Canary: A TAA Lesson in POV

Corporal William Lewis:    

      I looked at the humanoid girl sitting across from me. "So," I started awkwardly, "Like Colonel said, I'm Corporal William Lewis. I guess I'm going to take care of you from here on out…" I was answered with silence. I waited for a few moments to see if I would get a response at all; no such luck. I put my hands behind my head and leaned back a bit. "Well, this is going to be a very awkward couple of months…"

The blonde humanoid, Canary as the colonel named her, just stared back at me. I didn't really know anything about Canary except what the scientists called her kind: BIRDs, Border Invader Raiding Devices.  I didn't know much about these half-human, half-machine things, but I knew that something wasn't right. Her eyes were blank and almost all pupils. She didn't even seem to be alive, despite the rising and falling of her chest giving away the fact that she was breathing. I watched her for a few more moments before I turned to a letter that I was writing before she had arrived.

        "Hello, Corporal William Lewis. It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Canary."

I turned towards the warm voice to see Canary standing next to me, a smile plastered on her perfect face and her hand held out to shake mine. "Um, hi," I replied awkwardly, taking her hand. "I know who you are. We met like twenty minutes ago, remember?"

"I am very sorry. I was not synchronized properly before. Please forgive me, Corporal William Lewis."

"You can call me Will, you know. The way it looks, we'll be spending a lot of time together." I looked around the cabin we would be forced to share from that day on. "A lot of time together…"

Canary smiled, but this time it looked real. "You're nice. We're going to be great comrades, Will." It wasn't until then that I noticed her eyes. They were bright blue. I'd never seen blue eyes before. Where I lived, and even in the military, everyone had brown eyes; it was the mark of someone of lower-middle class and below.

        But Canary, she had blue. I tried to tell myself that they weren't real. They probably were some kind of special device that the scientists happened to make the color of the highest class' eyes. But the way they sparkled when she smiled, there was no way they could be fake.

        Who was Canary? And why was she now a BIRD in the military?
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Canary:


      I could see nothing. Since coming out of my crate and being activated, I had been running on autopilot. My circuits kept shorting. Though, my auditory program did pick up the young man's soft voice from approximately three feet away.  "So, like Colonel said, I'm Corporal William Lewis. I guess I'm going to take care of you from here on out…"

       I could not yet respond to him. My vocal cords were not yet calibrated, much like my eyes. That was the first time I had been activated since my completion. I had no idea how long ago that was, but from the way my body was trying to re-regulate itself, it had to have been more than a week. I finally felt the nerve impulses shoot to my extremities, making me wiggle my fingers slightly in assurance. Slowly, my human parts synchronized with my mechanical parts.

       The last part of me that starting working again was my eyes. Until then, I only knew the obvious about Corporal William Lewis. He was around the age of nineteen considering his vocal range, approximately 180 pounds and nearly six feet tall judging the force of his footsteps, and he was from the western part of the country seeing as his speech had a certain slow drawl to it.

"Hello, Corporal William Lewis. It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Canary." I smiled, though I didn't remember telling myself to do so. I was still on autopilot. I could only do what was programmed for me to do in that particular situation.

He took my outstretched hand and shook it. "Um, hi. I know who you are. We met like twenty minutes ago, remember?"

I withdrew my hand, but continued smiling against my will. "I am very sorry. I was not synchronized properly before. Please forgive me, Corporal William Lewis."

"You can call me Will, you know. The way it looks, we'll be spending a lot of time together… A lot of time together…" he replied, looking around the room restlessly, almost as if he were trapped.

I felt the autopilot program slowly shut down as I took control of my actions. I smiled again, though this time of my own volition. Though, I'm not sure if it was due to Will's friendliness towards me, or the fact that autopilot finally shut down. "You're nice. We're going to be great comrades, Will."

The young man looked up at me briefly before staring at me. He looked utterly confused for some reason. I did what any normal humanoid would do; I stared back at him with the same curiosity. After several minutes, I finally said something, "Um, Will, is everything okay?"

He shook his head quickly as if to clear away a thought and turned back to his paper and pen. "Yeah, Canary, everything's fine."
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Third Person Point of View:

The two sat across from each other, each on their respective cots. A heavy silence hung in the air, making the brunette soldier uncomfortable. "So, like Colonel said, I'm Corporal William Lewis. I guess I'm going to take care of you from here on out…" he mumbled uncomfortably, trying to find something to let his eyes rest upon. The blonde  across from him was silent, staring with dull, black eyes at everything and nothing at once. The corporal took this as disinterest on the girl's part and added quietly whilst leaning against the wall, "Well, this is going to be a very awkward couple of months…"

When he again received no response, the corporal turned his attention to an unfinished letter he was writing to his mother and sisters back home. He picked up the pen and scrawled away about how he had gotten a new duty: babysitting Division 2's living doll.

The blonde girl continued to sit motionless on her cot. She was calibrating. Her human nerves had to re-connect with her new wirings scattered throughout her small body. That girl was no ordinary girl; no, she was a BIRD. Once some of her human parts were replaced with machines, there was no going back to being a normal human. She would always be a BIRD, one of the military's Border Invader Raiding Devices.

But at that moment, the girl, who the colonel had named Canary, was quite content with being able to wiggle her fingers of her own volition. Soon enough, the humanoid's eyes synchronized with the rest of her body.

She stood and held out her hand to the brown-haired soldier, "Hello, Corporal William Lewis. It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Canary." She smiled falsely, as her autopilot function directed her to do.

       He took the hand and shook it lightly, almost as if he were afraid to break her. "Um, hi. I know who you are. We met like twenty minutes ago, remember?" he said nervously.

Canary continued smiling in a forced manner. "I am very sorry. I was not synchronized properly before. Please forgive me, Corporal William Lewis."

"You can call me Will, you know. The way it looks, we'll be spending a lot of time together…" he replied. Will looked around, almost as if he were between making a point and trying to find an escape route. Even Will himself didn't know which reason it was.
The humanoid's autopilot slowly began to shut down, granting her full access what little free will a BIRD could have. She smiled sweetly, "You're nice. We're going to be great comrades, Will."

It was then that the soldier looked into the girl's eyes for the first time, and he was taken aback. Blue. Not brown like everyone else's eyes. No, they were blue. The color of blue that marked someone of a very high-class. The color of eyes that Will had never before seen, except for in pictures. He stared at her for a bit longer, and Canary, not knowing what to do, stared back quizzically. The more he stared, the more he knew that those orbs looking back at him didn't come from some laboratory in the capital. No. They were real, almost too real to be real.  

Several minutes passed before Canary finally broke the silence,"Um, Will, is everything okay?"

He shook his head as if he were trying to dodge a fly or clear a thought from his mind. He picked up his pen again. "Yeah, Canary, everything's fine." Canary didn't notice, but Will didn't look her in the eyes again all that day. Something in that picture was wrong. And Corporal William Lewis was going to figure out what it was, even if it ended up killing him.