Shishi only needed to reboot the system once again then he was finally done. Maybe he had to do some minor corrections here and there but he was confident that his first personal robot was ready for use at least. Almost half a year went by since he had drawn the first sketches and a thrill of anticipation came across him. He almost couldn’t believe he had done it. As he had started the project he had had heavy doubts that it would work out because it had been way more complicated than he had first expected but Shishi was no person to give up easily so he had worked days and nights and now all this work finally paid off. On the table in front of him was a humanoid machine with fluffy pink hair and bright blue eyes waiting for its system to start running. He hoped that he would succeed with this machine. There had been countless tries on artificial soldiers before but every single one of them had been a failure. If this project would really be successful then maybe Shishi could sell the patent and move back to the rural place where he originally came from. He missed the countryside. He had gone to the city because he had seen a great military career in front of his but the days of his youthful naivety were over and he had enough of fighting and hurting and he had enough of the life in the city. People from the city always seemed cold and obsessed with success and money.  Even if he was surrounded by people he still felt alone and isolated. Life on the countryside was harder and no one in the city would understand how he wanted to go back there on his one accord if he had made it so far but could no longer deal with the people in the city. Their lungs might be clean but their hearts certainly were not. Maybe a change in government could improve things but he did not see this coming anytime soon. So all that was left for Shishi was to get his robot working and he was on his best way as he monitored on his computer screen how the system came in to life. At the same time the robot’s eyes started blinking, a bit too often to appear normal a bug that Shishi somehow could not fix and somewhere along writing the program just learned to ignore his doorbell rang. Shishi was not a very social person so he wondered who could want something from him but of all the persons who came to his mind the one at his door was nowhere close. It was the first time he saw Tats Mato in informal clothing. He decided that it did not make much of a difference because his expensive clothes were neat and gave him the same aura then his uniform would give him. His pink eyes were staring at him coldly and a palpable tension was hanging in the air.

“Tats Mato, what brings you here?” he asked him trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible.

“I want to recruit you for a mission,” Tats told him straightforwardly as always.

“Since when are you allowed to recruit your soldiers? Normally you’re taking orders from governor Hyo only,” he asked him.

“This time I’m recruiting and I want you to go with me,” he said.

“Are you sure about that? You know we aren’t exactly best friends,” Shishi reminded him.

“We don’t need to be friends, we just need to find a way to work together and survive.”

Shishi was not very font of Tats Mato but he needed a way to test his humanoid weapon and the best way to do it was being assigned to an official mission. All he needed was Tats approval to take it with them and he had an idea who to get it.

“What kind of mission would make the great Tats Mato come to me?” he asked him.

“A mission to the western Lands,” he said.

“You’re kidding me,” he said in disbelieve. This was something he had not expected but Tats would never joke around when it came to something work related so it had to be true.

“It’s going to be a six-membered mission to get data of a water deposit starting in a week,” Tats went on explaining.

It was a dangerous mission that Tats was going on and he could read in his eyes that he did not like it as well but Tats was no one to disobey any orders and for that Shishi gave him his respect and he now understood why Tats wanted him to come. When it came to one thing Shishi was good at than it was fighting. Shishi grew up in rural places and live there was hard so he had learned from young age to train his body and had mastered his skills once he had been admitted to the army. Tats was a different type of soldier. He wasn’t a bad fighter. Shishi had seen him in action and he had some strength and a good technique. What made Tats climb the job letter was his exceptional skill when it came to tactics and analyses of any possible situation that might occur. If he wanted to test his robot that maybe a mission like this was the right choice. If they were successful then no doubt could be made.

“I have a condition,” Shishi informed Tats and he could see that Tats was surprised that Shishi considered accepting the mission.

“Say it,” he said.

“You said it’s going to be a six-membered mission. I want to choose two of the soldiers, you can choose the other two,” he proposed leaving out the fact that one of them was actually not human.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Shishi answered and he noticed that Tats suspected something but he did not ask any further questions but hold out his hand. Shishi grabbed it and they made a deal.

“See you in four days. I will hold a meeting then and present the plan I made,” he informed him.

“Toto is awake now,” said a high pitched voice in the background.

“What was that?” Tats asked him.

“Nothing, just a computer program running Shishi answered. He would not let Tats now about the robot until he was absolutely sure it was working properly.

“See you then,” Tats said and walked away. Shishi closed the door behind him and urgently went to see how Toto, the name he had given it, was working.

He saw that it was sitting upright and did nothing else then blink rapidly. He looked at the computer monitor that showed the information of the robots system and saw that everything was working fine. Shishi would not hide his smile.

“Hi Toto,” he said.

“Hello Shishi Mato,” he said speaking a bit too rapidly. It was apart from the blinking another minor mistake that Shishi decided to ignore for now because it wasn’t important. Apart from that its vocal output seemed to work just fine. It was time to test its abilities and he had just the right thing in mind for his first test.

“I need to recruit a soldier for a mission. The qualifications he has to have are: at least two years’ experience, a field soldier and good close-combat skills,” he informed Toto.

“Toto is searching,” it said and Shishi waited until a file suddenly appeared on his computer screen.

It had worked way faster than he had expected and the result was quite unexpected as well. He went through the file and could not remember to have ever heard of a soldier named Dada Mato. The picture showed a young soldier with sandy brown hair and lively green eyes. His records told him that he was a good fighter and with excellent skills in hand-to-hand fights but Shishi had expected Toto to present him someone he already knew, someone that had already succeeded instead of someone this young. But if he wanted to test if Toto made the right choice he had to recruit him and see what would happen. There were two types of strength, the strength of the body and the strength of the soul and he had the feeling Dada Mato was someone who possessed both of them and maybe it was exactly what they would need for the mission. Maybe Toto had considered this in his analysis. If they wanted to go through the wasteland in the west they needed someone with this kind of power.

Author’s note: Since no one commented on the story so far I don’t know if it’s any good but I decided to continue with the second chapter. Hopefully this one is better than the first. I know that it’s still lacking in action but I promise that will start when they finally have the team together and embark on the mission. Thank you for reading and please do leave comments what to improve. J.J.