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It’s a rumble under his (synthetic) skin. Maybe it was always there. Maybe it’s an emotion, if he can even feel those.
He thinks he can. What else can it be? Synthetic, certainly.
It’s a rumble under his skin, and he knows, without a doubt, that he is fundamentally broken.
He remembers - and he can pinpoint a timeline, a day where suddenly he felt more alive. He got sick, woke up in his room. His dad hugged him tightly and said that he was so worried, he didn’t know if he would ever get to see him like that. So… alive.
And he laughed, said it was just the flu, and he didn’t even go to the hospital, and he’s fine.
And his dad nodded, smile tight.
And he didn’t question it. And suddenly, his dad worried if he even wanted to leave the property!
He wonders, now. If he was programmed that way, too not question idiosyncrasies - no shadow in a photo, a missing trail, the days he forgot to eat. It’s why he wondered if he even wanted to be a Ranger, even though he remembered fighting for it. Because… could he fight for it? Had his love of adventure not been programmed into him?
Was it just coded in as a love of his father?
…Not that he does, anymore.
He thinks.
“How am I possible?” Mack asks. Rose looks over at him.
The two of them are on a mission - a powerful gemstone was found in the Philippines, so off they go. They don’t think it’s a jewel, but it doesn’t hurt to check, so it’s just the two of them.
“Is now the time?” She asks, gesturing at the rope she’s holding onto. Cliff climbs, how are they always happening? They’re still fun, though.
“Is your rope secure?” Mack asks in response. “Because I can fall and be fine.”
That probably helps with how “fun” he finds cliffs.
Rose seems to read that in his gaze. She sighs and rolls her eyes.
“Your dad has really advanced technology,” she says. “And access to alien technology. And we know advanced sciences have been able to quantify forces like good and evil. That’s probably why. The rest would go right over your head.”
“So you’ve thought about it.”
“I taught robotics, Mack,” Rose says, turning her head back towards the cliff. “Of course I have. And I have no idea how he did it, and I don’t really want to know.”
“Well, I want to know,” Mack says.
“Then call it good magic, or something,” Rose says. “Power of love.”
Mack turns away, then.
I don’t know if my so called father really loves me.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, and he goes on the run. He doesn’t need to exercise, of course. Just like he doesn’t need to eat - sometimes he doesn’t for days, and he realizes he always did this, and he realized recently that it isn’t normal. He ate what he liked or he didn’t eat. Frankly, he drank more.
And he runs, now, runs until he’s panting. He thinks, if he stays still enough, he can hear the whirs of his parts heating and cooling and pumping. Not a heartbeat.
He runs and runs and then he finds a cliff, jumping off. He lands on his back, and it hurts.
He thinks about how his father would have had to code pain into him.
He stands, and he hurries back to the house he was made in. He thinks about being an accessory.
Spencer left lemonade by his bedroom table.
It tastes delicious.
(His father coded that in, too.)