The boy woke up after some time. He was awfully pale and looked shook up. There was a decent while where he could not speak and breathed strangely, rather shallow breaths coming in at a somewhat slow rate. He looked towards me, but not at me; in that moment his eyesockets may as well have been hollowed out, he saw nothing. They moved randomly, not seeming to follow a set pattern. The boy was catatonic, unable to do much other than stare at the wall once he sat up. He had been sleeping for approximately half a day and would not lay back down. He was frightfully thin - I could not see his ribs - and his skin was cold to the touch. It was rather concerning, but I could not do too much about it for the moment. I gave him one more looking over before I left the room and told my assistant to keep an eye on the boy while I considered what should be done.

After a bit of looking I found the man who had drove him in. " He was pretty rough. You could probably see it on him. I think he'd got a splinter or two in his finger, " he told me. They had cleaned him up before I arrived, but I had seen some of the bruises that wouldn't go away. They had also give him a heavy jacket to be in. His shirt had purportedly been soiled and soaked through, they had to give him something to resist the cold. It was winter, what had motivated him to be out in such conditions? There was a barn or something like it right where he had been picked up, according to Mark. There were supposedly marks in the grass where it looked like he had clawed and clawed until he could not anymore. There was dirt deep under his fingernails that they had not been able to get out. He must have been exhausted. My heart ached for the boy.

They hadn't picked up much more. I thanked Mark and returned to the boy. He had moved to the edge of the bed, his bruised knees exposed. His head hung low, his hair covering his eyes. I could see his chest, bare, unmoving; he had adopted something of an upright fetal position, taking up the least space possible his frame could take up. It didn't look like he was breathing, but I could still hear something. It all unnerved me, if I am being honest. I was afraid to touch him. I got closer and the noise increased, there was something I could not see on the inside making it. He limply jolted forward and fell to the ground with a loud clang. His face hit my foot and I accidentally kicked him from reflex. I ran out and shut him in the room, then I called for Mark to come quick. We re-entered the room with caution. His knees and head touched the ground and the rest of his body was in a stiff arch, his legs going back up halfway. His body looked like the line on a chart. We turned him over and we looked at his face; his eyes were dislodged, hanging from their sockets by wires.

The subjects, hereby referred to as Seele Alpha and Seele Omega, respectively, were presented to the Technical Services Division at approximately 10 PM. Seele Alpha had signs of intense water damage. Internals appear damaged beyond repair, but the synthetic flesh is mostly preserved and can likely be reused if calibrated to a new body. This would be costly, but not as expensive as starting from scratch. It could prove to be a valuable opportunity to further understand the limits of synthetic biology, particularly the persistence of memory in the presence of a physical "death". The procedure has never been performed before, but there is reason to believe it could be done, with enough time and care. Futher research is likely needed to determine how feasible such a feat would be. The surgery, if that is what it is to be called, would be a major leap forward in mechanical biology. Failure to repair Seele Alpha would have minimal consquences, and success could be paradigm-shifting. It is the reccomendation of the Technical Services Division to proceed. Seele Omega was found to be completely beyond repair. However, the body could prove useful for study. A failed Artificial Intelligence-powered body has never been properly examined. There appears to be some aspects of the cyberbrain that could potentially retain some level of function. The Technical Services Division is divided on what is to be done. The process of determining what can and cannot be salvaged would be complex and involve intensive troubleshooting; if successful, many costs could be avoided in the future and further knowledge could be attained. If failed, a large sum of money and many hours could go to waste. Ultimately, the Technical Services Division would support an attempt to repair Seele Omega, but would respect a dissenting view.

2050s

I had come out to visit the ruins of Washington while I was on a trip, mainly for business, but not without pleasure as an objective. It was certainly a bit of a bleak exercise, I must admit. I have always enjoyed such things; the macabre, the broken, the discarded, the things we've cast away and wish to forget have always been a fascination of mine, much to the disapproval of my uptight mother and rather discerning father. My inclinations were never much to their liking, but that does not matter anymore I suppose.

For years I had avoided the city because it was a place much too dangerous for my tastes. I remember hearing of gangs wandering the streets, picking off people they saw just for the fun of it (and, ocasionally, for some kind of profit), and other people told me that there were always fires burning, people burning things in barrels like movies. I never fully believed it, but I had no need of travel and there were always better places to go anyway; I had my doubts about some of the reports, but, without question, the beach would be much more pleasant than Washington after it had been bombed and shot to the point it was abandoned. The city happened to be along my way and I hadn't much else to do for the night, so I went into town.

As I entered it looked as I expected. It was bombed out, all black and brown; the ground was dry and the road was wearing out, slowly but surely warping. I caught myself wondering when they would repave it for a moment. I don't think they will ever do such a thing, not with how things are now. Maybe if they can expell all the traitors they will restore the capital and it will be a place we all gaze upon in awe once more. But for now it will stay the domain of barbarians and those who make company with them. I came to see the sights, nothing else. Thankfully, the once-bustling streets were largely emptied. They must have gone off pillaging somewhere else.

Eventually, I reached the whitehouse. It was barely anything worth seeing in all honesty, but I felt a pang of nostalgia at the sight. It was white no longer. Most of it was torn down and nothing but rubble. The few parts standing were in different states of returning to nature, green creeping upward. All the items worth taking had been removed long ago. There wasn't as much as a chair left, not even the slightest indication of anything that could have been sold. It was rather disgusting if I were to be honest. Not a shred of class to it. It stank of urine and looked like it was soaked in it as well. If it weren't so disgusting it would have been boring. Oh well. All good things come to an end, don't they?

I left the whitehouse with something of a bad taste on my tongue. There was no use in mourning; any attachment had faded once it became the property of those thugs however many years ago. I continued further to the other end of town and saw essentially nothing, just as I had expected. There was something like society at the far edge of town. A few of the buildings had been repaired, but most of them were just huts and tents in various stages of inviability. At first I saw no people but, upon closer investigation, some fascimilie of civilization emerged. People were moving, seemingly bartering. How quaint. I found my curious to be powerful enough to warrant paying them a visit, in spite of my reservations regarding their potentially sordid character.

I ended up in something akin to a medieval bazaar. There were skinned animals hanging off of some type of plastic-esque twines in stalls made of cobbled together wood, metal and the various other wastes of civilized society; I had noticed a smell most foul but had not made note of its origin, so perhaps they lived off of the trash of individuals such as myself, but were so ashamed of living as roaches that they hid this habit from the outside world. There were other people speaking some cant unknown to myself and trading in various things, with a few dollars being exchanged from time to time, much to my surprise. It mattered not to me, though it was an interesting sight in a sense.

My status as a voyeur was not a secret. The people looked at me and I could see their dirt-stained faces attempting to make sense of me, a man of society, in their midst. Some of them backed away and others cautiously approached, while the rest attempted to continue life as normal, returning to the filth. They were quite unpleasant in a sensory way, though I had to grant that their fascination was amusing to me. A few grubby children stared into my eyes before turning away and hiding, which wasn't hard considering the grime on them and the ambient uncleanliness of their environment. I handed out a dollar to one of them to see their reaction - he watched quietly as if he expected the bill to dematerialize the moment he acknowledged it, and then he grabbed at it quickly and ran off. None of them spoke to me.

After some time I came to a shack with some rather... interesting, I shall say, illustrations on the side. They reminded me of the neolithic cave paintings I was shown as a boy. The subject may have been comprehensible at some point, but they seemed to have faded over time. I could make out a few stiffly-scrawled people and some high, black lines that rose over them all. There was a rough slit down the middle and a man that had hobbled his way just outside the entrance, his finger curling back in a beckoning motion with some evident difficulty. He spoke in a strained voice, as if hoarse from screaming: " Come... come, here... Would you just come now. " He seemed harmless enough as judged by his physicality that I opted to go along with his request, though I expected it to be nothing more than one of many wastes of time that I had encountered today.

I bent down to enter his tent and found it a bit surprising in its size. The floor was dirt but there was some sort of rough weaved thing that covered it near the center. There were small candles lit on a low table that appeared to have its legs jammed down into the ground, perhaps to compensate for the height of the tent. It did smell pleasantly floral, though it was very faint all things considered. I sat on a dirtied pillow on the other side of the man, my back to the entrance of the temporary structure and my hands resting on a solid, smoothed wooden mass that sat between us directly on the floor. There was enough light that I could see his face and parts of his hands but not much more. Before I could comment on my surroundings he coughed and produced another candle that was set upon the wood and let with an old-styled lighter. He put his hands near the flame, looking into it for a moment.

After a time he cleared his throat and spoke. " I would like to tell you something. You're one a the only people from out of these parts I've seen for quite a long time. Most no one else will stop by where I go, " he said. He looked tired, but a certain excitement was evident in his eyes. " I wander round tryin to sell a few things. Things I'll show you in a while. Maybe you would like a thing or two from here. But that don't matter much at present. I got a story to sell you first if you'd listen for a while. It could take some time and I'm sure you're a real busy, busy man. But I think I'd be worth your time. I go all about and do lots of things. I used to live different and that's the story I'd like to tell you. "

" A long, long time ago I used to work with the government. Some military things. I think out near Quantico. I was doing all kinds of runt work because I needed a job. I'd gotten a degree working on the computers an all that kind of thing, but for a while I was just doing janitor work and that sort of thing. Anyway, after a while they moved me up and I was doing the real work I'd been trying for. They set me up on a weird thing. Now I want you to promise me you'll take what I'm going to tell you real serious and tell people what I'm tellin you, " he said. I nodded without speaking. " I mean it. It's some things they ought to know. Put your hand on mine and swear to it. " I considered it for a moment, but ultimately extended my hand. " Good man. You're a man of good reputation I'm sure. I just need you to tell whoever can hear it and will trust you. Yell it til your vocal cords die. "

" Now anyway I'll tell you what I need to. They're running some experiments out somewhere. I don't know where but somewhere further out west, with robots. They're tryin to raise them like normal people, like you an me. I was there when they were designing it. " His hands were moving with him as he spoke, casting strange shadows on the wall. " They made em able to bleed. And they feed on real food. I helped them plan a boy from scratch and he could move and even faked breathing. He could speak like a dumb boy, but he could speak alright. I heard it. It's hard to remember the specifics of it sometimes but I know what I done and it makes me wish I'd have just died sometimes. They took me out to see it living, or I guess not, I don't know what to call it. But they took me out to watch it in the wild. It just sat and picked at the dirt like it hardly had no brain. Made me think it was lobotomized, but it was the same thing I'd helped them make. There's more of em now probably, but I only helped them with the first one. "

I wasn't sure if any of this could be true, it seemed more than a bit ridiculous. I didn't say anything, in large part because I found the whole thing entertaining. " You wouldn't believe what it was. They'd make fish that ran off internet for the fake people to catch and even a few fake birds. None of it real. Running off solar and shit. It's no joke. They even let the robot things out there into the world. They went into the city and did things, nothing dangerous or bad, just things like me and you would do. They had em out with the farmers in the area too and none of them noticed. The robots would farm and not a single person ever noticed far as we could tell. I don't know if anyone ever picked it up but there was never an indication of it. They set it all aflame and it was on the news for a bit, but no one knew what was really going on. Far as I can tell anyways. I had to leave when I saw it done and they wanted me done ever since. Something horrible done and I did it. When it was finished I wanted to cry, I'd done real wrong. "

" You don't got to believe me, but it'd make me awful happy if you'd tell people. I can show you some of the old plans for it if you'd like. I don't know if it'd change your mind, but I could show it anyway. I just want people to hear and you could go into town and tell them. You gotta come from the city, " he asserted. I agreed with a quick nod. " Prolly out near the bay. They moved a lot of the shit from out here over there. I hope it's good over there. I never been able to go, I've just been around what's left this way, " he said, seeming a bit saddened. " Let me show you the plans and let you see them for yourself. "

He did just that. I could not make anything of them, but they seemed legitimate. " You'll tell them all I hope. Let people know, won't you? I'll let you take a few trinkets along if you promise. It ain't much but I think it needs done, " he said. I looked at the plans some more, trying to figure the schematics out from what little knowledge of mechanics I had. It was much too complicated for my comprehension. I ultimately agreed. He nodded and dug around, giving me a broken prototype of one of the strange animatronic-esque things. It was a bit battered but it looked like the fish. Its eyes had been removed and the internal components looked as if they were starting to rust, but most of the pieces were there. He put it in my palm carefully and he squeezed my hand. " Take care of it, as much as you can. Show it to people that know what to do with it. Just please make it known. It'd be doin me a real favor. "