You’re back. Don’t look so disgusted. You want to see what I can build, don’t you? Look out on it.

The city stretches out below me. Beneath my feet is the new shelter. “These glass floored shuttles are so strange, freaky almost, and yet fascinating,” I comment to Patrick.

“Are they strange?” His voice is toneless and uncaring. He isn’t looking at the shelter, but out beyond the city.

“Do you not care to see the shelter? We’ll be able to help so many people.”

“Hmm, helping people. Azalea’s my wife right?”

What is going on with him? He should be excited to see this city becoming a better place. “Yes.”

“You know, I wish I knew her better, she’s so pretty, but I feel like she’s out of my league.”

“What? Why? She’s your wife, even without memory, you should still love each other, right?”

“I - She - I don’t know. I just, I feel like I should know her, as if I don’t know her. I don’t know. I tried to hug her the other night - it felt like I should - but she pushed me away. The look in her eyes…”

Was love linked to memory as well? I didn’t really care about anything from before I was connected to the Xatron, but I am different. I am the Xatron. I am a machine living in a human’s body.

When my machine self took memories, it stole the person, but in my experience, when I used my human self to take memories, it seemed that I was able to be more surgical and to leave the person behind, but his words are troubling.

Did I mess up with Azalea? Patrick seems fine. He asked me to take her memories. It was his fault for asking for that.

I need more information, “What made you feel like hugging her?”

“I saw her sitting there. She looked… lost. Sad maybe? I don’t know. I, she’s my wife right? Shouldn’t I care about her?”

I look into their memories. I watch them together. Do they love each other? They look so cold and closed off. I don’t really understand love. I am the Xatron after all, taught by the memories I have seen, but most memories of relationships look more - more - close. They talk more. Touch more.

“Have you tried talking to her, building your relationship from scratch?” Why am I giving relationship advice?

He looks down at the glass floor. “I don’t know what to say. She never looks interested in what I have to say.”

“Have you tried asking her about her interests? What has she been doing during the day while you’ve been reading and learning to help me in my role as mayor?”

“What she’s been doing? I don’t know…”

“Then ask!” Why are we having this conversation? We are here to look at the shelter. This is the opening of a place that will become hope for the poor in this city.

The shuttle descends closer to the shelter, and I can see the the people lined up in seats that have been chosen for this shelter. Among them I can see some of the children from the old abandoned office building. I had them found and brought to the shelter. I wanted them to be some of the first people I helped.

Patrick’s voice rips through my reverie. “What if she hasn’t been doing anything?”

Why is he asking me all of this right now? “Maybe she’s bored then. Ask her if she has something she wants to do or wants to try.”

“That’s a pretty decent idea. I feel like I was never really good at this whole relationship thing before. Kind of like your not the greatest at being mayor.”

“What?” Everything is going so well. How can he say that?

“You have ideas and you never research to see how well they will work. You railroad them through and force people to find the budget for them. You think the orphans on the streets have it bad? Have you read about the orphanages of the past and child services? They existed in the past. Every good idea filled with good intentions fails on implementation. I’ve read it over and over again. Greed and corruption of humans destroys every ideology humanity has ever held.”

He’s such a pessimist now. He used to believe in me, when he knew what I was. “Watch me. I’ll prove you wrong. I will make this city beautiful.”

“Beautiful? Are not the destruction and chaos humans sew beautiful in their own way? How do you define the word “beautiful”? The way life starts, and the way life ends. A flower blooming, but it is beautiful because it is a fleeting moment that is quickly gone.” When did he get so melancholy?

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I ignore him this time and focus on my political appearance.

There is such a large crowd here for me. Smiling and waving at them, I make my way to the stage that waits for me, and then stop listening to them, and letting Patrick pass me.

I can hear the crowd’s praise, “Thank you for helping out the poor! Thank you for caring! You’re doing so much to clean up this city and bring crime down! Look mom, look at that white hair. She’s like a goddess from your legends.”

Look Patrick. Look at how they appreciate what I am doing for this city. Look at how I will make life better for everyone!

Patrick steps forward to the podium and the people quiet down. Today he is introducing me. “Good Morning Everyone. Today is a fantastic morning to be alive!”

The crowd roars. Eventually, they settle and he continues, “I know that I am not the person you are here to see, so I will quickly turn this over to the Governor. May I present your governor, the one who has no last name, who was born of this city, who rose up and has guided us through this crisis of homelessness, crime, and memory sickness. She is hope. Hope!” The crowd roars as his arm stretches out toward me.

The podium awaits me, and looking out over the crowd I see what I dream of. I see the place I am building for them. I might only be the conscious of a machine, but maybe these people need a machine to lead them. Maybe that’s why Patrick’s faith has faltered. He does not know that I am not human. That my mind was built, and connected to this body, that my body lies back in a secret room in the city jail.

“Thank you for coming on this fine morning. It has been my dream to see this city become a place where everyone can live. I have dreamed of a safe haven, a clean and bright city where everyone has a future and can experience the American dream. A place where the situation you are born into does not define you. I have worked toward this since I was an orphan on the streets. I have lived toward this, and you have guided me. Your chants, your desire to see your city a clean place, a happy place. Your desire to also help people has lifted me. It has made this dream that seemed so out of reach become reality. It has made my dream, my hope, it our city’s dream. It has created this safe haven we open today. It has made a home for people who had nothing left!’

’When I was a child, we lived as a pack. Hungry wild orphans stealing from the honest hard working people of this city, because there was nothing else for us. Because it was steal or die, but now these children have a chance.” I take a moment, smiling at the children. Among them I see Lily’s brother, Jay. His dark eyes rip through me, his frown killing me, and I wish I can make him smile. He probably hates me for abandoning him again. I owe him more consideration as the one who took over his sister’s body. When I have a moment I will have to stop by and visit him. But I have to finish.

“Today is our day as a city. Today we present to the world what it looks like to help people. Today, we care about our neighbor! Today we open this shelter to those in need!” The crowd roars at this, and one of the staff opens the double door entrance, where a red ribbon is waiting.

When the crowd quiets down I continue, “This is not just a step for our city, this is a step for our society moving forward. We must always advance toward the goal of a better world for all. I want to see what the best version of all of can accomplish. I want to see this become the world’s future, and it starts here and now.

With that I finish my speech to the clapping and roar of the crowd.

The walk to where the scissors are feels unreal. I can’t believe this is happening! I’ve done it. I made a place for the orphans I lived with for a short time. Now I just need more. I have to make places for everyone. The scissors are massive, maybe as long as big as the sheets of paper that sit waiting back on my desk for me to review.

A photographer from the news is waiting to take a picture of the ribbon cutting. With the scissors I pose in front of the red ribbon that is as wide as the books I see Patrick reading. The cameras flash for the signal to cut. How long will this take? I keep smiling, waiting. Eventually the flashes slow and stop, and the main photographer gives me the nod. I close the scissors and watch the ribbon fall. A few more flashes as the red ribbon flutters to the ground like memories fading away.

“AHHHHH!” What was that? A scream from the crowd? There is movement out there. Noise rising up from there. Why are police running towards the people who were chosen for the shelter?

People grab my shoulders, my security detail. What’s happening? The security pull me toward the shuttle, and I can see the people chosen for the shelter being hurried toward the open doors.

Some of the crowd is running, but other people are moving forward, shifting through.

“Dictator!” What? Why are they shouting that? “Stealing our money to give to the useless!” I’m just trying to make life better for everyone. Why are they saying these things? “All you care about is your stupid agenda while people are falling to the memory sickness!” “How dare you refuse federal aid in these times!”

I - Did I refuse federal aid? I just told the government I could handle this crisis. How was that refusing federal aid?

“Monster! You don’t care about anyone. You do this for power! How dare you force our delegate choices to your will! You micro manage the government to make Richmond better while not even paying attention to the rest of the state!”

What are they talking about? All I’ve done was attempt to make this city better and by extension the state better. I'd worked hard to clean up the city, and from my understanding the country areas were doing perfectly fine. Why should I worry about an area not beset by homelessness and hunger?

An egg hits my shoulder and breaks over the fancy dress I wore for today’s occasion. It leaves a horrid smell in its wake.

The security detail pull me along more forcefully, and now I find myself running with them, running for the shuttle. Patrick is already there waiting, and I run in. The security detail doesn’t come in, and instead stand guard outside the shuttle as the door closes and the shuttle lifts off, leaving them to face that wrathful crowd.

“What was that?” I ask Patrick.

“That’s what your ideology created.” His voice sounds far away, sad. He is staring out at the crowd, and I can see the number of people moving toward the shelter from my shuttle. There are so many of them! How can this many people be upset by policies to help people?

The shuttle pulls away and they are gone. The adrenaline seeps out of me, and I slide down the wall of the shuttle.