4-HN - The War

In the year 2215 AD, a researcher by the name of Dr. Henry Collins had successfully developed the first ever artificial intelligence. He had done so with an android so humanlike that one could easily mistake it for just another person walking down the street. This was the intent of Dr. Collins when he so diligently developed the program. He had made AI to fill in jobs where humans would be at risk doing, or to simply help wealthy families around the house as a sort of cleaning service, if it came to that.

Of course, the national superpowers would not see it that way. It took less than three months from Dr. Collins' debut of his first successful android for every country to be at each other's throats with threats of technological domination. Many of these threats were carried out. Over the eight years that these wars took place, there was no victor. A treaty was signed. While there had been very little in regards to human casualties, the resource cost of military androids put the industrial market under stress it couldn't handle. This was thought to be the end of android violence. This idea was wrong.

Around two years after the war ended, the hastily produced androids started acting strangely. Slurring words and even tripping over seemingly nothing were commonplace. It was decided that they were to be decommissioned. The malfunctioning androids, however, did not shut down properly, and instead kept worsening in mental condition. This eventually deteriorated into open frenzies, the androids going into a state of utter rage and attempting to cause as much destruction as they could until they were somehow killed.

Because of the massive global scale on which the military androids had been produced, this caused a worldwide crisis, the most developed countries becoming the most endangered. The governments fell, almost all at once, stranding civilians to find whatever they could to protect themselves.

Three years into the rampage, almost nothing had changed, and nearly half of the world's human population had been wiped out. This was when EDGE, among other companies, developed weapons to fight against the malfunctioning androids. By the fifth year, the last military android had finally been killed. This incited a worldwide ban on androids with any combat capabilities being produced. The companies that had risen up during the crisis were revered by the surviving population, and ended up replacing the fallen governments. This, however, went without any regulations, or anybody to keep the companies in check, resulting in a massive power struggle amongst these companies. And so, EDGE, the leading technological warfare company at the time, produced a solution for these power struggles; one that could wipe out their competition. This solution was the secret development of combat androids that they had called their "saving grace". ANGELs.

The first of these androids was called 4-AN, a male android made in 2234. The second would be called 5-AE.

These "saving graces" now walked into the long white hallway that was the entrance to EDGE, 5-AE's swords streaking blood across the freshly mopped floors.

"Again?" 3-B, the janitorial android asked in an agonized tone.

"Again," 5-AE affirmed, giving 3-B a cold stare.

4-HN shot a sympathetic glance in 3-B's direction. He had always been kind to them, and was around for longer than 4-HN could remember. The ANGELs had been made with a limited memory capacity, similar to that of humans, as it was found that the source of the military androids' failure was their memories being overloaded due to their hasty construction, leaving fatal flaws. They were also produced with silver-white eyes that changed color in accordance to what they were feeling. Red, for example, was anger, yellow was happiness, and blue was sadness. They supposedly even had the ability to cry. There were, of course, a wide array of other colors that they could display, and these were closely examined at routine times twice every day. While 4-HN had never had his irises turn to one color entirely, which was the equivalent of an emotional breakdown, he had shown partial signs of many different emotions. Happiness was not one of them.

5-AE, on the other hand, had never once shown any sign of even one color showing in her permanently indifferent gaze. This puzzled the researchers at EDGE greatly, as they had intended for 5-AE to have a personality and emotional response system that complimented 4-HN's own personality to optimize their cooperation on missions.

4-HN knew the reason for this, and aside from 5-AE herself, he was the only one that did, but had managed to convince her to keep it between them for fear of being decommissioned. They came to a silent agreement to perform well on their assignments in order to avoid this.

As the ANGELs approached their living quarters, which were directly across the hall from each other's, a familiar voice stopped them.

"Ah! Just who I was looking for!" The man frowned at the floor momentarily, noticeably agitated by the red streaks that occupied it, but seemed to decide against bringing it up.

He lifted his bald head to face the two androids. He was a tall man who appeared to have had his fair share of food. He wore the same lab coat and slacks that he always did, and made a point of avoiding tarnishing his shiny black shoes on the bloodied floor. These signature black shoes were attached to the name Dr. Samuel, who had worked on the emotional analysis team for the ANGELs.

Seeing the brief flash of orange, or agitation, in 4-HN's eyes, Dr. Samuel took a second to collect himself before proceeding, now with a bit more caution.

"I hate to say this when you've both just come back from a rather difficult assignment, but it's time for your nighttime emotional assessment," he said.

"You're just doing your job," 4-HN said, though the annoyance bled through in his voice.

They went through the examination as usual. The team that always operated the observation room came in and went about their procedures. The results were the same as they had always been. 4-HN had a slight mix of many things, excluding both happiness and sadness, while 5-AE had no color change to speak of.

As they were leaving, Dr. Samuel picked up his radio and had a brief conversation with whoever was on the other side. He turned to them, the nervous look on his face all too obvious. Despite being part of the team that had created these androids, he couldn't help but be scared of the truly monstrous things they were capable of.

"I t-truly am sorry, but it appears another urgent assignment has come up for you two," he said, his voice quivering, despite his best efforts to sound professional.

4-HN's eyes flashed with a brilliant red this time as he turned back to the doctor. Dr. Samuel flinched, but stood his ground as the red slowly receded.

"Let's get it over with," 4-HN said, unable to hide his irritation.

5-AE drew her still bloody swords and nodded.