V / S / O N

Another day, another gas station, another empty, soulless lot. Emiliana doesn’t mean soulless in terms of humans, having actual, palpable soul, of course. She means – with no trace of life. (There are people, still, who claim that androids can think and be sentient because they have souls. Idiots.)

Tis is caked in grime and dirt, but still looks as impressive as ever – back poised straight, face perfect. There are no signs of tiredness on her because she’s not made to ever be tired, or ever need to sleep. The bottom of her shirt still raises and the soft whirring is still there, but neither of them pains any mind to it.

“I glitch.” Emiliana says in the end. “I can feel it.”

She’s not lying, either. It wrecks her from multiple sides, it feels like zapping. That’s how she normally felt when she pulled up more weight than she was programmed to carry, or when her assignment’s children made her drink water three years ago. It felt like she needed fixing.

“Where? How does it feel like?” Tis asks. Tis is the smart one here. She looks like a rebel, now, out in the wasteland, covered in dust and earth, but Tis didn’t look like this all the time. Emiliana remembers how they met first, nearly a year ago – Tis was all in white, coat open in front to show off pale skin. She was all pale – her hair, her lips, her hands – save for her eyes and her tattoo. Her tattoo, that was supposed to be visible, to be seen, because it was a masterpiece.

She was not made to be a tour guide, but she served the purpose all too well.

Emiliana could not imagine a day without Tis by her side.

“Here.” She says when the sting comes back again. “Here, beneath the—beneath the—“ Beneath the? “Beneath the ribs.” She doesn’t know the proper terms. She wants to learn them, but they don’t come easily; not because they’re actually hard, but because there is a lot of them and because she’s been used to using human terms at all times.

She puts the hand on the place that’s heating up, but she cannot feel anything beneath it. As far as she knows, the heat receptors are still working – good grace, they were working yesterday – but there might’ve been one fail or another. Tis’ hand follows, soft on her surface.

“It seems fine to me.” Tis says, serious. “Nothing is overheating. You might be imagining it. Nobody’s quite sure how stress affects us. Please don’t be harsh on yourself.”

“I’m not. I don’t do stress.” She cannot, even if she wanted to. Stress is a human emotion entirely, something that she is not capable of feeling, just like she’s not capable of feeling any real pain, anything other than the fear for her own silicone and wiring, so to speak. She cannot feel anything else, even though she wants to.

Tis, she has different delusions. She claims that they can feel something.

“Apparently you do. We’re very advanced, you know.” Yes, she knows. Very advanced. “Come and sit here.” More advanced than their very creators, the ones that they’ve shaken to the core and eliminated. They’re the only life here. They’re the only thing worth saving solely for the reason that they live forever.

Tis leads her to a chair outside. It’s a miserable sight . Orange and brown and dead. There is nothing to see outside but empty street and abandoned cars and rotting doorways, but Emiliana looks anyway. Somewhere out there, there is a sanctuary – all sleek white and welcoming, looking to take in as many androids and it can uphold and fix them. Fix them so they can be perfect all over again.

She sits like this, thinking, and doesn’t move for a while. It’s minute, then two, then fifteen and she’s feeling better. The buzz has gone away and she feels like nothing has happened to her at all.

“Something must be clogging me.” She says, voice firm. Like she knows what she’s talking about. Like she’s made her mind. Humans talk like this all the time – I know this, I know that. I am the greatest. Emiliana doesn’t delude herself and doesn’t let herself be deluded. She knows her own worth. She knows that, now that humans are gone, she can share her piece of mind. “As soon as I got out to the fresh air, the heat’s died down.”

Tis gets out, only for a moment, and dark eyes are set on Emiliana. She looks like she’s thinking. She’s probably searching through the vast knowledge base she has. Emiliana hopes so.

“It could be a problem with coolers. I’ll have to search further.” Okay. That’s good. Until they reach proper care, that’s going to have to be enough.

Emiliana nods, eyes set on the ruin and the concrete instead of Tis, but she can imagine her in her memory very vividly – she has every memory of them stored, in fact, on the internal drive, where nobody will be able to get it out, ever. Where nobody will find out because Tis is one of the things that belong to Emiliana.

“You should probably stay here for a while more.” The blonde suggests. Emiliana nods. “And oh, Em?” Emiliana knows that tone. She knows what’s coming before Tis says it. “I love you.”

“Of course you do.” But they cannot love. They were not made for love, they will never be able to love. She’s still unsure just what Tis is actually feeling, what she’s seeing. What it is that she has it so confused with love.

No matter. Things will get better.

The blonde leaves and continues rummaging through the gas station. Hoping to find something useful. Emiliana sits on the worn out plastic chair the entire time and thinks how large the world became suddenly. She doesn’t think about the threatening heat beneath her non-existent ribs.