Day 50: Arts & Crafts Room (4th Shift)
It barely felt like she'd been outside for any time at all when the intercom sounded and the nurse came to fetch her. "Can't I stay a little longer?" she asked, but the woman only clicked her tongue and frowned, reaching to feel her forehead as though testing for a fever. "The weather simply isn't good enough, Natalie dear," the nurse said, once
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When Aigis cried out Carter jerked his fingers back and hid them against his chest. "Oh! I'm sorry about that," he said, panicked. "I usually wear gloves." Not for fashion, but because one of the smarter Germans might wonder how an imprisoned bombardier got so many little white marks on his fingers. "It's, um..." He fidgeted, unsure how much he wanted to tell the girl about his night job. She might not find it very attractive, if she didn't know much about how prison camps were either.
Finally the sergeant stretched his hands back out again, letting her get a full look at him. His hands were paler than the rest of him in general, not usually as exposed to the sun and wind, but they were even paler where corrosive chemicals had stained his skin. The burns were mostly on his fingertips, but there was a red one at his wrist where he'd actually had them go up in his face. Subpar supplies didn't help, but sometimes Carter was just sort of stupid.
"They're chemical burns," he admitted, a bit ashamed of his appearance. "See, when I was in the prison we were working with the underground, which is the good Germans who don't want the evil Germans we're fighting to be in control of the government. My job was making bombs to destroy bridges and factories and stuff, so they'd have a harder time fighting the war. And usually I'm pretty good at it, but..." He wiggled one set of fingers sheepishly. "Sometimes I made mistakes."
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"That is good to hear." She paused for a moment, considering her own words. "Good, because I would have been greatly saddened had they been inflicted upon you by the establishment."
Aigis tapped a crayon against her paper, leaving darker smudges of grey with each tap. Her face had lost all cheeriness and her gaze remained fixed on the table. "I have heard stories about the special 'treatments' given at night here. I do not tolerate cruelty."
Had she the power, Aigis would save all who were taken at night. She knew they would not let her through without a fight, and they had severely disabled her by taking her ammunition. She understood it would not be possible to accomplish anything with just her baseball bat. If she was to take this battle seriously, she would need something stronger, like...
She glanced back at Carter, curious. "Have you ever considered making any bombs while you are here, Sergeant Carter?"
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He doodled a little cartoonish bomb, a ball with a burning fuse, next to the swastika. He heard about the experiments too, but it all seemed like so much rumor to him. Everyone here seemed so nice, besides that weirdo Landel rambling over the intercom. A place this nice couldn't have that sharp of a dark side, nothing was that grey. You had good people and evil people, lines were that sharp.
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She raised an eyebrow at the childish image he drew of a bomb, but she didn't comment on his artwork. "Well, if you do find the proper materials necessary, I would appreciate the opportunity to put your work into good use." To an outsider, Aigis probably didn't look to be the type to use highly dangerous explosives, especially now that her body had been altered to look almost completely human. Aigis didn't put much stock into looks, so she hardly thought it strange to talk with just about anyone about weapons.
"Actually, Sergeant Carter, if you need help in gathering any materials, I would like to offer my assistance." She couldn't imagine the ingredients being all that easy to come by, especially if only one person happened to be looking. She was always willing to lend her aid. It made her feel useful, even if it was just an illusion.
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It wasn't a fair question, even taking into consideration his origins. He'd met plenty of female agents on both sides of the fence, all capable of skill and ruthlessness that made them the equal of any of Carter's gang. But to have a woman involved in the holy and manly world of high explosives just seemed wrong somehow. Carter had enough trouble when he had to present his creations to uninformed men, women were even more confusing.
Carter looked back at his doodle, then drew an X over it and drew something a little more period accurate. There were wires and lengths of TNT and a tiny clock on the top for a timer.
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"As for bombs," Aigis began, even as she drew a rather accurate picture of a modern machine gun on her own paper, "I am not incredibly familiar with their creation, but their operation is simple enough to grasp."
She continued to draw as she spoke, adding details and shading with clear, precise strokes. "My weapon of choice is the gun. I am proficient in the use of all types, from pistols to hand canons and all that falls in-between. Unfortunately, the probability of obtaining a gun of any caliber here is fairly low."
Aigis would be lying to herself if she thought the baseball bat in her room was an adequate weapon, but she had been programmed to be truthful in all situations. She could not lie to herself any easier than she could lie to a friend or a complete stranger.
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"You mean, like a robot? You're a robot? Wow!" He looked her over again with a wide, gleeful grin. A real robot. "You look just like a human, I'd never have guessed. How'd they get you to look so real? Do you have gears or electronics? Can I see them?" Impulsively, he reached out to touch her face, although at a rate where his hand could easily be slapped aside. All the androids he'd seen in comics had metal skin and glowing eyes, or no eyes, he'd never seen an android that looked like a such a perfect kind of girl.
Why would he want to go back? The future would never stop being wonderful.
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"I am... unsure how they transferred me to this model," she admitted, looking down at her seamless hands. She didn't pull away from Carter's touch--her face was not one of the three places on her body Yukari had insisted boys should never be allowed to touch--but she was also unsure of what to make of it.
She pulled up on one of her gray sleeves, looking down at the cream-colored faux skin that stretched over the shoulder plates as smoothly as any human's. It still astounded her, not seeing her mechanisms exposed at the major joints, her brilliant titanium shell masked so completely. "Normally, it would not be a problem. However, since coming here, the institute has seen fit to clothe me in this more human-like model." She frowned. "It's certainly a state-of-the-art design, but it lacks some of my most basic functions."
Being an android was nothing to be excited about. It was what she was, and it was a worthless existence. She had already failed to meet the goal her creators had set for her. And even if she achieved victory in the battle against Nyx, it would only serve to leave her goalless again. She had been told she could find her own purpose, that it was her right to choose for herself, but she could not find a purpose in herself. No matter how hard she looked, something held her back.
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And she was a pretty girl of an android, too. Aigis reminded Carter just a bit of his Mary Jane, mostly in terms of size and willingness to talk to him for more than five minutes. He grinned excitedly and rested his chin in both hands, watching his wonderful new friend.
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Touching her cheek, Aigis rubbed a bit at the skin. It was so much more pliant than her body had been before the transfer to Landel's. "I was created within a laboratory in the port city of Iwatodai, Japan in 1999. The laboratory was funded by a private organization, although the methods used in my creation was likely on par with advanced military technology. My series was created to battle Shadows and protect humankind from the danger Shadows presented. Unfortunately, I am at a loss for how my current model was created; I did not look quite this realistic before I came here to Landel's Institution."
She felt the explanation was a bit inadequate, but she was honestly unsure of even who had created the original plans for her series. That scientist had likely died in the explosion during Koetsu Kirijo's failed attempt to summon the goddess Nyx. And not all of her records could be salvaged after her first break down ten years ago.
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Carter's eyes kept wandering over her, trying to pick out the little pieces of inhumanity that he'd seen before. He couldn't find them in her pretty girl's eyes, or hear the whirring of her gears, and he found her all the more amazing because of that. An android that you couldn't tell was an android had to be the best android ever.
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"Unfortunately, I do not know much about the technology of other countries. However, it is my belief that if I were possible in Japan, other androids certainly could have been made in the Americas." Aigis looked down at the paper in front of her, her voice softening.
"As for my series, I am the last of my kind. All others were destroyed in an explosion ten years ago." All her older sisters, gone in one big blast. She didn't like to dwell on the idea. In a way, she was glad she never got to know any of the other Anti-Shadow Weapons personally.
Her eyes trailed back to Carter's paper. It was an interesting diagram, and it told a story Aigis wished to keep in mind. "Sergeant Carter, would you mind if I made a copy of this? I am quite interested to learn more about this war." If she happened to put a stop to the coming of Nyx, she would need to start learning more about the world around her. The Shadows would not last forever...
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He looked to his amateur scribbles, and felt a little embarrassed by how crude they were. "I'm not sure if I'm the best person to ask," he said, scratching his head. "Cause I'm from the middle of the war, and I don't really know how it ends. I mean, we win, of course, but how we win I'm not sure." It didn't even look like Germany and America, it looked like spilled juice. Carter doodled in another blob that was vaguely Japan shaped, and a third that was Italy shaped.
"See, Italy and Japan were siding with the Germans." A few more blobs on the America side of the page. "And England and France are on our side, except France got taken over by the Germans a little while ago." Carter waved his hand over the whole page. "And that's why it's called a World War, it's everyone fighting with everyone."
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"Do you mean to say the war is over?" The timeline discrepancies. It was still a hard truth to swallow, but people here really did come from different times. It was an illogical fact she would need to come to terms with, along with the possibility of her achieved humanity.
She was unfamiliar with the countries, but she understood how great a scale it must have been on to include so many nations. A World War. To think humankind would also turn on itself in such a way. How sad and yet, how real.
"Thank you for your explanation, Sergeant Carter," she said with a nod of gratitude. "I know nothing of the war, but I am always interested in learning more about humans and life." A shame to know her country of origin had been against Carter's during the war, but the past was the past. They were not enemies here, which was nice. She enjoyed his company much like she enjoyed Utena's; they both seemed to be upbeat, happy people. Always smiling, even in this cruel, miserable place.
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But Miss Aigis probably wasn't even made when Japan and America were at war, and he was sure America hadn't done anything to make them really angry like dropping immense bombs on major cities. That would be silly.
Really, Carter couldn't think of much about the future that wasn't great. Landel's was a jail, but it was the best jail ever, with good food and soft beds and pretty girls you could talk to. Carter found the long-held paranoia of his previous life falling away like a shed snakeskin, no longer having to watch his every action for fear of discovery and death. They wouldn't shoot you for spying, here in the future.
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"I'm glad you have no animosity towards Japan." She almost said my country but something held her back. It seemed too much like saying my birthplace and she did not have that right. "I prefer having friends over enemies."
She picked up her paper and folded it very carefully in two, then once again making a short rectangle. She didn't want to lose it between the shuffle to get back to the rooms that was likely to begin soon. "I pray you will remain safe tonight, Sergeant Carter. Please, do be careful. If you ever find yourself in need of assistance, I would be glad to offer my services."
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