Are we destined to burn or will we last the night?

When everything was broken

The Devil hit his second stride

(...)

For fear of moments stolen

I don't wanna say goodnight

But I'll still see you in the morning

Still know your heart and still know both your eyes

(...)

Adam 531 could not remember when he first walked under the midnight sky and found these words buried in the rubble of something called a music store. All the piece of paper said was that it was part of song titled “Lost” by a human named Dermot Kennedy.

“What is a song? What is music?” He remembered asking. He never got an answer. Its not like the surrounding...cyborgs? androids? half-breeds? could tell him. He also didn't remember why he picked it up and kept it in his storage compartment, hidden from the other humanoids. It was as if the world only consisted of Plastis and Orgas constantly at war with each other.

All sense of time was lost. Adam 531 didn't even know where he came from, how or even when we was created. All he did know was that his chiseled masculine face, bright brown hair, blue eyes and pale skin was all synthetic. And that he was one of the few that Father Adam made some forgotten time ago to hunt down the last Orgas.

He could probably guess, when his neural net started to glitch, occasionally losing connection from the others and began reading the surviving books from the rubble, that he was what old humans might call an Android: he had plastic but flexible skin that could blend with the environment on the outside making him look human, but on the inside he was equipped with a heat tracking system, a targeting device to kill at a 150 meter range, several deadly weapons that could obliterate any organic thing, and injector feline fangs that, if his downloaded mission from Central 101 ordered him to, could infect any captured human with the nanites necessary to convert their structure to their needs. No resemblance to human internal organs at all.

Adam 531 was number 531 of 1000 elite soldiers made for one sole purpose: Infiltrate, Search and Destroy. He only got a break when he completed his rounds and returned to Central 101 to recharge his energy core at sunrise. It was at such a moment when all his other systems hibernated and switched to Home mode, making him not notice any Orgas, or humans hiding in his vicinity.

****

Michael watched from the safety of the underground porthole he found as the Plasti turned around and walked away. Dawn was fast approaching and he knew the killing machine would return to its base. However it wasn't until it was safely out of his sight that he finally let out the breath he was holding and relaxed the iron grip on his EM gun.

He waited for the cover of strong daylight to move from his hiding place and start scavenging for food, which was the only time when he was able to feed himself. Even with all their technology and superior abilities, those Plastis still could not withstand the sunlight. They were like the cybernetic version of vampires only roaming at night.

“Plastis...” he wondered as he slipped into a run down grocery store hoping to find something that was still edible among the cans. “I don't remember when we started calling them plastis. Was it because of their skin tone? Or material? Come to think of it... how did we end up like this?” he thought bitterly.

Judging by the dates on the cans, the last time humans had an active civilization was April 24^th 2050. And from what he remembered from the stories the elders used to tell in his colony, it has been at least 20 years since the nuclear apocalypse. Michael recalled the sad and scared feeling he got whenever they told him about it. How they described the raining fire and the burning... the city buildings crashing down, killing thousands in the explosions... men, women and children running for their lives...

“Mom and Lucia were there so it probably wasn't that long ago,” Michael thought as he sat on the floor in the sun and ate the rat he found scavenging in the scraps after cooking it on a fire. Then his mind drifted to the images conjured up by the tales of one Elder Amy Hewitt.

“You were lucky then if you didn't die of food poisoning from the nuclear fallout landing on fresh food and water.” she said one night. “The famine and the radiation took more than half of our people. But the worst of it...” the old woman had said, her ancient voice filling the ears of children surrounding the fire, “the worst of it were the applications and the enhancements people started to download to their brains. It was meant to be a harmless neural matrix; designed for the paralyzed and the brain dead. But something happened. People wanted to be more. They wanted to be forever young. Super strong, super fit.... and then... after the first blasts, these half-breeds were zombies walking among us. Not the half dead kind, no... their bodies were still very much alive. But their souls were no longer there. After that anyone that got attacked by them were infected with some sort of disease, turning them into machines.”

Yep, Michael remembered all too well what kind of disease that was. His older sister was bitten and not long after that she started getting these grid patterns on her skin. She was still able to speak and function, but after two weeks her own ten year old brother had to end her life. Lucia Demarco was no longer human, with white iris-less eyes contrasting the inhumanly dark complexion she developed, with neon red traces of light passing through her bald head.

Then two years later his colony was attacked by what seemed like an upgrade from Lucia. The same human form but hardly any organic material with EM weapons inside their forearms. They were known as cyborgs.

He had no choice. At 15 it was either join the Guard or risk getting assimilated into the Plastic human killers.

“Maybe that's where plasti comes from.” thought Michael as he collected his things and kept moving.

As he walked he thought about his old squadron. Especially this one soldier, Jason. In the Guard you were partnered with another soldier and were expected to never separate again. But no matter how much Michael tried to get along with him, he just couldn't stand Jason Roderick. Always getting on his nerves, teasing him, mocking him for his feminine manners... it wasn't his fault that he grew up with no men, for Christ's sake! And what was it with commentating on his looks all the time?! He even went as far as giving him some lyrics on a paper he found. If it wasn't for the fact that he chased after women, Michael would have thought that Jason was gay. He told him that once and received a sarcastic “I wouldn't love you even if you were the last human alive.” Although the opposite might have been true now that Micheal had time to think about it.

Now, as Michael settled into a secluded cave to rest for the four hours he allowed himself, he sadly thought that he would give anything to have Jason by his side again. To hear his voice, his laugh, to hold him in a bear hug like Jason would after surviving a battle...maybe even tease him, saying that they just might be the last squadron alive and should try to repopulate the world with the few that were left and have Jason laugh about it like he always did...

After the squadron was outnumbered 12 to 1 during an attack, he heard Jason scream for his life and feared the worst. He lost sight of him and after the sun rose and he went to search for survivors, Michael didn't find a single trace of him. He feared that he was long gone.

Michael was left alone after that. With no other survivors he wandered through the ruined territory day after day trying to find another colony but was met with the devastating scenery of death and destruction. Years passed and he feared that he was indeed the last human alive.

“No, I must be strong. I must be strong and cold to survive.” he recited to himself so as not to fall into the sadness that Jason's memory caused him.

He recited the lyrics that he had memorized long ago, and in the vast emptiness of the cave his voice rang like a breeze in the wilderness:

(...)

I could've told you 'bout the long nights

How no one loves the birds that don't rise

So you can tell the heroes go hide

My sense of wonder's just a little tired