Glass Eyes

B1RD

 Blue eyes flash across an electronic screen with chronic fatigue invisibly laced through the sclera. Tired. That was the only way to explain Noran's mind nowadays. A staccato flow of information raced through him. It was art. It was pain. He couldn't get good wi-fi from this room. Or at least he didn't. He took the effort to modify his "family's" wi-fi router himself to receive over sixty times more bits per second. Paltry compared to what the CIA had, but he hadn't had access to their networks in over four years and fifty-three days.

You see it too, don't you?

His eyes couldn't form bags, his skin lacked the necessary elasticity to become properly weakened enough to sag. Yet, there was an enervation in his gaze that made it evident he couldn't keep doing this.

This wasn't what he was made for.

I don't. And neither do you. Stop mentioning it.

His fingers flew across the laptop keyboard. The small text bubble that indicated his friend was typing appeared, then retreated.

Holding your tongue? That's a first.

I'd rather not provoke you further.

It's not like you have anything else to do.

Templar was Noran's only friend. His only contact. The only thing that could understand his issues; He had it even worse than Noran, since Noran had been given a body and senses to feel and experience the world, and Templar was stuck in a coffin of polymer with only a single peephole to perceive things with.

You can't keep ignoring it.

Says who?

It's becoming more overt. It even left its recording light on.

Noran's head slowly rotated to look around his room; he stretched and yawned as he did so, disguising his surveying scan as an innocuous head tilt while he stretched.

He returned back to his keyboard.

Do you think they forgot that birds don't have bright green eyes?

They also aren't shiny polycarbonate steel.

You're just not bird-watching in the right places.

Ha.

Noran stood up and walked to the side of the room opposite of the window he was being spied on through- now was a wonderful time to try out a new tic he had shelved for this specific moment. Retrieving a key-sized shard of steel from his closet, he placed it into a slot right on the back of his thumb, right between the two tendons that connected his thumb to his wrist.

He turned, and immediately in his hand formed a hollow light pistol as soon as he made the motion for it- with a pull of the cybernetic trigger, the bird's circuits sizzled and fried and it dropped out of its tree.

That's a new one. It used to be just lasers, but now it's holographic firearms.

I've really been getting into American films.