Noises could be heard from the back of a truck in the middle of the woods, three figures were having a rousing good time playing card games, or at least they looked like they were having a good time.

"You suck at blackjack." Guard said as he looked directly into Richard's eyes.

"Shit! I thought we were suppose to go up to 23!"

"We said 21 in the beginning man, we already told you the rules!" Cid laughed as he found amusement in Richard's bumbling.

"Lay off me dude, I just forgot!"

"This is the third time!" Guard collected the cards and started shuffling them. They have played 3 rounds already with Guard winning 2 of them and Cid having 1 win under his belt.

"I think you're cheating!" Richard accused. "You're using your computational skills to do some 200 IQ calculations so you get the best cards!"

"Don't blame me! You would've won the last match if you just stayed at 21."

"Yeah, you just suck. Anyways, now I'm curious about your reaction time Guard." Cid asked as he looked at the 2 cards that were dealt to him.

"Why?"

"Cause I heard it was illegal for AIs to be really good like their reaction time can only be slightly better than humans. What was it?" Cid snapped his fingers as he tried to recall the number.

"0.1 seconds?" Richard spat out as he carefully looked at his cards.

"No, no I think it was faster than that. Darn it I can't remember the numbers. Ehhhhh, hit me."

Guard slid a card towards Cid causing him to clap his hands together, he got just the card he wanted and reached 21.

"Damn it. I give up." Richard grumbled.

Guard was at 11, he drew two more cards from the deck hoping to tie. Unfortunately, he went over 21 and lost.

"Ahaha! Woo!" Cid cheered, Guard collected the cards once again and started shuffling. Cid eventually settled down and continued his question. "I wanted to know since I have a pretty terrible reaction time. This one time I dropped a hotdog and when I tried to catch it mid-fall I accidentally kneed it further away."

"Oh yeah, I remember that! You launched it right into the Sergeant's face!"

"I got in big trouble man, it sucked. So I was wondering if I was an android, would I have been able to catch the hotdog?"

Unfortunately, Guard couldn't answer that. His line of duty required that his reaction time be precise, there are androids that are much slower than humans but it mostly depended on the price tag and what they were designed for. You don't need an android that can perfectly calculate the trajectory of a thrown ball if they work as a janitor.

"You know what humans have that androids don't?" Richard questioned the two of them, he looked back and forth but none of them knew the answer. "Instincts."

"Instincts?" The two of them said at the same time.

"You heard me. When you see an enemy in the distance but you aren't sure if they're out of your gun's range, what would you do?"

"Stop playing 21 questions, just say it man." Cid replied.

"Androids would take a moment to calculate the range and then calculate their shot if the enemy is in range." Richard pretended to hold up a gun and fire. "But humans, we can bullshit it. Just straight up say 'screw it' and fire away and still hit the target."

"But what if you miss?" Guard asked.

"Well... then their gut feeling is bad. But the point is that humans can just do."

"Yeah, but most of the time it ain't wise to close your brain off and just do." Cid laughed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It could be a life and death situation where you have to choose quickly!"

Guard wasn't sure how instincts work or what it should feel like but he was sure that his programming would allow him to quickly make complex decisions, same goes for other androids as well. If androids had terrible decision making, humanity would've went extinct by now Guard thought to himself.

"Bwah, let's stop talking about this and play some cards." Cid reached down to grab a drink, as he tried to go for a sip he found out that the can was empty. "Aww man, hey Richard are there any drinks left?"

"There should be some left in the front seat of the truck. Let me go get it." With a hyup, Richard leapt over the side of the truck.

"Alright! Thanks ma- oh..." As Cid looked over to thank his pal he saw someone approaching them from the distance.

Guard peeked over as well but couldn't tell who it was. The truck shifted a bit as Cid hurriedly got out to greet them, him and Richard gave their best salute as they stood side by side. Guard guessed that this was the boss man they were talking about, he had hoped that it was his teammates but it would be unlikely for them to take such a direct approach.

"Or was it..." Guard muttered.

"Why is the prisoner not tied up?" He asked the two.

"Uh, well you see she's actually a he... and we forgot to do the tying but we did ask him not to do anything funny." Richard explained.

"Guard's a very agreeable guy overall, boss man sir!" Cid continued to hold his salute.

The man sighed, took off his helmet and walked up to Guard. Guard now had a better look at him, unlike the others he wasn't wearing a mask so his face was fully visible. He was a clean-shaven man with short wavy blond hair and forest green eyes, his forehead had visible wrinkles which gave him a more mature look, he looked like an action movie dad if Guard were to describe him .

"My men were suppose to ask you questions but I'm assuming they didn't." The man spoke with a gruff voice as he looked back at Cid and Richard, even his voice sounded like an action movie star Guard thought.

"I would've been glad to answer questions if you guys had just knocked on the door instead of, you know, knocking me out..."

"... sorry about that." The man rubbed the back of his head. "Shepard and Nielsen are real glory hounds, they were the ones that decided to do things the hard way and jump you."

"Quick question boss man, Emma and Fred aren't with you?" Richard looked around the area.

"No, Laurent, I have them holding position somewhere else right now." He turned back to Guard after answering Richard. "Do you feel like answering questions now? I mean, you don't really have a choice."

"Y-yeah, I guess I don't." Guard frowned, it wasn't like Guard knew any top secret information on the US army stationed here, he's been here for a week.

"You haven't ran into any strangers recently, have you?"

Nothing really came to mind, you could suppose that the UCNA soldiers were strangers since Guard didn't know any of them but that probably wasn't the answer the man was looking for.

"OH, uh, I met a really strange girl."

"Girl? Any descriptions?"

"She's like 7'9."

"Jha?" The man looked at Cid who in turn took out a folded piece of paper.

"Ummm, let's see... nope nothing about a giant girl."

"Other than that... there is the UCNA guys stationed here..."

"What? The UCNA? Out this far?" The man questioned Guard.

"Yeah. We were suppose to secure the place for like, aeternilite extraction, but those guys also had the same idea so stuff happened." Guard explained.

"Hold on... are you... part of the US army?" The man examined Guard's uniform.

"Yes, you couldn't tell cause of the outfit?" Guard showed off his uniform.

The man rubbed his forehead as he looked down and sighed.

"Laurent!" He shouted. "You told me the uniform was a fake!"

"Uh, no I didn't. I said it looks real but there might be a slight possibility that it's a fake." Richard tried to defend himself.

"No you didn't man... boss man said 'Is it a fake?" and you said "Ehhhhh, sure?" and shrugged." Cid pointed out before Richard angrily jabbed him with his elbow.

The man turned around to face Guard, who noticed a slight twinge of disappointment in his face not unlike Savage when she talks about Dealer. "I'm sorry. We weren't aware of a US base here in Former North Dakota, we were too busy chasing after criminals that broke out of jail and escaped to this location. We are also a part of the US army, I'm Sergeant Hallengir." He reached his hand out and Guard shook it.

"Wow, you literally could have knocked and asked." Guard said.

"You said the UCNA have also set up shop nearby right?" Hallengir asked and Guard nodded. "They've been getting more bold recently, we'll have to check that place out."

While Guard and the Sergeant were having their discussion. Richard walked up to the front of the truck and opened the door. He spotted a can of energy drink, the last one since Cid tore through most of them. As he goes to pick it up he was unaware that it was already open and accidentally spilled some of it on the driver's seat.

"Oh god, oh shit." His panicking caused the can to slip from his hand and fell to the floor of the vehicle spilling more of it, the sugary drink quickly spread and he could hear the faint sounds of fizzling that signaled his demise. "Oh fuck."

"Laurent? What was that noise?" Hallengir walked up behind him.

"Oh sir, please don't beat me up." Richard grabbed ahold of the Sergeant and begged.

"What? What happened?"

"Sir I bruise very easily don't hit me please sir."

Richard blocked any attempt for Hallengir to look over and see the mess, which slowly started to annoy the Sergeant as he became more aggressive in his approach to get the man off of him.

"I can fix it Sarge, just leave it to me you don't have to see it."

Guard watched the performance from the back of the truck, the interaction reminded him of his teammates. "Huh, I guess humans and androids are a bit similar..."