Uncertainty

Never The Same

It was as if she was waking from a peaceful sleep, a hypnotic trance. Although it always pained her to leave him over and over again, she could swear she still smelled his cologne and felt his soft warm hands on her bare skin, exploring underneath her clothes. But the room she was actually in, had come back into focus and the piercing silence was almost deafening until her doctor said he was satisfied and she was free to leave. As if by telepathic prompt, the chair beneath her zipped back out of the room and whisked her away back into the reception area before she could say thank you for her repair work. Focusing on her short journey, she jolted in her seat as i snapped to a halt where she had first sat in it, the pleasant voice she had heard requesting her presence at the facility had chimed in again and she smiled as he, Eric, she remembered, told her that payment had been made and there would be no need for a follow up appointment, his soft voice thanked her for her time and wished her a pleasant day. As she stood up, her feet moved her automatically to the door and past a small gaggle of androids whose owners looked in varying degrees of panic and frustration. A solid shoulde barged into her own and she was thankful for the stabilisers in her feet, which stopped her from ending up on the floor. "Oh sorry, excuse me Miss. My mistake, it won't happen again. You see, my android has a stability malfunction and she's taken to walking into things recently. I apologise on her behalf, well, you have a nice day now sweety. Come on you, let's get you fixed and then we can go for a spot of tea.", The old lady was barely chest height and her back was hunched severely enough that she lost another inch in height. Her female android was double her height but only a few inches taller than Yongsun herself, as the old lady shuffled closer to the reception desk with the smiley greeting droid behind it, she looked into the woman's android's face and a memory clouded her vision for a split second, enough to make her pause and watch without seeing as the pair stopped before the desk.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, she found she was no longer slow, the doctor had done an immaculate job on her wound and as her hand traced where the hole had previously been, she found only smooth artificial skin and smiled to feel her wholeness once again. Picking up her walking pace, she wondered what to do to occupy the day, the smell of the alleyway had been unpleasant but it had petered out to a new smell of obsolete wet gasoline and damp concrete, the fumes of cars were no longer present as there were few people left to drive them and even less to make and maintain them. As she thought this, a solitary electrically powered car silently limped by, if she had been built with a paranoid disposition then she would have thought it's occupants eyes were watching her as it passed, but as it were, she let it go by and kept to her goalless journey. Her feet splashed softly in puddles left over from the night before and she felt a nip to the air that caressed her cheeks. She came to a stop outside of a familiar corporate building with a polished brass handle on it's large door and an impressive black marble facade, windows rose uniformly up from the ground floor, she leaned back slightly to take in all 85 floors of the building and frowned at the fact it was one of the few remaining buildings which had taken no damage in the downfall of civilisation. Somebody cleared their throat behind her and she jumped a little as it pulled her out of her daydream, turning on her heel, she saw a well dressed man stood smiling curtly at her in an impatient manner. Stepping aside to let him pass, she watched as her held the door open for a small entourage of two well dressed women who clearly had money to burn, as humans used to say. The first woman passed without even inclining her head, she was the epitome of snooty as she strode into the building past the permanently bowing man. Her companion on the other hand, a curvy woman who was barely an inch shorter, seemed a little warmer and stood for a moment to look her up and down, she saw no judgement in the assessment, merely a note of admiration as the woman's lip curled into a smile and she carried on at a slow pace in the woman before her's shadow. When both women were inside, she started to continue her walk but was stopped by the very same obnoxious man from before, who stood ahead of her and held out a hand which had a small business card laid flat across his palm. For a moment, neither one of them spoke or moved and she had a fleeting memory flash into her mind of the android from earlier who had tried to frown unsuccessfully, was that what her face looked like now as she fought annyance at this persistent little man in front of her?.

She took the card and stepped to her left, resuming her walk and paying no mind to the man who was still stood exactly where she had left him. Flipping the car over once she was out of sight, she read the name and stared at the company logo for a long while, slightly raised electric blue lettering in the old human font known as 'Westminster', told her that the women were 'Ms. Lee Chaerin, President' and 'Miss. Ahn Hyejin, Vice President' of 'Magnus Industries'. The card was warm in her hand and the stark white of it allowed the sparse rays of sunlight to bounce of and glint off of the lettering so it seemed to move as she experimentally tilted the card left-to-right. Placing it into a spare pocket on her long coat, she carried on and remembered the phone number she had seen under the names and the appearance of the two women and how different they were. Her mind was a flurry of new information, but her inbuilt memory chip was able to process which parts were unnecessary and which she would keep for later. One thing was for certain, she wanted to know more about this company and why it's President and Vice President were interested enough to give her the card in the  first place. Deciding she would take another look at the building, it was beautiful after all, she turned and walked back around the corner, a small gasp came from somewhere wthin her as she saw the same car that had stalked her earlier, something odd was going on and she wanted to know what and why.

Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!
AsianPersuasion90
For anyone interested: "Magnus Industries" is in reference to St. Albertus Magnus, who was alleged to have created one of the first automatons in the early 18th century.

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
DragonKingYeba #1
Chapter 3: This is a very interesting fic, im curious to see how this storyline will unfold. Can’t wait to see what happens next!
chocochipc00kie
#2
Chapter 2: Hmmmm.. interesting premise.