"..."
"Why did you stop saying 'mm' here? And you even know what a 'wife' is?"
"Mm!"
"..."
The desert was too vast. By the time Aiden carried A2 out of the desert, it was already the evening of the next day.
Now they were in a dense forest. Perhaps because there was no human interference, the trees here grew very well, everywhere were astonishingly thick and tall trees.
Aiden placed the just-awakened A2 beside a big tree. After pretending to check on her briefly, he left, intending to find some dead branches to make a fire.
Of course, this was a subconscious action of his, so he didn't realize it until he came back to A2 with a pile of wood in his arms, and then remembered that androids didn't need to warm themselves by fire.
However, what surprised him was that A2 didn't seem surprised. At this moment, she was in a much better state than yesterday. Her relatively special body allowed her to slowly self-repair, but not fully.
"Are you imitating the past behavior of humans?" A2 looked at the dead branches in Aiden's arms and asked.
Aiden quietly let out a breath of relief, then nodded, "You know about it too, huh.."
"Humans were fragile. The nights were cold, so they needed to burn wood to provide themselves with heat." A2 was talking more now, probably because she had slept the entire day.
"Yeah, but now you're fragile too. You've slept for the whole day." Aiden piled up the dead wood and then lit the fire.
"Right, what's your name?" After lighting the campfire, Aiden suppressed the urge to grill something over it and continued to ask A2.
"I don't have a name, only a code." A2 looked at the same kind in front of her. For some reason, she felt that some of his actions were very similar to the humans recorded in her chip. However, after waking up and doing a quick scan, she found that the other party seemed to lack human characteristics. On the contrary, she felt a sense of kinship.
"A2, that's my code. You?" After a moment of silence, A2 spoke.
"A2, huh, that code sounds like it's pretty early in the series. As for me, I forgot my previous code, but I gave myself a new name." Aiden pointed at his head, "This part was damaged before, so now I'm called Aiden."
"Your memory bank was damaged, huh. You must have your own story." A2 looked toward the campfire.
"From now on, I'll just call you Aiden."
Deadwood burned in the flames, occasionally letting out soft crackling sounds. Aiden used a straight tree branch to poke the fire a few times, then casually threw in two more pieces of wood, took off his gloves, and began warming his hands by the fire.
Although they had left the desert, the forest was still quite cold at night.
A2 watched Aiden's actions and imitated him by stretching out her hands toward the fire. However, although her sensors could detect temperature, she didn't know what the temperature could actually do for her.
"Is that your POD?" After warming her hands for a while, A2 felt it was meaningless and withdrew her hands, turning to look at the firepower unit floating beside Aiden.
"Yes, it's called Firepower. A very cute little fellow." Aiden raised his hand, and Firepower landed in his palm. The spinning wing above its head also stopped, as if it were resting.
"I picked it up by accident. It has a certain level of intelligence, but it doesn't have a speech system, so it can't talk. Its storage unit also seems to be broken, so it has no past memory." Aiden began making up a story.
"You gave it a name?" A2's attention went to a very odd detail. Her blue eyes emitted a faint glow, as if scanning. Then she said, "You treat it like a pet. I remember humans used to like naming their pets."
"Have you seen a human?" Aiden changed the subject.
A2 shook her head, "No. I was manufactured just a few years ago, and not long after I was created, I joined airborne operations. But I heard there are still humans on the base on the moon. Yet, no one has ever seen them. I guess they're probably already dead."
As she said this, A2's eyes narrowed slightly. Androids have complex emotions, especially the YoRHa type. They're more emotional than regular androids, so at this moment, Aiden could see a flash of hatred in her eyes.
The death of her comrades and the abandonment by Command had always weighed on her heart, including the "humans" on the moon base.
Still, Aiden asked, "It seems you hate humans a lot. Why?"
A2 didn't answer immediately. She just closed her eyes, as if thinking, or perhaps refusing to answer.
But on second thought, that was expected. Even though her personality had grown colder through years of battle, the underlying code wouldn't change instantly because of emotions.
"Glory to mankind" was still her "obsession."
Seeing A2 close her eyes and say nothing, Aiden didn't press her. He knew this question was hard to answer and also knew A2 wasn't talkative to begin with. That she was willing to chat with him this much was probably just because he had helped her.
'Seems like base code isn't unchangeable. From the later plot, some androids, aside from still being silicon-based lifeforms, already possess everything humans do, thoughts, emotions, personalities... almost no different from humans.'
'However, androids capable of independent thought are still a minority. The ones at the base still loyally carry out human orders. It's just…' Aiden leaned against the tree, thinking, 'Just, what kind of consequences will the appearance of humans bring?'
Aiden couldn't figure it out. Since the game didn't explain it in the ending, he was too lazy to think about it.
Getting up from the ground, Aiden didn't want to sleep leaning against a tree at night, it was uncomfortable. So, he planned to make a bed for himself. Immediately, he pulled out a jungle machete and entered the forest behind.
At the moment he left, A2 opened her eyes and murmured like talking to herself, "What meaning does the existence of humans still have? What's the difference between us and humans? Just like you, you look just like the humans in my memory."
When Aiden returned, he carried on his back a bundle of wood thicker than a human wrist and taller than himself. In his arms, he held a stack of wide leaves... those were the mattress.
Using his foot, he cleared a flat and clean patch of ground. Aiden first laid the wood on the ground, then spread the leaves over it.
"A bed? Are you making a bed?" A2 watched the whole process. Once the bed was ready, she asked.
In all her years on Blue Star, it was her first time seeing an android voluntarily make a bed in such an environment.
"Yep. So, what do you think? Looks pretty good, huh?" Aiden patted the bed on the ground. The closely arranged wooden sticks weren't uncomfortable; instead, they had a kind of massage-bed feel.
"Come, you try it first. If it's uncomfortable, I'll improve it." Aiden walked to A2, picked her up, and placed her on the bed.
"How is it? Feels not bad, right?" Aiden asked again.
"A bed is meaningless to us." Lying on the bed, A2 said calmly, "We're just androids. We don't need to enjoy things like humans do."
"Androids still have the word 'human' in them. It's normal to enjoy a bit. Besides, when you were created, didn't you ever sleep on a bed?" Aiden simply asked.
A2 thought for a moment and said, "I have, but because space in the base was limited, the beds were small and simple, only enough for one android."
"Exactly. This bed is also small and only fits one android." Aiden laughed softly, "And I just asked how it felt."
"Not bad." A2 thought for a bit and replied in a rather reserved tone.
"That's good." Aiden nodded and then used the remaining materials to make his own bed.
His bed was right next to A2's, only half a meter apart. However, A2 was just an android, so Aiden couldn't smell the body fragrance like Alice and the others. Instead, a smoky, burnt smell wafted over.
That came from the mechanical lifeform A2 had killed yesterday. But since she was an android, she had no sense of smell regarding her own body.
Aiden rubbed his nose and asked, "Can't you smell your own body's odor? I think you should take a bath."
"Unnecessary." A2 said plainly.
"Alright then." Aiden shrugged, then covered himself with his cloak.
But after thinking for a moment, he got up and covered A2 with his cloak instead.
"I don't get cold." A2 looked at the cloak on her and didn't understand what it meant.
"Humans take care of their weak peers. When someone is sick, they cover them with a blanket and feed them food and water," Aiden said.
"We're the same kind, and right now you're weak." He added.
A2 didn't speak. She seemed to understand the meaning behind Aiden giving her the cloak.
"Taking care of each other like humans do? Just like my former comrades, letting me survive was also to take care of me?" A2 looked at Aiden, her 'brain' spinning rapidly.
"Sleep, sleep, it's getting late." Aiden also lay down and said this before closing his eyes.
"Good night." Strangely, A2 said these words.
Aiden turned to look at her, but she had already closed her eyes. So, he also said, "Good night."
Do androids need to sleep? Aiden wasn't sure. But even if they could, it should be like a computer's sleep mode. After all, androids could be considered computers with bodies.
But Aiden wasn't an android, so after saying good night, he really did fall asleep. Carrying a 300-pound girl for a whole day and night, no matter how strong, one needs rest.
Soon, his breathing became steady. His temporary POD, Firepower, also laid on his chest and entered shutdown mode.
But A2 didn't "sleep." She had no concept of tiredness or mental fatigue, and she had already "slept" all day. She didn't want to rest anymore.
So shortly after Aiden fell asleep, she opened her eyes, curiously looking at him.
A same kind who needed sleep, rare, but not unseen. In the past, at the resistance camps, she had seen many same kinds imitate humans by sleeping. She had even seen mechanical lifeforms that needed sleep, though she ended up killing them.
'Looks just like a human.' A2 thought. Aiden gave her a stronger and stronger impression of the humans stored in her memory.
Lost in thought, A2 sat up. Her body still hadn't fully recovered and felt a bit stiff. To move freely, it would take at least ten more days. Of course, if they could find an android camp, it would take only a few hours.
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