1.

Pascal has sent me to the machine life form who wears lipstick.

Of all machines.

I stand next to her while she fawns at her own reflection in a piece of glass.

"Margot, ma'am." I resist the urge to pour something on her head. "Pascal is wondering—"

"Oh, Pascal?" The machine life form powders her face with—something. Some kind of dust or chalk she has found. "Speak to me only when it is about Jean-Paul."

The only machine life form I'd rather not talk to than this one is Jean-Paul. I grimace. "Pascal's asking if you'd be interested in teaching some of the young, female machines about looking their best." It is, apparently, a custom from the old world Pascal is curious about.

"Why would I do such a thing?" Margot sets the mirror down at her side. "And up my own competition? Never."

"Right." I back away.

I don't understand these things.

More and more, as the days go by, I understand less and less.

No.

I learn more. I do.

When I listen to Pascal's teachings, they resonate with me. I pick them up fast.

What I find myself struggling with is understanding what's around me.

The machines, themselves.

Not history, practices, or principles. Not emotions, customs, or habitual activities of past living creatures—but the very machines I've grown up around.

As more time passes, the less I understand my friends.

The first memory I have is being held by something cold and kind.

I've grown to understand these beings are called machine life forms. I, too, am one. Although I do not look the same as the ones around me, I am a machine life form.

Pascal, the village leader, tells me I am like an advanced version. I have something called skin, and blood, sinew, organs, hair—all these things the regular machines do not have—and that is why I am warm. That is why the other machines in the village like to touch me. They are cold. I am warm.

But we are the same.

It is fine, when they crowd me. When they lay spindly, metal hands on my head or my shoulders. When the children coo at me, awed.

"Like fire, like fire! He is like fire."

I don't know my origin. How I got here. Pascal does not either, but Pascal says most machines were "made" by factories at a certain point. I was, too. Pascal talks about the network and how the connection has been severed, but I am not sure what the network is, or if I was ever apart of it.

I have likely lost my memories.

That is fine. Pascal says my memories are of warfare. Killing, bloodshed, and all around pain. That sounds unpleasant, and I don't think I like unpleasant things.

My memories now are not like that. They are fun. They are happy. The machine village Pascal has brought together is a place of peace and bright futures—and why should we look back at the past, try to remember the dark, when we are here, now, in this place of solitude?

I play with the machines, and they play with me. We learn together. We spend our days in the metal huts, learning to sing, learning about concepts that they seem to struggle with more than I. I understand this in an almost innate way. Of course, I feel. My friends do too—they say they do—but they take longer to take to it.

My friends will take a long time to understand what a "mother" is, for example.

I know it immediately, although I do not have one of my own.

It just makes sense to me, likely because I am more advanced than they. It is simply my make. I am blessed to have more to me.

More what?

Circuitry? Algorithm? Concept? Processing speed? Storage? Memory?

I do have restrictions, though. I am not allowed to leave the village since I look so strange. I am the only machine life form of my kind, and I may confuse the enemies that do exist beyond the rickety village. Not just aggressive machines, but past the dense trees and on the other side of the amusement park, beyond the forest and the city ruins, are other beings that wish to harm us.

Our "natural" enemy, spurred by a never ending conflict.

Androids.

"You look similar to androids," Pascal told me once, "but you are not the same."

That, too, Pascal says, is likely one of my weapons. To trick the enemy with my "friendly" appearance.

But I've asked not to be a weapon. I do like peace so much. Pascal patted my head, the brown hair that grows on it, and said, "Of course not. Not anymore. We will never fight again."

This village is the heart I do not have.

The heart all machines here wish to gain, somehow, through learning.

Mostly, we study humans.

Androids and humans look alike.

I look like them, too.

Because I was once a weapon.

But I'm a machine life form.

I'm certain of this, until—

Until one day, when I'm supposed to be in my metal house studying, I leave.

I leave when Pascal has told me, personally, to stay indoors.

"We may have visitors," he said.

But I'm sure I can avoid them and sneak out. Visitors mean nothing to me.

And as I'm hopping down the steps leading to the forest kingdom, as my bare feet land on the lush grass below, something that looks like an android or a human turns at the sound.

Leaves trickle between us, scattered on the ground. His silver hair falls across the black blindfold around his eyes.

He has paused as though he needs to be jump started.

A spear on his back. A black jacket. A collar.

An android? Is this the guest Pascal spoke of?

He half-turns, his mouth parted in just the slightest.

"Pod 153," the android speaks—a masculine, boyish voice—"please scan it again."

"Affirmative, unit 9S."

We stare at each other like two prey caught in one another's trap.

"Biological scan indicates that this is, without error, a life form known as a human."