When my system was finished rebooting I woke up on my side, viewing my hand which was now blackened from the recent blast. The fabric I used to protect me was slowly going up and flames, weaving due to the wind of the now very-close storm. Standing over top of me was a figure holding a spear in its hands, the first spear that landed in the dirt behind me. The figure had a human face like mine and was wearing a garb which concealed most of its face and its appearance. Was it a synthetic lifeform like me? Could this be a human? How did they know who I was?

“N-n-Norman?” Spoke the figure in a voice that was being perverted by a cybernetic overtone, as it began to lower its weapon to reveal that it no longer saw me as a threat.

Once my sensors were back to optimal I was able to see the figure clearly, but still couldn’t recognize the face or the voice of the figure above me. My questions about its humanity were put to rest once I saw the edges of its facial features which were torn in places that exposed the carbon fiber skin of its synthetic shell. Another machine like myself, all the way out here?

Before replying to it I decided to examine my burned hand to see that none of its inner workings were damaged by the battery’s explosion, rather it was just a superficial wound that now permanently blackened the outside of my arm.

“Who are you?” I asked it. Even though the figure seemed to have some sort of intelligence, my mission to preserve knowledge of the old-world was more important than a stranger who was only recently hostile.

The only working eye of the android flinched with a sense of shock, an emotion that was unknown to synthetic lifeforms. Even though we could feel a certain way about a situation, we shouldn’t have been able to visibly express these emotions. A glitch maybe? The machine spoke again;

“Norman how do you not know, my name is Hen-hen-hen-hen-r-r-r…” A static began drowning out the cybernetic voice of the android, but for some reason I knew how to finish its sentence.

“Henry.” I said. Like many times before this, memories slowly cleaned themselves in my software and revealed themselves in fragments. For whatever reason I knew this things name, its named was Henry. Wait, Henry…

“Ah so you do remember me!” Exclaimed the android, named Henry. It offered me a hand to help me up which I accepted no use in being defensive anymore.

After helping me up, Henry continued “It’s good to see-see-see you Norman, but why are you here?” The perversion in Henry’s voice was getting worse with each word he said, but it made me wonder what he was talking about. We both had the same mission of meeting in Paris, which made me curious as how the odds made it possible that we met two days away from the city.

I defended myself and inquired further into what Henry was trying to say;

“What do you mean, Henry, our mission was to meet at the triangle of the Louvre and formulate a hub.”

Henry raised his eyebrow in confusion, again another unlikely emotion for a synthetic to possess.

“Are you telling me tha-tha-tha…” before Henry could finish his sentence, the storm was approaching from only a few seconds away from us. During the last few moments before the storm hit, Henry grabbed my undamaged hand and connected a hardline to both our systems. Once that was done, both of hid in cover at the bottom of the mound and waited for the storm to past. Being out in the open during one of these storms was almost a death sentence for me.

A voice appeared in head, as if I was stuck in an empty room with all the sound except for the voice blurred out. The voice belonged to Henry, except it sounded much clearer. Much more human.

“Is this better, can you hear me now?” Said Henry.

“Yes, I can hear you.” I replied.

“After scanning your memory, I can see that it’s become fragmented by the radiation.” Henry continued, “the same thing happened with my audio processor and my right ocular sensor, dissolved by years of radioactive degradation.”

“I had a feeling that is what’s been happening with me, so can you explain how we know each other.” I asked.

While we conversed our bodies remained motionless, staring at the ground below us as shrapnel and debris flew over our heads from the storm. Even though his voice carried no emotion, I couldn’t help but sense some sadness in what Henry said next;

“We’ve met before, at the Louvre, shortly after we were created. Lucy was there too, our female counterpart.”

We’ve all met already? I wondered.

Henry went on explaining to me, “The problem was that there’s something missing in our programming, even though the three of us were together it means nothing without Eve, the fourth”

A blurry image appeared in my mind as Henry talked; a clean looking Henry standing beside a female synthetic, standing around a statue. It went away moments after.

“So what happened next, why did we separate?” I asked.

It felt like through our wired connection that Henry was bleeding some of his memories onto me, clearing up some of the fragmentation in my code.

Henry answered; “We all waited there for close to fifty years, exploring the city of Paris and searching for any sign of Eve.” He paused.

“That’s when you had the idea that Paris was too irradiated for Eve to approach, considering her cargo, so it was your idea to venture out and track the radiation for a place where Eve was most likely to go.”

“How long ago was this?”

“That was twenty five years ago, I’ve been searching for you for ten.” Henry replied.

All of this was quite alarming to me; I’d been travelling in circles like the clinks for twenty five years searching for something that I had no idea where it was. It could be possible that the last three days didn’t even happen and that I’ve simply been walking back and forth down this highway.

“Just like the clinks out there, my code is beginning to wander.”

Henry paused again, probably to formulate a proper answer.

“This may be, but I am here now. We can return to Lucy and all searches for her together.”

Right as Henry finished, the storm blew past us and the air was clear. The ground was caked in metallic debris like some sort of junkyard/graveyard combination. At least we still knew which way to travel. Henry disconnected the wire from both of our wrists and pointed in the direction of the highway, “Let’s head out.” He said, his dysfunctional voice was back.

Once we were back on the road, I had so many questions that I wanted to ask him. Henry was the first sentient thing that I’ve met in ages and I finally had some direction. Asking him too many things would only further pervert his already malfunctioning voice, so I chose my questions carefully. I asked him something that caught my attention from the moment we first met one another again.

“Henry, how do you do that with your facial expressions and your voice?” I asked him, trying not to probe too deep if he really did feel emotion.

“Do what?”

“Raise your eyebrows, appear shocked, having hints of emotion in your voice; it’s all very human and unlike anything I’ve seen from a synthetic being”

Henry’s working eye darted back and forth on the road, as if he was nervous in trying to formulate a reply. He explained to me;

“One of the features the humans decided to give us was emotion drives that would help with our improvisation and emotional response to our mission. Yours was never installed as well as the rest of yourself, but my empathy drive seems to be more of a curse than an advantage.”

Empathy in a synthetic? Interesting.

Next Chapter: Five: Lucy