The Shadow Android

Robots do not hold on to life. They can't. They have nothing to hold on with - no soul, no instinct. Grass has more will to live than they do.
------ Karel Capek
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Once again, the android couldn’t help but feel his robotic hand with his normal one. Normal? More like disguised. Disguised to appear as an actual hand, instead of a horrifying metal-skeleton one.

It wasn’t too long ago that the android had found out that he wasn’t the real Shadow. He wasn’t the ultimate life-form, nor good enough to match the test-tube-organism’s perfection. He simply wasn’t good enough. Not just in the fact that he was an imperfect copy, but also in the fact that he was nothing more than a glorified computer. A fake.

People have labeled robots as “soulless” long before his creation. His? He seemed more like an “it”. A soulless “it”. Yes, if the people were the true all-knowing beings of the universe, then they must have been right about the android’s soullessness.

Click. Whirr…

The android flexed his robotic hand very slowly. It usually did this when he was… when it was… processing thoughts… The metal shined, even through the rusty dried blood that stubbornly refused to wash off, even after six thorough scrubbings.

Shadow’s wife, Rouge, now affected with old age (something that the android didn’t have to worry about, nor the real Shadow the Hedgehog), avoided it almost completely. The android couldn’t start a conversation with the old bat. It was like it SCARED her… it recollected the wired-in “memories” of Rouge, when she saw it’s face…

The android gently touched the left side of it’s face. The false-eye gel was completely torn off on that side, and open slashes where fake skin and fur used to be revealed his true colors - the metal underneath – also stained with cloned blood.

Rouge was upset. She screamed at it. She almost stabbed it with a kitchen knife until Eclipse, Shadow’s son interfered. Sure, Rouge did not destroy the android, but she did ask it over and over where her husband was, always with it answering her –

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead.”

It guessed that, because she couldn’t accept the hedgehog’s death, she couldn’t accept the android. It understood. It decided to no longer bother her.

The android looked away from it’s mechanical hand, which was now closed into a fist. From the small window in it’s – Shadow’s – room, small spears of light slipped through the glass, and reflected off of the android’s metal under-skin. It looked out, sadly, through the window, looking out upon the small population of trees that surrounded the tall building of HNHQ, and beyond, into the skyline of the city of New Mobotropolis. Even through the thick glass that blocked the rest of the world from it’s room, he could hear the laughter of young mobians.

Perhaps it was not real… but… it now had to carry on Shadow the Hedgehog’s duty; to help Eclipse raise and protect his and Twilight’s children. Those two kids… Mist, and Arty… they seemed to be the only thing it looked forward to in it’s mechanical existence. They filled it with joy, and even made it feel like a real mobian.

That thought alone, made the android smile.