These fugitive colours cannot last

From what I remembered, I had been resurrected for about two weeks now.

From the second I woke up, there was a very distinct difference between the memories my host, Romina Ali, had accumulated from her scant 21 years alive, and the memories I made every moment after I was uploaded.

Her memories are bright, incomplete, full of holes and chemical filters. Mine are mechanical, clinical, and accurate.

I rubbed my hand against the base of my skull, fingers tracing the scar tissue right where the brain stem and spine met. My chip was there, warmer than the skin around it, and hard to compress. While I may have been in Romina's body, she felt like she'd never existed.

Like a bad cold that lingered in the lungs.

A raindrop from this morning's 5 centimeter rain dripped off a tree above me. I stepped aside to avoid it, rustling the old leaves and grass near the path. Which had the unfortunate side effect of catching Irie's attention.

I wasn't supposed to feel guilt anymore, and I chalked that up to remaining vestiges of Romina, as I stared back into Irie's tight looking eyes. "Apologies."

She kept walking, shifting the pack on her back. Her bun was a few millimeters to the left, meaning her right shoulder had been balancing her phone while she tied her short, curly hair into in.

Irie was my field partner, but she'd been Romina's partner in other ways too. I saw the hurt and disappointment in her face every time she saw me.

I sensed a change in pressure, and noted the new smell in the air. "The predicted storm is approaching. We should find cover."

Irie said nothing, turning into the path back to our small, rain proof station.

The rain started pelting down, hesitantly at first, then with a gleeful vengeance. Irie's movements were slightly stiff, and I assumed she'd slept on the couch in the officer's lounge rather than in our shared pod.

She did that last Tuesday too.

In the thirteen minutes and one second it took for us to enter the shelter, we were significantly wet. Cold too, considering that my host's hands were pale and shaking, and Irie was blowing into her hands.

Not cold enough for hypothermia as long as the proper steps were taken.

"We should chnage into spare, dry clothing to mitigate the risk of cold exposure or hypothermia." I suggested, still standing near the entrance of the shelter. Rain dropped into puddles just a few centimeters from my boots.

"We're just going to get wet again." Irie dismissed, dropping her pack onto the dry ground. She sat down, her arms loosely wound around her knees.

"Understood." I lowered my pack too, and looked outside.

Thunder roared in the distance. And I saw tree branches strain with the wind.

Irie's voice cut through the gentle sounds of rain. "No one is going to try and cross the border in this."

"Okay." I turned to look at her, accepting her assessment.

"So you may as well sit down." Irie cracked her knuckles. It was a nervous, comforting act of her's. She did it in meetings, when she was awkward. Romina's memories confirmed many instances.

I took a seat further inside the shelter, my host's body shivering from the cold.

"You always get really cold easily." Irie said suddenly, scrounging in her pack for a blanket.

"There's no need. I can stop the shivering." I offered, and Irie's eyes narrowed.

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because it would upset you." I replied honestly. Romina had many memories of Irie and her arguing over blankets, and room temperatures. It would have been eerie for me to stop.

"Everything you do upsets me." Irie informed me, her dark eyes heavy with unshed tears and jaw tight.

She didn't know how to be sad, I noted. Irie had pitiful control over her grief, and as a soldier, she would never have been promoted with that trait. It told me that our particular situation was different. Painful.

I tried to be diplomatic about it. "I am not trying to upset you-"

Irie laughed out a sob. "Why? Why do you care?" It had all the pleading of hope.

"My prime directive is to aid the human soldiers and workers of this base to the best of my capability. Upsetting you is against that directive."

Honesty was supposed to be good, helpful, but Irie somehow looked even more wounded.

For a moment, all I heard was the rain, and her surfacing, choked out sobs.

Perhaps another strategy. I scanned Romina's violent, restless memories for a clue. "Irie, talk to me, I'm always here for you."

Irie stared at me, and something both cracked and solidified in her face. "Oh shut up. You're nothing like her."

"Irie-"

Irie shuddered, interrupting me again. "When she said my name, it was like it was the only thing that made sense. When you say it," The venom dripped off her words. "It's a question. You look at me like a machine, or a stranger. All you have in common is your face."

"Aren't you happy your partner gets a second chance at life?" I quoted the doctors, eager to put this behind us. Romina and Irie were some of the best, their stats the highest at the academy and their performance unparalleled.

This was disruptive.

"Romina didn't get a second chance at life! They just made you." Irie floundered, her dark skin reddening. "This bloodless, mindless freak. You are nothing like her."

"Romina took risks, she disobeyed orders. Some would say-"

Irie slammed her hand onto the ground. "Because she was a human being! Not some chip designed in the factory to follow the stupid directive!"

"Some," I argued insistently. "Would say I'm an improvement."

Irie breathed out slowly, her face unreadable for a moment.

The rain determinedly patterned down behind us, and thunder cracked again somewhere.

"You will always be a disappointment to me." Irie said icily, and a burst of pain shot out from the chip.

It was the programming, I had to perform in ways wanted by the soldiers. This was a negative feedback, designed to chnage my behaviour.

I rubbed my temples, the aftershocks of the pain still ringing. I looked up at her, surprised at the grim satisfaction in her face.

Unbidden, a word from the depths of Romina's damaged brain emerged:

Devastating. Because even in the darkness, the wet filth of this shelter. Irie looked devastatingly beautiful.

I would have used the word devastating differently.

"I mean-"

"I don't care what you mean." Irie interrupted. "I don't care if you're the perfect soldier, if you're smarter, more loyal, less able to think. I believe every time that you're her, and every time..." Irie shook her head desperately.

My hand shook from the electricity, lightning flowers quietly roping their way through my skin.

I looked back up at her.

Irie knelt in front of me, a cruel parody to the proposal Romina had made a month ago. "You will always be a failure. My mistake."

I missed the next words, seizing with the wave of current from the chip.

The pain was hot and both cut and burned.

When I could open my eyes again, I tasted blood.

"Stop-" I gasped, shaking.

"The worst part is, they'll just bring you back over and over." Irie was saying, her face set and cold. "You'll be a puppet, instead of a person."

"You- you knew what you were signing!" I shouted at her weakly, writhing on the floor, trying to get my muscles to cooperate.

"No! They said she would come back! They said her memories would stay, the chip would just revive her."

"I am back! Irie, baby, I know everything! I remember proposing, I remember us dancing the first time we ever met." I rattled off the memories, forcing my hand to make its way to the knife strapped to my leg.

There was a coolness at my neck, and Irie's hair dangled down I my face, shaken from the bun. Her eyes, were deep and soft.

"You know how I know, that you are just saying that?" She asked, adjusting the knife until it pressed into my throat.

There was a drop of blood on my neck.

"No, please, Irie-"

"You said earlier, Romina, not me, not I. You are not her, you're an imposter wearing her skin. I'm not going to let you ever, ever screw with who she was again." Irie increased the pressure on the knife, and I slowed my breaths. "I cannot do this anymore."

"I will do better." I promised, finally feeling my hand gently undo the straps.

Irie's knee was crushing it before I could proceed. "Nothing you do, will ever make up for what you aren't."

I stared at her, into those eyes that were burnt honey in the sun and umber in the dark.

They were night black right now. Romina's shattered remnants cut me, reminding me of the sun making her dark skin a rick brown. Of the rain making her laugh, of the cold making her red and sick.

"It's me." I pleaded, one hand clasped on her wrist.

Suddenly the pressure on my throat lessened.

Irie got up, closing her eyes. "You are a terrible partner, a flimsy copy of a great soldier, and you will never be her. You've failed, the system should shut down."

And it did just that, fizzling into a burst of electricity. I felt the first wave of agony, and then nothing.