Before I know it, my eyes drift open to the sound of the first bell of the day ringing far off in town. Francis and Marrianne wake up at about the same time. We eat a quick breakfast today. Just bread and fruit.
Then Marrianne changes me into work clothes. At least, that's her way of explaining another one of her outfits which she ties over and over so many times that she's secured almost all of the baggy sections. The biggest difference is that the bottoms are hiked up and secured above my knees, so I can actually see my calves for once. The air makes the bare parts of my legs feel cool when I walk, which is nice since it's hot out now. She double checks that my shoes have no holes in the bottoms either, before sending us out. At the last moment, she calls us back, ties a water flask to my waist, and sends us off one more time. Something about her expression, worried and excited at the same time, is really nice and I give her a big hug before we go out the door.
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As we walk, I try out my voice a few times. "Ahh ahh." I cough a little and clear my throat. "Yeah, this works." The words come out all hoarse and scratchy, and talking too much makes me start to cough, but I can finally speak again. Still, it's difficult to start talking to Francis all of a sudden.
After a while of walking awkwardly, unsure how to start, he sighs. "We'll talk later, over lunch."
"Ok." I'm so nervous, I'm grateful to push it off just a little bit. I have to increase my pace to keep up with Francis, who walks much faster than Marrianne. I basically need to jog to keep pace with him. For every step he takes, I take four. We make very fast time through the city though, reaching the garrison building Marrianne took me to once before right around when the second bell rings. By the time we arrive, I'm panting slightly. I try to take deep breaths. I ready myself to endure a lot of walking. Today is going to be very difficult.
When we arrive, Francis speaks briefly to the man from the other night. Frank was his name, I think. It seems he's going to be watching the East Gate this morning. As I stand back and wait, someone walks up from over near one wall and kneels down in front of me. "Who are you little one?" he asks with a bright smile.
"Wunay," I respond. I shift my pronunciation a little, saying it the way people do to make it a word instead of my proper identifier.
"That's a... nice name," he clearly thinks it's weird. "Who are you here with?"
"Francis," I point over at him while he's walking back in our direction. Though, he definitely just saw me walk in with him, didn't he?
"Hey Francis, didn't know you had such a cute little daughter," he calls over as he stands up. Something about his tone is unpleasant and makes me a little wary, so I slide away from him just a little while he isn't looking.
"Not mine, Mark. My wife has been taking care of her." He brushes past Mark dismissively. After being brushed off by Francis, he turns back to me.
"Going to work with Daddy today then?" he asks. I'm assuming 'Daddy' refers to Francis? I just nod. Suddenly, Francis shoots me a cold look. What? Why? What did I say? I am going with him to work today though.
"Come on," he says, taking my hand and practically dragging me away from the other man as we quickly leave the garrison. He seems really annoyed for some reason, and walks even faster than before. I struggle to keep pace with him as we make our way all the way down Main Street, back past Marrianne's house, and over to the East Gate. Having run the whole way, I sit on the ground out of the way to recover while he stands near the gate and sees people out. There are lots of people, but strangely, nowhere near as many as the other day when I went out to the river with Marrianne. I wonder if the number changes based on the day or something.
Most people just walk past. A few people have horses pulling carts, or pull their carts themselves. Hmm, I think I spot another animal pulling a cart I'm not familiar with, but it's just one. It's has four legs like a horse, but it's a really dark black, and a lot wider than a horse. It's short though, so it's sort of hard to see. But it's really really slow. Wouldn't a person pull a cart faster themselves? Maybe it's too heavy? It is stacked up with a whole bunch of stuff under a big cloth, so I guess it might be too heavy for a person to pull easily. It takes the cart with the strange animal a long time to head out the gate. I don't see any others like it either. Is it a really rare animal?
Once in a while, Francis will stop one of the people with carts. Every time, they give him a little wooden thing. After he looks at it for a bit, he hands it back and lets them continue out the gate. When I glance around, it seems that the other four men here are doing the same thing. Each one checks a handful of people as they all flow out the gate.
Eventually, I start to wonder about that strange wooden thing, so go up behind Francis. Standing on my toes and stretching upward to try and look at the strange wooden thing the traveler gives him. It's hard to tell from so far below, but there are numbers on it, as well as some other squiggle shapes. Some sort of information, recorded on wood it seems. I walk back over to the wall next to the gate and sit down. There's nothing to do except wait. I'm a bit tired from all the running earlier, so I just rest against the wall, drinking a little water from the flask Marrianne gave me. I close my eyes, but don't go to sleep. That would just lead to nightmares. Now that my voice is back, I don't want to start screaming suddenly, that would be bad. So I just rest against the wall, listening to the sounds of people in the street. Walking, speaking to one another, pulling carts.
It's just a normal, uneventful day for all of these people. Just going about their everyday tasks. I guess Marrianne would be doing the same sort of thing most days, if it wasn't for me coming in and taking up all her time and energy. She'd even taken two weeks to help me get over my fever. In that time, she'd only gone to work a little. I wonder if it caused any problems for her? She seemed a little nervous talking to Mina the other day, but she was able to get all that work done in one day, so maybe it wasn't too much of a problem?
With nothing else to do, I find myself going over all my ongoing worries while starting to doze off a little. What's been bothering Marrianne? What does she have against rail units? What exactly does Francis want to talk about? What should I tell him? What am I going to do from now on? I shake my head. There's no point worrying like this. I just can't keep my mind off of them while sitting with nothing to do. I forcefully push the thoughts away again. Then I try to keep my mind blank while staring at the ground. I used to do this all the time, from one whistle to the next, day after day, for years, with no trouble at all.
But now I find my mind starting to wander within moments. With so many more thoughts and emotions all the time, it's really hard to empty my mind. I continue sitting, but feel impatient. "Am I... bored?" I mumble to myself. I've seen plenty of children mention being bored to adults before. Is this what they were feeling? This sense that I'm wasting time, that I should be doing something else, that sitting still is annoying?
I can't do this, I have to do something. Something that can keep my mind occupied for a while. Of course, if we're talking about things that can keep my mind occupied, the easiest answer is math. So I focus, beginning to go over some more difficult equations that will take enough effort to keep me occupied. Ten thousand five hundred fifty five times five hundred is five million two hundred seventy seven thousand five hundred... Twelve thousand seventy seven times thirty nine is four hundred seventy one thousand three... Then twenty five percent is... one hundred seventeen thousand... seven hundred fifty... round up to fifty one.
I let myself focus on the difficult equations for some time, doing one after another to keep myself occupied. By the time the next bell sounds, my brain is tired. It's hard to keep all the numbers straight when doing long equations. "No more math..." I mumble. I let my head fall back against the wall. Well, it looks like now that I've tired myself out, my mind doesn't wander as much. I return to resting for a little while, watching the bright blue sky and the clouds lazily rolling by. I sigh, feeling content. I've finally managed to calm my mind.
I let time pass, the steady clapping of feet on stone comes from the gate while I sit and wait comfortably. Other sounds mix in from time to time, like when there are some voices, all speaking in unison. I don't know most of their words, but their tone and the rhythm of their speech is very different from normal and it sounds nice. One by one, the bells ring out, until eventually, the seventh comes.
"Hey," Francis calls. I open my eyes and look over. He waves me over and says, "Shift's over, time for lunch." I take a deep breath, then push myself back to my feet. It's finally time to talk.
He walks, I run, over to a plaza not too far from the central plaza. He buys a few fruits I don't recognize and tosses me one. Then he looks around briefly. He leads us into a small dead end alley off the road. He sits on a wooden box in the alley, and I take my seat on a small barrel across from him. I double check that we're far enough down that alley that no one will overhear us.
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We each take a small bite of our fruit. It doesn't taste like much. Just a bit sweet. Not too hard or soft. Francis lets out a long sigh. "Where to start..." he rubs his chin a bit. "Ok, let's get through the basics. You are a rail unit, right?" I nod simply. "What is your full designation?"
"AR1A," I respond. He nods. He already knew, I guess he just needed to confirm it again. Then he thinks a bit more. "I guess my biggest question is... what are you doing? Why are you living at my house?"
"Uhh, because Marrianne brought me to your house...?" I don't exactly understand why he's asking that. I'm there because Marrianne brought me there.
"Right, I know, but why? What happened at your home? Why aren't you there?"
"Oh, that," I look down as the memories roll back over me again. "I left because I don't want to go back there."
"But why?" he presses, looking kind of frustrated.
"Well, they told me to die," I answer. "Wait, that won't make sense if I don't explain..." I scratch my head while he looks both confused and shocked. For that, I'll need to explain my combat position. But for that I'll need to explain my current situation as a rail unit, which means I need to explain my past... This is getting frustrating.
"Ahh, there are too many parts that need me to explain other parts," I complain. Francis still looks very confused. "Ok, let me start at the beginning. When I was three years old... no that's still not far enough back." I take some time to get my thoughts and story in order.
"This sounds... unexpectedly confusing," Francis comments with a worried look.
"Ok, so: Functional rail units age three times faster than people until they are fifteen years old and enter combat," I start.
For some reason, Francis goes "Aah, that makes sense now..." When he doesn't offer any further explanation, I continue.
"So after one year, I was three years old. At that point, I suffered damage that broke my manastone."
"Wait, what's a manastone?" he cuts in. I start to answer, then stop. What exactly is a manastone? They never really explained the details.
"Uuh, I'm not really sure what it is. All I know is that we rail units have them in our heads." My hand automatically comes up to rub the spot where mine was. "They allow us to use our divine gear. And now that I think about it, it seems that they are related to how we age faster as well..." I hadn't thought of that before. It seems they have more than just the one function. "So mine was broken when I was three, and I stopped aging properly. Because of that, the rest of the rail units just turned fifteen years old, and I'm only seven."
"You're seven years old?" he asks. Why does he look so surprised?
"Yes? Do I... not look seven?" I ask hesitantly.
He considers for a few moments before answering, "If I think of you like a peasant, I'd say you look more like five than seven." I only look like I'm five years old? And how does that relate to peasants exactly?
Wait wait wait. My thoughts suddenly grind to a halt. I've been basing the ages I think children are on the vague memories of how big the rail units were around that age, and how big I am now. If I've been thinking children my size are seven, and children smaller than me are younger, hasn't my entire perspective been shifted off by almost two years this whole time? So those children I played tag with, they weren't six or seven, they were only four or five years old? And the ones playing with dirt weren't three or four, they were just one or two years old?
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I almost feel dizzy as my entire perspective on age suddenly shifts. Francis raises an eyebrow. I put a hand to my head. "Sorry, I just made a shocking discovery. I'll think about it more later," and try to push the thoughts from my mind to get back on topic. He gives a small grin for some reason. "Anyway, I was explaining that the other rail units turned fifteen and I turned seven. Even if I don't look seven, I am." I assure him. "Since we're combat age now, we started our training with our divine gear. That's when I realized that I couldn't actually use my divine gear. The handlers explained that I was an example to show the other rail units what would happen if they let their manastones get damaged." I stop again to cough a little and clear my throat.
Francis doesn't say anything, but his face speaks for him. Utterly dumbfounded. "So after I realized that I didn't serve any use in combat, I asked what I was supposed to do. The handler told me that I'm supposed to go and draw enemy fire to use up their mana and keep them from attacking functional rail units, until I die." Having spoken so much, I start coughing more and need a few moments recover.
"That's... it?" he asks. He still has a look of shock, but it seems like it is only slowly sinking in.
"Yes, that is my only remaining purpose. So... I left."
"You left?"
"Yeah. Since there's no reason for me to be there anymore, I left. The only thing I have to do now is go and die in battle, so I ran away from there because..." I think about it for a few moments, shrugging vaguely as I try to come up with a reason. "Well, I hate it there," I finally say.
We sit in silence for a bit. We both continue to eat our fruit, though I can hardly taste it. It gives me some time to rest my sore throat though.
"Ok, I have an idea of where you're coming from now," Francis finally breaks the silence. "But that still doesn't tell me why you're so... different. I've always heard that rail units are supposed to be, well, death incarnate. They're alive, but they're emotionless killing machines that will destroy anything they set their eyes on. Monsters of death that destroy everything around them. At least, that's what everyone says."
I consider that for a few moments. It explains why everyone was afraid of me. It also confirms my suspicion of how everyone could tell I was a rail unit. I nod. "I think I can understand where that comes from. I think the emotionless part is pretty much right. From what I can tell, the other rail units don't have feelings. I didn't really understand my feelings until I started going out and interacting with people either." I shrug, not entirely sure how all of this works. "Everything just felt numb for the longest time. It wasn't until I had a question to answer that I even considered doing... well, anything."
"A question to answer?" he looks puzzled.
I can't help but grin, a bit sadly. "Yeah, I wanted to know why I shouldn't die."
"That's... a strange question..." he looks conflicted as he says that.
"It took a lot of work to figure out that I didn't want to die, because dying is scary." I shake my head at something that seems so obvious to me now that I understand my emotions so much better. "But really, at the time, just recognizing that I actually wanted something was a big step. Bigger than I'd ever taken. Bigger than any other rail unit will ever take..." I sigh at the thought. "I guess I can feel like this because I'm broken. It's only brought me pain though." I frown at that.
"So that's why you're different..." Francis leans back and looks at the sky for a bit. Eventually, he begins to speak again. "Now that I know your story, I really would like to help you out, but I can't, for Marrianne's sake." I raise an eyebrow. How does Marrianne factor into this exactly? "You see, the AR program took our only child. It broke her heart at the time. Like you saw, she really hates rail units now. Just thinking about them makes her sick." Right, I did see how she seemed to really hate us. But, what was the reason?
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," I shake my head.
"What do you mean, you don't understand?" He looks annoyed.
"You said she hates us because they 'took your first child'. I don't know what that means." I try to accurately explain which part of his description doesn't make sense.
"I mean that when we had our first kid, they took her. Marrianne has been so broken up over it we haven't even tried again. It's been almost two years already." Even though he expanded on his explanation, I'm still missing key pieces of information. I still can't understand what caused her so much sadness.
"Sorry, I still don't understand. What is 'having a kid'?" Francis opens and closes his mouth a few times in disbelief.
"Where do you think children come from?!" he asks incredulously. I blink a few times.
"I have no idea," I answer honestly. I had never even thought to think about it before. I've seen plenty of children all over. Where in the world did they all come from?
Francis puts his head in his hands and groans loudly. "I can't believe I have to be the one to explain this to you..." He takes a deep breath, then looks up again. "When a man and a woman get together, they have sex. It's an adult thing, you don't need to know about it. When they have sex, the woman gets pregnant. When a woman gets pregnant, it causes a baby to grow inside of her body. This takes about nine or ten months. Then she gives birth to the child by pushing it out of her body. That's the short version of it."
I gape, mouth opening and closing in awe. People grow inside other people? Despite his clear description, I can't even picture what that would actually look like. "Come on, it's not that surprising," he complains, "haven't you seen all the pregnant women around the city?" I have no idea what he's talking about, which must be clear because he says, "The ones with the big bellies?" He holds his hand out to show what he means, and it finally clicks. So all those women in the city who had big bellies were pregnant? They had children growing inside them? I saw them all over when I first started exploring, but there haven't been any for a while now.
"The longer a woman is pregnant, the bigger her belly gets as the baby grows inside. The ones with the big bellies are close to giving birth," he explains.
I nod a few times. "Ok, I understand now." I think about it for a bit. "So when Marrianne had a child, the AR program took it away? Why would they do that?"
"You don't know about that?" I shake my head.
"They never told us anything about where the rail units came from or, basically anything except what we would need in battle."
"Right..." He frowns, then goes on. "Some children are born with an incurable disease which will turn them into horrible monsters. Every child is checked after birth, and any with the disease are taken into the AR program. Rather than turning into monsters, they can be used to protect and serve our country. So they say, but..." he looks to the side, unable to meet my eyes. "Well, you've seen what really happens. By 'protect and serve the country' they really mean that they just point those monsters at our enemies. So rail units aren't just killing machines, they're the end result of our doomed children..."
We sit in silence for a little while. I had no idea, that's where rail units come from? We're actually born from regular people? Then why aren't we people? He mentioned a 'disease' that makes us 'monsters', but I don't know what those are. So first I try asking what a disease is. "A disease is an illness that causes all sorts of problems for a person. In this case, there is no way to heal or cure it, so they'll have it forever." I nod slowly as I begin to understand.
"And what are monsters?" I ask.
"Monsters are... horrible things that kill people and destroy things." The way he hesitates makes it seem like he's not completely sure how to describe it this time. But now I understand what he's saying. We have a disease that makes us monsters? Is that disease related to the manastones or divine gear in some way? There's still a lot of information I'm missing, but looking at Francis, it seems like he doesn't know anything else about it.
"Now you see, right? There's no way Marrianne could accept that, right after we'd just become parents."
"Hold on, 'parents'? I keep hearing that word, what does it mean?" I cut in.
This time, he doesn't even bother to sigh at my question. "When you have a child, you become parents. Mother and father." So that's what those words were, they refer to individual parents. Based on the contexts where I'd heard them earlier, Mother would refer to the woman and Father would be the man.
With the whole concept of parents and children finally explained, I've filled in a huge gap in what's considered common knowledge by everyone around me. But I don't have time to be happy about that, because that is the reason why I can't stay with Marrianne. Even more than needing to go into combat later, I can't stay because she hates rail units.
"You won't get it, but there's a bond between parents and their children. A connection of love that's stronger than anything. Having that taken away, well... It's not something you can really recover from. Especially not a first time mother." I've seen firsthand how much love and care Marrianne shows me. I can hardly imagine how much she would give her own child. Having all of that taken away by the program I come from... Of course she would hate me with all of her heart.
"But she's already too attached to you. She hasn't brought it up yet, but she's definitely thinking of adopting you. She went to the garrison, and the orphanage, and the other night she even checked with the castle guards to make sure that there was no one with any claim on you. No parents, masters, nothing. Which is obvious," he shakes his head sadly. Before I have to ask, he explains, "adopting is when you take someone into your house as your child." Marrianne wants to make me her child?
"Of course that'll never work. You can't keep it hidden forever. There's too much you don't know, and you're still going into battle, right?" I nod slightly. "She is so attached to you already, it will completely destroy her when she finds out. You have to leave without her finding out."
I nod seriously. "Yeah, I definitely can't let her find out. I could never hurt her like that." Not after everything she's done for me. The question is how to leave?
Clearly knowing my next question, Francis just shrugs sadly. "I have no idea how you should leave. It'll hurt her no matter what. Whether you disappear in the night, or tell her outright that you have to leave. It's nothing but bad options. I honestly don't know which is the least awful. Either way, it has to be soon, before she really starts working to adopt you."
I think for a bit before responding. "I'll tell her I need to go. I still haven't thanked her for everything." I look down. "There's never been anything I could do to make it up to her."
He chuckles. "She is the kindest soul in the world. Why do you think I married her?" I take a moment to get him to clarify the meaning of marriage, before returning to the original topic. "I really would like to thank her before I leave. Is there anything I can get her as a gift?"
"I don't know too much about those kinds of gifts. Do you even have anything to give her?"
"Not really no. All I have is my robe, my shoes, and myself." I shake my head.
"Hmm, well you have all that hair. Give some of it to her. Something to remember you by. I think a guy I know mentioned someone doing something like that at least. The white hair would be memorable enough at least."
"Give her some of my hair...? How would I do that?" I grab part of it to look at it, confused.
"You just cut it off, maybe tie it up into a bundle so it stays together."
"You can cut off hair?" I regret asking as soon as the words leave my mouth. Why wouldn't you be able to cut off hair? It seems so obvious now. Blushing at my stupid question, I quickly move on before he can laugh at me. "So how much should I cut off?"
"Just a bit I guess, not like she needs a whole bunch of it or anything." I nod to his suggestion.
"That leaves where to go after, is there a good place I should go?"
"Not really. You're too young to work. If we're excluding going back to the program, that basically makes you an orphan. You could go to the orphanage, but I don't know if the treatment there would be better or worse than where you're from. I doubt anyone else would just pick you up and care for you out of the goodness of their hearts like Marrianne did." He shakes his head knowingly. Thinking back, when I was crying in the streets, everyone kept their distance, complained, or insulted me. So picking up a crying child isn't normal. Nevermind that I would end up right back in the same situation I'm in now anyway. Even at the orphanage, I would need to hide that I'm a rail unit.
Interacting with anyone, I'm required to deceive them right from the beginning. That's never going to change. No matter who it is, I need to lie to them constantly. How am I supposed to live with anyone like this? I sigh and decide to give up on that. Lying all the time just comes with being the sort of thing I am.
So that's how it is. I have to leave, either for the orphanage, or back to the rail unit program. Unless a third option presents itself, those are my available choices for now. I get Francis to help cut a small bit of hair and tie it up with the smallest piece of cloth I have, then store it safely in my clothes.
I decide to tell Marrianne I'm leaving the day after tomorrow. I'll take tomorrow to go and try to figure out what I should do moving forward. I'll decide between the AR program and the orphanage, or find another option if there is one.
There's not much else to say after that. My throat is already sore from all the talking anyway, and I need to save it for tomorrow. We finish our meal, and start heading back to the garrison. The rest of the day passes uneventfully. I follow Francis on his patrol throughout the northwestern area of the city. It's a good opportunity to learn the layout of the area since I haven't been there much before. It's really hard to keep pace with him though, and I'm exhausted by the end of it.
Not to mention the place is a maze of tiny, twisting streets and alleys worse than anywhere else I've been in the city. Even by the end of the patrol, I have no idea about the layout of the area we walked through. Finished with work, we head back.
Marrianne asks me about my day over dinner. I just tell her that it was fun walking all over the city. She smiles like she always does. She looks at me with loving eyes. She sleeps together with me to save me from my nightmares.
I really have to leave. For her sake. No matter what happens to me.