Alive

Chapter 8

RCAS weren't supposed to be late.
Ever.
They were robots, that wasn't like an un-breakable law or anything. They were robots. It was logic. That's just not regular RCA behavior. As the clock hit 1:01 PM, I sat at my desk and began chewing my nails, my breathing coming a little faster. Okay, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be the counselor but you can't stop me from having problems with my anxiety.. I do need to get that under control.
The clock strikes 1:02 and I'm getting very paranoid. My stomach lurches as I grab the office phone from my desk and, looking to the phone number scribbled on the post it, begin to dial the caterers' number when there's a ring at my doorbell. Call it irrational but that small feeling of fear that I had sharpened, making me wince and reprimand myself.
I open the door, forgetting to look through the peek-hole.
I am nauseous.
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RCA log: &$!/:,98347)/:@&'
<error: RCA NO LONGER TRACKABLE>
Gemini: estimated percentage: 17%
A beautiful woman that looks absolutely mortified opens the door. I slouch a little to get closer to her height, greet her warmly. As she's talking to me about how grateful she is that I came over and to tell her bosses how incompetent they are, I'm scanning her room.
I just know it has to be here. This is it. I can feel it.
Instinct laughs cruelly.
I ignore him and begin looking again.
Her walls are a darker beige color and her desk is made of mahogany. There are papers scattered all over her desk and dust on some parts of its mahogany wood. From this I can gather quite a bit. But is it here? I respond with an automatic response to whatever she'd said. Instinct's taking care of her. I scan the walls. There's a big painting of a black and white man holding a gray umbrella against a color storm in between her two city-view windows. There's a picture of her and a bunch of small children, and a few kids' drawings....
I found it.
I can't help myself. FATE is taking place.
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The RCA strides into my office, seeming not to have a care in the world for what I was saying at all. I try to stop him but he shoves past me. I'm not the strongest of people. I can tell it doesn't take much effort on the other side. He carefully studies the walls until he finds something.
Iris's drawing.
He takes it down from the wall and looks at it with a sad smile on his face. The memories of that day come back to me fleetingly and I feel an urge to grab the drawing from him, but I'm paralyzed with an emotion deeper than old Fear itself. I can do nothing but stare and watch whatever he does. He seems to hesitate for a moment after taking it from its frame. He looks quickly around the room and walks over to my coffee table, still staring at the picture. He sets it down gingerly and, after a moment's silence, he begins burning it. I begin to lose it again. I rush at him and say, "hey, you? What do you think you're doing? Are you corrupted or something?"
He simply holds me back with one hand and says, "please, ma'am, let me finish the picture." The words roll around in my head, combining with the others like watery paint on a rotated canvas. She'd said: "Cynthia, when you find the person who can fill this picture in, don't ever let go of him.." Something like that...? Amazing that the words were still clinging desperately to her long-filled memories. Somehow, the presence of him, the strange light he gave off, just somehow... It was different. It was already very clear to her that he wasn't your average RCA. And all she could do was sit back and see what happens.
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He felt that this wasn't going fast enough. He knew what he needed this for. It was the image password for a bunch of files that had been lost in his memory, one a sound recording called 'instructions', one a text file called 'save', and one a video named 'kid'. The thought of someone calling someone else by the name of Kid didn't really jive with him. It upset him a lot and he felt like he knew the reason why and he just couldn't remember it. This frustration kept him going as he overheated, more and more and more, until he was convulsing and he knew that if he had tears he'd be sobbing. The woman seemed to notice this and crawled over to me, resting her back on the couch, sitting on the floor. She peered sympathetically at my face ( not that I was that distracted, I was paying more attention to the task at hand) and then with wide eyes (wide with humility, not fear like that old couple's) touched my back.
Eventually I got so overheated and overcome with emotion that she had to cover her hand with her sleeve just to continue rubbing my back. She doesn't care that I am an RCA. Could this be reality? Or is it just a dream representing my life's wishes? I'm not sure, but I have to put all my concentration forth, the drawing is nearly done. Just 6,5,4,3,2,1...
And it was finished. The colors melded well, I especially appreciated the sunset.
It's me.
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He muttered something, holding up the picture for him to see in a new perspective.
The drawing was now depicting him laying dead by a wall during sunset. I thought it was strange to consider a
lump of metal dead but that was the only way I could describe the numb defeated look on his face. He said something slowly and the gravity in his voice made my stomach drop. I couldn't quite make out what he said. I asked him to repeat what he'd said. In a gravelly voice, he said, "your name..." I cleared my throat. "You want to know...my name?" He nodded slowly, still staring at the picture.
I straightened myself and said it. "Cynthia."
He nodded again, slowly, like he was doing everything else. "Pretty name."
Cynthia was pretty mainstream, I wonder what made him say that.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
He seemed to shift into a different gear.
"I've opened the file for my script. While the script is encoded in a format I will never be able to decode, ever, I have found three readable files."
I see something behind his numb-looking staring contest with the wall but don't mention anything.
"List them and the file types, according to purpose."
I learned quite a bit about RCAs in psychology (just in case) and I know what to do. He looked at me strangely as if he didn't expect me to take command, and did as I bade him.
"There is a video that is allowed for me and the person with the drawing, aka you, to view it, and there is a text document that only you are allowed to read, and a sound recording meant just for me."
Whoever programmed him was creative. "Open the video, please... What's your name?"
He looks at me with a sad smile.
"I think the man who made me named me, but it can't remember what it was. Memories are starting to come back, but it's still very unclear to me exactly what happened."
It must be hard not remember something like that. I can see the pain behind the RCA's eyes when he speaks of it.
What am I thinking? They don't feel pain. They're not living.
But he seems... Different. He seems special.
He nods after a moment of silence and starts the video, projecting it through his eyes.
Ironic.
An old man presents himself as Walter on my beige office wall (I've always hated that dumb color) and begins a flawless and very truthful and VERY persuasive speech on the current standing of the world, respectively. Walter calls the RCA 'kid' (which I think is just adorable). The last message, the last thing is said with tears in his eyes.
...
"Kid-you-you were made for great things, ok? Remember that n-no matter what happens, you'll always be strong enough to win-w-one more time... And remember that I'm always right here for you *shaky breath*... Ok? Now be a good kid, okay?"
...
The RCA was sobbing again. He's had to hold it in for so long that I don't blame him. He is crying loudly and trying to hold himself together, but he can't-I just can't help it.
If what Walter said is right, he's been living with the fact that he can barely remember himself for weeks, and has been
Living with next to no purpose, making meaningless friendships that disintegrate quickly into pain- all of this he's been holding in... He's the strongest thing.
I scoot over and hold him until he's done. He is breathing too quickly. he is so undone with emotion- and he is overheating like nobody's business. I ask him to send the text file to my computer when he begins to pull himself together. It soon shows up in my inbox and I read it. It contains instructions on how to handle him and his basic weaknesses, strengths, likes, dislikes... I find it to be very useful, but it deletes itself when I exit my email so that no one will find it.
The RCA looks at me again, with eyes like a small misled child, or maybe a child at his parent's funeral... Yes, I have seen that and I never want to again.
He says quietly, "we need to leave."
I frowned. "Why?" He shook his head in response and getting up, remarks, almost in a whisper,
"they're looking for me."
I already know well enough that I need to be with him, to give him a reason to be some company. I understand that this poor broken person is the key to our future, and I accept it. I am fully willing to accept any consequence the world brings for helping him. I am fully accepting everything that happens to me after this is over.
I stand slowly as I have a tendency toward light-headed ness and reply, "where do you want to go?"
He shrugs, "somewhere with lots of green. Somewhere bright and vivid...?"
I know exactly where to go. Smiling, I grab the keys of my car, throw him a trenchcoat from my closet, get myself a jacket, and we're on our way to nowhere.