Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." I heard Signless mutter for about the Thousandth time that evening.

"What are you going on about, Signy?" I said, poking my head into the room, determined to get to the bottom of this.

He was huddled over a pile of books when browning pages, furiously writing stuff down.

"Writing your next sermon, I see. Now, what's all this you keep saying?"

"Have you heard of these humans, Psii?" He said, indirectly answering my question as he so loved to do.

"Of course I have. Who hasn't?"

He scooched over, inviting me to sit next to him. "Look at this. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

I frowned at the browning pages. "So?"

"Ugh." He rolled his eyes, bright red and captivating. They honestly made me eager to know what he was so excited about "Do you get nothing? A famous human wrote these to be the "unalienable rights of all humans."

Wow. Humans had it well off. Still, I wasn't sure what Signy was on about. Maybe he had finally cracked. "So?"

"So, we shouldn't be tearing down these humans-we should be learning from them."

I guess I saw what he meant. They seemed to have a better grasp on life then we did. "Unalienable rights, huh."

"Exactly. Mr. Jefferson, arguably one of the greatest humans of all time, stated that it was a government's job to protect these rights. And get this-they elected him to lead them!"

Geez. Sign me up on the next airship to Earth.

Still, there was something that was bothering me.

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...can you honestly say you have all the unalienable human rights, Signy?"

He frowned. "Well...no. But I'm not the only one, Psii." He took my hands in his own. "We must stop learning to be so selfish, when there are others suffering more than I."

"Who suffers more than you?"

"Plenty of people, Psii." He said, smiling and wrapping an arm around me. "One day, You'll see that."

"One day, You'll see that. One day, you'll s-65 65 20 74 68 61 74

Oh, Shit. The memory was skipping again. It was definitely a sign-they didn't skip unless something in the mainframe was getting old, and that was never a good sign. That meant She was coming.

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." I heard Signless mutter for about the thousandth time that afternoon.

Replaying my old memories wasn't really a setback or an advantage-it was just a feature, another high-tech gadget feature on this damned airship. Everything put into play to help me was also implemented to hurt me, on some level at least. And I guess it made my heart ache, looking at this. Unalienable human rights my ass. We never had them, not at all. Well, not we-him.

He never had Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness. And in the end, He didn't even have life.

"There are others suffering more than-6d 65 0d 0a 0d 0a

I thought about that for a long while.

I realized with a start that, maybe for the first time in a sweep, I wasn't even thinking about myself. I had finally learned to not be selfish, but it had come at a price. It has come at his life.

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of 68617070696e6573730d0a0d0a0d0a?" Came a snicker from the corner.

I sighed. See? What did I say? She comes with the skipping. She brings disaster in her wake.

"Sign me up on the next airship to Earth." She snickered. "Well? You've seen humans. Tell me-how is it?"

Yes, I'd seen humans. I'd seen her sweep through Earth and practically destroy it. It was almost my fault.

"It's different." I said, shrugging as best I could. In the beginning, I'd ignored every question she'd asked me, but I'd since learned that wasn't such a good idea.

The humans are brave. They'd seen dictators and mass murder. They had an odd sense of strength that I admired. But still...

they'd never seen our empress.

"Your memories skipping, Guppy boy?" She said, a tight frown plastered over her gruesomely made-up face, though it was fake fake fake, not genuine concern like I'd felt with my moirail.

She ran her hand down her face and pulled it back covered with yellow-whether it was blood or tears would always be impossible to tell-but the memories immediately became smoother. I hated when she messed with my think pan, but it's not like there was any control I had over the matter.

For a while, I had tried. I spat in her righteous face and fought back with everything I had. But she left me then, she left me calling out in pain and in no control over my own head. But worst of all, she left me alone, just me and the ship-if you could call those two separate entities anymore. As much as I hated her company, It was company nonetheless.

"You've been thinking a lot lately, Guppy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What does that even mean?"

"It means what you never gave him."

As I felt an electric pain in my side I knew it was a bad idea to say it, but I was just so angry at her, for robbing our society- for robbing my moirail-of their basic rights.

She pulled her trident back dripping with blood and didn't bother to patch up the wound. I didn't care much-pain was something I had become relatively numb to.

"I don't give anyone who don't deserve it those rights." She said, shrugging. "Don't you care that you don't have them?"

I did. I really, really, did. I wanted those rights, I wanted to be equal.

But still-

That was what she wanted. She wanted to make me worse than him. he never cared about himself, not even as he was dying did h care. And I did, it was all I cared about. Did that make me worse than him? I guess it did. But I never met anyone who wasn't.

She shrugged and turned around, her hips swaying as she left me alone yet again, angry that I refused to be worse.

Worse than the moirail who had saved my life, and would still be saving it as he told me about unalienable human rights for the millionth time that day.