#wardroid

Such an unusual deviation. Not impossible - nothing was in the infinite multiverse of timelines they oversaw - but certainly unique. Unique enough for Emile to take his own trip (off the books as it was) and investigate.

A small vacation, really. Not like he wasn’t used to being undercover for years at this point if the need arose. This time though, there wasn’t the need for that. Beyond basic operational security.

Call it a personal day... or few.

“As difficult as it was to imagine, I cannot deny the results.” He mused. “The perfect farmer.”

A twinge of amusement on a flat tone. The faintest exhale as his eyes roamed the grasslands.

“A shame in so many places I visit, Gero is reduced to a scheming hermit who kidnaps the unwilling and leaves them so unfinished they turn upon humanity. Likewise your creation is reduced to the work of a computer and a last-ditch effort to kill someone who never should have been venerated to begin with if not for the fact he struck his head-”

He glanced up to the taller Bio-Android. So very different than he, an augmented human.

“Where to begin?”

“Fu has the capacity and capability to be far more dangerous than his ‘parents’ ever were. He has a knack for bypassing any-and-all protective wards and there are very few in Conton who I calculate would be able to possibly restrain him if there was ever a need to. That is assuming, of course, he is so stupid as to show up himself and not simply use one of his clones.”

“I will never understand why Chronoa chose to see his capricious youthfulness as a static entity that would persist, nor why she chose to allow him to escape. If he ever grows bored or, worse, wrathful, no doubt he could do uncountable harm to the Time Patrol on a scale Towa only dreamed of. Of course, the fact one would use rationality when faced with such a reality implies Chronoa typically makes judgements based on anything other than her bleeding heart.”

“And I haven’t even begun to touch upon the fact I am fully aware the security around my own job is null-and-void when it comes to Fu.”

In his quiet moments, Emile’s mind sometimes wanders to home and the ongoing war. He thinks of Cell - the magnum opus of Gero in the shape of the first successful Bio-Android. He thinks of those androids that came after him; enhanced through implanting DNA and genetic tinkering.

(He feels some hint of disgust at them for polluting themselves with the DNA of aliens; as much his programming as his own view-)

He thinks of how alive they are. Even Cell. His narcissism, his pride. His rage. So genuine. No machinery, no replacing organs and bones. 

His own emotions are stunted and bound in cages he’ll never break, assuming he feels some of them at all anymore. There’s no regret there - he volunteered for a reason. He joined the Red Ribbon Army to serve. To save his planet.

(He remembers when he’d come in for repairs and he ended up staring at her as she replaced something in his arm. He felt her heartbeat spike. Her pupils dilate. She’d looked away and his eyes told her blood was being redirected to more than just her cheeks. He knew if he still had the inclination, if he felt a little more inside of his own head rather than a detached outsider he’d have torn her clothes off and-)

They’d let him keep his anger and all of the emotions surrounding it. Anger was a good motivator. They’d all suffered in the attacks on earth. It unified them. It gave them a reason to kill their enemies wherever they found them. Something beyond simple programming. Disgust towards the inhuman things they’d slaughtered. Hate for them. It was something to relish, the rare times something elicited a reaction.

(A personal stake was a remarkably intelligent idea of their design. Something most other Androids lacked from other timelines, he’d come to realise.)

But he hadn’t been a soldier for a long time and here, in the Time Patrol, he had more than enough time to think. It was an unusual quirk to turn these emotions upon oneself. He realised he felt envy too. He envied those bio-androids. He envied how human they still were. Or, in Cell’s case, how emotional he was.

He envied that they could grow without gutting himself with technologies he shouldn’t have.

He envied they could feel more than what his logical programming told him he could (and that that same programming argued he was more efficient as a result. Not entirely incorrect, but that was a logical paradox he’d spent far more time than he wanted to admit mulling).

He wanted to hate Chronoa for her decisions. He wanted to hate the Gods for ruling over species when they did so little. And sometimes, he did. Sometimes something gave and his anger would become silent fury. Then his programming would intervene, nudge his mind back into the cool abyss of pure and unfiltered logic.

“Guilty of things that most would get dismissed for, and yet with a remarkable talent for talking her way out of it.”

“As a fellow earthling that came from nothing, she has my respect. As someone tasked with watching over Fu, she has my suspicion. And yet she and I share views on far more of the way Conton functions than most would dare admit. Like me, she shares a strong belief in authority and purpose while doubting those that give you them.”