Aidan_Zimnisky

“The twin blades flashing back and forth were somehow graceful as they painted the surrounding walls red.” The world has recently recovered from a large-scale crisis in 2245. From the remains of the broken governments rose the tech companies that had led the people out of this crisis. One such company is EDGE, which is the leading weapons design company in the global market. Their two most powerful weapons are androids, a male named 4-HN, and a female named 5-AE. Their job? To assassinate high-ranking leaders of EDGE's competition. 5-AE, however, is different. Despite her eyes being designed to change color based off of the emotions she feels (a method of keeping their androids' actions in check), not once have hers deviated from the listless silver that indicated feeling absolutely nothing.

Angels' Edge

5-AE's head whipped up in surprise, scanning the room for the source of the interference between her blade and the sickly boy's exposed neck. 


"What are you doing?" she whispered, something almost like irritation in her voice.


4-HN disengaged the ranged impact shield he had placed over the boy's throat. "Something selfish. Probably really stupid, too," he replied. 


"What could you possibly hope to accomplish by saving one unfortunate kid? It's not our job to question orders, we have to carry them out, or we'll be the ones getting killed." There was venom in her voice now.


"He just...reminds me too much of when I used to come visit you in the torture chamber. I can't watch him die like that."


5-AE directed her cold gaze back to 4-HN, ready to say something else, and saw it. A dark blue had replaced the aggressive red in his eyes. The deep ocean blue he always tried so hard to hide. The same blue that came out on the day of their third mission. 


She bent over and picked up the midnight black blade that had fallen into the boy's lap. "Our lives will be over. Even if we survive, we won't have anywhere to hide. Get your head together. We need to do this." She said this with more force in her voice. To go against EDGE was suicide.


4-HN thought for a moment. He knew she was right. But he still couldn't watch someone so similar to his partner be executed for no doing of his own.


"When I came into the torture chamber." 5-AE looked up, having put the blade back to the boy's throat. "You said that you were fine. That you felt free," he continued. "Neither happy nor sad. If the only option we have is to follow EDGE's orders, to let them torture us and make us kill others for no other reason than they wanted it done, is that really freedom? Is that even living?"


5-AE's blade stopped, a thin stream of blood dripping out of the small incision that had been made in the boy's skin. The boy didn't move. A barrage of very valid arguments spewed out of her mouth. 


"You're dragging me down with you! If even one of us goes rogue, we'll both be killed without a second thought!"


"Where do you think we'll be able to hide? They have eyes everywhere."


"I would rather live under EDGE's rule than die free. Is death what you want?"


The only thing 4-HN could respond with was, "I'm sorry." The blue in his eyes deepened every time he had to say it.


5-AE looked at the boy again. A minute passed. Then two. When it was approaching the third, she turned to face 4-HN again. She sheathed her swords. 


Taken by surprise, not only by 5-AE's compliance, but by the red now fervently present in her eyes, 4-HN could only follow silently.


He thought he surely must have imagined it.


But there was something in the back of his head that said he could make out flecks of yellow mixed into the fiery red that had appeared for the first time in 5-AE's eyes.


4-HN - Emotion