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Enny sat at a small booth in the back of a dusty, open-mouthed diner. She sat alone, accompanied by a small drink balanced precariously on a wobbly plastic table. Her arms and legs were tightly crossed, her eyes staring without focus at her surroundings. The seats were old faux leather, lashed together from pieces of recycled clothing, and the banter of the other patrons was sparse and mumbled. There were not many of them, but it was a large enough group to induce the feeling of social anxiety. Dry wind crawled through the concrete space, accompanied by a hot, angled glare from the late day sun streaming in from the streets outside. She watched pedestrians wander past the garage-like front entrance of the diner, a dull line of humanoid shapes silhouetted against the rusted backdrop of the ramshackle iron buildings outside.
Dust was kicked up by a sudden gust of wind and sent spiraling into the air, and Enny watched with fascination as the patrons quickly covered the rims of their drinks with their plastic hands. It was a strange behavior to her, simply because the reflex was very human. In a way, it did not surprise her, as it was likely a natural impulse to protect food like that, but what bothered her in the moment was that these cyborgs did not look natural at all.
Their faces were covered by large photographic lenses, blinking lights framed parts of what could be called a jaw. Wires were exposed within the uncovered interiors of their necks and she would watch as one person picked and fiddled with theirs, not unlike the motion of scratching an itch on the skin. Their exterior shells were a variety of plastics, some dark grey, like industrial computer casing, or a light beige, often stained. Layered overtop their strange form was always some type of disheveled, raggedy clothing, some of it better cleaned than others. They had been hand-sewn, with frayed yarn hanging off of the ends of the longer pieces that had trailed along the rocky ground.
Occasionally they would have patterns, geometric shapes resembling the decorations of any number of long forgotten cultures. The cyborgs moved like machines, though large parts of their bodies were supposedly organic. They would stutter and shake like broken animatronics, and this had gone unnoticed as common body language among the majority of them.
It bothered her, though, because to Enny it felt as if they were attempting to be imitations of humanity. They worked their jobs, they socialized with each other... they ate something that resembled food. It was as though they were pretending the world was as it had been before, in the early century, or the twenty-first, when many of them, including herself, had originally been born. They went through the motions of a society, operating on memories of what their lives had been, but it was not genuine.
Sure they had money, and they had little boxes of welded iron they lived in. Those boxes had doors on them, and those doors could lock. Was any of it real? To her, no. It was a crumbling landscape of ruins that post-human society crawled through like ants looking for sugar. Only the diner and a handful of other small businesses were true signs of civilization, but even those felt vestigial to her. They were imitations of a dead era. Nothing in this settlement felt alive.
There was nothing here, really, although a community did seem to have sprung up in the area despite this. Cyborgs were generous with each other, though not everything was affordable. Some of those boxes cost a hefty sum. Why did they bother charging for this crap? she wondered. There was nothing to gain or lose from being hospitable to anyone, because there really was nothing. Cyborgs, she noted, were a penny-pinching species, despite this era offering every incentive for them not to be. The behavior felt to her very ignorant, and mechanical, because she knew it was. She knew they behaved this way out of muscle memory. It drove her nuts to think about, because it was very difficult in her mind to tell whether an individual cyborg was really operating with a functioning consciousness, or if it was programmed behavior that had been left behind when the augmentations had finally rotted away what remained of their mind...
The bile rose slightly in her throat again, and she uncrossed an arm to satiate it with a reluctant sip of the drink. She didn't really know what it was she had ordered... It could have been filtered water, but it also could have been lead. She hadn't been paying attention when the waiter was listing out options. Her body wouldn't really care either way, she knew, as only a small minority of her parts actually cared what she fed them. Her body was almost completely artificial, as many cyborgs were, and was mostly reliant on things like electricity and repairs to maintain operation. Physical flesh was usually reserved for facial features or internal organs, as it was highly valued and touted like jewelry. Her face and eyes were that of three-dimensional printed, pale soft squishy flesh, though her teeth and lower jaw, as well as the rest of her head, was mostly a deep grey silicon. This material and her organically printed skin felt very similar to the touch, as the silicon was just as soft and warm, though much smoother. Her small amount of flesh was difficult to care for, but consuming a minimal amount of water and nutrition every several dozen days or so would keep the skin from rotting, and the eyes from drying up.
Enny also had various internal organs that were mock-flesh, such as her digestive system (a part of the body which was notoriously very difficult to replicate in a mechanical form) and her heart, though both were much stronger and more resilient than that of a typical unaugmented human. Things like a natural heartbeat, natural eye contact, a natural gut... they offered her something of a dysphoria quick-fix, which was helpful for when she'd had moments of personal crisis. Any drawbacks, such as the bile, the difficulty in maintenance, and so on, were a small price to pay for feeling at home in an artificial body.
Her face in particular was obscured by a long, black visor that surrounded the front of her upper head, with thick glass tinted as such that gauging her expression and appearance through the dome was particularly difficult. A soft glow of green light from her irises were all that permeated the visor, usually either darting around sporadically like that of a frightened animal or locked motionlessly on nothing for several minutes at a time. It was visually similar to the iconic geometric super soldiers of the military generation before hers, with their unfeeling, sharp red eyes having been one of their more prominent and menacing features.
Enevelen did not look as dirty or as stained by the regular barrage of wind-blown sand as most others in the town. Her various pieces and overall anatomical base were from a much, much older era of than that of rival hunters in her skill level, and were not as afflicted by the roaring dirt and dust of the desert due to their quality. Her augmentations were not perfect though, as they had had to be repeatedly outfitted with modern additions so that they could interface effectively with current-day machinery. Her body had often made her self-conscious, and being "outdated" had been a thought she did not enjoy dwelling on. Her titanium exoskeleton, or at least the minority of portions that hadn't been scratched or picked at, was very clean, and in very good care. She had always been keen to take regular sand bathes, and spend any free afternoon she could find undertaking a quick chassis self-polishing.
The rubber seam along her forearm had finally slid back into place, albeit cracked and frayed, after having poured a small amount of her drink onto it for lubrication. She was still just as stressed by the seam as when it had bunched however, dwelling on the realization that such a physical dysfunction, though a minor one, had occurred at all. She found herself thinking about what physical movement of her arm would even encourage it to happen, and perhaps if it was a behavior she could possibly curb, to prevent it from bothering her in the future... A local mechanic, worst case, might be able to replace or force it down to prevent it from popping back out again with a sealant of some kind-
"Enny."
Behind her, a familiar voice caught Enevelen off-guard. She flinched slightly in fear, but the momentary panic did not cause her to emote enough to betray her cool exterior. Standing there was her friend, Chlorophi, their globed head poking out from behind the booth. Their thin, iron hands gripped the rim of the leather seat tightly as the plant's translucent globular head loomed over her.
"Oh, hello," she replied, having never been very good at formal greetings.
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Chlorophi helped themselves to a chair perpendicular to hers, setting their own drink down next to Enevelen's on the small table. The uncovered glass spilt slightly onto the plastic from the uneven wobble of the table, which caused Chlo to pull a thin rag from their satchel. They retrieved the spill quickly, their attention momentarily sidetracked by the incident.
"Ah! Heh, I'm a klutz aren't I? What is it with little humanoid diners and bars and their stupid wobbly one-legged tables... I guess it's part of the look-feel of the place, or whatever... huh? Hehe! Say, you seem tense Enny, did the job go okay? Looks like you've barely touched your drink."
Enny, limbs still twisted in an introverted pretzel, eyes and body leaning away from the table and towards the entrance, replied with a sigh, shaking her head.
"That bad huh, well, that's alright. It's not like you're in any danger of going broke yet, you've got enough in the bank from what you've told me to keep you stable and comfy for a long while-"
"No, no, it went fine. No issues," Enny interjected. "I shot, he died, no surprises."
Chlorophi nodded excitedly. "That's great! I was really worried for a second there, heh. I know how you get when you screw up a job-"
They were not much taller than Enevelen, though they had a more rigid sitting posture than she did. Chlorophi's head was a clear plastic globe sitting atop a tangle of beige poncho and burlap straps, the garment hanging down around their body like curtains. These would be pulled back when they sat or raised their arms. Within the globe sat a small, green tomato plant, nestled in a patch of dirt and grass. It was like a little terrarium housed within a translucent beach ball. Below the scarf of the poncho, the globe was connected by several layers of impressive sensors, wires, and electrical devices, to a cheap, frame-like iron android body. It was not too different from the exposing plastic shells of most civilian cyborgs, though the pieces of it looked simple and sloppily welded together, as if it had been built from a box set. Their movement was stiff and obvious compared to the natural-looking movements of Enny's body, and it was easy to notice a difference in origin between the two just from watching them gesture with each other. Chlo's body operated much like a vehicle for the creature perched atop it to move around and interact with the world just as the cyborgs did.
"-generally typical of bounty hunters, they're always really snobby about their work to the extent that they sulk for hooours when they screw something up. Like they get all evasive, grumpy, and then instead of actually trying to right the mistake, they just complain and get bitter, y'know. From my observations of cyborgs like, neurotic behavior is pretty common overall but I don't know if that increases with more automation in the brain or if that's just how they were before all the prosthetics started happening, like..."
Enny continued to sit quietly, staring out at the street. Chlo's hands, raised in the air like a referee mimicking a field goal, sank into the chair, anxiously sipping their drink through a straw protruding from the electronics below their scarf. Behind their poncho the liquids collected in a translucent sack in their chest, presumably to be processed and redistributed to the roots of their piloting plant body.
"I mean, sorry, I'm glad it went well. Anyway."
"What was that part about neurotic behavior?" Enny mumbled, stifling a chuckle. Her head was still turned away from the conversation, though the green glow from within her dim visor side-eyed Chlorophi with a look of dismissal.
The plant shifted uncomfortably in their chair.
"I've been picking at old archived films from the twenty-first century, which I think you were alive for...? It's really funny. A lot of the movies are like superhero flicks, like big cross-over stuff too, but like, all the other movies are advertised the same way, all big action and flashy imagery, fast cuts and blaring music..."
Enny moved towards the table, grabbing at her drink. "Well, moreso my parents, but I remember that too, yeah."
"That's honestly crazy when you think about it, but yeah, it was just really blockbuster-y all the time during that decade, y'know? It was all really similar and especially the advertising because everything had to be IN YOUR FACE and WHAM and... y'know it's all just a little bit overwhelming? Like no wonder you all had anxiety disorders and stuff like, it's soooo much. Way too much. Specifically America y'know, it's literally all action flicks and stuff and then other countries well, I don't actually know about other countries but you can guess that its like either they were imitating you guys, who had the biggest film industry on the planet or whatever, back when film was more prominent and commercial, and then the rest of the world that was trying to either challenge or imitate you, y'know, the American audience.... just this big, impenetrable market of comic book fans and property enthusiasts-"
Enny took a long sip of her drink, before lightly plopping it down on the wobbly table. She debated ordering some fries or something.
"- and these movies were like EVENTS you know? A lot like before the whole anti-trust thing in the 1940's or whatever, right, because like as a historical anthropologist as decreed by my.. erm.. I guess you'd call them a "patch?" like 'elders' basically, though I know you cyborgs don't really care too much about plant culture and stuff uhh... but yea, as a human studier, I'm really invested in world events from the human-dominant era and all that... and those big superhero movies were like... did you see it? Did you see it? Oh yeah, I've seen like half of them but not the one with the female superhero lead, but I want to watch it... Y'know that's like a whole thing that everyone did and went to, y'know? I'm actually really curious which ones you saw, Enny."
"...What?" Enny glanced back towards Chlo, having been staring out into the street.
"Like did you miss any big movies from that era? That you wanted to see?"
Enny sat, staring at them now. "I like... that was more my parent's era sounds like and, um... I was in the military starting in my teens and didn't really spend time watching stuff ever, so I guess I kinda missed all of them...?"
Chlo sat with their legs spread wide across the leather seats, leaning in over the table while continually sipping their drink. They hadn't once stopped sipping their drink the entire time they had been talking, and Enny had noticed this, realizing that both Chlo spoke and drank from independently-operating mechanisms and that the straw had very weak suction power. What were they talking about again?
"Yeah I uh. Yeah. I guess not really a movie person. Last one I saw in theaters was.... eughh... probably the one with the blue cat people in the space jungle...? I watched it with some other soldiers during the wars. It was like a really old one I think."
"Oh yeah, I think all the humans saw that one. It was like a big gimmick release with three-dimensional glasses that made the movies, like, POP out at you and stuff. That was before it was like, just built into the footage like now, y'know. Stuff was (laughs) nooot very advanced back then. Y'know. Enny, did you ever have a smart phone-"
Enny was distracted briefly by a buzzing fly. She wondered briefly how many bugs still existed in the wild. If anything had survived rampant desertification, she thought, it was likely these things. You could never get rid of them.
"-but yeah, I don't remember if I told you about Steve Jobs."
"You did."
Chlo lifted their poncho slightly to retrieve something from their brown, dirtied satchel. Enny caught a glimpse of the juice bag within their chest, which was full almost to the point of bursting. It seemed to her like a poor design choice for her friend's body to only allow one drink's worth of fluids before their android stomach would likely blow a leak. While Chlo had been chatting, a waiter, a tall brown cyborg, wandered over with a pitcher of ice and the drink they'd been sharing. He smiled at Enny, before leaning over to pour a refill into Chlo's empty glass.
"Oh, don't-" Enny's hand quickly covered the top of her friend's cup, and the waiter relented, causing a slight dribble on the table. Enny looked up, feeling somewhat embarrassed by her sudden reflex. The waiter looked down at her in surprise.
"Sorry," she mumbled, retrieving her hand.
Chlo starred at her in confusion, before looking up to the waiter. The plant gave an excited thumbs-up. "No worries my guy, pour away!"
He did so, and Enevelen watched in silence as the waiter stepped away from the table, having filled the glass to the brim with the unknown liquid. He bowed silently to the both of them, to which Chlo responded in kind, before stepping away to attend other duties. They excitedly retrieved their drink from the table, and began sipping on it almost immediately. She watched through her fingers as the bag within their chest began to rumble and expand past its limit, to which Chlorophi seemed oblivious.
"Tech giants were a huge deal back in the day, if I understand correctly. They had a huge influence on the culture of your country, is that correct? I'm under the impression that even in your youth, humans were mostly incapable of surviving without a dependence on personal computers-"
While they talked, the juice bag popped with a loud PAP, and the liquid began to dribble down into the plant's mechanisms like a spilled bowl of tomato soup. Enny jumped at the sound, and during the conversation had unconsciously curled her body into something resembling a fetal position, her legs tucked into the seat and her chest curled away from the situation. She sat and starred in horror as Chlorophi lifted their arms in disgust and stared down at the puddle she had created on the floor below them. The waiter arrived soon after having heard the noise and seeing the spill, brandishing a small hand towel, which he quickly took to work on the mess.
"Aw, fuck. I'm sorry. That was irresponsible of me," Chlo mumbled in embarrassment. "I guess you were trying to save me, huh?"
Enevelen stared on in absolute terror, unmoving, her strange artificial body in this state looking not too dissimilar to the frightened and agonized form of a Pompeian mummy.