I'm sore all over for the next day. It's mostly my legs, but it keeps me from moving around much. So I stay inside, rather than going outside like I have been lately. It makes sense when I think about it. I was tired after running normally through the town to the gate. Running with everything I have, all the way from the river...
After some time to rest and recover, I'm finally able to move normally again. Once I can move again, I decide to ask the handlers about something. When I told those children my age, they had a strange response that I did not understand. However, a strange response must have meant I said something strange, right? I am much smaller than everyone else, which I have a vague idea of relating to age.
"How old am I?" I ask a handler at some point in the early morning. Now that I'm actually looking at the handler, I see that it is a man. He looks a bit older than a lot of the other people I saw outside, and dresses in a dark robe. Then I notice something. His face twitches a little. It looks like he was starting to make the surprised face I recognize now. So the handlers communicate with their faces, but stop themselves for some reason?
"Unit 1A... It would seem that you were broken one year in, and have not been growing properly since. That would currently make you..." He seems to think about it for a few moments. Some of the fingers at his side move in a distinct pattern, one at a time. He flicks out three of his fingers on one hand. "Six years old." Only six years old? While I know I'm defective, I don't understand why I'm so much younger than the others. I don't have a clear grasp on how aging works, but it should have something to do with how long you live, right?
"How old are the other units?"
"Fourteen."
"Why are they so much older?"
"Functional AR units age by one year every four months until reaching combat age." He answers matter of factly. I never knew this before.
"How many months does it take me to age one year?"
"Twelve months."
"How many months are in one year?"
"Twelve months."
"I understand." Since my questions have been answered, I walk away. I can do that math as easy as breathing, so it is clear how aging works now. One year is twelve months, so you grow by one year every twelve months, or every year. That is easy and logical. It seems that the working rail units age more quickly though. So rather than aging one year every one year, they age one year every four months, or every third of one year. Three times faster.
From that understanding, I can conclude that if I was damaged one year into the program, I would have been three years old at that point. Since then, the other units have aged eleven years. Divide that by three, and it gives you three, almost four years. Add that to my first three years, and it makes me six years old.
Also, if the other units are fourteen, that means they will reach fifteen, combat age, within the next four months. So that also gives me a better idea of how much longer it will be before we go into combat.
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Now that I am able to move around again, I continue to go outside. I have learned to be careful about traveling though. Running all the way from the river when I hear the whistle is too much for my body. Still, I now realize that my understanding of distance was very skewed. Because of the size of the place I live, I had thought the new place I made it to on my own was a long distance away. It was more than five times the distance from one end of our living space to the other after all.
However, it would seem that idea was flawed. When I look around at the other buildings around us, I can see that while taller, they are even smaller across than the building I live in. So it's not that the paths between places are large, but the living spaces are small. People must live in all of these buildings. They're all packed tightly together, so with the number of buildings I saw, they must be pretty small with many people living in each of them. And the more buildings you add, the larger the space they cover, and the larger the town gets. It's easy to understand when I think about it like that.
I just never thought about it before.
The more I go outside, the more things I find that I have never thought to think about. On my first day wandering outside, I see people emptying their chamber pots out of their windows. I have never seen anyone empty the one where I live, so they must always do it at some point in the night when I sleep. A few days later, I come across an area with many more people crowded together. There are tiny buildings set up, but they are missing the walls so you can see right into them. They all have people standing inside, a counter in front of them, piled up with various things I don't recognize. A ton of people walk around, taking things from the counters. It seems that they give something back to the people inside, but I can't really tell what. Other people have bigger things, like some colorful objects, which they seem to exchange for the things off the counters.
So people exchange things. I can only vaguely understand the concept after seeing it, but some part of my mind wants to say that it makes sense. I'm still missing the big picture though. I also see people eating and drinking things. So they need food and water too. I have never seen the handlers eat or drink anything though. They go into and out of buildings, and here and there, I see them pull up buckets from big stone circles. When I draw close to see, the person at the circle runs away, spilling the bucket all over the ground. It looks like it had water in it. I still can't grasp the difference between water and soup, I should try to figure it out at some point.
It seems like people use water for all sorts of things though. Washing clothes, carrying it into buildings, or just drinking it. There are always people around the stone circles. One day, I climb up the side of one and look down inside. It goes down a really long way, and it's really, really dark inside. All the way down at the bottom, it kind of looks like there's a small shine. Since people pull water out of here, it must be water down at the bottom.
"Hey, be careful around the well!" a woman grabs me off of the stone ring. A well? I guess that's what they are called. She drops me and I turn to land back on my feet. I look up at her, not quite understanding her warning. It takes a moment to figure out. If someone fell in there, it would be very difficult to get out again. Wait, isn't this when I say that thing I see people say to each other?
"Thank you." People always seem to say that when other people do something for them. She opens her mouth as if to say something back, but then gets that look like everyone else and runs away.
That is the biggest mystery I haven't figured out yet. All of the people avoid me. Whatever it is that sends them away though, they do not seem to notice it at a glance. It isn't until they look more closely at me that they avoid me. I have thought over the possibilities a few times, but haven't been able to come up with a definite answer. The first thing that came to mind were my clothes. Those children told me they were very dirty, so that could be a possibility, but it seems very unlikely. My robe is something that anyone should be able to see at a glance. They shouldn't need to look at me closely for that.
There is the possibility that they avoid me because I'm not a person, but I don't understand how they would be able to tell. As far as I know, rail units look just like people do, so it shouldn't be something they can see. At least...
Wait, the biggest difference I've seen between them and us is that we don't communicate with our faces. Does that mean if I practice to move my face right, the people won't avoid me as much? Maybe then I will actually be able to talk to them and ask them questions about things. I would really like to find more children to talk to, since those children from before were the only ones who didn't avoid me. But since then, I haven't been able to spot any, except from a distance or with adults that drag them away if I get close.
So for now, I practice the faces I understand. Surprise and Smile. I don't know if this will help, but it's worth a try. For days, I work on wiggling my mouth up and down, the muscle movements becoming easier by the day. I keep mimicking the faces I see people make, even if I don't really understand what they mean yet. It isn't too long before I'm able to more or less make the faces I want. Now I just need to learn about these feelings, but I don't have much opportunity to do that. It's hard to explain how things feel, and I don't have anyone who can translate my vague explanations into good, certain answers. I do try to ask the handlers at one point, but they don't understand the question and shoo me away. But when they do, I can understand the expression they try to suppress now. Annoyance. It's like, when someone does something that you do not like. It's different from sadness though. I don't know exactly what it feels like because nothing has annoyed me before, but it is a pretty common one to see the people do, especially at those places where people exchange things, so it isn't too difficult to recognize.
The other big one I figure out is anger. People seem to get angry at each other all the time. The face they make is pretty distinctive too, it seems to be all about the eyebrows, the way they draw all the way in and go down near the eyes.
Then I feel rain for the first time. They taught us about rain, it makes the battlefield slippery and muddy, slowing movement. It reduces the effectiveness of fire and stops things from burning. We saw it through the windows sometimes, but this is the first time it has rained when I've been outside to feel it for myself. It falls from the sky, hitting the ground and making loud splashing sounds all around. When I catch some in my hand, it's clear and looks somewhat like soup, or water. It is really wet too, I'm not outside for very long before I feel as wet from the rain as I did from the river. As I continue to walk around, I notice that there are hardly any people around. Is it because of the rain or something else, I wonder? With the people gone, I continue walking and exploring.
I make sure to keep my exploration inside the city as the days pass, so I will be able to make it back whenever the whistle goes off without hurting myself. I quickly begin to notice a pattern though. From somewhere far off in the city, loud ringing sounds come from time to time. It doesn't take long to realize that they ring at pretty regular intervals. It does take some work trying to count from one day to the next, but they seem to ring twelve times each day. The first couple times before the sun comes up over the tall buildings, and the last few after the sun sinks below them on the other side again. The sixth rings when the sun is up in the middle of the sky.
Of course, it is clear that the whistle goes off in similar intervals every day when compared to those sounds. I learn quickly that the breakfast whistle is near the second one, and the lunch whistle near the seventh. They are so close together that as soon as I hear the ringing, I can wait briefly, maybe count to three, then as expected, the whistle will sound. The sparring whistle is about the same time as the final, twelfth ring. I don't go out after dark though, since I always get knocked out sparring. But it doesn't seem that there are any more rings until the sun starts coming up the next day.
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My exploring takes me all over the area around the place we live. Every day is filled with new discoveries. I listen to people talk, watch them move, how they act. I hear so many new words. All sorts of words I don't understand, that they never taught us, but most of them I can't figure out just by listening to people use them. There are some I do eventually understand though, like 'bells'. Those are the ringing sounds I've been hearing, bells. I continue to pick up others too, learning the names of all the things around me. Like 'street', 'road', 'alley', the words to describe all of the paths that go between buildings, with different words for each type. And others like, 'market', 'stall', and 'house', that are all about telling what types those buildings are. There are a bunch of others too. It takes days and days of time and a lot of listening to people talk, trying to figure out what they might be talking about and attempting to understand their words from context. Piecing it all together one bit at a time. Unfortunately, there are far more words that I can't make any sense of than the ones I can figure out. And some others like 'extrenius', 'cougher', 'incidentle', and a bunch of other similarly long words that are hard to understand.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
But the words I pay the most attention to are the feeling words. Whenever a person says, 'I feel,' I focus on whatever word they use to say what they feel, slowly picking up new words and understanding of different feelings. Happy, sad, confused, worried, angry, there are so many different words for different feelings. I try to match the faces with the words, the words with the feelings. There isn't much to go on, I need to put together tiny bits and pieces of all the conversations I listen to over a whole lot of days to eventually form an understanding. It would be so much easier if I could just talk to the people, but day after day, they continue to avoid me. So I keep up exploring, listening, and learning.
It still rains sometimes, though it's hard to tell if it's a lot or a little. On the days when a whole lot of rain comes down, I hardly see anyone outside while exploring. But when it's only a little rain, more people come out. I don't really know what the difference is though, or why some people seem to avoid rain. It's also strange, there is a whole lot of rain for a while, coming every few days. But then it seems to stop after a while, only raining once in a while instead.
I don't know how long passes like this, at least fifty days, by my guess. I keep learning. People trading things at the market, transporting various things inside big wooden tools they drag behind them. Washing clothes at the wells, eating food, throwing out broken looking objects in the street. Interacting with each other in all sorts of ways, from bowing, arguing, laughing, or hitting each other. I see them get hurt, it seems they have red blood too. It hardly rains in town now, but I see lots of clouds and hear the sounds of far off rain sometimes, with bright, surprising streaks of light from the sky that I hear the people call lightning. There's even a day when a whole bunch of people in metal armor walk into the city. I see them walk down the big road not far from my home, down toward the far reaches of town I haven't explored yet. It's still somewhat difficult to understand their expressions, but I think the people in town don't like them that much. Though some seem grateful.
The days all pass by so fast. I have familiarized myself with a good bit of the surrounding area. Once I hear mention of the directions North, South, East, and West, I'm able to use the sun, which I hear rises in the east and sets in the west, and get a good mental map of this area of town. From where I live, the river is to the east, the East Gate near it. There are streets that crisscross at relatively regular intervals, and a few larger open areas spread around, usually with good size wells to use. There are way too many tiny alleyways between buildings to explore them all, but I get a good idea of a lot of them at least. And I haven't traveled much to the west, but the criss crossing streets seem to be similar to those to the east. When I look south, it seems that most of the city stretches in that direction. The bells seem to ring from somewhere that way. To the north however, it's not that far to the nearest wall. In fact, if I go west, there is a wide main road which leads straight up out the large northern gate. That street seems to be made with somewhat smoother stones, so it is easier to walk on when I do go over to it. I usually try to stay away from there, or keep my head down, since there are so many more people on the big main road, I don't want them all to see me and run. Once I head south for a bit, I find another similar big road. This one goes east to west, straight across the city between the other two gates I've seen.
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Today, I'm wandering near that main road near the North Gate when I see something new. A man is walking down the street with a large, flat looking tool. He is also tied to a large, heavy thing that trails behind him. I think they're called... carts. I usually only see them on the big main roads though, being dragged by people or big animals. There are too many people there, so I've only gotten to look at them from a distance before. I move behind the man quietly to examine the cart as he walks and find that it kind of rolls along with him on round... things. The other carts had these too, I remember. Now that I'm getting a closer look, they're attached to the cart with a thick piece of wood that seems to turn slowly with the round things as the cart rolls. It looks like rolling makes it move much more easily than if he tried to drag something so large and heavy.
As the man walks, he uses the large tool to push the chamber pot waste on the ground near the edges of the road. Eventually, he stops, pulls out a shovel like I've seen other people in town use, and scoops up the waste, depositing it over his shoulder into a large container that sits atop the wooden cart.
So this is why the roads aren't covered in chamber pot waste. Another thing I hadn't thought to think of. Even if everyone else has run away, I have a good feeling about this one, so I walk up to this person to see if he will answer my new questions.
"What are you doing?" I ask. He turns, and his face changes like people's normally do. He begins to move more quickly, but he doesn't run away. So I should be able to talk to him after all! Excitement, I think that's the word for this feeling! His eyes go to the few other people on the street, but within moments, they have all vanished into doorways and the numerous alleyways nearby. I walk along at his faster pace. He glances at me a few times before answering, trying not to look my way.
"Waste collection."
"How does your cart roll like that?" I ask my next question immediately.
"On wheels." His answers are extremely short. He keeps working while staring straight ahead. Strangely, he is doing what the handlers do, trying to keep his face from moving while he goes. I haven't seen anyone but the handlers do that before.
"Why are you collecting waste?"
"Street cleaning." That answers all of the questions I originally had when looking at him, but I feel like I want to ask more. This is the first adult person to talk and explain things to me! It takes me a few moments to come up with any sort of related questions I can think of.
"What are you going to do with the waste?"
"Sell it."
"What does 'sell' mean?"
"Trade it for money."
"What is money?" This time his brow furrows. Even though he tries not to, he looks nervous. Maybe I can ask him why people won't talk to me? It takes him a moment to answer.
"You use it to buy things."
"What does 'buy' mean?"
"Trading money for things." Oh, that's pretty straightforward. Trade a thing for money, then trade money for a thing. I've seen that there are all sorts of different things, they all seem to have their own specific uses, so it would make sense that people would need to trade for whatever specific thing they need. So that's what trading and exchanging things is about, I can finally wrap my head around it now. So he sells waste, which other people have a use for? Then why does everyone empty their chamber pot out the window if the waste inside is useful?
"What is the waste used for?" He is looking more and more nervous for some reason. I can see beads of sweat forming on his face too. Is he hot?
"Fertilizer."
"What is 'fertilizer'?"
"Helps crops grow."
"What are 'crops'?"
"They provide food." Though the way he speaks hasn't changed, his hands are shaking, and he seems to be sweating a lot now. Maybe he's getting tired because he's working faster than before? Then why does he look so nervous? Maybe it has something to do with why people run away from me? But he didn't run away from me. But then why is he nervous? Ah, I have an idea!
"I understand." I respond, then walk away. I step behind his cart, using it for cover so he won't be able to see me. From my hiding spot, I can see most of his body though. He turns repeatedly in place to look around once I have left his line of sight.
He folds over, hands on his knees, panting heavily. I peek out just a bit, and see that he has a relieved look I don't see people make that one all that much. So I made him that nervous? He continues to breath heavily for a little while. It looks like he is becoming more calm. In that case... I walk back out from behind the cart. When he hears my footsteps, his face snaps to me, his expression seeming to freeze. It twitches, kind of looking like how people usually look at me, but also shows surprise. I'm getting pretty good at recognizing these things. His body jolts a little, but it just causes the cart to roll a little.
My eyes move to the rope firmly tying him to the big wooden handle of the cart. I suddenly understand, he can't move quickly because even with wheels, the cart is still really heavy and hard to move. He didn't run away because he can't run away. So instead of running away from me, he got really nervous. I can finally understand that, but not why I make people so nervous that they run away from me.
"Why do I make you nervous?" I ask. Maybe he'll be able to explain so I understand. Unexpectedly, he opens and closes his mouth a number of times. He begins to form a word, but stops. Why isn't he answering me now? Is he too nervous to even answer? His eyes start to get shiny, and I can see tears forming in the corners. He's crying? Is he sad? I thought he was nervous. Maybe he's crying because he's so nervous? I still remember doing that before myself. But that can't be it, his face has too many mixed up emotions, I'm having a hard time following. I can't understand if he doesn't say anything. His next words are unexpected.
"I'm not nervous." His voice is shaking, his eyes are shaking, his whole body is shaking. I may be new at this, but I can recognize nervousness well enough that I know that isn't true. Wait, is this lying? I've heard a few people mention it before, saying that other people are lying.
"So that's a lie..." I say. But why? Since I've never seen it before, I don't really understand why people lie. "Why are you lying?"
His face drops a little. Is that... resignation? I usually only see children do that when they're arguing with adults. A few tears leak from his eyes.
"I don't want to die." Oh? Now it's my turn to be surprised. That was the question I was asking earlier on, but couldn't get any answer to. Dying, the thing that invokes some emotion that I still haven't been able to wrap my head around.
"Why do you not want to die?" I ask. My heart beats faster in anticipation.
"Because dying is... terrifying..."
"Ahh..." I breath out the reply. It's not nervousness. It's terror. So that's what people feel when they look at me. And it's the same emotion invoked by the thought of death? Even me, and maybe even the other rail units feel that when confronted with death it seems.
I consider this new information for a few long moments. I finally understand why people run. Terror. Being afraid of something. Because they think it will lead to death. Wait, my mind grinds to a halt as I trip over some thoughts that hadn't registered fully. I'm afraid of dying, most likely in battle. It's a terrible feeling that I haven't been able to place an exact meaning on up to this point. I make the people who see me feel like that? That awful feeling, just from looking at me?
"Dying... it makes you terrified, but also nervous and sad, right?"
"Yes." Staring at me with empty eyes, he answers simply. Looking at me like that right now, all he is feeling are terrible, painful emotions. I feel my insides tighten up at the thought. This feeling. Sorrow, regret, pain. I feel bad for making him feel bad. I can't say I understand it yet, but it happens so automatically it's kind of scary all on its own. Is there any way I can make this person feel better? I know, I've seen people apologize for things when they do something wrong or make someone angry. I try to use the most sincere looking apology I can remember seeing.
"I understand now. I am very sorry. I apologize for scaring you and making you worry about dying." I bow down deeply. I think I've seen some people do this before? I hold like that for a few moments. Oh, there's one other thing that might help, and I think I can do it now. I stand back up and try to smile. I've been practicing a lot, so I think I have the face movements right, but I'm not entirely sure. "Thank you for answering my questions." The man looks shocked, but also kind of relieved.
Before I do anything else to scare him, I dash back down the street. I continue for a little ways, making sure I go onto another street before stopping again. It looks like I've learned a lot today. People are scared of me. They are scared because they think they will die. But why do they think that? Ahh, I should have asked that! It's too late now, but I can at least guess. The most obvious answer is that we are weapons. But we're weapons for protecting the people, so I don't really understand why they would think that. In fact, early in our training, it was impressed on us very strongly that if we ever see a person in danger from our enemies, we must place ourselves between them and the danger, even at the cost of our lives. People's lives are far more valuable than ours, so we have to protect them in any way we can.
So that still leaves the question, if we're here to protect them, why are they afraid of us? Unless I'm generalizing too much, it could be that they are afraid of me specifically... No, that doesn't seem right either. There is no reason I would be dangerous simply because I'm myself. I'm too small and weak to be dangerous. It's only that I'm a weapon that makes me dangerous. So it must be because I'm a rail unit, after all... right?
I'm simply not able to be sure about my reasoning. So the next day, I ask unit 5J to come with me. I ask it to stand near a well. Sure enough, the people nearby soon notice and the whole area is empty in moments. That confirms my suspicion they must be afraid of all rail units, not just me. Maybe I'll be able to find another person who can explain the reasoning to me at some point. But... now it makes me feel bad when I scare people by approaching them. I don't want to scare them, so that makes it really hard to talk to them now, even though I really want to...