint as the only one who was the closest to being like me. After all the Saint Project was an Eternus project too.

“What's it like  ?,” I ask him. “The Saint Project was shut down 50 years ago and you don’t look anywhere near that old.”

“I am not... immortal.” He says. “I am a cyborg, like Luce. I am a human with a complicated machine inside me. And like all humans I have a finitie life span , though  the protocols they did to my body make me quite invincible. I do not understand much more of my existence beyond that. I can't offer you much information.”

 “How did you make it out ? I thought all the Saints were terminated.”

“Nothing is ever completely terminated. I was one of the last to be tested and  I remember that I snapped too, but instead of terminating me, they put me in a cryogenic archive for preservation of science. Sara broke me out and fixed what was wrong with the Saint programming in my head. Now, my job is to protect her and Luce.”

“What about your family ?,” I ask. “Do they know you ?”

“No. The Saint programming takes all that away from you to make a more focused soldier. I have no idea who I was, but I do remember being loved. You may have to do the same one day. Put it all behind you. Perhaps a day  sooner than you anticipated.”

I sigh louder than I mean to.

“I can’t,” I say. “ I mean I won't. My mom knew about this. She knows so much and I need to find her again. Even if I can’t go back home, I want to say goodbye. I’m sure even you got that before joining the Saint program.”

He nods his head in understanding.

“Alan, Sara waited 18 months for Luce to come out from under his cybernetic surgeries and 7 years to find out what Derek killed himself over. I waited 30 years to be woken out of a preservation chamber. Things do not happen quickly here, you may have to wait a while for your goodbye. Please understand that.”

“Yeah.” I say shaking my head, but I know my patience is already gone.

***

When I'm not helping Sara all I do is comb through the files Sara took from Eternus Unlimited. It equates to nearly 40,000 pages about what went into my inception and  first few years of life. I’m looking for signs of my parents, but they are few and far between.

I lived in the lab and  breathed my first breath in a two-year-old body with a blank canvas for a brain. My mother came into the project in its last 5 years and even though she was getting a PHD and had a top clearance, she  was mostly tasked with feeding me and setting up the lab.

In one of the company newsletters, there is an image of her and my Dad at a Tempus cookout together, touching nose to nose.  They must have been dating during all of this. At least their relationship was real.

“Get rid of that!,” Sara hisses at me as she heads to the door. “Rayne is here.”

I quickly tap out of the file and take the screen to my room. As I come back down the stairs I hear voices and greetings. I see Rayne isn’t alone, this time he’s brought  Mrs. Washington with him, which he never does.

“Good afternoon, Alan.” She greets me. I think it’s the first time she’s ever acknowledged me and I mumble out something that must be a hello.

“What brings you out of the white tower ?,” Sara asks her.

“I wanted to see what Treasure Island looked like. A bit underwhelming, I must admit,” she smiles.

They go to sit down on the couch. Rayne motions for me to sit and I do. I see Minnie cross-legged on the floor. Jean is gone as usual and so is Saint.

“Well, it was just a casino,” Rayne tells her. "Not an actual treasure island."

“A casino, hm ? Well too bad it still isn’t. Sara and I used to kill at the casinos together,” she quips.

“That’s because we cheated,” Sara says. She almost smiles and they share this knowing look.

For the first time I realize Mrs. Washington is the Ivy who helped her connect to Rayne and Blackbird. It was weird to imagine Sara with friends.

“Sara, I am here for a little more than reminiscing,” Rayne says. “I have a job for you and your crew.”

“You’re fucking with me, right ?,” she says exasperated. “I work for you every day, nearly 6 hours a day on these draft dodging idiots. I know you have other people. People who aren’t on the top of the Mjollner shitlist right now.”

“Don’t worry about Dakota, I'll take care of him. Have you watched the mediastreams ? Political interest in this war is ending and with that goes our draft customers and with them goes our money.”

“Rayne, I can’t stop a war--”

“No, you can’t,” he interrupts. “But there is going to be an International Peace Summit in a few weeks between both sides in the DMZ.  Quite a few people will be in attendance and I need my best crew there.”

“Why ?,” Sara asks darkly, but I think she knows why. Hell, I know why, but we need to hear him say it.

“I want you to assassinate Julian Walker.”

---

Dun Dun—okay, I’ll stop.