Androids

         I can’t tell you how much I fucking hate androids. When mankind fell in love with his precious technology and became dependant on it they got married and had a severely retarded, epic failure, of a child and called it the android. They act all innocent and stupid but Shadow, my brother, and I know differently. The A.I. is designed to learn. Eventually they figured out that they were stronger than humans as well as smarter, faster and more durable. When they learned that they could reproduce themselves, well that was then end of humans now wasn’t it? Not quite.

         There’s a void in their little second-rate brains. Being programmed to obey some sort of master tends to get in the way of creating successful organizations with any sort of longevity. Androids were only able to unite long enough to decide that they were going to take over and wipe out the human slave driver. Halfway through the extermination there wasn’t really anything you can call unity anymore. They were just killing and creating chaos. This is all stuff I’ve only heard from old people.

         My twin and I weren’t born until a few years after that. We’ve been raised in a world of twisted metal, darkness and pure chaos. Of course since it’s all we’ve ever known we just call it the world. It’s life and it’s home. What are you gonna do? Shadow and I aren’t really out to save the world from robots or anything; we’re just trying to survive which involves destroying the occasional bump-in-the-night. But they usually only number one or two or fifty at a time. Yeah, let me tell you, fifty is a fucking amazing experience. The facts that both of us lived through those times, the human race is still alive and kicking underground and that the world is an unorganized wasteland just proves how retarded androids are.

         “Tristan,” Shadow was walking silently behind me.

         “Can you see them?” I whispered.

         “There,” he pointed to a warehouse door that had been wrenched off it’s hinges. “We’ll get ready. You’ll go in first taking three on the right. The two on the left are mine. There’s a stairwell against the wall,” he looked pale and sort of sick.

         “Anything else?” I knew there was.

         “Bodies,” he whispered, “A lot of them.”

         “Dissected?”

         “Yes.”

         “Well this is going to be a long night,” I pulled my favorite Beretta 9mm out of its holster and turned the safety off. “I hope we can find a shovel.”

         “We do,” he said solemnly.

         I never took having a precognitive brother for granted. Without him I’d be getting ambushed at every turn. My style leans more toward run in and shoot ‘em up. Shadow is the stealthy one and I have to admit he’s saved my ass more than once. We moved quickly without disturbing any of the debris that littered the ground. I felt raindrops on my face. It was going to be a very long night.

         Shadow was on one side of the door, I on the other. We locked eyes for a bit. His were crystal blue, just like mine. The only real difference between us is that he keeps his hair long and tied back while mine is messy and I do a half-assed job of hacking it short. Same dark auburn color, same pale skin, both dressed in black. I have to admit we look pretty badass together.

         When we go in for the kill it’s not really stressful or blurry or even fast. It all just happens. Things slow down and I just stop thinking. Shadow probably has a different experience, but I actually enjoy it. He thinks it’s creepy that sometimes I wear a crazy grin the whole time. He never shows any emotion during fights. Identical in appearance, opposites in personality; sometimes I wonder how we get along.

         He nodded and my world slowed down. We stepped through the doorway and there they were, not twenty feet away. Just like he had told me beforehand. One, two, three shots, then two more to my left. I stopped one of the metal bodies that was skidding across the floor with my foot. I was going to say something cool, but I saw the profile of a gun a few inches from my face and it went off. To my right a sixth android hit the ground, sparks flying everywhere.

         “You missed one,” I glared at my twin.

         “Sorry.”