Dyllys

Faran hated that he was here on this planet. His mother and father had been tired of his lack of diligence and had sent him away. He didn’t understand their need for him to settle down. He just wanted to explore the world, explore his options. He would figure it out eventually, but right now, while he was still young he wanted to try everything. That wasn’t an option in his family. Wealth meant following in the footsteps of wealth, of not having choices but doing as everyone else had to continue having that wealth. Faran wanted to accomplish more than just following along, but his parents would never understand that. Instead, they had sent him to his Aunt’s house on Tossu in hopes that in doing hard work he would understand that what he was trying to leave behind was the best and only choice. They were convinced that Glory would talk some sense into him. He had only agreed to the whole idea because it was a chance to get away from his parents, and he remembered that when Glory had visited them on Radden she had always had so much life and spirit. He had a feeling that Glory would agree with his point of view rather than his parents'.

When he arrived at the vineyard he was amazed by its beauty. He had never seen so much green in all his life. Radden’s only green sanctuaries were closed off, small controlled environments that were perfectly tended, almost an extension of the well maintained metal buildings that covered the surface of his world. Here everything grew wildly. Rolling hills went as far as the eye could see; covered in rows and rows of vines bordered by trees that Faran had never seen before. Their leaves were shimmering in the sunlight as the breeze caught them and made them indecently show their backsides which were silver in the light. They were captivating as they flicked back and forth from silver to green. The house itself was just as wild as the rest of the estate. Vines grew uncontrollably on the building. Faran felt as if this wildness had more control here than the humans that inhabited Tossu. It made him feel so peaceful to be here.

Glory was waiting on the steps for him. She was under a latticed roof that was also covered in the vine. When she saw Faran she smiled.

“So, they think I can fix a problem for them?” Her smile told Faran how ridiculous she thought that idea was. He liked the idea of spending a year here with her.

“You think I can be fixed, Aunty?” Faran asked as Glory came up and hugged him tight.

“We don’t fix things here, Faran, we let them grow.”

He had never heard a more perfect statement uttered about a place. “I’m sure my parents are going to be very disappointed.”

“Come on, let me show to your room,” Glory said and ushered Faran into the house.

The sun was setting when Faran came down from his room. He couldn’t find Glory and the only noise he could hear was that of the AS series androids as they busily went about their business. Faran had never seen so many in one place before. They were an expensive commodity, built by Davenport Electronics, and were almost solely used by the government, designed for war. Seeing them here, doing peaceful work was such a strange contrast to the ones he saw on Radden where they enforced Martial Law. They has always been a sign of fear to Faran and he felt uncomfortable watching the pale white skinned female androids going about their work so calmly. Their expressionless faces always made them as cold and dead as they felt. It didn’t help that they all had the same face, their eyes a cold dead grey with their black hair so dark against their powder white skin. It was strange to think that he and Glory were the only things alive on the estate. It made him want to find her even more. He wandered in and out of all the rooms of the house looking for her, but couldn’t find her. When he walked into the drawing room he nearly ran into one of the androids. The android turned and bowed to Faran.

“Master Faran, is there anything I can do for you?” It asked. Faran was distracted by its beauty. He had never been so close to an AS series android before. He backed away, nervous with the proximity. He could nearly feel the cold radiating from her skin.

“I was looking for Glory. Do you know where she is?”

The android gained a faraway look for a moment and then blinked and looked back at Faran. “Mistress Glory has gone into town. She will be back shortly. Does Master Faran wish to wait in the drawing room?” The android gestured that he go deeper into the room that they were in and Faran merely nodded his head and sat down in the chair farthest from where the android was standing.

“You can leave,” Faran said to it. The android left with no resistance, resuming its previous duty. Faran just turned to stare out the window, watching the sun set behind the hills. When the last of the light had disappeared behind the hill and all that was left was the twilight, he turned back to look in the room and was startled when he realized he wasn’t alone any longer. He nearly jumped out of the chair he was sitting in. He hadn’t heard her enter the room. As he looked at her in the twilight, the room unlit, he thought he was seeing a ghost. He realized seconds later that she was an android. He had never seen one like her before. She had the same pale skin, but her hair was silver and her eyes were glowing a startling blue that Faran had never seen before. He had never seen a model with memory modules externalized like hers before. She seemed to be examining him. He had never seen an android stare at a human with such intensity.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Faran murmured. He was afraid if he said too much this strange vision would vanish and he would find himself alone again in a dark room. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

She didn’t move at the sound of his voice. She merely continued to stare. Faran couldn’t move under her gaze. Looking at her, he felt almost as if she should be human. Her eyes looked as if they wanted to smile, but her face remained the same emotionless canvas that all the other androids wore. It made him sad.

Glory appeared in the doorway then, flicking on the light and looking at Dyllys.

“There you are Dyllys, did you find your tree?” she asked, glancing at Dyllys, not noticing that Faran was also in the room. Dyllys didn’t respond, she just continued to stare at Faran. Glory frowned at Dyllys; it was unlike her not to respond to a question regardless of what captivated her attention.

“Do you need maintenance?” Glory flicked her gaze casually to the chair where Faran sat and then smiled. “Oh. I see.”

“You see what?” Faran asked. With the light on he was starting to feel uncomfortable under this android's gaze.

“Dyllys does not like when people sit in that chair,” Glory replied.

“Doesn’t like? I didn’t realize that androids could like things.” Faran went to get up from the chair and this made Dyllys blink. She took a step toward the chair and then stopped. If an android could look confused, Dyllys did.

“I did not mean to inconvenience Padrone Faran with my gaze,” Dyllys interjected.

Faran looked at Glory.

“I think she wants you to stay in the chair,” Glory said and seated herself on the couch across from Faran. “You should feel honored. You are the first she has allowed to sit there. She doesn’t even like me sitting there.” Glory gestured for Dyllys to sit beside her, but Dyllys did not comply; she merely stood staring at Faran.

“Could you tell her not to stare at me like that; it’s making me feel uncomfortable.” He was sitting in the chair again but was starting to feel that had been an unwise choice.

Glory turned to look at Dyllys and was about to speak, however, Dyllys’s voice rang out first.

“I had a dream about you last night,” Dyllys said to Faran.

Glory looked at Dyllys with open surprise.

“It dreams as well?” Faran asked.

“This was the man you saw in your dream?” Glory’s eyes were wide as she said this and she was smiling.

“Padrone Faran is the one I saw in my dream. I found the tree in my dream today but it was not painted like it was in my dream, I felt the compulsion to lean against the tree and close my eyes. I had another dream.”

“Will you tell me your dream Dyllys?” Glory implored.

Faran looked at Dyllys and then back at his aunt. “What is going on here?”

“I’ll tell you after we hear Dyllys’s dream, Faran.” Dyllys finally sat beside Glory, but she never took her eyes off of Faran.

Faran sat back in his seat to listen to this strange conversation. This android seemed to be as different in mind as she was in body to the rest of her kind.

“It started before the other dream. It started before I was me,” Dyllys began.

“What do you mean before you were you?” Glory encouraged.

“Before I was known as Dyllys, before I became. She had been summoned to the grove of trees. She ran through the leaves that were falling from the trees, this action made her smile. She met a man in the forest. It was Padrone Salazar before I belonged to Padrona Glory. He had a gift for her. She did not want to take it. She seemed to think that it would mean something important to Padrone Salazar if she were to take it. He insisted. She took it. It was the most beautiful mask she had ever seen. Pale as my skin with intricate designs of glacier blue painted on it. They shimmered in the light and she could not look away from it. He asked her to try it on so she did. It did not hurt, when she became me, it only made her stop breathing when she realized she could not take off the mask. She wanted to scream but when she opened her mouth it was filled with me and then she fell asleep. When she woke she was not her any longer, she was me. I was staring at the tree, the one that looked painted and then Padrone Faran called to me, but he was not my Padrone, Salazar was, so I went to him instead. Padrone Faran’s leg did not sustain him after that and water leaked from his eyes like when Padrona Glory says she is upset.” Dyllys had been looking at Faran as she told her dream, but looked at Glory as she finished. She blinked and then moved her hand to wipe a tear that had fallen down Glory’s face.

“Yes, that is what Padrone Faran had done.” She stared at the drop of salty water on her finger.

“I was wrong Dyllys,” Glory whispered. “You weren’t dreaming at all. You were remembering. Do you think you could leave Faran and me for a while? I need to talk to him alone.”

“I cannot comply,” Dyllys replied.

“What?” Glory’s eyes had grown wide again, but kind like she had been expecting this all along.

“I belong to Padrone Faran. Now that he has returned I will follow his commands alone.”

Faran looked at Dyllys and bolted up from the chair. “Excuse me. Returned? I have never been here before. I know Glory says those are memories but I think your circuits aren’t wired properly because I’ve never seen you before. I’ve never been here before. I couldn’t possibly own you. I don’t want to own you.”

Glory put her hand on Faran’s forearm. “Faran just tell Dyllys to go back to the guest house. I told you I would explain when she was done.”

Faran looked at Glory. She looked so calm compared to him, almost as if she too had become an android. Faran looked at Dyllys; she was staring at him again. “I think you should go back to the guest house.”

Dyllys nodded her head. “As my Padrone wishes.” She vanished through the doorway as silently as she had come and Faran turned back expectantly to his aunt.

“Have you ever seen a picture of our fourth great-grand uncle?” Glory got up from the couch and wandered to a bookcase that stood at the other end of the room. She removed a very old photo album from it and sat back down.

“Why would I have ever have seen a picture of my fourth great-grand uncle?”

“I know it sounds like a silly question, but it makes sense to Dyllys. The chair you are sitting in was his. Look,” Glory said and handed the album to Faran. He took it in his hands and looked at the images within. They were old, but they were still the kind that moved. A small 30 second clip that looped over and over replaying a tiny moment of life no longer frozen on the page but alive. He was staring into the past but it was like looking in a mirror. His great-grand uncle had his face. The same brown skin, the same brown eyes and curly black hair, though Faran wore his shorter than his great-grand uncle. He would have thought he was the person in this picture, if had he known the woman that was hugging his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder, and gently rocking back and forth, her eyes closed as she smiled warmly. She looked like she was having the most wonderful time, just by being with him. The woman did look oddly familiar. She had olive colored skin and long silky black hair. She was more beautiful than Faran thought possible for a human to be and he felt if she just opened her eyes for a moment that he would be able to figure out who she was. She never did, and the picture just continued its endless loop.

“That’s so strange,” Faran whispered.

“Even stranger, his name was Faran.”

Faran looked at Glory. “Are you serious?”

Glory just nodded. “He never married.”

Faran looked at the picture again. He looked at the woman. She wore a ring on her left hand. “Then who is this woman?”

“That woman was the woman Faran was going to marry. No one remembers her name any longer. Does she look familiar to you?”

“She does.”

“Would you like to know why?”

Faran nodded. “Would you stop asking me questions and just tell me what is going on. How does any of this have to do with Dyllys?”

Glory gave a small laugh and a half hearted smile. She slumped back in her seat and spoke, “That woman you see in the picture is Dyllys. But as you heard, Dyllys does not see herself as that woman. She can’t comprehend the memories she has from before. When emotions are alien to you how do you comprehend memories that are filled with them?”

“I don’t understand.” Faran couldn’t understand, but he could see the resemblance. The only difference between Dyllys and the woman in this picture was the color of their skin and hair. “She’s an android. You’re telling me she was human. How is that possible?”

“Not a question I can really answer. You would have to ask Emanuel Salazar that question. He was the one that created Dyllys.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“You can see how beautiful she is. Dyllys was the most beautiful girl on this planet. Every man wanted her as a prize for their collection. She was too spirited to be caught in their gilded cages. Faran was adventurous and quizzical. When he came here he never had the intention of staying on Tossu for very long. He just wanted to stay long enough to understand the planet and then he was going to move on. When he met Dyllys, all of that changed. It was as if the heavens had conspired all that time to have them meet. They fell in love.

“Emanuel Salazar arrived on Tossu not long after Faran and he had his eyes on Dyllys as well. Salazar, however, didn’t care if Dyllys loved him; he just wanted to have her and no one else. So he made a mask. He was a genius programmer, or so they say, I think he was insane. He was already starting work on androids when he came to Tossu. When he saw Dyllys he had other ideas. He wanted her so badly that he got the idea of a living doll, a way for Dyllys to live forever and for him to be her sole desire. When he had completed his creation, a prison disguised as a mask, he lured Dyllys to him and tricked her into putting it on. She became what she is today. When Faran found her, it was already too late. Salazar had constructed his prison with no escape. It was either a living doll or death. Faran couldn’t kill her, not like she was, and so he had to watch the love of his life walk away without a second glance in his direction, doing the bidding of the one person she had despised.” Glory finished in a whisper. She was crying.

Faran was pacing the room. His heart was beating nearly out of his chest; he had never felt so enraged.

“How could someone do that to her?” He couldn’t fathom it. He couldn’t believe it to be true, but how else could he explain the eyes that he saw staring back at him when he looked at Dyllys. Eyes that looked trapped in the emotionless mask of her face.

“When one views a person as a possession, I suppose it’s rather easy to do.”

“So if this Salazar was Dyllys’s master, how did she come to be with you?”

“Faran never gave up hope that he could save Dyllys. But Salazar didn’t stay on Tossu to give him a chance to do that. He took Dyllys far away from here. I don’t know where he took her or what he did, but he didn’t come back to Tossu for another thirty years. When he did come back it was because he was dying. The years that had gone by had not touched Dyllys, but they had touched him and he felt remorse for what he had done.

“He brought Dyllys to Faran before he died, telling Faran that he knew he could never be forgiven for what he had done to Dyllys, but he hoped that one day she would be herself again. He set Faran as her master and then left never looking back. He disappeared from history.”

“Why didn’t he fix Dyllys before he left? Why would he leave her like that if he felt so terrible about what he had done?”

“He didn’t know how to fix his mistake. He tried everything he could to reverse what he had done, but he couldn’t do it. For all his genius, his creation was flawed. He spent the last part of his life trying to fix his mistake and couldn’t. He left the task to Faran, who left the task to his nephew, who left it to his son, and so on and so on until it has come to me. I thought I would be the last to carry this sad tale on, but it looks like heaven has other plans. They brought you to me Faran, in Dyllys’s last hour they brought me you.”

“What do you mean last hour?”

“She’s dying Faran. She’s old, too old. Two hundred years have taken their toll on her body and now she’s dying. I wanted to let her feel love one last time before she left this world forever, but no matter what I did I failed as miserably as everyone that came before me. I wonder, do you think you could succeed where the rest of us have failed. Now at the end, her Faran has returned to her. Maybe your return will awaken her from her long imprisonment.”

“Aunty, what are you saying? I’m not her Faran. I wasn’t sent by God. I can’t save her. I can’t even save myself. You can’t ask me to do this. Is this why you agreed to let me be sent here? You are as bad as my parents. You all want to run my life. You all want me to do your bidding, like I have no will of my own. You want to save her by enslaving me. How dare you. How dare you try to trade my life for hers!” Faran was shaking with rage. He looked at his Aunt, saw her look away from him, her eyes averted so as not to meet his. He couldn’t stand it, so he left. He ran out the door and into the expanding night. He weaved his way through the vines until he reached the hillside. He would just keep walking until they all disappeared, his parents, his aunt, Dyllys, his thoughts. He would walk until they were gone and then maybe he could breathe again. Too many roles he was expected to fill. How did they expect him to do all of that when he couldn’t even find himself? He walked for hours, the moonlight guiding him. He walked over so many hills that he could see the lights of the city in the distance sparkling in the atmosphere as if they were talking with the stars above. There on the top of that hill looking at the lights from the city in the distance, he sat. Dyllys sat beside him. She was glowing in the moonlight. Faran wasn’t surprised to see her.

“Why did you follow me?” he asked her.

“I must be with you.”

“Why?”

Dyllys looked at him with her startling eyes. He read what she could not say. It was painful for her to be away from him.

“If I am not with you I am thinking of you. Glory says this is called worry. I worry about Faran.”

“I’m not Faran, Dyllys. Not the Faran you remember. That Faran is dead. He has been gone a long time. Me and him, we were probably nothing alike.”

“Do you mean that while you were gone you became a different person? Like the me before? She died when I became.”

Faran shuddered at the thought. “No Dyllys. I mean that the Faran in your memories and me, we are two different people. I was never him. He lived a long time ago.”

“You share his face, like my sisters share the same face?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t meet her gaze anymore. “Dyllys, do you know what happened to you. Has anyone ever told you?”

“Happened to me?”

“The you before, the one you call she, do you ever wish you could be her again.”

“I have no wishes. I only serve. Do you want me to wish for this?”

Faran was laughing bitterly and tears were streaming down his face. “No Dyllys, I want you to want it. I want you to feel. If I told you to feel would you?”

“Glory has given me this command many times; it seems to be one I cannot fulfill.”

“What do you want Dyllys? Think about that for a long time. I’ve never known what I wanted, so it’s okay if you don’t know what it is you want.”

“I do not need to think about that Padrone, I want to remember.” There was no hesitation.

“Remember before you were Dyllys?”

“Yes. I would like my memory banks to be complete. I would like to understand my dreams.”

Faran looked into her eyes and then at the city. She couldn’t say it, but Faran could see, the woman before was trying to come out, and maybe Faran could be her way. It was a selfish thought, but he couldn’t help but think that maybe through helping Dyllys find herself, he would find himself along the way as well.