You walk towards the soft glow, but before you reach whatever iscausing it you have to stop as your head begins to ache. You clutch at itfruitlessly, the pain not going away. You think this is what remembering feelslike, as it is the same pain you felt when the twins first appeared. Thefeeling doesn’t go away, nor does anything become clearer. This amnesia isstarting to annoy you.
Shaking your head, you step towards the soft glow again, fightingthrough the pulsing in your brain to reach the end of the code filled hallway.At the end you replace the Sorceress’s scepter. You feel your heart drop as it isnot the Sorceress herself, but then your spirits soar again as you realize shemust have left you her weapon, just as the shieldsman left you his. You takethe plain object, feeling the weight of it and hefting it easily.
As soon as you touch the object, flashes of images pass throughyour mind. You see people laughing and joking together. You are not sure whothey are, but the faces seem vaguely familiar to you. You shake your head aftera moment, and walk back the way you came through the unsettlingly comatosehallway. Only two paths remain.
What do you do?
The blonde’s eyelashesbegan to flutter, and Myos held her tighter, silently begging that the girl bealright. Zeke looked slightly away, as if he was uncomfortable but Myoscouldn’t understand why. That’s when the realization finally hit him - Amayawasn’t wearing any clothes. The red haired boy was suddenly glad for thearmored suit between him and the frail woman. Attention back on her, albeit abit more uncomfortably, Myos sighed in relief when she opened her eyes.
“Where...what happened?”Amaya asked in a small, hushed voice, as if she were scared. “I don’t rememberwhat’s real anymore…” she continued quietly, probably to herself more than theothers in the room.
“What do you mean bythat?” Myos asked gently, glad that whatever had happened left Amaya with hercomputer glasses so he could still speak to her without removing his suit. Thegirl didn’t seem to be embarrassed by her state of undress, or at least was toopreoccupied to notice.
“I had, well, a lot of,um, memories kinda playing on loop while I was in there,” Amaya said, thethought of the glass prison making her shudder. “It was horrible.”
“Well, that was allbasically a bad dream,” Myos laughed, giving a comforting smile even though shecouldn’t see it. “C’mon let’s get some, uh, well, some clothes on you.” Thelithe man put her down and immediately averted his gaze, but before he couldlook away completely, he noticed that she was as smooth and featureless as theplastic dolls he saw young girls running about with. He spoke without thinking,“What are you?!”
Amaya immediatelycrouched over to hide behind one of the many bulks of technology, ashamed athow she appeared. How she was different. The word alone flashed in her mind andit was hard to shake the notion that she was. She ran her fingers through hergolden hair that crowned her like a halo, the only bit of the stuff found onher body.
“C’mon, no, I didn’tmean it like that,” Myos tried to barter, guilty that he hadn’t caught thewords before he hurt one of his most trusting teammates. He shoved his handsdeep in his pockets, a slump coming over his posture. Even Zeke semi glared athim, before taking off his long vest-coat to give to the girl to wear. Thedifference in their heights was immediately evident, with the jacket turninginto a dress on the girl. After she was clothed, she came back out to face themwith a somber face unusual for the perpetually smiling woman.
Amaya took a deepbreath, trying to steady herself before she launched into her story. “I’m a,well, a halfling,” she started, fumbling for the words and never quite meetingeither of their eyes, “I’m one of ten like me, and, um, well, the only onestill alive.” She went over to sit on the base of the instrument where she wasrecently imprisoned; the nerves making her shake too much standing up. Theshame. She was different - so, so different. “See, this isn’t the first timethe Empress has tried to make humanity her...technologic slaves. Before she,um, she tried to breed them.” Amaya paused to look at the two, seeing if theywere connecting the dots yet. A spark of recognition was there, but the fairhaired girl knew they deserved the whole story. “My mother, she was one of theten chosen for the experiment. The Empress’s team of scientists had thoughtthey had created a robot that could be used to inseminate human women withenough strange chemicals to sort of weed out free thought? I don’t reallyunderstand it either, but the Empress thought it was a good enough shot totake,” Amaya fiddled with her hands, twisting her fingers this way and thatbefore she started up again, “but it didn’t work like that. The DNA that theygave the robot had all the right chemicals, but it was missing the rightchromosomes for a healthy child. The ten of us were born with mutated DNA, andthe chemicals didn’t even work properly because the mother’s immune system hadkilled it off during pregnancy. The project was scrapped and all of thechildren were killed, except for me.” Her bottom lip began to quiver, and Myoswanted to reach out to her but was afraid he would be pushed away. “My motherescaped the testing facility with me and went so far as to secure me a safeplace to grow up in, but the Empress found out and killed her. My grandmotherraised me in secret, and taught me who I was.”
“Is that why you startedthe Rights for Robots campaign?” Myos asked quietly, things finally starting toconnect in his mind.
Amaya nodded, a happylook coming over her face for a moment as she remembered the thing about herlife she enjoyed the most. “That’s also why I wanted to help you. No one shouldbe told who to be or how to act. They should be able to be their own person andthink their own thoughts, and to not live in fear of having it taken away fromyou.”
Without hesitation, Myosheld his hand out for the girl to take, a genuine smile gracing his lips.“Amaya, I don’t care where you come from, or what you are. You could be a giantlizard for all I care. What matters are your actions - you can make yourself ahero or a villain. So come be heroes with us.”
Amaya laughed, relievedand took the other’s hand, standing up. “Let’s go get the others, m’kay?” Shegiggled, feeling accepted for once in her life.
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