Yamete Kudasai

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Yamete Kudasai
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I sat on the edge my hospital bed, swinging my feet. It was so high up! They had gotten me a stool to be able to get up and down from the bed, though they’d told me to stay put. They hadn’t been happy when I got up and walked around. But it didn’t make any sense to me. I saw a doctor just to walk around every day! Didn’t they want me to get stronger? That’s what they’d said. It was silly. Their rules were silly.

The nurse in the room turned to me with a bag in her hand. “Okay, it’s your feeding time. Do you want to help? You’re going to have to learn how for when you’re well enough to leave.”

“Sure!” I held my hands out to grab it from her, but she pulled it away.

“Now, now, you can’t go straight to connecting the line. You need to clean everything with alcohol first, or you’ll get sick. I’ll do that part for now, we can work on you learning it later.”

I stayed still as she scrubbed the port on my chest, then the little tubey thingy that came out of it. The white square she used was cold and smelled bad.

“Now, I know this is boring, but I have to ask you the same questions as always. It’s to make sure your head is working right, okay?”

I nodded and smiled.

“Do you remember your designation?” she asked.

“Yup! I’m from the Fifth Generation of synthetics, batch ‘A’, vat number Eighty-Two!”

“Very good.” She wheeled over a long metal pole with a hook at the top. It had a box with buttons on it, and she put some of the tubes through it, then pushed some beeping things. “Do you remember who made you, and how they did so?”

“Yup!” I nodded again. “He’s a synthetic too! And he made me from part of his own body, so he’s like my dad!” I giggled. “He’s a Second Generation, batch ‘E’, vat number Twenty-Two!”

“Do you remember where we are?”

“Umm…” I squeezed my eyes shut, like I was thinking really hard. Then I peeked out of one, and saw her looking at me worried. I smiled back. “Haha, of course I do! We’re in a hospital!”

“Do you know what this hospital is for?”

“It helps newborns like me who have defects!”

Her face relaxed. “Yes, that’s very good. You’re a silly one. Don't lose that. Now, here, help me screw this piece on.”

------

The classroom was cold. It was the dry season, when the sky was just a little more visible, a little less shrouded in white. Heat was able to radiate back into space. And we weren’t meant to live so far North, on the tail of the Rupert’s tear, the newly government developed land. But it was supposed to be therapeutic, all the nature, compared to the tightly-clustered skyscrapers of the mainland’s belly. Maybe it would even take our mind off the stress of indoctrination. Make it go down easier.

Looking out at the strait, its waves gently lapping copper-rich rocks, I wondered if anyone was going through what I was. None of them were constantly missing from class, so they couldn’t have been, right? It wouldn’t have been the first time I was an outlier. I’d never even seen another person who looked like me. My reflection on the window was bright white against the morning light in front of me. Against the backdrop of normal clones behind me.

One of them was bent over a desk. Crying. A few people crowded around.

“Come on, 5a82, aren’t you going to say anything?” 5a55 asked, suddenly in front of me, both hands planted firm on my desk. He was so uncomfortably close, despite nearly an arm’s length between us. “Don’t you two normally partner up? You should try and comfort him.”

“W-Why… is he crying?” I asked.

“What do you mean, ‘why is he crying’? One of his fosterers died. Anyone would cry if they were in that situation.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really!” he insisted, brows furrowing. “You know how it works, don’t you? They might not be the parents natural-borns have, but they’re still like family. At least like mentors.”

“Oh.”

A small animal scurried across the sand outside, its exoskeleton-covered limbs latching onto larger, weaker lifeforms, which it devoured without hesitation.

“You could at least pretend you care,” 5a55 scoffed. “I mean, come on. One day you’re going to be the one crying, and nobody will be there to comfort you.”

I glanced at the crowd behind me. The thought of myself being in the middle made my stomach turn. “That… that’s fine. I don’t… n… need anyone to.”

“Do you think you’re better than us? Because you think you don’t need anyone? Is that it? Is that why you ignore us?”

“No.” I paused, trying to think of the right words. “I’m… not better. Or… or worse. Just… different.”

------

The blanket from my bed was wrapped around my shoulders, trailing on the ground behind me. It didn’t do anything to stop my shivering. I couldn’t seem to stop shivering. Ever since I was born, I’d shivered. The first thing I’d felt was cold. So cold. It was bright and cold, with lots of beeping, lots of people.

It wasn’t bright and cold, it was a dimly lit kitchen with an average temperature, and it was quiet, and nobody was there but me and my father. I rubbed my eyes. And shivered.

“Good morning.”

He didn’t look up from where he sat at the dining table. “I’m not staying. I need to go into work early today, they’re divvying up a lot of the equipment for use in other departments. Since I am— I //was// the head researcher, I’m involved in a lot of it.” A groan. “It’s a huge pain in my side. Not only do I lose my job, and rank, but I have to help the people who are taking it away from me. That beautiful equipment practically buzzed with potential, could have been used for such amazing things.” He glanced at me. “What a waste.”

“O… Oh.”

“And how’s school going? How are you doing in school?”

My grip on the fabric tightened. “Um…” I pawed at the floor with my foot. “No problems.”

“Are you sure?”

“I… It’s fine… no problems.”

“Well, good. I think it’s possible for you to go quite far there. The government really pours their resources into the Academy, say education is good for moulding a populous and whatnot. It’s the best springboard you’ll get to go further in life. So take the opportunity, and you’ll go somewhere, you will.” He took off his glasses and began to polish them on his shirt. “And then you’ll get out of my space.”

I didn’t have the hearts to tell him I mostly stared at my desk or the window, oblivious to what was being taught.

“Y… Yes…”

------

"You're a really generous person, you know. Generous, and humble."

I peeked my head around the hallway's corner. In the kitchen, my father was stirring a pan whose contents simmered and steamed. The scent drifted down the corridor to me, and I felt my stomach clench in hunger. I was used to it. Like my father, I had a partial digestive system, but unlike my father, nobody had cared enough to try and accommodate it in my medical plans. Technically, I was a Generation Five, so I had a central line like a Generation Five did. Nevermind the fact that my father had made me like a Generation Two, and on purpose. Nevermind the fact that having a permanent tube in one's heart could lead to septic shock...

"Why do you say that, Sir?"

"You could have ordered food. Well, you needn't provide any at all. But you're lowering yourself to the position of a servant," the person sitting at the dining table explained. My vision was too blurry to make out the amount of pips on their shoulder, but from where I stood, it looked like one solid mass. At least a General, I decided.

"I'm a servant of the government, Sir, and you're in my house. This is nothing."

"You sure are, 2e22." The man stroked his chin in contemplation. "We might have a use for you, yet."

I tried to tiptoe closer, in order to see if anyone else was there, but in my haste, I'd miscounted the floorboards. My foot landed on the creaky one, and my father's head turned, eyes snapping to me.

"Who's there?"

"Oh, it's my... it's that project I worked on, 5a82. The one we discussed earlier."

"The government really put you into a strange position, didn't they? Wanting to keep him away from others, so he lives with you, and— ah, forget it. He'll overhear." Then, "Five-aye, how's it going? Want to come out and say 'hi'?"

I balled up the leg of my shorts in a fist, posture hunched as I crept out of my hiding space.

The man met me with a grin. "You don't have to look so terrified, boy. I don't bite. Look, your maker's so nice, isn't he? Look at how carefully he stirs that sea-bark. You're lucky to be living with someone like him."

And he was, using a wooden spoon to swirl the sauce and plant matter. He was so gentle, that I suddenly fought a laugh, one that would have only made me wince as it agitated the bruised ribs I had. Bruises in the shape of the spoon's bowl.

------

They were playing with a ball outside. Running, kicking, throwing, shoving, laughing. I stood against the school’s outer wall, eyes vaguely towards the commotion, though I was more focused on the plants behind them. They didn’t have those varieties in the mainland. Slender, pale flowers, speckled with blue, waved in the gentle breeze, almost hypnotising in their motions. I could only get peeks of them from where they lay, behind the plump, dark green leaves of surrounding foliage; but with how they contrasted against their uniform backdrop, even someone with my poor eyesight could make them out.

“Why don’t you go play with them?”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away, even to look at my teacher. She had gotten used to this.

“I… I w-wouldn’t have fun.”

“Why not?”

“I… don’t see the… point. In games.”

“Well…” She leaned down a bit, her face falling into the corner of my periphery. “They have fun! They enjoy playing together. And it feels good to exercise, it’s good for you mentally and physically. And it helps you to get stronger. Don’t you want to be stronger?”

“I… I… um…” I looked down at my feet. My thumb stroked the bones that protruded from my wrist. “They’re going to… t-train me… separately… anyways.”

##gray|//“Watch the monitor.” “Yes, Sir.”//##

Her intonation turned slow, sad. “How do you feel about that?”

##gray|//A clip flickered to life. Images. Of a person. Only they weren’t quite recogniseable as one anymore. Their body, it was—//##

The ground lurched and tilted underneath my feet.

“5a82, are you alright?”

I leaned back against the wall, looked up at the sky, and swallowed down the bile in my throat. One moment passed. Two. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?” She frowned and reached out a hand. Disgustingly, I flinched, and she dropped it. “You look stressed. Your eyes are…”

##gray|//”Unit’s response to stimuli, in order of onset: pupillary constriction, tachycardia, hyperventilation, vomiting, tremors. Conditioning will continue until latter three are eliminated.”//##

“I am okay, do not worry.” It was a canned response, repeated so many times, to so many people, it was one of the only things I could say without a stammer.

------

“F-Father, p-please, don’t, don’t leave me,” I begged.

“I’m busy. I have work to attend to.”

“P-Please! You, you can take me wi- with you! I-I won’t be a bother.” I wanted to reach out and wrap myself around his leg. I would hold on tight, even if he tried to kick me off. And he would.

The skin on his brow creased. “No. You will stay. Why is this suddenly a problem? You never made such a fuss before. You liked them, up until you randomly decided otherwise.”

//Because it’s different now! I only liked them because they told me all those idealised things! Now they’ve— hurt me! They’ve— changed me!// I couldn’t bring myself to say it. My eyes burned with shame at the mere thought, that strangling, crushing shame, shame for things I couldn’t even understand, things I didn’t even know how to begin to speak of. //Is it my fault? Did they do it because that’s just the kind of person I am? I’m someone who is sure to hurt others? To kill others? Is a feeling of empathy all that keeps others from murder? Are feelings of closeness to others all that keeps them from murder? Am I, deep down, a truly horrible person?//

All I could do was stare at my feet, trying not to cry.

“You’re too emotional. I’ve always hated that about you. Why can’t you be more docile, just take the orders that are given to you like a pet does?” He adjusted his glasses, then nodded to someone next to me.

They put an arm around me, giving a gentle squeeze to my side. I wanted to shove the hand away, I wanted to fall to my knees and throw up. But I did nothing. They began to lead me away, into the facility, into that place I hated so, so deeply. I looked back over my shoulder, to my creator, who just stood at the exit, polishing a lens of his glasses on his work uniform. I knew he didn’t love me, I knew he even hated me, I knew he preferred every single one of his other creations to me. But at least he wouldn’t do something like this to me.

“You’re very special to us, 5a82,” the worker whispered in my ear. “Don’t go running away, now. I know you’re scared, but don’t run away from this. This is something wonderful. This will change the world.”

“Okay,” I muttered, wanting to melt into the floor and die.

------

Bigger than me. They were bigger than me. And scary. They scared me. But they told me it was okay. That I was special. That’s why this was happening to me. It was a privilege.

“Get ready for another one!”

I spun, and the cables above me creaked, the apparatus on my head pulled sharply to the side. I hefted the clunky controller in my hands, and my finger hovered over the trigger, my eyes scanning for a threat on the display screen that rested a finger’s width from my eyes.

A person appeared right in front of me, knife aloft, and I aligned the reticle with their head. But their head, it had skin, and hair, and eyes that looked into mine. The knife came closer, and closer, but my hand shook, the muscles of my finger wouldn’t contract. Closer, closer, and closer, until its blade sunk into the stomach of my avatar.

An electric shock ripped through me, and I dropped the controller, doubling over as the muscles of my abdomen clenched uncontrollably. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to curl into a ball.

If it was such a privilege, why did it have to hurt so much?

“Come on, Unit 5a82… this is the second time today. You’ve just got to get used to the new simulation settings. You’ve gotten over it each time we’ve upped the realism before. This time is no different, you just need to focus.”

“I-I’m sorry, Sir, I—“

“We’ll go back to the Classical stimuli program for the rest of today.”

------

It was still dark outside, the school building having just barely been accessible with my keycard. The classroom was so, so thankfully empty. I didn’t want to talk to— or even see— anyone right then. I knew the side of my face still was discoloured. My teeth found my lip as I thought about what had happened, but it was useless, I knew it was useless. Replaying the memory wouldn’t make me a better child, it wouldn’t keep me from annoying my ‘father’ in the future. And keeping my ‘father’ happy wouldn’t take me out of the awful program, because the damage to my brain had already been done, that was why they’d selected me in the first place. Easy prey.

I sat there so long, unmoving, that the bones of my back began to hurt where they pressed into the chair. I didn’t want to be there, at school, but I didn’t want to be ‘home’, either. It was horrible. Everything was horrible.

The classroom door opened, and I flinched, then looked at the window’s reflection to see who it was. 5a55. I could barely make him out; he was one of the more normal ones. His eyes were clouded over with excess copper deposits, but at least nobody would be able to tell if he donned a uniform. That’s how I thought of things, at that point— in terms of my future career in wetwork.

“You’re here early,” he said.

“Mn.”

The ceiling fan whirred overhead.

“So, uh, did you just get here?”

“No.”

Waves lapped the shore.

“Just couldn’t sleep?”

“Dunno.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

His footsteps were slow as they approached me. He leaned across my desk and grasped the collar of my shirt, and I thought he was going to shake me, or strangle me, or something, but he gently straightened it and began to fix the buttons.

“Your uniform is always a mess. Did nobody teach you how to dress yourself? I mean, these are all either in the wrong slot, or not buttoned at all.”

He worked his way down, and I didn’t dare even breathe, too afraid that it would anger him into striking me. That, or I would scare him away, and this tenderness, the feeling of someone doing something to me that didn’t hurt, would be gone. But I didn’t have to suffocate myself long, since even with his blindness, he finished the task— correctly, unlike my attempt— in a fraction of the time it’d taken me. I couldn’t even choke out a thanks, too surprised and oxygen-deprived.

“Every time I see you, it looks a bit bigger on you. You’re just bones now. You need to feed more. Maybe you’d grow taller, too.”

“That’s not how—“

“I know. It was a joke.” 5a55 grasped my sleeve, and by reflex, I pulled my hand back, but he held it fast. “I’m just fixing the buttons. I’ve already seen, anyways.”

“Oh.”

Once he finished, he stood and straightened his own uniform. “Class is going to start soon. Are you going to stay today?”

“Probably not.”

He looked away. “I see. I hope your other… studies… go well.”

------

“So this is the one?” The person, whose name and rank I didn’t know, paced around me in a large circle. I didn’t look up, either, didn’t try to take in their face. All I saw were my own two feet, tunnel vision blocking out everything else around me. My hand shook in its grip on the hem of my shirt.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid he’s not very well-socialised. You’ll have to excuse him," said one of the workers.

A hand grasped my face, pulled it up, and I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, wanted to sink my fangs into the flesh. The hand turned my head from side to side. I wanted to run. “That’s an understatement. But he’s— real? Unit 5a82? He looks like a Gen 2, not a Gen 5. Well, a very… bungled Gen 2. Look at his eyes, look at what they’re doing.”

“That would be the albinism…”

“And this,” the hand patted the top of my head. “How old is he?”

“About… one year. One and a half years old, I think. With nearly a full growth period in the tank. That’s his adult height.”

“Wow. We haven’t had cases like these since before the Synthetics Research & Development Programme was made public. So that’s it, then? They’re saying they stopped at 5a81? What a strange life to have, with everyone asking you why they happened to stop with you, when you’re the least involved person of all. I think that one was perfectly normal, too. What a strange life indeed.”

“Yes, strange…” My instructor reached out a placed a hand on my shoulder. I flinched. “Here, 5a82, why don’t you go make some refreshments while the Lieutenant and I talk about your future, hm? You show a lot of promise. A lot.” The fingertips squeezed. “And it wouldn’t it just be amazing for your training to be put to good use?” Squeezed harder. “I have some dried lilies in my office. Asu lilies.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be so kind to a humble officer such as myself…”

“Oh, but please, I insist…”

They were talking about putting a gun in my hands, a real gun, and could only concern themselves with the niceties of tea.

"Why would he make it? Don’t you have a low ranking officer who could..?”

“No, no. He’s getting practice with following orders, see. And look, he does. Despite the mental strain of the conditioning program, he barely struggled when we…”

I was already closing the door behind me. So I would make their stupid tea. They would muse about how good of a pet I am. I would be put through thing after thing, not complaining all the while. Eventually, it would kill me. I could only hope the last part happened sooner than later.

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