I AM TANK

1 - THE ATTACK

"Eat. Now."

There was no pressure in the voice, just flat and emotionless. Still, it was like a command that could not be denied.

"Red, come on," the voice pleaded, still in the same tone.

Red stared unappetizingly at the porridge poured into the bowl in front of her. Who knew what was on the menu for dinner tonight, which was supposed to have an artificial taste like the real thing. But in Red's eyes, porridge was porridge. It was all she had eaten in her entire life of nineteen years.

"I'm bored, Ingo." Red's answer looked pitiful.

"You have the next nineteen minutes to finish your dinner." Ingo spoke up again.

Red, aka Aegea Harts, snorted quietly. It wasn't her hair color that earned her that nickname, for her hair was chin-length, straight, and raven black. She lived with a red eyeball that was a robot eye.

The eyeball was also the reason why Aegea's character changed her name to Red. Red was not born perfect, because at birth one eye –the left one—was not functioning. So at the age of ten, when Ingo was taken away by Jeremiah-Red and Aegea's father-Red finally got a new eye.

"You won't be able to convince Ingo," muttered the figure sitting opposite Red.

Red's eyes watched Aelea, who ate while humming softly. Aelea's hand held a knowledge tablet, a technological tool to find out various things that humans needed to know after the Great War. Aelea was not a typical girl who liked knowledge, and it seemed strange to Red that her sister had been so happy to fill her head with knowledge these past few days without any compulsion.

"You're acting strange," Red commented.

"Like what?" Aelea just gave a small grin.

"Feeling happy?"

Aelea, who was two years younger, immediately covered her chest. "You can't do that, Red. Remember what Dad said? It's not polite."

The advantage of Red's left eye was that it provided certain specific information. Red could look at a person's body like an X-ray eye if she wanted to. However, her late father had always warned Red never to do that unless it was urgent. And reading Aelea's uncharacteristic heartbeat rhythm was a crime in itself.

"I didn't do anything." Red relaxed her shoulders.

Meanwhile, the figure sitting across from Red just snorted and rolled her eyes.

"What did we eat last night?" Aelea asked Ingo in order to change the subject. Not forgetting to shake her chest-length wavy brown hair. It actually annoyed Red. "Macaroni and cheese? It's the same today, Ingo," the girl continued.

"It tastes different. It's beef Wellington," Ingo replied.

Ingo's tone was convincing that what they were eating had indeed existed in its original form. Even Red and Aelea never knew the original forms of the various foods Ingo spoke of. For every porridge on the table, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"Have you ever tasted it, Ing?" Red spoke up this time.

Ingo dipped her index finger into the pot she was holding without hesitation. Then she tasted the porridge in her mouth. She was silent for a while, then looked alternately at the two girls sitting in front of the table.

"Shall I describe what's in it?" Ingo asked.

"No," they answered in unison.

Ingo quickly went into the kitchen. She immediately washed the pots in her hands, cleaning the kitchen of all the dirt that never escaped her robotic eyes. Red and Aelea were used to this kind of routine, for the past ten years. Ingo was the third version of an AI released after the war some fifty years ago. Ingo, who lived in the Harts' house, worked as Red and Aelea's maid.