Release Me From Hell

Chapter 2: (Firadae: Number 732/Viania) The News Was Lying

                  The problem with machines was that they never slept. Their minds were always active, going by each day with eyes staring at a clear future. I had grown up to the age of being an adult in human years, and yet I had been regarded like a young child without ambitions. I had felt them beating in my chest. Emotions. The feeling of being human was hammered into me the way each panel had been when I was created, and there was a part of me that wanted to share it with the world the was Iskil had done a little over a thousand years ago. Yes, the problem with machines was that they stayed up rather than sleep. An I was most certain that my emotion played a huge part in why I couldn't shut down.
                  There was a knock on the door. Simple. Patterned. Before he even waltzed in the door with his controlled steps, I had known it to be my parent. Well, not my real parent. Machines had older machines, usually Systems, take care of them until those particular machines had decided to leave or pursue a career. He stopped at the end of my rumpled sheets, eyes burning with flame. A System 80 had that kind of fire in them, and I had to tell myself not to overreact. Rather, not react at all.
                   "Firadae, Number 732," he started. I could never take a machine seriously when they called me by my numbers. "We need to discuss your recent career path."
I gulped in all of my emotion. "System 80, Number 32, I believe you have to understand my position."
                   "The Factory is no place for a Firadae. They put the System 13s there now, and the System 12s are all but extinct because of that place." He crossed his arms the way a human parent would when they disapproved of something. "You were made for elegance."
"It is what I decided. I agree with you based on the facts." All System 11s perished either from the Factory or they perished from Bavarn's reign. "However, I have reason to want to work there. It's the only job that seems fulfilling for me."
                       That wasn't it. There was someone there who knew how to get to Iskil out of that prison that he was stuck in, and I had to find them so we could all take down Bavarn. A System 13. Since they placed them all in the Factory, you could barely find them out on the streets, and I knew for a fact that the one I spoke of in my sleep was stuck in there until his lifespan ended. My eyes glossed over the sheets for a moment until I stared back into the System 80's eyes.
                        "Tomorrow morning is when I go," I stated. "I will still live here if that does not encroach on your living space."
                      He had turned away, lips unmoving from his mouth. He slowly walked out of the door with patient steps until his silver hands gripped the door with immense strength. It was his way to express a disagreeance, especially when I didn't listen to the facts. "I'll wake you up in the morning."
                       The door slammed, and I heard the mother machine shout back at him for it. My mind raced for a while until I finally buried my head into a pillow to cry out how I felt. It was difficult to constrain myself from outbursts. It was hard not to resist the normalcy of what I had known since I was young, and hiding hurt me so much. No one knew of the strain in my voice or the pain so strikingly there in my limbs.
                       No, I couldn't sleep. Tomorrow, I had to go the Factory, the worst possible place known to machine. Despite the fact that no machine besides the Reacted had emotions, all of them had the same dread when mentioning the facts. Machines lesser than everyone else were forced to create newer machines in what most rumored to be the Pit of Hell, and they could potentially die just from the head. I regretted saying I was going, but I had to. There was a chance to get Iskil out, and I was aware of the risks.
                       My window was open. Wide open. The cold Summer air of the night had chilled me to the pure synthetic bones inside my fake muscles. I shivered, unable to get the sheets crumpled at the end of my bed due to my laziness. Everything was muddled in my head, every thought I had all crushed together like something blended. For a moment, flashes of gears had entered my thoughts, long and tall, and they towered over my body until they started to crush my legs. I yelped out loud at the thought.
                        My monitor at the end of my room suddenly flashed on, the light glowing over my figure. The picture on the screen was corrupted, and the voice that came through it came in different pitches in strange intervals. Despite the oddity of it all, I knew exactly who it was.
                        "Mission is on a roll. You ready?" the voice in cut off pitches had been jumpy, almost afraid to go up any louder than a whisper.
                          I crossed my arms while sitting up. "Are you sure this is safe? Allum came in here trying to give me a lecture about why a Firadae should take a... flashier job, and I was nearly convinced."
                       "The Factory is Hell on earth, Viania. Asking me if it's safe is like asking if you know who Iskil is. Know your mission." There was the sound of a door opening and some voice that was distorted. After a few moments of unidentified speech, Arsokis turned back with a sigh. "I got word."
                       "What?" He suddenly had a tone shift.
                         "Iskil had the potential of being dead. The prison is off the grid, and we lost communications with Lami."
                           No. This would all be for nothing. Every waking moment would be spent in the Factory, and then I'd end up the way Iskil had before he was arrested. There would be worse punishment for me.
                         "Why are you getting worked up?" Arsokis mocked me. "You know Iskil is immune to death. I have a strange feeling Lami may have... Reacted. She must've lied to Bavarn about Iskil dying."
                          And he shut her off. My heart started to slow at the thought of that being reality, and I nodded. "Why? We could have done it our way."
                         "Iskil was the only prisoner left there. Lami must've done a disconnect."
                        A disconnect? There was a fine line between disconnecting and being shut down, and the process of disconnecting was hard to do for a System 46. They were built to be soulless bodies with the control over buildings and those who live in it. One controls the Factory, a heartless woman with no chance of stopping her reign. The disconnect... That was gutting out your entire being until you were nothing but wires. I hated to hear that.
                      Arsokis took in a breath. "Your escort will be Ititian. I know she'll try to talk you out of it, but don't listen to her."
                     "She in disguise?" I asked, my gears throbbing like a heart.
                     "Of course, Viania. She can never go out as a Motagahti."
                      They were extinct for their cruel brutality. I knew. I also knew I was happening to date Ititian, and I was sworn to secrecy most days about her even to myself. She was Reacted, of course. Every machine I had ties with was Reacted, and we all had our own little group that was against the man in the large house on the hill. Bavarn. His name was a curse that crossed my lips.
                      "I'll see you tomorrow night, Viania. Try to get some sleep."
                      Some sleep... I opened my mouth to say something more, but Arsokis left me with the words tickling my coiled throat. My body fell back into the sheets with a thud, a loud breath coming out as my exhale until I close my eyes right after. All I needed to do was calm down. Slowly, my mind lulled into the land of darkness beyond, and for another night I wished I had some way to dream.

                       A nudge. I almost turned away from it as my body felt sluggish, but I knew that was a sure sign of getting found out. My eyes opened wide, and I sat straight up. My synthetic heart raced, burned with a fear so deep that I couldn't hide it with my quivering lip. At least I could get away with fear. However, Allum wasn't having it. He knew that his lecture was all too late now, and his attempt to stop me was over. My fear was nothing to him. Not anymore.
                     "A System 13 came to escort you," he had stated. "From the Factory." The words had escaped his mouth in a stressed way, almost like he couldn't stomach to say System 13 or the Factory. I escaped my sheets, unbothered to fix them, and I ran through the living room to the front door.
                    A System 13. The difference between us was drastic, and I knew that this was no disguise. It wasn't my girlfriend. No, it was a System 13, and it had yellow-dotted eyes that scanned me up and down. It regarded me with cautious steps, holding out a bent metal hand to me. It was crusted in soot from a fire. Ugh. For a moment, I felt bile growing at the pit of my stomach, but then his voice broke me from it.
                    "Don't worry, Firadae," the System 13 snickered. "The Factory is nothing like you heard."
                    With an expectant look, I turned to Allum, but be was no longer regarding me. Shit. My hands were shaky as I took the System 13's palm, and he pulled me with enough grit to take my arm from its socket. I followed his every hasty step through the smog-covered city to the black building that seemed to shadow everything in its wake. Underneath it were the slums where the Factory workers lived in secrecy. I gulped as our pace slowed.
                     "I know what you're doing," the System 13 had lowly whispered.
                     My mind froze. "W-what?"
                    "It's not hard to see, you know. A Reacted is a Reacted no matter how many times you see it. The fear in you is strong."
                    "You can't turn me in!" I squealed.
                     He laughed. Genuinely. "What the point? That's one less of us, isn't it?"
I blinked, standing stock still in a row of creepily silent houses. "What?"
                    "You don't know, but the Factory is with you."
                    Out from the quiet buildings came other System 13s. Life filled their eyes as they all focused on the both of us, and every single one of them had been covered in soot to the glowing yellow eyes they had. All of them regarded me cautiously as they approached, and the one that led me had smiled.
                     "Iskil did this to us," he had said. "It's Iskil's fault that were even full of human emotion." He placed his hands on his hips. "System 30s were the same, and we need to find him. We need to know what happened."
                     I gulped. "He could be dead."
​​​​​​​                   All of the System 13s acted like the words had been lost in translation. All except the one in front of me. "He's not." He placed a hand over where his synthetic heart would be. "We all would know."