The sound of a gunshot. A sound that I hadn't heard in ten years…
No, the sound that resounded in my nightmares.
"Mr. Akiya!" I could only scream into the headset. "Mr. Akiya? Are you alright? Answer me!"
But there was no answer. Just like last time…
I felt my stomach tighten, and I clenched my hands, staring blankly at the screen in front of me. Cold sweat rolled down my back. "Mr. Akiya?" I asked again, trying hard to keep my voice still. "Mr. Akiya!"
Was it androids? If so… I buried my face in my hands. Androids. The worst possible outcome… It would just be like that day again.
Don't panic, I tried to tell myself. I had heard the thud, perhaps he had just dropped the radio into the sand… It would be all right. It was probably just a wild animal or something…
A wild animal? With such low levels of oxygen outside? The notion was incredulous. But if it was a wild animal, then the chances were better than if it had been an android…
Could I risk it? What if I was heard, then traced…
No. Fear wasn't going to… I took a deep breath, then screamed one last time, "Mr. Akiya!"
Crackling. Then, "Ah…sorry. I dropped it."
"Are you all right?" I asked. He sounded out of breath.
"Yeah, just a dog, nothing more. You, uh, you sound worried." A slight smile in his voice.
I slumped back in my chair in relief, and spun around a couple of times. "Me? Worried? I'm glad you're fine, that's all."
He was just a stranger, I was just a boy locked in a dark room…
"If you say so." I heard him laugh again, and my mouth curled into a smile. He couldn't see me, it was fine.
To distract myself, I searched up old videos from the last few centuries of cats. No new content, never. Just the same old clips, replayed day after day with lessening quality…
But I still couldn't distract myself from the why.
True, I knew nothing about him, but…his simple request for me to talk to him had…
I shut off the cat videos. "You doing all right?" I asked again.
"Hmm? Yeah. I'm good. Uh, you?"
"I'll be fine. I'm, uh, going to take off my headset for a few minutes. Hope you don't mind." And without waiting for an answer, I slipped the black headset that had stayed on my head for the majority of the past decade and laid it on the desk before me.
I remembered vaguely the first day I had put it on. Father had brought me here with the rest of them and had been explaining how important it was to be an operator. I, on the other hand, was simply interested in hearing other people's voices over the line…
"Don't get too excited," Grandfather had said. "Sometimes, you can't even understand what languages they're speaking!"
I didn't care about that. There was a whole world out there, and I was never going to see any of it…so why not listen to it?
Of course, the happiness didn't last long, the incident happened, and now…day after day passed by in bored silence.
And to stop my tears, I forced myself to forget.
Yeah, right. A world out there? There's just sand. Dying trees. Depleting oxygen. I've never even seen grass before. What does it matter that I don't know what color fields are, or trees are supposed to be? I'm never gonna breathe a flower's scent. And I'm just gonna accept it. Because there's nothing out there for me.
The first time I had heard another voice over the line, I was so excited that I couldn't even answer the person's question.
"Dad, dad! There's…there's people out there!"
"I know, isn't it great?" And Father had smiled at me in such a way that I didn't understand, and had ruffled my black hair with his coarse hand. "Now, go on and talk back, Darius."
I hadn't understood his smile, because I hadn't understood the sadness in his eyes.
Day after day passed. I spent my days in the dark room. My only friends besides the other workers were the people I talked over the line with. Sometimes I'd get to talk with a person more than once, sometimes we'd even have really long conversations…
"Want to be my girlfriend?" I asked one day when no one else was around in the base.
"I'm already seeing someone," she had replied, and hung up. Never even got her name. It was worth a try, I guess, but…
"Do you know where so-and-so city is?" "What's the most recent report on such-and-such unit's advancements?" "Who's winning the war?" "When will it next rain?" "Is the level of oxygen going up or down?"
Gradually, the voices faded. They started fading long before they actually did.
No one asked how I was anymore. I never asked anyone how they were anymore. To me, they were no longer people, just meaningless voices asking meaningless questions for me, a meaningless human being to look up for them. As soon as they got their answer, they broke the connection without even so much as a thank-you.
The period where I had the urge to slam down the headset and scream at the voices, "Who do you think I am, God? If you want to know the weather tomorrow so badly, go ask Him yourself!" was short-lived. Father had seen that I was disturbed, and asked me about it, and I told him.
"It's going to be like that," he said, his eyes sadder than usual. "We just become voices on the air, always expected to be there. But I guess they don't realize that…we're not going to always be there."
"That's why we're training up young ones like you," Grandfather had said, smiling, patting me on the back. "So that there will always be a voice out there to speak to them."
So I sighed, resolved myself to become an everlasting voice, and sat down in front of the screen with my headset on for my short forever.
But then no more voices came.
"I'm…sorry?" It was as if it had been my fault, as if my outburst had caused them to stop talking to me.
And I almost regretted it.
I did, actually, but I would never allow myself to say that out loud. Even though I had apologized. Even though I had cried.
But the next time I had heard a new voice, it was a voice that haunted me every time I shut my eyes.
A knock on the door, and Father opened it. An FA-49 stood there, purple haired, some of its artificial skin torn off, revealing its skull and golden robotic eye.
At the sight of the android, just about everyone in the base lunged for their weapons, while Father stood there, trying to maintain his composure. "Hello," he greeted, and I saw his fingers tighten around the door. "It's a bit bright outside today, isn't it?"
FA-49 stood there, golden eyes staring at Father. It was an older model, perhaps a defect, its clothes torn and covered in sand. It held a black shotgun in its scorched hands. It was with several other androids, all models from around the same generation, discarded, judging by their looks.
I had never seen an android before. I only recognized them from staring at the articles on the screen. The others had told me stories that they had heard of how terrible the androids were, how they were regularly sent from Shuijing City into the desert to wipe out bases and towns… If it weren't for the blatantly obvious wires and metal parts sticking out from underneath their damaged skin, I would have mistaken them for…human.
Finally FA-49 spoke: "This is Tielong Base 5116?" The robotic buzz in its voice was barely detectable.
"Yes," Father answered, and I saw a bead of sweat roll down his neck. "This is that place. What do you want? An inspection?"
"Termination," was FA-49's reply.
"Oh." I wanted Father to slam the door in the android's face, but he merely stood there. "Upon whose order?"
"[His] order."
There was a collective stiffen, and I shifted deeper into the corner.
"Um…could I go and set my affairs in order…?"
"No." The android cut him off. "There will be no such thing. At the ready!"
One of the older workers shoved me underneath a desk just as the androids started firing. Father fell, blood blossoming like red roses from his shirt. The younger workers began returning fire as the androids advanced into the base. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears with my hands. I didn't want to hear it, not any of it, not the shouts and the cries and the gunshots that echoed through the entire land…
After what felt like a very long time, I felt a cold, unnatural finger touch my chin, and I opened my eyes, to see the mismatched golden eyes of FA-49 staring right at me.
And then he collapsed, sparks bursting from the circuits in his back.
And I was scared, because in that moment, it—no, he—turned from an android, an object, into a real living being just like me. A living, breathing being.
Something that had just killed everyone that I knew existed.
I put my headphones back on again. "Mr. Akiya? You there?"
"Yeah, I'm here. I'll need more navigation…I think I've been thrown off."
I checked the map. "Just keep heading East. You'll be fine. I'm here, remember?"
"Are you okay? You sound…"
"I'm fine. You should conserve your oxygen, instead of talking to me."
I really wished that it hadn't trailed back into silence the way it had, but it did. And that was my job: to be an ever-present source of help. No matter who was on the other line, if it was human, then I would serve them…
A message box popped up, and I furrowed my brow and clicked on it. Not many new messages these days, and if there were, it was usually a textbot or something.
[Hello, can we chat?]
'Who is this?', I typed back.
[No one. But is there an operator here?]
'No, there isn't', I replied. But I left the window in the corner of my screen, blinking. And the little tiny letters, E.G. at the top…were they initials?
[Tell him there's a storm on the way]
'What?'
[You should, if you value his life.]
Who was this "he"? Who was there other than Mr. Akiya? But this couldn't possibly be...
There must've been a mistake. But I was an operator, so I replied with, 'Sure, I'll tell him.'
[Thanks.]
'No problem.'
After sitting back contemplating the matter for a while, I said aloud, "Hey, Mr. Akiya, are there any storms in your area right now?"
"Hm? Uh…not that I can see from here, no. Why ask?"
"Oh…nothing. There might be one on the way, though. Take shelter if you see clouds."
"Sure. If I find any."
And that was that. Yet I still felt uneasy as I watched the blinking text box in the upper corner of my screen, until it winked and disappeared on its own.
Then I looked up the weather, just in case.