How to describe pure beauty? Such a thing was impossible. An image that could only fit the eye of a single artist.

Could it be said that pure beauty was in fact a form of art? An art that could only be found at the right time.

Peering through a window, a young man found himself puzzled at the scene before him.

A woman was holding her child. She stood there watching the floating cars zip by. Her arms protected the sleeping child. The quiet buzz of the traffic ahead sounded far away.

Her long red hair dazzled in the slim rays of sun that hung overhead. Her gray eyes were like the cold metal gears shifting from place to place on this metal world. Her skin was tan. The freckles on her nose was evidence of her humanity. To think that this woman was unlike any other was an understatement.

She was as stern as a statue. No smile on her lips. No gleam in her eyes. The soft hands that held that child was the only evidence of her gentle touch.

The child woke.

Unlike his mother, he had blonde hair. Light and soft. His eyes were brown. The little boy was sleepy and… cold. His body shivered and he sneezed.

It was at that moment the little boy and the artist made eye contact. A brief moment that scared the young man into realizing how simple the world was.

The little boy gave a mischievous smile and pressed his head on his mother’s shoulder as she patted his back to keep him content.

It seemed that even the little boy knew that he had more than anyone could wish for. A mother’s love. Pure beauty.

Before he knew it, the woman had already left.

***

Humans. It was unless to envy humans.

As advanced humanoids, the world was now made of perfect humans.

Beauty was everywhere. Women with lush lips, smooth skin, curves. Men of careful charm and the likeness of sculptures.

The remains of humans civilization often went without much notice. Sickness and death were the most common fate of those pitiful creatures.

Humanoids outnumbered humans. Still, they coexisted peacefully. There was no reason to eliminate humanity. If anything it was a bit disheartening to see them disappear into obscurity.

“Focus on your work Aden. You’re acting like a human fool.”

“…”

Aden typed away on the tablet. As a young humanoid man, he worked tirelessly at his company. Just like most humanoids.

He worked and practiced in the way humans operated. Humanoids strived for human perfection.

The woman suddenly appeared in his mind.

He imagined her cold gray eyes staring at him.

It was he that became important to her. A king. A man of great power. He was her desire. Her eyes would only look to him. But why? Why was this woman so alluring? Like a fairy her body was delicate… and just there was the possibility of a smile on her lips-

“Aden!”

Aden snapped to attention. He had accidentally cashed the system. He awkwardly rebooted the system and returned to his work.

It was improper to cause delays as a humanoid.

Completely unacceptable.

***

The next two nights were torture for the humanoid.

His mind was creating new fantasies about having his own human family.

He would have a beautiful wife and a handsome son.

It was a dream that other humans and humanoids attained. Most humanoids created their idea of human families. Humans tended to stay to their human forms. Humans and humanoids rarely lived together in marriage.

Humanoids lived longer than humans.

As such, humanoids often explained that life with a human was far from what was ideal.

The thought never crossed Aden’s mind until he had seen that woman and that innocent child.

It was though they had been waiting for him.

How many nights had he dreamed of that woman dressed in red silk lying beside him? How many times had he wished to teach good morals to a child of his own? It would be a perfect world.

Each passing day Aden became more restless.

He wished he had followed after that woman. It seemed as though she and her son were nothing more than a far away dream.

What was the point of working? He worked every day without complaining. He did it for the good of society.

The lonely apartment he stayed in had gray walls and very little furniture. He did not need a large kitchen. He was the only one to eat. He did not need a large bed. Only large enough to fit his body for a few hours of rest.

The same space he had lived in suddenly became smaller. He bumped into the door frames and disliked sleeping on a thin mattress.

His whole life seemed more miserable than ever. In his effort to be human, it became clear that he had not noticed his life before. He was not human. And could never be.

The thought made Aden much less hopeful.

He wondered why he wished so desperately for a human wife and son. The only conclusion he could make left him empty.

It could have been the result of his program.

***

“Aden. Report to maintenance. Your system is unstable.”

The continued presence of metal and steel suffocated Aden. He sometimes seen a flame of red hair just at the end of the hallway. It would disappear before he could reach it. A mischievous smile would come from nowhere and vanish into thin air.

This human dream was haunting him.

As Aden walked up the stairs to have his system repaired, he wondered if it would mean that his memory of those humans would disappear…

The moment he entered the room Aden had already made his mind. He kept the issue he had been struggling with to himself. Returning to a perfect world was not his desire anymore.

The truth was not ideal, but it gave him a taste of reality.

Aden smirked to himself. He had begun to enjoy the pain. A dangerous addiction.

As Aden walked to his apartment he found himself facing a small boy with bright blonde hair.

The boy stared at him and trembled in fear. He ran off and Aden chased after him.

The boy was covered in oil stains. His smile was gone. The woman was no where to be seen.

“Over there! The thief went that way!”

Police drones flew overhead and singled out the child. Aden looked carefully in his coat and pulled out a laser. He aimed it at the done that had spotted the boy and opened fire.

The red laser zipped through the air and destroyed the police drone immediately.

The boy looked at him in confusion.

“Run! Get out of here!”

The boy gasped and began running.

Aden quickly took a detour to hide himself from the crowd.

He had reacted without even thinking about the consequences. His head was scrambled, but the only thing he hoped was that the innocent boy could escape.

***

The boy was innocent.

Aden did not have any doubt. Of course, he did not have any evidence of the boy’s innocence either.

Based on his assessment, Aden estimated that the boy was in a bad situation. He was stealing something. A bottle off some kind. Perhaps it was for the woman. She must have been injured…

Aden’s metal mind calculated and recalculated the odds off meeting the child again.

He could help.

He had access too most facilities in the city. He could easily get a few supplies without any issues.

Aden reflected.

The boy is not from theirs city. Not him nor the woman. They were too different from on the humans that lived here in the city.

Humans of this city always wore plain clothes. They were simple and quiet. The woman’s red hair should have been the obvious sign of this fact.

Aden flushed.

He was so distracted with her beauty that hat he had overlooked it completely.

In any case, Aden decided to wait for it the boy to return. It was only a matter off time before he would return too steal supplies.

The look on that boy’s face was proof enough.

***

A great gun metal sky reflected the grim metal city below.

Aden kept his eyes down to the gray sidewalk. He dismissed the eerie silence of the crowd.

It was like a fog. A thick fog had fallen inside the crowd. People moved slowly and without much effort. It was a sway. Their feet barely lifted from the floor. Their bodies leaned forward or to the side.

Aden made it to his work desk. He sensed the mood. The strange feeling whirled inside him as if to warn him. Something was wrong.

The humanoid refused to admit this.

Just as he placed his finger on the keyboard, two men approached him.

“Are you Aden 398?”

“Yes.”

“Come with us. We have questions for you.”

Aden was led to an isolated room. Gray square tiles and a metal table with two chairs. He took his seat quickly.

“Where were you on the 35th hour last week?”

“Walking home.”

“…”

“Something wrong?”

The two men exchanged glances. Finally, one of them held up a screen and played some footage.

It was the little boy.

“Do you know this human?”

“Not too well. I don’t normally see humans in my day.” Answered Aden.

“We have reason to believe you do.”

Suddenly the footage blurred. Aden realized this must have been the police drone’s footage before he shot it out of the sky. He needed to answer carefully.

“Recently you required maintenance for your system. These events are rare. Especially for a humanoid like yourself. This goes without saying but we will require your processing unit.”

“Yes. Yes of course.”

Aden removed his hard drive from the back of his head and set it on the table. He stared aimlessly in front of himself.

The two policemen inspected it carefully and shrugged after they seen it was without a scratch.

“No tampering. This checks out. The humanoid is cleared to go.”

They inserted the hard drive back into the humanoid and Aden blinked three times.

He was released without any more questions.

Aden walked quietly and took satisfaction in his gamble.

Had they took the time to open his files they would have seen his memory of the woman with her human child. They would have seen his fantasy of living as a dutiful husband and father. They would have seen his inner desires corrupting his original programming.

A smile naturally glossed over his face.

For some reason, Aden was feeling more human than he had ever felt in his entire existence.

***

As Aden crossed the road he was bumped into by another person. They apologized in a gruff voice and continued on their way.

Aden had been in such a daze he barely noticed the man. No matter.

He arrived at a terminal and waited for transport. Hover cars. The most efficient way to travel. Machine operated vehicles that only traveled in one direction at high speeds.

Aden had missed the last car because of his untimely meeting with at man at the crossroads. It would take another three minutes before the next car arrived.

He sat down and waited in the empty terminal.

All the other humanoids had returned to their apartments by now. Work was over. How strange he never noticed the cycle of this city. This city had a way of keeping a tight grip on time. There was time to work and time to leave.

He was in the dead hour.

The hour no one really left their apartments. For no reason at all people stayed in their apartments until it was time to work once again. That was all there was in this city. Apartments and businesses.

Aden watched the hover car pull into the terminal. He was about to get on when he spotted a small bottle roll from the stairs.

How unusual.

No trash littered the metal city. Especially not dirty glass bottles. He would have to do his civilian duty to put that garbage away.

He bent down and picked up the bottle. Before he could even look up. A blunt object struck the back of his head and he collapsed to the ground.

A group of people in black clothes collected Aden, his briefcase, and the glass bottle. They ran off into the metal city.

Meanwhile the hover car door closed and immediately went traveling through the streets without a single passenger.

***

“We should destroy his hard drive. The sooner the better. We can’t let these humanoid alert the city of our infiltration.”

“I thought you said it was empty at that hour? And Carmen. How the hell did you drop that glass bottle? I thought you were the stealthiest person for the job!”

“Calm down Michael. I slipped up because I’m human. Okay? I think I did a pretty decent job knocking the lights out of this robot. It’s an easy fix. We just have to destroy the disk like Jason said.”

The three humans nodded in agreement.

“Agreed. Where’s your hammer. I want it broken into a million pieces.”

Just as Jason was about to slam the metal head on the fragile hard drive, someone screamed.

“Holy… Anthony?! What’s wrong with you? Kid, hey…”

The little boy with blonde hair ran to Aden and sank to his knees. He tossed his arms around the humanoid’s leg and trembled.

“He’s the one that saved me!”

***