The Bridge

It’d been over a month since Amir was seen at Rowan University. Sylk and Cassidy knew the dangers of putting him into an environment where he might be recognized as the wanted rogue android, but they had confidence in their makeover capabilities.

“What even is this?” Cassidy asked as she picked up the lacey fabric that Amir had used as a shirt when she first met him.

“I don’t know, but it feels important.”

Sylk picked it up to examine it. “I could fashion it into something if you want. Sleeves on a shirt, gloves, a scarf or something.”

“That’d be nice, thank you Sylk,” Amir said with a smile.

"Don't flash that kind of grin at me or I'll think you're flirting," Sylk warned. It took Amir a moment to react, trying to process if she was joking or not.

Cassidy pushed up her glasses and cleared her throat, since they had a limited time to get Amir ready this morning. “The easiest way to get people not to recognize you is to change your gender. Is there any way to make your voice become higher?”

“Accessing voice settings.” Amir’s eyes went white, and then back to blue. He tried speaking again, but this time he sounded like some kind of high pitched lolita girl from an anime.

Sylk laughed, but Cassidy told him to take this more seriously. After adjusting his tone, he was able to sound like a normal girl, which was kind of eerie considering his body was very much still masculine.

“Now for the fun part. Welcome to my wig closet,” Cassidy set a big box down on the kitchen counter, then pushed a button that caused it to mechanically flip open. Wigs lined the inner walls of the box, with every color of the rainbow and various styles or degrees of curlyness.

“What color are you feeling today, monsieur- I mean, madame?” Cassidy asked.

Amir’s eyes lit up as he looked at all of the options. “Can I go with green?” He pointed at one that was jade colored and fairly curly. Cassidy nodded.

“Bold choice!” Sylk said as she clapped him on the back. “I think I can cobble together an outfit to go with that color, be right back.”

While Sylk went through her closet, Cassidy started on Amir’s makeup. She didn’t have a lot of practice working with someone with a darker skin tone, but she’d watched plenty of tutorials to make up for the lack of hands-on experience. She was going to be the type of person who attempted to broaden her horizons instead of giving up and working with one skin tone forever.

Dark green lipstick to match the hair, emerald clip-on earrings, and a dark and bold line of eyeliner. She made him put on a pair of sclera contacts that were white and a pair of regular black eye contacts on top of them. Normally people shouldn’t wear two pairs of contacts, but all of the discomfort and health dangers related to doing that wouldn’t affect Amir since he was an android.

They had already managed to cover up his neck, ear, and fingers with synthetic skin. His elbows, shoulders, knees, and ankle had exposed metal as well because they were his joints. However, wearing synthetic skin on those moving parts would wear and tear it away after a couple of days, so it was best to only put it on when he really needed it. The same went to his fingers, but it couldn’t be helped that these had to be exposed, so they would just need to be replaced every time they started to look worn.

Cassidy removed Amir’s regular hair and put on the green wig for him. His easily detachable hair made her curious about what other part's of Amir could be easily removed.  

The highest curl amount she had in her personal wig stash was just 2c, out of respect for people’s culture. She didn't want to overstep and appropriate other people’s hair type. It would have to do for Amir until she could get more coily and natural-looking wigs for him.

Sylk came back holding a green argyle sweater, a long black skirt, black tights, and green mary jane shoes. On Sylk the sweater might be oversized, but it would fit Amir perfectly.

“How did you find that? Just how deep is your closet?” Cassidy asked with an impressed whistle.

“Honestly, at this point my room is more closet than room.”

When they tried to get Amir into the clothes, they found out that the shoes wouldn’t fit him. Sylk suggested they go grimm’s-fairy-tale-cinderella on it, but Cassidy suggested that he could just wear the plain black shoes that he had on when they first met him.

When they’d finally finished his transformation, they grabbed their bags and all rushed to the door. “Wait, Amir, don’t forget your sketchbook. Use it to take notes. Remember, people can’t know that you’re an android,” Cassidy said. He did so and held onto it excitedly.

“Thank you for helping me, friends. I can’t wait to go to college again.”

“He’s like a little freshman, all starry-eyed and carrying the sweet innocence of not experiencing college finals yet,” Sylk commented with a smile.

“If anyone asks, you’re a family friend of mine who wanted to sit in during some classes before applying for Rowan,” Cassidy shut the apartment door behind them.

“What should we call you?” Sylk asked as they were on the commute to school.

“We could just say Amira,” suggested Cassidy.

“Ugh, boring. You can’t just add an ‘a’ at the end of a name to make it feminine. That’s such a cop out!”

“Your name ends in an a,” Cassidy reminded Sylk.

“Touché.”

“I like the name Amira. It is not too different from what I’m used to being called and I quite enjoy the name you chose for me, Sylk.” Amir smiled, which in turn made Sylk and Cassidy smile. When it came time to pay for the supway, Cassidy made sure to pay for Amir so he didn’t have to do the soul scan, and then they were on their way.

𓆩♡𓆪

Classes went by in a flash. None of her professors minded Amira tagging along with her. As for friends, Cassidy didn’t really have more than a few acquaintances; people she could pass the time with at lunch or during the hours in between classes. Most people left them alone.

Amira didn’t leave anybody alone, though. She had so many questions every time someone new passed by her. She gave out compliments like candy and questioned people about things that made them stop and talk for entire lengths of conversations.

“We’re supposed to be laying low, Amira,” Cassidy warned her at some point in the middle of the day. They were sitting on a windowsill that Cassidy liked to use as a reading nook.

“I know, I know, but I can’t help that I’m so curious about everyone. Here, look,” Amira handed Cassidy her sketchbook. She began to flip through it, and Cassidy couldn’t believe her eyes.

Some of the worst, anatomically incorrect, toddler-looking ass drawings were in the pages. Amira’s lines were shaky and light, like she was afraid to press down with her pencil. Cassidy didn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

“What am I looking at?”

“I drew some of the people we met today. Andrew, the computer science major. Marilyn, the girl with eight siblings. Robin, the one with the cool tattoo,” When Amira started pointing them out, Cassidy could see how the scribbly stick figures vaguely resembled the people she was talking about. Amira was smiling, waiting for Cassidy’s reaction.

“Amira… I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t think art is your strong suit.”

That only made Amira smile wider. “I know! I know it’s not, and isn’t that wonderful? I wasn’t built with any set of programming or data that refined my drawing skills, so I’m learning it all from scratch, just like a human would."

Cass closed the sketchbook “How do you do that, Amira?”

“Do what?” Amira titled her head curiously.

Make me lower my guard. Make me want to just scoop you up and shake you, figure out what makes you tick and how and why those people hurt you so badly.

“Get so excited about little things. You’re just so happy to be close to humans, close to humanity, even if you’re technically an outlier.”

“Hmm," When Amira hummed, there was a little mechanical whir underlying it. She kicked her feet back and forth "I don’t know. I just like humans. I like learning about them. I know humans have mistreated me in the past, but they’re not all bad. Because of you and Sylk, I’m curious about the complexities of other humans. I know you’re only sticking with me until we figure out why I have a soul, but I’m grateful for the time we’ve had together.”

Cassidy shifted in her seat and frowned. “Right. Just until we find out about your soul.”

Her phone beeped. It was Sylk, asking to meet her on one of the bridges connecting the school buildings together. She used six exclamation points in the message, so it must’ve been urgent. “Here,” Cassidy handed Amira back her sketchbook, “Let’s go, Sylk wants to talk to us.”

𓆩♡𓆪

Once they got to the meeting spot, Sylk was pacing around in duress. The bridge had glass sides so they could see a view into the city. Bridges like this one were all over the campus so that all of the buildings connected together.

“Look at this video,” Sylk set her phone up to do a holographic display. Cassidy and Amir watched it play out in the air in front of them.

It was a news video. The main focus was security footage. It was grainy, but undeniably the alley where they’d met Amir after the party. The whole scene played out, from Amir throwing his arm at the creep, to Sylk and Cassio lifting their arms under Amir’s unconscious body to drag him home. A news anchor was talking about two unidentified accomplices helped a rogue robot. Underneath the anchor words zoomed across the bottom of the screen saying “The police are currently working with facial recognition software in an attempt to apprehend these criminals. Witnesses say they suspect that they're university students.”

Cassidy covered her mouth. Amira fell to his knees from the shock.

“What does this mean for us?” Sylk asked them.

“It means we’ll be caught soon enough. How long ago did that story get broadcasted?” Cassidy asked.

“Maybe ten minutes ago. I told you guys to get over here as soon as I saw it.”

“We have to go to the ground level,” Cassidy put a hand on Amira’s shoulder, “We can’t go back to our apartment building, they’d be waiting for us there if we tried to head back.”

“Why now? If that security video’s been sitting and collecting dust for weeks, then why release it now?” Amira asked shakily.

“It wasn’t sitting and collecting dust. Only the people who needed to know about the video had access to it, and now they’re releasing it to the public to scare us. They probably figured out who were a long time ago,” Cassidy pushed up her glasses, “That, or the owner of the building didn’t have reason to turn in the footage until recently. Either way, we need to get out of-”

CRASH.

Glass shattered across the inside of the bridge, and all three of them ducked to avoid the shards flying at them.

A man, fully decked out in black soultech gear and a ballistic helmet that covered his face, rolled onto the bridge through the giant hole in the glass, and two more guys followed in after him. They were all connected to something outside with black ropes.

Cassidy wasted no time leaping into action. All of those fractured lessons as a child, all of those discordant fighting classes finally coming to use. The men apparently didn’t expect any of them to have any combat ability, so he was caught off guard by Cassidy’s high kick. However, despite landing a good blow to the head, he stumbled back but didn’t fall.

One of the other men grabbed Sylk by the arm, wrenching her towards him and trying to put a pair of handcuffs on her. Cassidy had to abandon the guy she kicked to rush at the one grabbing Sylk, punching him twice in the gut and then spinning around to land a kick on him, but he blocked it with his arm. These guys were too strong for her. Inhumanely strong. It must’ve been some combination of the gear and cybernetic strength enhancements.

“Someone deal with this one, now!” Growled one of the men. Cassidy couldn’t tell who said it because their faces were covered by masks, but she didn’t care and she was not going to go down without a fight.

Amir was holding his own against one of them. He wasn’t programmed to fight, but since he was made of metal he could defend himself by pushing back his attacker and landing untrained but nonetheless heavy blows.

The man who’d just blocked her kick tried to grab for Sylk again, but Cassidy put her body in between her and him to block his path.

“Cass-!” Sylk’s voice was cut off, and Cassidy felt a burning sensation on her back. Her body stiffened. She was being electrocuted. She’d taken her eye off the third man for a moment and he used that time to get the better of her. 

No, she couldn't go out like this. She had to save Amir and Sylk. If anything happened to them, she'd never forgive herself.

Despite how much she wanted to stand and fight, she fell to the ground, her eyes straining to stay open. She only saw the perspective of shuffling feet in the scene before her. Sylk was taken in cuffs, and Amir was eventually electrocuted too and dragged away.

At this point Cassidy realized that she must’ve been hit with something that also paralyzed her, because she was somehow still conscious.

One of the men stepped forward, his boots crunching as they met the glass on the ground. He stood in front of Cassidy. “What to do with this one, ma’am?” Nobody else was there, so he must’ve been communicating through a headset.

“Understood.” The man grabbed Cassidy by the arm and began to drag her without even slowing his stride. 

He was too strong, and Cassidy was only human. At times she didn’t want to admit it, but she really was only human. She felt emotions like a human. She loved like a human. 

Now she was going to die like a human.

“Sorry kid, but we can’t have any witnesses.”

He threw her body over the side of the bridge, and Cassidy saw him grow smaller and smaller, her arms flailing out before her. Cassidy's red hair flew in front of her face and framed her vision like flames. 

In the distance, she saw a mocking blue sky as she descended into what was surely Hell.