Tanjelavi

Ree

Well... The day hasn't started well enough for me

Everything was blurry before my eyes as I crossed the border—blurry out of sheer sheep fear to be caught, to not be lucky enough yet again, to let my life end so dumbly so soon—I couldn't tell where I was going to, I just went straight from the entrance to my part of the garage, which was in the Eastern part of the town, so only after a few hours of dully black desert before my eyes, did I check the map, but understood nothing of it as there was no sign of another city or town nearby, so dumbfoundingly, I realized I'd got completely lost and had no idea where I was and where I was going to

Then I decided to keep on going straight forward hopping to ultimately stumble upon at least a tiny town, but the bottomless pitch black desert sand kept rustling on and on under my wheels without an end and I started to lose hope, having already driven for a dozen of hours or so—or at least, so it seemed... I decided it couldn't go on like this any longer and stopped my bike at what seemed to be a huge rock and sat down beside it, having opened a bottle of energy: I set off without having a breakfast nor enough sleep, so of course, I was ravenous—and the bottle didn't satisfy my thirst; but that was all I got with no more than one bottle of energy for an AI per day

I was already panickingly questioning myself what would become of me, especially if my location disguiser just didn't work, it still was quite raw after all, very raw, would I really get deleted, was there really anything laying beyond deletion, or it would be just an emptiness, much darker than this desert, with nothing at all, with no me at all...?

My belly started to ache with hunger as I was trying to stand up—but my legs were giving way because of exhaustion and malnutrition and I could barely crawl to my bike and wasn't even capable of getting on it... I was cursing myself with all the might I now had instead of putting it all aside and putting myself together instead to just still go on, to just survive and that made me feel miserable and defected yet again, I wanted to weep like a schoolboy who forgot to learn his very first lesson, but of course I couldn't, feeling even more pathetic and deformed than ever before, than even yesterday—and a thought, a teeny-tiny thought, crossed my mind: you're a mistake here anyway, Ree

An error, a deformed ugly error who knows itself, where it comes from—only to be a toy, another possession in his hands that would come handy only to him and without him, it's just ruining the system, ruining the lives of others, not fitting their standards, not even his... even his
And he had already ruined the system well enough so his virus was now starving to death in a desert instead of ruining it all further with him

So was I thinking feeling my physical shell, my body decompose itself, having no one to send my regards to, my sorrows, my apologies, my regrets—when an echo of sand footsteps made their way to my ears and I inaudibly screamed for help I don't remember in which language, but the footsteps seemed to be just a mere wind, even if we have no wind in here, they still seemed to have already passed by or it was just my mere imagination when I felt a hot hand take my chin, raise my head, and thrust a bottle into my unclosable out of thirst lips, bending it so that I could drink its contents—and the eyesight sluggishly returned to me along with hearing and I heard my disgusting greedy swallows and it nauseated me, so I started chocking and some priceless drops of energy fell on the ground and I forced myself to stop, turning back to my savior: he was tall and pale, with a long Asian face and black smoky hair... The look in their dark brown eyes was both preoccupied and astounded, as if those eyes could not believe there was someone else around, in this empty desert, but their movements were abrupt as if they were mad they had to waste their obviously limited resources on me—but they already saved my life, so they had a kind heart after all...

"Wanna more?" they asked me, still leaving the bottle open

"Y-yeah", only could I answer and waited for them to give it instead of taking it myself, ashamed of my being so greedy and savage...

They only sighed and slightly smiled to this silly shame of mine and stretched the bottle to me; I carefully took it and again started greedily drinking it until after just a few seconds, there was nothing left in it

I tried to find at least one more drop there, but all in vain—and even if I felt more alive than ever, the two drunken bottles didn't seem to be capable of compensating the sleepless night I spent and I still wanted more...

"What's wrong? Still thirsty?" asked they studying each movement of mine as if trying to find a proper diagnosis for such a condition of mine

"I just... haven't slept the last night", confessed I and my gaze fell upon their rucksack seemingly full of such bottles... I licked my lips, but was holding myself from getting another one by force

"Well... Then no matter how many bottles you'll drink, you won't get enough", said they, putting the emptied bottle aside to later put it in the rucksack so that I wouldn't see it. "You need sleep"

I couldn't find what to say and was just pleadingly staring right into their eyes until they sighed, more deeply this time, and turned away to get something out of the rucksack

Here, said they putting on the sand what seemed like a lighter small version of a recharger. "Now, give me your ankle"

"W-what do y-you n-n-need i-it f-f-for...?!" screamed I, thinking they were a cop after all even if they didn't look like one, but it still seemed weird they'd ask for the ankle and not neck or head as usual

"Huh? So... You were never recruited?"

"I-I don't e-even know w-what you're t-talking a-a-about..."

"I mean..." they sighed again and closed their eyes as they did so. "The bomb gang..."

"S-so... Y-you're not a...? A cop?"

"Well... Not anymore at least"

"Hush, calm down: everything's alright... It's okay, you hear? You're not going anywhere: I guess I can still attach it to your neck then and you'll take a nap until we both reach a town nearby: you hear?"

"Yes, and wait... There's a town nearby?"

"I just went outta there", said they in a low voice when trying to figure out where to connect the wire to my neck. "Any help here?"

"Try this one", pointed I to them to a spot where neck curved into a shoulder...

"Let me see..." whispered they and were now carefully trying to figure out the best angle with which to attach the wire—"Here!"

And as I now was slowly turning sleepy and heavy, I heard them ask, "What's your name by the way?"

"Ree", whispered I with a sluggish and reluctant voice

"And I'm Goemon... Goe for short"

"Your name sounds Japanese..."

"And yours Chinese..."

"It's short for Henry... I'm from a commercial American psychologist company"

"And I was created for Japanese accountants"

"Wait, aren't you...?"

But I could pronounce no syllable further, already having fallen deep asleep...