I shiver and hold my sides as we both get off my bike. I still don’t want to do this, but I know it’s probably just my fear talking. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe we’ll even make a ton of progress while going there.

Or, so I’d like to think.

“We will be arriving soon. Thank you very much for your patience, and for having taken it upon you to drive us to the designated location,” Gilbert tells me.

I’m still wearing my hoodie from before, but it’s not doing much to shield me from the merciless wind, when it’s now literally freezing outside.

I hold my sides. “Fucking cold…” I mutter, as another shiver gets the best of me.

Gilbert gives me a strange look as we continue to walk toward the underside of a bridge not too far away from that horrendous museum of horrors. “You are cold?” he asks.

Fucking Android…

“No, absolutely not.” I scoff. “God only knows what gave you that idea!”

We have no signal and there’s only two of us here. We’re basically the easiest prey anyone could ever ask for, and I’m vaguely starting to regret agreeing to this—though, I guess there are some positive points. One: if he isn’t lying, we’re almost there, which means we’ll be out of the pouring rain soon. And, two: the Android hasn’t murdered me yet; with a big emphasis on that yet, because he’s bound to try tomorrow, if not today.

“Oh.” Gilbert pauses in his tracks. He seems to shrink in on himself as he bows, briefly, before regaining my side. “I am very sorry for the misunderstanding.”

The chilling howl that surrounds us rises and takes pieces of plastic bottles with it in the air; transparent, man-made leaves.

We make it to the bridge’s underside. Its lichen-covered wall is tagged with a bunch of graffiti, anti-Android slogans.

NO MORE ASSISTANTS. NO MORE SCIENTISTS.

YOU’LL KILL US ALL.

STEEL-BLOODED MURDERERS.

DIE.

It takes me a moment to realize Gilbert’s reading everything along with me. Although it’s hard to truly tell what signals his programming’s sending to him in this moment, his lips are parted in a mournful gape. As his dark hair continues to be drenched by the clouds above, there is sorrow in the way his brows are knitted together. His eyes twitch ever so slightly, as if he is trying to blink out tears, when he cannot.

I wait.

I wait.

A minute passes, then two. I sneeze. I’m on the verge of telling him we should go, but he beats me to it. “Is it true, what they say?” Gilbert’s tone is the most timid I’ve ever heard it being. He does not sound like the typical Android you could find in Exia’s shopping centers. He sounds… weak.

Devastated.

Human.

I shake my head and walk past him. There’s no use in debating on whether or not his feelings are true. I already know the answer. They’re not. They never will be. He’s not like me. He thinks he feels, but it’s only his programming tell him to say it. “It’s only true if you want it to be,” I tell him, because maybe deep down, I’d like to believe that’s the case, too.

I never wanted us to be enemies.

I never wanted this.

But do we even have a choice now?

Gilbert nudges my wrist. My pulse rises in my throat. He pauses, then glances up to me with apprehension. It is as if he does not know whether or not he should back away. And I do not understand it. Why?

Why are you acting this way?

It isn’t normal.

You are not normal.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, as my voice quivers, then breaks with disgust.

Our eyes meet. My fingers jerk away from his.

“I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you,” he whispers, as I try to hide the fact that my hands are trembling like crazy. “I merely meant to give you this, before we arrived.”

Gilbert takes a gun out of his pocket. He grasps my hair and pulls my head back. As he shoves the gun’s hilt past my lips, he smirks. It is evil. It is what I’d expected from him when we very first met, and in a certain sense, that reassures me, because at least I was right. At least now I can die knowing there was no way to stop what happened to mom, to dad.

He pulls the trigger.

I scream.

I blink. And everything’s back to normal again, except for the shallow noise of my heavy breaths, that fills the space between us.

I grasp at the damp fabric over my heart. A weight on my shoulder that wasn’t there before makes itself known. It’s Gilbert’s hand. “Sir, are you all right?”