Chapter 3: August No.9

The Shen Estate.....

The young daughter of Mrs. Shen, is walking down the stair to her older brother's workshop at the basement in order to meet Ares No.9, after she saw his face earlier, the same as her late older brother who just passed away last year. As she touches the floor of the basement, she sees him sitting alone while feeling down on the operating table without looking up. What shocks the most is that, when she gets close to him, she sees him tears down like a human being, despite him being an android.

"Are you really crying?" she asks him as she really wants to know how a robot like him can cry like a human being.

As he hears the little girl just asked him like that, Ares No.9 shocks really hard, then he uses his pointing finger to wipe the tears, while he still in disbelieve as much as the little girl. So, he looks at her without talking to her for moment until.....

"I don't know, but am I really crying? I mean I never felt like this before. It seems weird, though. But is it really how human feel every day, right?" he asks the little girl like whispering, while he looking at the tears on his pointing finger.

"Yes!! That's call crying. However, I never seen an android cried before, though. Its strange to me. But maybe because you are the most advance android, that's why you might have the function to feel the emotion like human" the little girl explains the reason to him with a smiling face, just to cheer him up after she found him being sad alone.

"Maybe you're right!! Thank you. By the way, what's your name, I forget to ask?" Ares No.9 asks the little girl her name after they had a meaningful and beautiful conversation.

"My name is Juliet Shen, the youngest daughter of the Shen family. Nice to meet you. And what about you, I don't get your name yet, either" Juliet gladly responses to Ares No.9's question, as they need to know each other.

"Hmm!! My designation is Ares No.9 of Project Ares of Prometheus Corporation. Nice to meet you as well, Juliet" Ares No.9 keeps smiling at her, as he responses to her question very nicely.

"Wait!! That's not a name. That's just the code number. Are you really don't have a name? how even that possible anyway?" Juliet's wondering about this nameless person who has the same face as her late brother.

"I don't know, but maybe I am just an android whom being created to serve human. So, it pointless for me to have name and maybe, due to I never care about it either" he's guessing to this matter, even though he has no idea about this matter.

"That's not right. Mr. El Cruz is an android as well, but he still can have a name. Which mean, you also have the right to get a name if your own as well" Juliet explains to him thoroughly as what she had witness from before, especially this so call Mr. El Cruz.

"Then what I should be named anywhere?" Ares No.9 bluntly asks her to help find a name.

"Hmm!! I think....."

"Juliet!! Its time for dinner. Come up here now. Hurry" a young boy out of the blue interrupts their conversation, as he's descending the stair to the basement, while giving Ares No.9 a death stare, which the same as Hugo's.

"Oh!! That's Henry Shen, my obnoxious twin brother, and he's....."

"That's enough!! Everyone's waiting, come on now" Henry interrupts both Juliet's introduction, while forcefully asks Juliet to come up stair for dinner.

"Ok, find!! I'll be there" Juliet reluctantly agrees to Henry, while she finds him already left.

After agree with her twin brother, Juliet rush fully runs up stair, while giving Ares No.9 a signal of good-bye. At the end, he's alone once again.

...

The Shen family are having dinner together at the dining room, however, to them, the entire family is not complete at all, because two chairs are left empty, as one is for the husband/father who is missing until now, and another one, is for the late son/brother who just passed away, so, which mean no one would be able fill in that emptiness for them at all.

As the entire dinner looks so gloomy with silent, Hugo, as the new head of the family now, decide to ease the current tension.

"How the sell today, mom? Were there any complaints about the grain? I didn't check the fuel tank properly, so there might leaks, and the grain might obtain the smell of the fuel, mom" Hugo tries to strike the conversation with his mother, as she still mad at him, for being a jerk to Ares No.9 this morning.

"There were no any complaints at all, however, next time check the machine properly, or there won't be next time, if the clients sense the smell around the grain" Mrs. Shen responses to her son's question in a very cold manner, which somehow irritate Hugo very much.

"Why you still mad at me for that? He might look like Jaymin, but he's not Jaymin at all. Jaymin is gone, mom. So, we need to move on, we cannot attach to the past forever, mom. We need to live on, or we will lose what we have left, mom" somehow Hugo kind of has enough with his mother, toward the arrival of Ares No.9.

"They both not only share the same look, Hugo, but their personalities are the same as well. Whenever, I see him, I see Jaymin in there, like he never left us. That's why when I saw your treatment toward him, it's anger me so much, like....."

"Mom!! But....." Hugo interrupts his mom, but then she silences him.....

"I trust my instinct, Hugo. You would never understand a mother's instinct, especially when she sees her child, no matter how changes they got, a mother would never mistake her child, Hugo. Do you understand that, Hugo? You maybe be the new head of this family now, but never forget, that I am still your mother, so in the future do not cut my speech ever again" Mrs. Shen gets up from her chair very angrily, while at the same time gives a death stare to Hugo.

After giving Hugo a death stare for a moment, Mrs. Shen storms off of the dining table, then walks straight to the basement's door without looking back to everyone who still siting around the table, then immediately disappear into that room as she's descending down the stair just to meet Ares No.9.

When their mother just storms off to the basement, the twins who still siting there to enjoy their dinner, also give their brother the silent treatment as well, which start to pressure him so bad.

.....

As reaching to the workshop at the basement, Mrs. Shen found Ares No.9 is inspecting his crate all by himself alone. He's lighting the scanning laser, that he generates from his left palm around his white titanium alloy crate, to see if there're any damages to the crate's integrity. After he scanned the structure and found no serious damages, he begins to release some kind of cable from his pointing finger, and plugs it into the crate's data server to see any systems error that lad to the entire crate's network being rebooted upon crashing down to Earth.

"Is everything okey over there, you seem distraught?" Mrs. Shen asks Ares No.9 when she sees him feel a little down after checking the crate's systems.

"I try to check both the crate's structure and systems, to find the cause that lad it to reboot the entire system. So, if I can find the reason how the crate rebooted its systems by itself, which mean I might find the way to regain access to my full systems, functions and the memory logs as well. It's so hard to live without my full memory, it makes me feel less" Ares No.9 tells Mrs. Shen his struggle while he's feeling down.

"Take it slow!! Don't rush it. It's only pressuring you much more. Something like this, might take a little more time. Take it slow, sometime you might find the solution at the very least expectation" Mrs. Shen tries to calm him down as she sees him so stressing.

"Time is not at our side right now. I don't know how long Prometheus will be able to find me here, so the quicker I can regain my full memory log, the faster I can get to Kriss Black Zone and leave here" Ares No.9 explains his reason of rushing thing to Mrs. Shen, due his fear of putting this entire family in danger if his creator ever find him here.

"You really want to leave here that much? If you worry about Hugo, I will take care of him immediately. Even though he's the new head of the family now, but I'm still his mother. He wouldn't dare to argue with me" Mrs. Shen reassures to Ares No.9, if Hugo is really the reason he wants to leave.

"It's not that!! I mean, I am the reason why everyone here arguing to one another, especially you and Hugo. Both of you are mother and son, but you have to fight for an outsider like me. That's why if I leave, maybe you two can talk to term with one another. Besides, I still afraid if Prometheus will ever find me, and put everyone here in danger. If so, I might not be able to ever forgive myself at all" Ares No.9 describes his true feeling to Mrs. Shen as he feels a little sad, as if he's really going to leave this place.

"You're not the reason why we fight. After we lost Jaymin last year, we were grieving so hard that we're barely talk to each other, since each of us had different ways of coping that grief. Then a few months after his passes, his father, my husband, Adam, mysteriously disappeared without a trace, so after that, we started to struggle to survive as a family, and we started to blaming one another just to release those pain, which was the starting point of the fallen of this family. So, it doesn't have anything to do with your sudden arrival at all. As for putting us in danger, I also fear about that as well. However, seeing you, especially with your current state, I, out of the blue have an urge feeling to protect you at all costs, like a mother wants to defend her child" Mrs. Shen talks to Ares No.9 while shedding tears as she describing her feeling as a mother, as she's not ready to move on from her second son's death.

"Am I really reminding you of you late son that much?" Ares No.9's asking Mrs. Shen as he feels sad and pity for her, and curse himself as he's the reason of her sudden feeling.

"To be honest!! You're not only have the same look as him, but even your personality, and attitude are the same as him as well. Which I sometime believe, that you're him, like the same person. I am sorry if I ever offended you" Mrs. Shen talks as she weeping her tears as she still coping the loss of her son.

"Non taken, Mrs. Shen!! Even I, despite have no recollection of my past memory, and probability have no emotion at all due to I am an android, but somehow, I feel very safe, like I'm home with the people whom I care the most, and whom would give me the love that I've been craving for ever since I awoke. That's why I am afraid if something bad happen to all of you and lose you from my live, which will leave me aloneonce again" Ares No.9 emotionally describes his feeling to Mrs. Shen, while they're sitting close to each other on the operating table.

"That mean, you're not an android, but you're a human being, who capable of feeling. That's why, do not ever questioning yourself of who or what you are, but question yourself of what path you will take and how you will live your life, that's when you will know yourself, truly. You get that?" Mrs. Shen gives Ares No.9 her advise as she doesn't want him to isolate himself from the other, if he's ever thinking of himself different.

"I get that!! Thank you, mom.....Opps!! I am sorry, ma'am" Ares No.9 instinctively calls Mrs. Shen "mom" which shocks her so hard, because she did not prepare for that at all. However, as she heard Ares No.9's apology, she.....

"I don't mind at all, ahh.....Ares? I mean you should change your name, since you're no longer with Prometheus, and you will start your own journey without being controlled by the strings of your creator. Most importantly, it's not suit you at all, I mean, that name is represent of war, bloodshed, violence and destruction, so change it. Have you ever thought about that yet?" Mrs. Shen begins to question his choice of name as she doesn't agree with that designation or name at all.

"I never thought about it yet, as everything is happening very fast, and I'm not ready processing the situation completely yet, so....." Ares No.9 a little hesitates when to think about it.

"Then think of something that make you happy the most" Juliet tells Ares No.9 as she walks down the stair and toward to her mother and him.

"Hmm!! It was the day I awoke. That's the time that I was feeling so alive, despite I am an android that being constructed to serve in a war effort" Ares No.9 describes the thing that make him happy the most.

"Then, what was the time, day or month of your awakening date, hmm?" Juliet excitingly asks Ares No.9.

"I am not fully remembering the time or day at all, but for the month, I think it was August. Yes!! August is the month of my awakening" Ares No.9 surprisingly remembers that, despite most of his memory logs are inaccessible.

"Then, why not August, hmm? Isn't it great, brother August?" Juliet quickly picks the month of August to be his name with excitement.

"I would love that very much" Ares No.9 finally has a name of his own, which he's gladly accepting it.

"If you love it, then August it is, son" Mrs. Shen happily calls August, her son.