You're a woman, I'm a machine

Her grey office has synthetic limbs in jars and carefully sketched body diagrams that line the walls. I turn back to the sound of her brashly opening some crate before turning my attention back to her various works. I stare at one diagram that depicts a synthetic military grade wolf with the words RETRACTED written at the bottom of the diagram in bold red letters.

A sharp pain at the back of my neck causes me to grimace and quickly jerk forward. Confused and angry, I stare back to see Rosa holding a H.I. Indicator device in her hand. She tosses it to me, before turning back to take another. I watch it as it hits my chest then falls to the ground. I walk towards it and stare at it on the ground. I hear Rosa inject herself as well. Screen flat on the floor, it chimes that it's done scanning my blood. I wait a beat before I bend down. My hands waiver and tentatively brood over the device. I somehow manage to bring my hand into a grasp and pick it up. I read the percentage.

90%.

My eyes go out of focus, and I mindlessly stare around the floor before they refocus and read my H.I. over and over again. I will my eyes to read the rest of the score. However, above my various other biological characteristics, the classification Supra-Humanis stays written next to my name. A sick ironic joke I think to myself

"H-how do I reset…clear this? Do you have another? This…this one's broken." I stammer.

She chuckles.

"You can't clear it, once it scans you, it scans you. You can't just erase the record."

I frantically search for a bin and dump the device in it. As I turn around, I can't keep my eyes from bouncing around the floor, my mind from racing, my palms from sweating. Still in shock, I don't feel Rosa slither her arms around my neck. Her brown eyes piercing into mine. She's probably too drunk to see my look of indifference stare right back at her. So, she says anyway,

"What's your H.I.?"

"t's a bit off."

"Broken? Why, are you surprised it's reading is 200%? Double the standards of a Supra-Humanis." She jokes. I stay quiet.

She bends in and whispers, "my H.I. Indicator is 97%. I'm not a Supra-Humanis, but can you still love me?"

It's not the fact that we're so close I can smell the wine on her tongue or the fact that she just implied if I would still love her if she was my relative. But the fact that I'm teetering on the edge of catatonic shock, on the edge of pure insanity. Sober or not, she can't so much but try to get a clue. So, in the dead quietness of the room, so quiet I can hear her drunken scuffling of her feet as she tries to stand on her toes, I bring my hands to her arms and pry them off me as she bends in to kiss me.

"This is exactly what I mean." She says as she throws her hands up in a 'I give up' gesture. She walks away before stopping, brushes her eyebrows with her index finger, and then spins around on her heel with her face pinched up.

"One moment, you treat me like I'm the love of your life - the most important girl in the world. 'Why wasn't Rosa at my birthday banquet? Would you marry me one day?' Then the next moment, you don't care, you don't want to touch me, be in the same room with me. One moment you're master of yourself, then the next you change countenance-"

"Because you don't love me!" I say so loud it catches me by surprise. But I keep going, "If you love me, you'd…" What am I doing? What does any of this mean? What is the point? Maybe I should apologize, that's not what I feel. What is love? What is Supra-Humanis? 90%. She seems upset. I should focus. I'm dying.

I say the first accusation that flashes into my head, "-you'd marry me!"

No, no, no! That one's old - I don't care. As if reading my mind, she squints her eyes and tightens her brows even more. Liquor somehow always made her more perceptive. Drunken words reveal sober thoughts, or something like that.

"If you love me, you'd…you'd let me scourer your mind, you'd open up to me. Not be this machine!" She yells back so loud I'm almost grateful the office block is empty.

I should tell her something, anything. She wants me to open up to her, but the truth is I don't really know who I am. Not the way she thinks. So, I don't respond.

I wonder how I look to her now. My mind is fuzzy, I can't concentrate on one thing. I'm breathing heavily, through my mouth now, and she is too. Her eyes bounce side to side as she looks into each of my eyes. She's trying to find me. She knows I'm not really here, a look of sadness – of defeat – sweeps across her face.

She walks behind her desk and slumps into the chair. I stand idle before turning around and leaving – not before taking the H.I. Indicator device from the bin.

***

The cool misty air licks at my wet body. I melt into the heat of my warm hands and soothe my face before staring at my pruned palms. I catch a glimpse of a droplet of water slithering down, from my wrist down to my forearm.

The separated bodies of water moves and tapers like ghosts to my sides - gently crashing against an invisible wall. With my head down, the shower pipes and colossal jets wine with low groans, whirs, and clicks. Prompting the lights that illuminate the bath to turn red. Turning the otherworldly bodies of water into a warning amber color. A shade lighter than the small trickles of blood from my nose that have formed a pool near my toes.

An alarm begins to sweep through my bedroom, followed by the lights to cut out and the crimson pools to come crashing at my sides. Swallowing my room and turning it into a dark red sea. Surrounded in a sea of water and strobing lights. I twist and roll as the crashing of the waves violently disorientates and ragdolls me.

The surface of the water soon reveals itself. I flay my arms enough to spin myself around and make a beeline for it. By the time I bring my head up, the waves have settled to the point where tiny ripples run across its surface. The emergency lights disappear and soft lighting illuminates the room again, seamlessly covering up any sign of struggle.

In the distant, a door slides open from above me and a platform shoots out. Knights of Konn soldiers splay onto the platform and check below. My head floats carelessly above the water.

“Is everything alright, sir?” One of them asks.

“Yes.” I lie. “Prepare the hover-car. I’m going out.”