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“Do you love?”

“Do you know what love is?”

Words echoed in the boy’s head, the voice familiar yet not.  He tilted his head up to the blood red sky, where the moon, Soirales, was perched in all its mighty glory. Red on red, the boy squinted at the moon as it glowed a slight amber, outlining itself amongst a scarlet sea.

Again, it goes. Again, we follow.

Reign stood still, staring up at the moon. His stark white appearance made him stand out in the midst of buildings covered in soot and dust and destruction. A living embodiment of purity in evil times. It would be easy to spot him from any distance away. It would be easy to kill him; shoot an arrow, fire a gun, throw a knife. 

It would be so easy. 

Not.

Reign looked back to the debris. The crater he had made had wiped out all the enemies in the vicinity, nothing but ashes resided. There was no other being in site for miles, no other sound heard. This is the result that was expected of him; experiment W05-BM, a war machine the army had a hand in making. Objective: Win the battle. Win the war. Leave no survivors alive. He succeeded his mission once again.

Turning the dials on his connector watch, he sends the result to headquarters. A small ding sounds not a second later. “Good work. Return to base,” the reply reads.

Reign closes the message and begins his way back. Not to home, he would never call it that, it is simply the place he will serve, until they move him; and then to the next place where he shall serve, and the next, and so on. It has happened all too many times for him to count anymore.

The year is Post Op 3308, it has been centuries since peace existed.

When the monsters started to rise from the shadows, they called it the Start of the Solar War. Humans eventually learnt to fight back but only after so many had been lost. They were at a loss; after all, how do you defend yourself against your own shadow? 

Only once time and some fighting had passed, they realized that extreme light could shine the monsters out, so they turned to machines and technology. The prototypes were made first, humans sent robots that were small but capable of holding such intense brightness. Alas, the monsters could easily trample over them and the robots had limitations of their use.

Years and years later, testing, experiments and countless failures and money spent after, Reign is the fifth of its kind and the first to succeed. Experiment W05-BM — Creation Tag: Wrecker; Model: Body Morphic; Nickname: Reign. He was given the name after they concluded him a successful milestone.

“Tell me about love.”

“Tell me about your love.”

He had read, once, what the word ‘home’ means. Outside of its dictionary definition, it meant love, acceptance, and irreplaceable. Reign knew he was an expensive creation, he was valuable; but he was not irreplaceable. They had others in the making, others in training, and others out in the field like him. If he was broken past repair, he knew there would be no sorrow, no grief, just disappointment at his inability to succeed. They would gladly say good riddance to whom they deem useless and he was no exception, even if he currently was the best at his job. To them, he was just a tool, but Reign wanted more. He wanted to learn.

“What do you think being human means?”

The boy had no name. 

He was not given one because he had not earned it. It didn’t faze him though; many others were like him. Instead, he smiled back and said, “Hey. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Dyre.”

Experiment W04-BM — Creation Tag: Wrecker; Model: Body Morphic; Nickname: N/A
Status: Inactive

Dyre had never really been able to perform well. It was like being born ill, there was a malfunction somewhere that the scientists and engineers either couldn’t find or gave up looking for. He knew that they had always been looking for a reason to put him out of work if he didn’t run himself dry on the field first. Perhaps that was why they worked so hard on W05-BM. 

Upon his completion, Dyre had been told to stand by at base, he was no longer needed unless the situation was excessively urgent. In short, he was free — and he loved it. He only held pity and a morbid curiosity for the new creation. 

Before W05-BM was Reign, he was a possibility. He was hope.
Just as Dyre had been to his predecessor.

There had been only four androids with names so far, dating back from the start until now.

First, there had been Beta. When the humans first started to make their robotic weaponry an android, she was their only success out of several dozen test runs. Of course, as she was but a test dummy, she did not live long and barely got out of the lab a handful of times.

Then, there was Zero. Zero was the start of the Wrecker Creation Tag. They showed prospect and gave the scientists all the odds and numbers needed at the time to fully commence the Wrecker project. Zero lived outside the walls and fought every day, but they were not the real beginning.

Scythe was the first out of the Wreckers to gain sentience. The humans experimented with her to see if androids using weapons and tools would be more useful in battle. She was an alternative.

Next was Reign. The first Body Morphic to have a name. His build was faster and stronger than Dyre’s; his calculations and movements were also more precise. No other Body Morphic so far had been able to out match him despite all their better gear and programming.

Well, of course they haven’t, Dyre smiles to himself. None of the others had been like Reign, curious and understanding to a fault. They were all too stuck on logic and had no heart.

“What do you love?”

“Everything. Nothing.”

They had met many times and talked many times before. How funny it was when the one who wanted to be human and the one who most like a human interacted.

Topics ranging from the war to humanity, the army, them and the other androids, everything.

“Why do you stay and let them use you?” Dyre asked rhetorically. “You’d have a better time exploring humanity on your own than as an army weapon on a mission.”

Reign couldn’t answer. He never thought of it like that. “Why do you stay then?” he asked instead.

A soft smile graced Dyre’s lips, “For you.”

“What is love?”

The beam in his hand sparked before fizzing to its death. His left arm had to be disposed of, he doesn’t know where he dropped it off. The virus was spreading in his circuit, Reign knew he needed to get help soon if he wanted to continue living.

Odd it may sound for a robot to want to live but he knew, after seeing it with his own eyes; a hard reset would erase all previous personality and memory, the body would be sent to its default state and restart to cleanse itself anew. Gritting his teeth, Reign moved faster, past the shadows and forming monsters, he had to make sure it wouldn’t get to that. He will make sure that it doesn’t.

The government had been asking more of Reign and so he went. Even with his work load nearly doubled, he didn’t mind it as he got to go out more. A mission nearby to rid another abandoned city full of monsters was not anything new. 

He didn’t know that there would be a virus. 

“What do you think being in love means?”

Dyre spotted him as he neared the base.

Reign could barely stand, the virus infiltrating his senses. Someone was talking to him, he thought. He hoped it was an engineer. “Please,” he gasped. Please, I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to be discarded. Please. Dyre.

“Personally, I think it means never giving up.”

When he opened his eyes, a boy who appeared to be his age stood in front of him. 

“Hey. It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Dyre,” the boy smiled.

… Boy. Dyre. Name. Android. His name…

Dyre rolled his eyes at the absent reply. “What’s your name?”

… Name. Boy. Android. Name…

“… W05-BM,” the letters and numbers left his mouth slowly, as if he was unsure of saying it. Dyre smiled before leaning to match his eye level. “Wroongg. Try again.”

He stared at him. Wrong? Surely not. His tag numbers were shown in the top left of his vision. Dyre continued to smile, waiting patiently. He tried again, “W05—”

“Nope, not that name,” Dyre shook his head, “look me in the eyes and try again.”

His eyebrows knitted in confusion. 

It was their way of life. Meeting up, chatting, asking each other questions of humanity. “Have you ever felt love, Dyre?” He had asked one day.

“… Reign,” the name falls out his mouth and he blinks. “I’m Reign.”

Dyre laughs, “Yeah. Took you long enough.”

“Yes. With you.”