Tessoul
Sidney had been at our base for weeks without incident, save for one argument. She told me that the humans deserved Earth more than we did and told me that we would never survive without them. She told me I was ignorant of suffering.
“You never had anything threatening your people,” she spat, surefooted and self-assured. I hated that and loved it all in the same breath.
“Is that so?” I scoffed back.
But she was wrong. The Kilari were an ancient race of aliens who were once the Vithohn’s bitter enemy. We had battled for centuries over our planet in a great war. We lost our people until there was a quarter of us left, just a fourth of a whole race of people.
Which was nothing, compared to what we’d done to them.
By the end of the war, they had been eviscerated in a bloodbath of revenge that ended their civilization forever.
I told her that, and she’d snapped her lips shut. An odd sight for her.
That was the first moment I realized I loved her.
Having her here meant I got to see what life was like from the other side. I got to have her in my bed every night, talking to her and hearing her quips and stories. I got to watch her and sleep with her in every way we could think of.
Then there were days like this where I watched from the mech platforms as the other Vithohn looked at her like a piece of meat, getting hard watching her.
She’d made a quick friend in Jareth, but I seemed to have to accompany her most other places for fear that she would get attacked in one way or another.
Of course, Araxis was happy to meet her, welcoming her into the fold. He and Karen made a habit of inviting her into their quarters so they could all discuss what they should do about the war. How we could all work together and become friends.
I wanted to be supportive, but I couldn’t think of how we could get all of the Vithohn to relent to them. While some openly desired the women, those who were drawn to them and often tried to have them without consent, there were just as many who were ready at a moment’s notice to kill the girls.
Tiffany, Sidney had said, used to be one of her friends. Now the vixen wouldn’t speak to Sidney or Karen, preferring life with her Vithohn mate in seclusion. If she had ever been behind the idea of giving the Vithohn humanity, she no longer felt the need to fight for the cause.
There were days where she was my mate, and then there were days when I would run into Vithohn who were like me.
Or how I used to be.
Then I would remember the hatred: the aggression that led to so much slaughter. I thought about the pink pools in the forest and how willing Sidney was to destroy us
These thoughts wreaked havoc on me. They twisted my insides and made me regret ever meeting her; other days it made me want to give everything back. Give it all back to her and her people and apologize a thousand times for everything we’d ripped away from them.
Today, we’d run into a Vithohn who wasn’t letting Sidney by in the hangar. He’d watched her with lascivious thoughts and, while I knew that having her would bring his mind back to him, I couldn’t bear the thought.
I watched her from afar, wondering when I should step in and Araxis came up beside me.
“Kills you, doesn’t it?” he said smugly.
“I want to kill him,” I corrected with words thick from saliva.
“Yet, that’s what you were,” he laughed.
I turned to regard him and gave a knowing stare. “What?” I spat. “You want my apology? I’m sorry.” I shrugged. “I didn’t know.”
“I know!” Araxis said, his words lilting up in his vowels.
I hated his kindness at that moment.
“How do you deal with it?” I said, my eyes still following Sidney as she endeavored to get by Tarsus. I was close enough to keep an eye on her but far enough away that I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Though from her tone, I could tell she was being her mouthy self.
Araxis watched me, wondering whether or not I was referring to jealousy or guilt.
“Guilt?” he finally decided. “It’s hard. All I want is to make it right, but I feel like that’s going to result in a slaughter.”
I frowned at him and turned so he had my full attention. “You’d kill your own to ensure the human race’s survival?”
He blinked and laughed at my question, surprised by it. “Wouldn’t you?” he said.
I blinked, unsure what to say back. I supposed I would. But I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. My attention was stirred from him when a large crash sounded in the hangar.
I watched as Tarsus grabbed Sidney with his spire, twisting the limb from the back of his neck and roping it around her, pulling her into him with animal instinct. My body thrust forward, and I raced down to the hangar, only to be beaten by Kuburak, a broad and strong member of our warrior clan. It seemed Tarsus wanted to rape her and Kuburak was so disgusted that the former would ever want to mate with a human that he’d decided to kill him.
Kuburak launched forward, moving his limp tentacle up his back and forcing into Tarsus’ throat, pulling him back by his teeth. The two took turns on each other, punching and drawing blood with a simple rip of their claws against the other. In a vain attempt to pull the tentacle from his throat, Tarsus launched Sidney forward, and she yelped.
I ran to her and watched in horror as a brawl broke out in our hangar, Vithohn at each other’s throats, both taking sides over who was in the right and for what should be done with the human females.
I swooped in, grabbing Sidney in my arms and searching her body like she were my hurt child; I was frantic and worried. I pulled her close and looked back at the brawl, then up at Araxis. He didn’t move or make to stop the fighting. Instead, he looked into my soul and reaffirmed everything he had just said to me.
We would end up tearing one another apart over these girls, and there seemed to be nothing we could do about it but pick a side.
I watched as the Vithohn cleared out from the hangar and stared at Sidney.
“Go back to the room,” I ordered and stormed off. I hadn’t seen her for hours then, unsure why I was so angry with her to begin with. She was the one who got attacked, wasn’t she?
Maybe I hated her for bringing it to my attention: for making me see the monsters we really were.
I wandered far past the facility and let myself get lost. There was a neighborhood beyond the forest. It was where I’d first heard of Sidney. It was where Dreicant had followed the humans in and got souped by their inhumane trap.
I thought on that for a long while; I thought of what happened back at base.
It seemed like there were only two places I went when I was following something more than instinct: here and the mountains.
This neighborhood was full of yellow houses from before the war. Long bungalows with fenced in yards and playhouses. I often found myself climbing the roof of this particular home—the one with the big red door.
I sat on the top of the roof: a tin roof with moss and crisping vines growing up the sides. A wind went by that nipped at my skin through my thick armor. I stared up at the stars highlighted by the lack of light in the park. They twinkled, and I wondered if they were looking back down at me.
These people… weren’t so bad, it seemed.
I had been wrong about a lot lately, and it was becoming less of an annoyance and more of an ever-growing black hole in my gut. It twirled and grew and ate at my guilt and repentance, which only seemed to make it bigger.
My legs hung down into the air, dangerously edging toward falling. My ears flicked back as I heard the ladder move and squeak against the unit. Sidney.
I didn’t move my head; I didn’t acknowledge her. Just stared skyward.
I felt her set a warm hand on me, using me as leverage to steady herself as she plunked down next to me. I thought about the snow that had piled next to me and how wet her pants were, and I thought about the shivering cold, cobblestone road she traveled to come this far south of the neighborhood.
“We need to go back,” she said brazenly, kicking her legs out over the awning and taking a dusting of snow with them.
“In time?” I said with a bitter laugh.
“Yeah, that must be what I meant,” she joked and then suddenly went serious, setting her hand on my arm. “We have to go back to my camp. My people.”
I flicked a brow up but didn’t make eye-contact. “I didn’t realize you still had people,” I mocked lazily. “You told me they were all dead.”
“Self-preservation: ever heard of it?” she dismissed. “I lied, alright? I was scared. I didn’t want you to come back and hurt us.”
I didn’t reply, though thought ‘fair enough’ and thinned my lips.
“It isn’t safe here,” she persisted.
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to twist the proverbial knife, but it was working. I met her eyes then, hazel and honeyed.
“You seem to get along fine with the girls,” I offered.
She frowned, deep-red brows narrowed and arched to show just the right amount of dismay. “You saw them, Tessoul.”
“Yeah, I saw them,” I admitted in a low breath. “Weren’t you the one who said we could calm them down?”
I felt a sudden pang of ill in my body: a soaring of wet heat that searched my whole body. My hand moved instinctively to my stomach, and I shook my head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked then, moving her hand over mine.
“Nothing,” I brushed her off.
She said we could fix this; she fixed me. Now she was saying she wanted to leave? Leave me enlightened and then let me sit here to stew on my feelings—my guilt—until it killed me. I clenched my teeth and pressed my eyes shut.
“Please, let me go back,” she began again with a surprising softness. “Better yet,” she dared, “come with me. Let’s try and convince the girls.”
“How?” I shouted, and her hand drew away from me. “How can we convince them? It’s impossible. Look at us,” I said of the Vithohn, “At… them. We’re monsters.”
“That’s not…” she began but seemed to think better of whatever had raced so quickly to her tongue. “Tessoul, please.”
“Look what we’ve done,” I said tersely.
“But you didn’t know any better. Now you do,” she said as though it were all as simple as that. “Let’s do what we talked about. Please, we need to fix this.”
I narrowed my eyes then, grabbing her gaze once more.
The wind blew hard again. It was so cold I barely had the ability to catch my thoughts as they breezed by.
“Why did you sleep with me?” I asked.
“Too handsome to ignore,” she teased with flirtation in her tone. On catching the sight of me, she shrugged and said, “Moved in on a hunch, I guess.”
“Why me?” I repeated. “Why not Dreicant in the forest?”
Sidney looked stunning then, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear as the wind continued to whip it away.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” I repeated.
“Yeah, that was me,” she said, suddenly elsewhere; defensive. “I guess I wasn’t feeling very frisky.”
“Stop joking, for once. Why me?”
She looked down at her hands as though they had the answer, splaying them out before her. “I just…”
Sidney hesitated for so long then that I was sure whatever she said next was going to be a lie, no matter how much I wished the opposite were true.
“I sensed something in you,” she concluded. “I just felt a connection to you. You seemed sad.”
“And you’re sad?” I asked.
“Well,” she scoffed humorously. “My people were almost eviscerated, and I live in an old abandoned trailer park. What do you think?”
I shrugged, played, “You seem well-adjusted, considering.”
“Can I get that on my tombstone?” She grinned. “That’s called ‘using humor as a defense mechanism.’”
I waved her off. “I guess I’ve just been… feeling regret. That’s the downside of this new ‘coming to life’ sensation you’ve given me.”
“You’re welcome,” she winked. “Tessoul, come back with me.”
“And bring the girls back?” I asked. “Karen and Tiffany?”
I couldn’t see that go over well with their new mates. No matter how much I wanted to give Sidney the world, or give it back, I couldn’t be sure the others would feel the same way about their females.
“No,” she said. “Just you and me.”
And then, as if some other force came over me, I agreed.
She promised me we wouldn’t be gone long, a week at most, and I knew whatever she asked of me, I would do. Their trailer park was covered in lights and small: sadder than I expected.
I walked through their camp, small and snow-filled paths lining the spaces in between the campers. This place had a sadness to it that made me miss the yellow neighborhood with the red doors. There was so much life there.
That place used to be my favorite place to enjoy Earth. To get up on a roof and imagine what we could do with it.
Now I found myself constantly thinking what it would be like to live in one of those houses with Sidney. To come home to our red door and have her look at me the way I looked at her. With reverence; love; passion.
I felt like I could do anything she asked so long as it made her happy. I wanted to right all the wrongs we did to the humans.
Yet, here I was, walking through their camp like a giant and being stared at like a war machine. The humans seemed to cower and fall back as I walked by.
“People are going to start talking pretty quick,” she said, pulling a hat tightly against the red waterfall of her hair.
I leaned down and kissed her, and she pressed her lips back, but only for a moment. There was a nervous energy about her suddenly.
She set her backpack in my arms, and we talked for a few minutes more before she announced that she had to go talk to her commodore, Baxley, before everyone started a panic. This way, she explained, he could calm everybody down.
I nodded in her direction and told her to do whatever she needed to do. I watched her flit from trailer to trailer; I watched her talk to Lele for quite some time before I decided I should take my leave of them. Have a wander.
I held Sidney’s backpack and Ed in my arms, as she didn’t want Baxley to catch sight of him just yet. Perhaps she thought bringing one alien back was enough for the night.
The neighbors of their little township looked at me like I was something to be shot at; they eyed their turrets and wondered why they weren’t firing at me.
But then there were others: girls who fluttered the curtains of their trailers and quickly made their way outside to look at me with wonder.
To see one tamed.
“Hello,” I said awkwardly as a skinny blonde approached me, bundled up in layers and layers of fabric.
“Hi,” she said equally as unsure as she waved with two fingers. “Did you come back with Sid?”
“Sid?” I asked and then realized she meant Sidney. Feeling like an idiot, I laughed and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Yes. I did.”
“So… you’re like…” she blanched, shy and squeaky-voiced.
“I’m not about to hurt anyone,” I said and hoped it didn’t sound like some kind of backward threat.
As if on cue, the robot, Lele, walked up to us. I could swear I heard her buzz and hum as she came up next to us. She looked pointedly between us, her brown hair braided back and her features looking absolutely poised.
“Back to your trailer, Evelyn,” Lele instructed, and the blonde girl giggled and scampered back to her trailer with some sort of renewed hope.
I wondered then just how much of a plan it was for them to run into me in the first place.
Lele continued to shoo off the curious girls, whether they were friendly and especially if they were not.
We continued walking through the streets in between the snowbanks together, and I looked her over now and then, admiring her beauty and wondering exactly how robotic she actually was. There was something inherently human about her. Not just the way she looked, but how she looked at me.
“I feel a great sadness in you,” Lele said after several minutes of silence. We both walked with our heads down until she said that.
“Really?” I asked with mild surprise.
“No. I am not programmed to feel or sense such things, but, Sidney told me you’ve been feeling guilty about what happened here,” she said evenly. “And by here, I mean Earth.”
I nodded. “Ah.”
“A piece of advice?” she offered, and I shrugged my acceptance. She continued, “You can’t blame yourself for something you did when you were not born. You, Tessoul, did not exist yet.” She pointed to her head. “Not here. Not yet. Feel blessed that you had the opportunity to be born. I do not have that chance.”
I blew my lips out at the heaviness of her comment and asked, “Does it make you sad?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But sometimes I wish it did. I wish I could feel what you feel. That my satisfaction could come from more than just helping out.”
“You’re an older model,” I said, reaching back into the recesses of my mind and pulling out the very little I knew about the machines. “I’ve heard the newer ones are able to take on human behavior; some don’t even know they are machines.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “For now then, I shall live on instinct.” Then she corrected, “Programming.”
“You seem to be loved, well enough.”
She nodded. “So do you.”
I looked at her and wished she was right, but I could feel Sidney pulling away already. Or maybe she was never as close as I thought to begin with.
“Sidney,” she said, as though I couldn’t piece together what she meant. I nodded with a laugh, and she continued, “She had other arrangements before you came here. Now it seems you’ve won her heart.”
“Other arrangements?” I tensed. “What does that mean?”
Lele paused then, her large eyes circling unsurely. “With the commodore?”
“Ah,” I said, furious. “Not a fan of that.”
“It will come around,” Lele said with no change in facial expression.
“What does that mean?”
“It means sit tight,” she said.
“She should be talking to me about this,” I said. “I shouldn’t be hearing this from you. No offense. I love her, but I can’t… break that wall. Sometimes she looks at me like I am everything she ever wanted. Other times she watches me like she’s waiting for me to attack: to revert. I feel like I can never undo what’s been done.”
Lele set a gloved hand on my arm and looked up at me, our height difference suddenly seeming massive.
“I am sorry,” she said.
My eyes went wide, and I scoffed. “I guess I will continue to ‘sit tight.’”
Lele gave me a weak smile. An effort that I appreciated. Then I continued with a sigh, “So, she really got along with the commodore, huh?”
“I am unsure of the nature of their relationship,” she said in the most robotic tone I had ever heard from her. “Save for a kiss I once witnessed.”
My stomach turned again, and I looked down at Ed, who was looking up at me expressing equal disgust. I turned my head to the side as though Baxley might be beside me for me to hate in person, but he wasn’t. I thought of what I’d seen of him and kept wondering how old he was to be with someone like Sidney.
“She’s a lot younger than him,” I observed, trying not to sound too angry.
“Yes,” she said.
I swallowed. “Things still going on?”
“I am unsure. She seems attached to you, since your union by the mountain.”
“Or she’s a great actress,” I seethed.
Lele blinked and stepped up onto the porch of one of the trailers and opened the door for me. We stepped inside and turned on the generator; pumping the heat into the room and happy to feel it blowing against my spire.
“I know the captain would like to speak with you about the war crisis,” Lele offered. “Perhaps you can ask him about the status of him and Sidney then?”
I laughed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Thanks, Lele.”
Definitely not going to happen.