Savan paced his walk, having a bit of trouble staying straight on their feet and a wooden expression. The cold floor of the clinic’s hallway should have jolted them a bit out of the moment, but Savan couldn’t feel the ground under their bare-feet, or anything.

When they saw them, Angie and Marc rushed to them, checking how they felt, and if the operation was a success, and Savan forced a gentle smile to assure them that everything was ok while dragging their weight In another direction. When Vivar was close enough, Savan embraced his metal shell in an exhausted fall. A few moments later, their skin felt itchiness, then the chilliness of the armor, the small vibration and sounds the insides of the C.T.D made. “That must be how my insides sound like as well”, thought the clopy.

Their waist was no longer albino or warm and soft to the touch, but silver and glittering, cold and hard when pressed on. And it made them happy:

-” I did, I actually took the first step”, Savan tried to say, but words kept on being swallowed by tears of joy. Vivar stayed quiet and let his partner come to terms with their new condition at their own pace. He patted them on the head a bit, as a sign of proudness, as some saw it.

-----

After both Angie and Marc returned from the operation room, they noticed that both Savan and Syna dozed off and that the C.T.Ds had some sort of discussion in a coded language. The two might just as well take a break.

Angie -“ Fancy a drink, Marchos?”, she asked, intentionally mispronouncing every letter. The boy rolled his eyes at it, but he nodded in agreement.

Marc -“ You can still drink, right?” He followed up without receiving a real answer, as the miner was already on the hunt for the staff break room. Once there, they almost slid off their chairs with how relaxed it felt doing nothing. After a few sips, Angie was the first to talk.

Angie-” You seem a little bit different...relaxed, maybe?”

Marc -” Innn what sense?”

Angie -” I don’t know. I guess when we first met at the elevator, you appeared uninterested in other people, but you are a bit…more sure of yourself?”, said the girl, shrugging her shoulders.

He didn’t expect their unwind to be so heavy from the start, but at least he knew that his hunch was correct...as always... Angie wanted to goad him for something. “ As they always end up to. Father’s teachings are still applicable, after all”, he thought to himself, but that train was halted a bit with her next line.

Angie -” Sorry, sorry, I sounded like a dick there. Years underground with a bunch of miners does that, unfortunately. I meant confident.”, she said, waving her hands to mean no disrespect.

It was the second time someone pointed that out about him. Wasn't he always confident in how he portrayed himself? At home, he multiple times heard the phrase-" courageous young boy" thrown at him.

Marc -” Hmm, well, to be honest, I’m more comfortable with people with whom I interact for a longer time, in small doses. Savan doesn’t seem to remember me, but I was a frequent customer of the office they worked at through my family business. And since I’m the youngest and still in training for the business line, I was usually sent to pick up any commissions. And Azin is actually owned by the family, so I kinda grew up with her.” He felt like he said enough to at least satisfy whatever curiosity she had.

Angie -” Wait, really? Huh, so the little clopy still has some of those C.E.’s drawbacks. I was thinking about it, but Savan is still a bit childish, right? Or am I imagining it?”

Marc -” Yeah, I think so as well, but remember that C…clopies are created to do jobs. They skip the childhood part, however small that is. And whatever program they used to pattern their minds when they were made, can be outgrown. Or so I heard from my father”.

Angie let out a small laugh and cheered at that. The two continued to talk a little more about their families, by comparing the pros and cons of being born into one and living with a family formed by circumstance. All the little embarrassments each put them through, all the funny stories they had together, and all the hardships they had to endure as well.

-“ Forced enhancement drugs”, mentioned the girl at some point. “It’s cheaper if they use those on us. A cave-in might kill the workers, but imagine that, plus buried augments? Such a waste of resources would terrify the management. The drugs do make our bodies incredibly powerful, but the downside, the side-effect is rapid organ atrophy.”

Marc almost slammed his drink down, taken back, especially by how nonchalantly she let him know that she was basically dying.

-“ Who, who, calm down”, Angie said after realizing how shocked he looked. “I’m fine now, especially after the operation was a success, ok? That’s actually one of the reasons why I’m participating, to replace anything damaged”.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

-” Oh”, he blurted after calming down a bit. “ Well, that’s good to know I guess. Did you tell the others about it?”

-” Nope, only me, you, my sponsor, and some doctors know”. Angie tried to take another sip but was stopped by a nod of guilt in her stomach. “I’m sorry if you think I dropped it on you. The thing is, Savan wouldn’t understand that well, and Syna was, is, well, let’s say we were forced somehow to work together. I just..wanted to tell someone, ok?”

Marc only nodded and then stirred his cup for a while, before he did the same with the conversion.

Marc -” Yeah, I was a bit surprised when I saw the two of you talking so casually. As mentioned, my family works as contracted hires for more, well, secret tasks…”

Angie -” Yap, ninja corp”, she replied, with a smirking glint in her eyes.

Marc -” I’m more surprised that you know what those are. Anyway, we worked on a job with her, when she was a White-Hat hacker, two years ago. A bit of a firecracker to my liking, especially on the job, but she seemed like a good person. She could relax, though, from time to time.”

Angie -” Eh, she’s not so bad, but I can see what you mean. A bit of an overachiever in my opinion, but thanks to her I learned something new about the competition.”

Marc -” Really? I’m guessing that’s about the C.T.D, right?”, to which he easily got his response from her reaction. “ Azin, remember? Yeah, I knew for some time what they truly are, but unfortunately, that’s just another regulation of this world.”

Angie -” Why did you enter then, if you knew of the risk? You don’t seem that worried about it, though. How do you know that in the end, you won’t also become a C.T.D. as well?”

The boy took a few seconds to respond, but after pondering on it for a bit, he figured it wouldn’t be much of an issue to tell her.

Marc -“ So, there are ways to circumvent the regulations. Either you remain the only survivor, take the first place, or are not a real participant. In my case, I’m here actually on a job, I only have to pretend to be a player.”

Remembering her talk with Priya, Angie was a bit surprised by how easy he believed in those loopholes. ”So he also thinks that the winners don’t become C.T.D’s, huh”, she thought. “A bit trusting, aren’t we? Well, yeah, I guess that’s how that works. It’s gonna be such a shit show when just the four of us are left”.

Marc -” It’s fine, I planned to speak with my family and keep you and Savan out of the process. By the sixth round, you will become mostly cybernetic, except for the head…or brain. After which you two can let Syna win, while my father works out a deal with the CEOs. And don’t worry, he does have a lot of influence with each of them, more costly than a few augmented workers. Until then, I’m keeping my lips sealed about this. And you should also be more careful about the C.T.D secret.”

-” It does sound like a plan”, she mentioned to his face, but- “It probably won’t be as easy as he thinks”. The two then continue to deliberate on the matter, especially if they should tell Savan about this.

Marc -“ I think they, somehow, intuitively know. I mean, they treated Vivar as a person from the start, so somehow our little clopy guessed the big mystery. So I vote for yes”.

While not entirely convinced, Marc agreed with Angie for now.

—-

Later, hidden from obfuscated snoopy eyes with the help of the C.T.Ds and Syna, they told Savan most of all they knew about their metallic partners. To their mild surprise, Savan didn’t appear shocked or dumbstruck by the revelations; just stayed silent, with their chin on the top of their palm, in a thinking position. A few moments later, though:

Savan -” I see, so I was kinda right then…they are also children of humanity then.”

The group was, unexpectedly, the one left shocked, as they didn’t anticipate that kind of response.

-“ Savan, dear, please, what the fuck are you talking about?” asked Angie in a slow but pleasant tone, which became faster and firmer with each word.

Savan -” Oh, right, my bad, it’s just a little something I came up with long ago. So humans created lots of things, right? Many useful, and other useless, fast-forward until they somehow created types of minds. Even if many see us clopys as objects, I can attest that we do think. And A.I., but those were banned. Robots, on the other hand, are mostly just tools that can be programmed to do tasks. So I always found it weird that C.T.Ds were acting so freely sometimes, you know. And that they had augmentation parts installed that are made for humans.”

It was the first time they saw the clopy trying to explain something they came up with. It was also probably the first, besides imaginary moments in their mind, that they had to put that theory into actual words.

-” Wait, really?”, asked Angie.

Savan -” Well, I guess they use all the fluff to hide it, but Azin’s arms are similar to Brand’s 5 drilling tools. Vivar's legs are actually two types of prosthetics. If I had more time to check each C.T.D., I could probably find more. Except for Ingress, it is the weirdest C.T.D. out of them all, to be honest.”

-” Ha, you don’t even know half of it”, Angie quickly added nervously. She was still not certain that it was wise to reveal her other "companion" to them yet.

-“ So, did the augments do this to them? I mean, if we keep installing new ones, will we also become, well, drones in the end?”, posed Syna.

-” Don’t know, I never heard of any type of technology that can do this, but you can ask Vivar. Unlike the rest of the C.T.D., he is freed from the control method."

All eyes turned toward the knight, who if he still had sweat glands, would have been toiling like a rainstorm by now. He wanted to be mad at Savan for so easily giving away his secret, but somehow he couldn't.

Vivar-” Tsz, damn it”, answered the man with an angry passivity from his speakers. “Well, maybe this will be a blessing in disguise, I hope. And Savan, you out of everyone should be the most aware of the technology capable of suppressing the mind, since you experienced it since you were born. And, by the way, it's already in you. That’s the first thing they install, alongside the adapter.”

Everyone was shocked by the reveal, especially Marc and Syna, who thought that the mind-molding process was done after a patient was eliminated, not a slow one that affected everyone from the start.

Vivar -” Since we came to this, let me properly introduce myself. My name is Diaz Cid, and I became self-aware a few decades ago”.