Wraith No More, Ch2

The trip home was fortunately uneventful. You might say that my once tenuous belief in God was somewhat restored when we weren’t stopped by anyone, and nobody was around to notice me escorting a blood-covered woman from my transport into my apartment. It seemed almost too easy, really, after the heart-pounding trip from the coffee shop, but I wasn’t going to concern myself with that. All that I could concern myself with at that time was not getting caught, and living to see the next day. Actually, I wasn’t even too concerned with seeing the next day, really. Right then, I was just terrified that we might be caught.
Once inside, I hastily showed her to the bathroom, fearing that any delays would be cause for the death she so often threatened. I experienced my first real shock when she then began to undress with me in there as though it were the most natural thing in the world. It didn’t occur to me that a woman who wouldn’t be bothered if she had to kill ten people instead of one might not be bothered by exposing herself in front of a total stranger.
I suppose she had no worries about me trying to take advantage of her. As it was, that was the furthest thought from my mind; her deadly sword was propped within arm’s reach, and even with her arms tangled in the top that seemed to have been wrapped around her, I got the feeling that she could kill me before I even considered doing something. Rather, she probably could have defended against a dozen attackers in that state, as far as that goes.
At any rate, I uttered an excuse and an apology and slipped out of that room as fast as my legs would carry me. When I heard her call from behind me, I turned around without thinking and got an eyeful of toned female without anything to cover her but patches of dried blood.
“Do not forget, if you even think about contacting the authorities, you will be begging me to kill you!”
“I w-w-won’t forget,” I stammered as I spun around for the second time, coughing suddenly as I realized I’d forgotten to breathe. She hesitated for a moment, and I thought over what I said, trying to figure out if my words could somehow be misinterpreted and if perhaps I was about to become more intimate with my intestines. I had just decided that yes, my words had come out jumbled, incomprehensible, and generally too non-committal for her, and was preparing for her to stab me in the back when suddenly she spoke again.
“Riley Madison, you are more jumpy than any human I have yet seen. You are even jumpier right now than when my sword was pressed against your throat. Does my disrobed appearance frighten you so much more than death?”
“I – what?” This response was bright green apples to the oranges I was expecting. “You… I… I just assumed you wouldn’t want me looking at you… you know, naked. Most people usually find it… embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing…” she repeated as though it were some obscure foreign word. After a short moment, I heard the door close behind me, and I began to hear the sound of water rushing to the shower. After glancing carefully over my shoulder to make sure she had actually gone in there, I heaved a heavy sigh of relief and slouched over to my large, fluffy couch.
The thing wasn’t huge, but I didn’t have anyone over that often and I enjoyed sinking into it when I sat in it or laid on it. When you live alone, you can enjoy those weird little things that others might not care for – that is perhaps the only advantage, but I certainly didn’t overlook it.
What that couch was really great for was contemplation. As I collapsed onto it, wiping the hair from my eyes and staring at the ceiling, I began to look back on the events of the day. It was like something out of a movie, really – Not something I ever imagined I would write down in my own memoirs: After an otherwise unfulfilling day of work, I suddenly found myself in a situation where my life was constantly being threatened. Yes, it was certainly not a day that I imagined would be a part of my life.
I then supposed that all of that time praying for survival had hardly comprised a full hour, yet it felt like a month’s worth of excitement. In that hour, I’d met a girl, she came back to my house willingly, and I saw her naked. Of course, it was more like she assaulted me, forced me to take her to my house, and stripped in front of me as though I didn’t exist, but I will argue that it’s essentially the same story.
It almost sounded like the sort of story a baseball ace would recount.
For the first time in my life, I began to wonder if I was really meant to live a life of boredom. The beliefs which I’d held since conception in my mother’s womb were suddenly on the scales, being measured for their true worth for the very first time. Secretly, I promised myself that I was going to hand in my two week’s notice the very next day and look for something more fulfilling. Very secretly. So secretly, in fact, that I dismissed the idea immediately.
I almost chuckled when I considered the possibility that I wouldn’t see the next day anyway.
At that point, I thought that dying before the next day might even have been a blessing – I would be going out with a bang, at least.
These were the sort of musings I was in the middle of when a beautiful young woman with shoulder length hair suddenly loomed into my view, her face just a scant few feet from mine.
“Riley Madison, I require a drying chamber.”
“A – what?” I asked, dumbfounded, after I finally recovered; I had fallen off the couch after leaping in surprise when she broke my reverie.
“A chamber for becoming dry. Is it unclear? I could find none in your bathing room.” It was about then that I realized her straight, dark hair was dripping onto my face. It was shortly after that I realized she was once again calmly standing naked right in front of me.
“Oh, oh, a – a t-towel,” I sputtered as I struggled to my feet, trying to keep my eyes off of her; as she was now slick with water instead of blood, this was something I found particularly difficult to do. “I don’t have a… chamber, but I can get you a towel.” Cheeks flaming red, I shuffled quickly off to my linen closet, muttering madly about modesty. At least, she told me that I was muttering when I came back – I, of course, didn’t realize I was doing anything besides walking as fast as I possibly could.
“Riley Madison, does ‘modesty’ have some relation to the burst blood vessels in your cheeks, or do you have a condition?” she asked, examining the towel I handed her hesitantly before using it to dry off.
“I – no, I don’t – ” Realizing suddenly that I was choking all over my words, I took a deep breath – much to her apparent amusement – and tried again. “I’m blushing because you’re an… attractive woman and you’re… well, naked. I… hope you’ll forgive me, but it-it’s not n-normal. For people to w-walk around n-naked, I mean.” Having said that, I bit my lower lip and prayed for the best. This naïve curiosity of hers was sending me mixed signals compared to the near-rabid murderousness from earlier, and I wasn’t sure how to respond to it.
Considering my trouble responding to such relatively simple questions, I was certainly in for yet another shock with what would come next.
The crazy woman stared blankly at me for a rather long couple of seconds, now almost idly drying her hair with the towel, before at last opening her mouth to respond. “And modesty, involving people not walking around naked, is normal behavior?”
Now it was my turn to stare blankly, my mouth working as furiously as my brain to figure out what was going on. Did she really not know what modesty was, or was she only somehow teasing me? Just who – or what – had I let into my decent apartment?
“You… honestly don’t know?” I asked cautiously.
“It is not in my vocabulary,” she responded curtly, suddenly looking almost offended. “I simply wished to….” She hesitated, almost as if realizing she was about to reveal classified information, then started again as though she had said nothing, throwing the towel forcefully at my face.
“We are leaving now,” she commanded, not even waiting for me untangle the towel from my head. “I have no concern for human life or human modesty. Prepare the transport, I will join you shortly. If you leave without me, I will find you and kill you. Slowly.”
“That sounds a lot more like you’re trying to convince yourself of that than you are me,” I said without thinking. When I did think about it a second later, though, I realized my mistake instantly. This woman was clearly not the type of person that could take a joke, and, moreover, was not in a joking mood even if she were.  
“I – I mean – ” I stammered, trying to fix the situation before she did something rash, like killing me – or not killing me, which could actually have been worse, if she made good on some of her previous threats.
Spinning around on her heel to face me, she set me with a glare that would have caused Satan himself to tremble. As for me, I was proud that I didn’t crumple into a ball of hysterical tears right there. In perhaps two seconds, she had crossed the hall, grabbed me by the throat with just one hand, picked me up off the ground, and pressed me forcefully against the wall.
“Treasure your life, Riley Madison. You should not be so eager to die.” Already feeling the lightheadedness associated with a lack of oxygen to the brain, I nodded as eagerly as I could. She merely sharpened her glare further, those cold, sharp green eyes piercing into my very soul.
It took me a few seconds to realize that she had released me and that I was breathing again, if desperately. I only barely recognized her undressed body turn into the bathroom as my vision slowly cleared and the feeling returned to my hands and feet.
After two failed attempts to stand, I decided that her show of strength wasn’t that impressive, and that if she wanted me to “prepare the transport,” then she could wait a few minutes. I would of course go running if she ever said “fetch,” but I wanted to keep my spirits up as long as possible before she killed me – it simply would not do to start the next life in a bad mood. Or so I told myself.
She apparently did not waste any time donning her close-fitting outfit and bizarre cloak, as it felt like mere seconds before she came marching out of the bathroom, holding her sword loosely by the sheath. I swallowed nervously, wondering whether or not she would simply kill me on the spot when she discovered I still could not quite stand yet.
“You are not in the transport. Explain.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not quite as sturdy as you. I can’t go from ‘covered in blood’ to ‘clean and healthy’ in just a… in just… a minute.” It was only as I said this that I realized it was true – though she looked close to death when I found her, here she was without a scratch on her!
“Your fragility is not a problem of mine.”
“I’m sorry…. I just… really can’t stand yet.” With a sudden stroke of brilliance, I grabbed the ignition tool from my pocket and tossed it at her. “Just take it,” I explained. “I won’t tell anyone.” Unexpectedly, she snatched the thing out of the air and immediately lobbed it right back at me in the same smooth motion.
“You must pilot it, Riley Mason. I… cannot.”
“You…?” This time I managed to stop myself from saying something stupid. I had been about to ask how someone who is as skilled at killing as she appeared to be couldn’t pilot a basic transport, but decided that I had better not push my luck – I could already feel the threads of my luck pulled tight, ready to snap. So, I chose to say something slightly less foolish.
“Who are you?” Seeing that she was preparing another killer glare just for me, I realized that, perhaps, what I chose to say was not that much less foolish than my original idea. Immediately, I began to try to come up with something to explain myself in a way that wouldn’t end with me pressed against the wall by my neck again.
“Err, you know… I mean….” Taking a deep, if shaky, breath, I tried again. She had begun walking towards me, and it felt like I was running out of time, fast. “I can’t just say ‘Hey you!’ all the time, right? And… err… you’re going to kill me anyway, right? I don’t need any sort of explanations, but just, maybe… a name?” I thought bitterly that, while I’d failed in making small talk before, this particular failure could cost me my life. Even more than I had before, I regretted ever letting myself wonder what it would be like to play the hero.
Now right in front of me, she squatted down, resting her elbows on her knees and looking me straight in the eye. I felt like I was looking into the abyss from atop a particularly treacherous cliff. The wall behind me suddenly felt like a man with a gun, pushing me ever closer to that place from which even heroes can’t return. As her eyes narrowed and she moved ever-closer towards me I nervously tried to swallow, only to find that my mouth was actually dry.
“You really wish to know?” She spoke so suddenly that jumped a little. I then realized that I had been holding my breath, and inhaled a lungful of air before responding.
“Yes… please,” I managed to say as the moisture grudgingly returned to my mouth. She hesitated a moment, her menacing face still just inches away from mine, which at this point was surely pale with fear.
Suddenly, she was standing up, walking around to the windows, peeking cautiously through the drawn blinds as though not wanting to be seen. I wiped the perspiration from my brow, deciding tentatively that I had once again avoided death – for the time being, anyway.
“I am WRAITH Unit Zero-Four-Two-Zero,” she said, still peeking out through the blinds. “I am one of perhaps a thousand military androids which do not exist.”
An android, great, I thought to myself. Certainly, that explained everything – why she didn’t understand emotions like human compassion and modesty, why she was the only person I’d ever seen that didn’t wear a PICU, and why she no longer had any apparent wounds. I was not yet sure whether or not I was glad to know that answer, but it did make a few things clear, at least. Somehow, the fact that she was an android and not human at all didn’t faze me. It was just one of those days, I guess.
“So, err… ‘Zero.’ How can you not exist?” I asked, hoping she was open to more questions. “You seem very real to me.” This earned me a raised eyebrow and a look of curiosity.
“For all practical purposes, I do not exist.” Apparently seeing that I still had no idea what she was saying, she attempted to elaborate. “What I must do gets done, but nobody has done it.” Fearing her temper, I just resorted to the “nod and smile” method. Unfortunately, that left me with no more conversation ideas, and silence descended on the room.
“Why did you call me ‘Zero’?” she asked suddenly, causing me to jump again.
“Oh, err… you don’t like it? You can’t really expect me to call you Wraith Unit Zero-Two-whatever all the time, right? It’s… a nickname.” When I looked at her, she was giving me a completely blank, unreadable look. I began to suspect that maybe she was broken when she didn’t even blink for a while.
“I do not dislike it, Riley Madison,” Zero said simply, turning back to the window. For some reason, this made me feel much better about my situation, and I finally was able to stand up. Though my legs were still a bit shaky at first, they straightened out quickly.
“So, I guess you definitely don’t need any bandages or anything, huh?” I offered.
“No, my body heals itself when not under stress.” Nodding, I turned towards the door and began to walk. Of course, she was an android, after all. Perfect sense.
“Well, I suppose we should get going, then.”
“Why are you so eager all of a sudden? You had better not – ”
“Don’t worry,” I interrupted, flashing my warmest grin at her over my shoulder. “Even if I could do something, I would have done it ages ago. It’s a bit late now, don’t you think?” While she narrowed her eyes, as if hoping to see through me to my real intentions, she said nothing.
Even if I was about to die, this was the closest I’d ever come to being “cool.” I guess at that point I decided that I’d already faced death in her eyes, and there was nothing more to be afraid of. I thought that if I was prepared for death, then I might as well try something new.
More likely, however, was that I was just frightened beyond the normal human limits of fear. They say a cornered mouse will become brave in the face of death, and I am certainly no more than a mouse.