The Red Bird

Chapter 1-The Red Bird

"You mustn't do anything that sets you apart from the others. Everyone here is equal. That is how it has always been. Remember, my subjects, there's no 'I' in 'we'."

I roll my eyes at the Queen's famous slogan.

"There's no 'I' in 'we'!" I say in a mocking tone.

"Carol, I know that you don't like her, but must you do that every time she says it?"

"Yes! It's the most absurd thing I've ever heard! Next thing you know, she'll take this all a step further and ban the word 'I' in general!"

"I thought it was banned?"

"Not yet, but she still might!..."

"I suppose... But if she had and we didn't know it" Heather says, glancing around nervously. "Those androids would be reporting back to-"

"How dare you!" Android 5-27 says, rolling over to Heather angrily. "I have absolutely no relations to the Queen!"

"Right. And that's why she made it mandatory for all of her 'specially made' androids to live in every pod," Heather says, using air quotes.

Android 5-27 makes an aggravated noise and crosses her arms. "I'll have you know that if I were to have connections to the Queen, which I don't, I would have turned you both in already for all kinds of dumb things you two have done!"

"Oh, Gladys!" I say, rubbing her smooth head. "You love us too much to do that!"

"My hard drive isn't equipped with petty human emotions, but nice try." She pushes my hand away and starts to wheel over to the kitchen to wash the dishes. "And how many times have I told you not to use that 'pet' name you gave me?"

"You know you love it!"

"I do not! Like I just said, I am unable to love, and I'm perfectly okay with that."

"Carol, I've been meaning to ask..." Heather says, glancing up from the magazine she had been reading. "Did you name her Gladys after that one robot thing in that game? Portal, was it?"

"Not exactly..." Yes I did. "And that's GLaDOS. Totally different!"

"Sure..." Heather says, eyeing me skeptically over the magazine.

"Did you seriously name me after a fictional character?!" Gladys yells from in the kitchen.

"Did you not hear the conversation that Heather and I just had? Of course not!" Once again, yes I did.

I then just hear angry beeping and whirring.

I laugh and return my attention to the TV.

The show turned to a 'reality' show about this group of people who work at the biggest organization in the world, ModrnTech. Terrible name, I know, but no one has creativity these days... At least not with naming their companies.

I soon realized that I had already seen this episode and decided to just turn off the TV.

Heather raises an eyebrow at the sudden silence (besides Gladys' whirring), but doesn't look up from the magazine.

"You must be reading a really interesting article..."

"Hm? Oh, yeah," Heather says, clearly not paying attention.

"What's it say?"

"Oh, you know, just regular stuff..." Heather says, still not paying attention.

"If it was just 'regular stuff', you would have thrown it away already..." I say, slowly making my way over to the other side of the table.

"Maybe. I keep some of them though..." Heather still doesn't seem to notice me.