||-——MEMORY TRACE 6̧͢87̶3̴36̢́͘7̨͜8̢͟2͏̨͜0̸̴1͏̛675——-||
She stood near the edge of the building overlooking the bustling city-state of Piltover. Her hair was down for once, with a slight wave in the middle where her hairband used to be. She dressed in white armor with accented blue glowing lines and black skeletal-muscular support suit underneath it all. The white coat hung over her arm. Hands on hips, she stood firm.
“Do you have any regrets, Yi?” She spoke out of the blue.
His steps had been quiet, but it seemed that her folded helmet detected his presence. The bionic eye refocused as he tried to respond tactfully.
The silence between them lengthened as the ambiance of flying vehicles and sirens soon died down for the night.
“I understand that you are concerned about my humanity, or the possibility of the lack there-of.” After his hollowed voice quieted, Yi looked to the side, remembering the disapproving look when Dr. Ǵi̡̨̕͠d̶̛́͘͝e͏̧̧͘͠ó̴͢͞n҉̴́͜͜ read his psychoanalysis after every mission. Recently, she started to seclude herself in her room, working feverishly on her computer.
“Is there a reason for your concern?”
“Because I build technology to support humanity, not snuff it out or replace humanity with machines. Else, I'm no better than Viktor.”
“But didn't he took some design of yours and made it better? And then you took it back, and reversed-engineered it and made it even better?”
“Oh yeah, and it caused a civil conflict on Ionia, because it was originally designed by an Ionian. And Ionian isn't a big fan of Zaun. Let me tell you that.”
Yi forgot about her Ionian blood. When he met her for the first time, she worked tirelessly in a small workshop near the border of Piltover. He contracted her services to fix a broken lens on his goggles, and she returned it later fixed and polished with a massive hardware upgrade to the light spectrum and a wider field of view. Yi was impressed by her craftsmanship, and continued to visit her until the conflict over a decade ago.
“That was my first regret.” She turned towards him, golden eyes scanning him.
“Yeah, never had the time to throw my heart at a human. Perhaps then the conflict wouldn't have happened at all, giving a damn about someone instead of my work.” Her head bowed, her armored glove brushed back her hair. “The PROJECT initiative would never been established. You and your fellow teammates would have never volunteered to be test subjects. Test subjects to be used for warfare.”
She spat on the ground, ranting further about her dream to simply enhance the human experience through technology, instead of stifling it.
Yi's solid state drives fired impulses to his brain, showing him brief memories of giving his heart to a human and a monkey, only to lose them both so quickly. Then, he remembered his painful experiences of being treated with Gideon's apathetic project leader as he worked on his upgrades. How he was given no medication to dull his pain as pieces of his flesh were hacked off to be replaced by more metal.
“A long as you have compassion to treat me as human, I will remain as human as possible.”
“Treat you as human? You sound like you believed yourself otherwise.” She frowned in concern.
“The others... to them, I am a weapon. When I break, they replaced the failed pieces with something better. Someday, my mind will fail, and then... I'll no longer be Yi anymore.”
Another silence. Synapses fired thoughts in Ǵi̡̨̕͠d̶̛́͘͝e͏̧̧͘͠ó̴͢͞n҉̴́͜͜'s head as her eyes widened before her eyebrows cinched together with determination.
“No. You will still be Yi. This I swear over my dead body. So say it: My name is Yi.”
He paused, confused by her change in mood. “My...name...is Yi.”
“And don't you fucking forget it.”
The coat flew over her shoulders as she walked past him, heading back down towards her company lab. Yi turned around, looking at her curiously.
M̔́̂̽̓y̷̶͒̊ͬ̂́ ̐̇ͯ̏ͭ̈͋n͌ͤͧ͆ͩ̽̎ͣ̿͟͠a̷̽ͥ̋͋͊ͧͣ̇́ṁ̡ͫ̃̌͝e̓͌̕͜ ̎͋́̽͆͗̒̕̕i̛͒s̄͌ͣͩ͐͏.̧̛ͬ͐ͦ͆.̡̋ͯͯ̌͂ͬ̽́͛͝͞.̢̇̔̈͊ͬ̓͌͢ ̀̂ͤͤ͏̡Ỳ̴͛ͨ̌ĩͥ̋͒ͨͩ҉.̐̔̆̿͌
||-——END MEMORY TRACE——-||
