Half of Me

A couple from Moon Bq-7 pulls in. I write down the specifics into the report.

Black Starvan

Dopln Ruc and Qon Ruc

To Earth

My job here at Lunar Customs is to go through passports, and ensure that anyone coming through is authorized for interplanetary traveling.

The built in transmission in my ear scratches in “9671, 9671, allow immediate passage for the next 6 shipments arriving through the next 2 to 3 hours”.

I do quite enjoy being able to have some time without work. Time with jealousy filling in my circuitries as lives pass me by. The sad fact about being half a human, is that I can still feel pain. It makes the fact that I don’t know happiness even harder to take in.

I look back at the droid behind me. “C Bot are there any others set to come in within that period of time”

“The next traveler is in 30 minutes”.

Well there goes my rest time…

I wonder what makes a robot like him different than me. We’re both slaves to the complete. I’ve thought that i’d be better off being one. I’ve even pondered the idea to quote on quote “deactivate” myself. I’m of course under constant surveillance though so I wouldn’t be able to do so easily.

My existence in this particularly torturous state I’m in is of one that I brought on myself. From what I’ve gathered, crimes aren’t taken lightly in this society. Being converted is the main form of punishment.

They had no reason to tell me what I did to deserve it. I just wish I could find out so I could at least feel less confusion about my existence. Although maybe that is just the kind of experience I’m designed to have.

A red Cloudglider soars gently into station.

I get out my clipboard and feel a sudden weakness in my muscles.

The young women walks out of it and stumbles toward me looking highly emotional. In fact, her eyes tear up the closer she gets.

“Noah! I’ve finally found you!” she screams as she falls into me breaking down entirely.

“I’m sorry miss I believe…you are mistaken” as I shrug her off of me, but shaken by this encounter. I’ve not once felt the touch of another. I bend over and put my hand over her to reestablish the connection.

“Don’t you remember us?” she asks still shriveled on the ground.

As if in hopes that I somehow can recognize another being for once I tilt her head up to me. I get that same feeling as when she first arrived. That’s all there is though.

“Don’t you have the locket still? she pleads. “I thought you told me you’d keep it to remember. I still have my half,” and she pulls from around her head a neck lace with a heart shape on the end. She frantically opens up the steel jewelry piece and holds up the picture on one side.

“It’s…was that me?”

“Noah, that is you. You are Noah!”

“And what is your name?”

She falls again as if crushed by my question.

“Elena. I’m Elena.”

As if coming to terms with the realization, she places a hand on my face gently and tells me my own life story. How I grew up with an eye for adventure, and rebelled against the power that have confined us due to our financial status. How we met in a flight program and did anything we could to leave Earth and find a better, more understanding world.”

It’s a lot to take in at once. My focus remains on her “Elena, you’ve conquered them then and left. Why have you returned? They’ll catch you and convert you like they’ve done me?”

“Noah, That’s why I’m here…I’ve come to realize a life without you isn’t worth living. I had to see you again. No matter the cost.”

I look out into space with a feeling of freedom that I never have had before. I can really see the vastness of it all. “Perhaps its you that can bring life back into me, if that’s all possible.” I turn to her again, “But the life we had before is completely unknown to me.”

“It doesn’t matter. Some things transcend any of that,” she says. I look into her eyes this time with same sense of freedom. There’s hope there. For the first time, it’s not just pain.

A voice from Elena’s pocket screams “Come on, we gotta go before they catch you!”

Sirens start blaring, and security piles out announcing “Please step away from him, and get down with your hands behind your head!”

Two war ships fly in and turrets from the side start firing towards the security. A part of me wants to run over to help them. They’re just like me…

She stands up with me and grabs my wrist. We sprint over to her Cloudglider. I look back the whole time until the door shuts.

She sits down in the cockpit and says “Here’s to our second life”, and we take off together.