Aipotu Ria

A story I made back in Senior Year, it was a tough story to write but I managed to work it out =D

The sky was empty. It was right there and it existed, but something was holding it. The land and the ocean weren’t holding it, because they didn’t exist. The whole planet was one hundred percent pure air, making it a ball of air. There were some stray clouds wandering aimlessly, without a shepherd, wherever the wind took them. Nothing else existed other than the essentials, but there was a tiny object flying freely across the sky like a lone Yatagarasu (three-legged crow) shining like a star. Daytime and nighttime never occurred separately: It was actually only day time because this planet has no obstacles to stop the full power of Apollo from taking Hades’ blanket away from him. The flying object was no ordinary object; it was a floating platform with a vast city on top. On the back of the platform was a sign that read: Aipotu Ria. The city looked futuristic, its silver exterior gleaming like clean silverware, as androids maintained their city with the utmost care.

                These androids that roamed the city had no fear of shutting down, as they were solar powered; everything in the city was solar powered so that everything within it could live forever. Not all androids looked the same; they were all wired differently according to their preference; one could alter their gender and their manner of speech by reprogramming their settings. By changing their settings, they could make adjustments in their “lives” when they wanted to delete certain memories from their hardware, leaving only the positive ones. Each android had certain jobs to maintain its city while the administrators maintained the platform, while the “newborn” androids learned social skills to search for jobs. Their physical appearance made them look more human than an android, because they could choose to look like a human or an android. [It is noted that] everyone in the city looked human while one android stayed as an android, and this android is named XX-96, or Max.

                Max was walking along the conveyer belt watching his/her fellow citizens’ work their jobs while he/she scanned their physical appearance, debating whether he/she should look human. Max then set his/her settings to ‘female’ and her voice setting to ‘Custom: Egotist’ to determine her taste for her human appearance. She restarted five seconds later.

                “Tch! Those workers have no sense of appearances whatsoever. I can do so much better than them,” she said to herself, while a fellow android approached Max cheerfully.

                “What’s a plain android like you doing walking by yourself?”

                “Plain? I’m [more than] capable of being more than plain… who are you, anyway?” she snapped as the unknown android chuckled. He put his hand on Max’s clean synthetic shoulder.

                “I’m TL-03… but you can call me Vincent,” he stuck out his hand out to Max waiting for a response which she reluctantly gave.

                “My name is XX-96, or Max.”

                “Max…” he said to himself quietly while he folded his arms. Max glared at him impatiently. “I like that name very much, especially your android name. It sounds custom-made.” This surprised her so much that her voice setting automatically switched to ‘Custom: Surprised’ without her consent.

                “W-well of course it’s custom-made! I was built to live in the city and I gave myself a name, by my own free will.”

                “Free will, you say?”

                “Yes,” she said as Vincent paced back and forth on the side of the conveyer belt, occasionally looking at the workers. “Is that a problem?”

                “Normally we can’t choose our android names, but we can choose human names. How did you have it custom-made?”

                “I don’t remember… I just thought of it, I guess,”

                “You really are extraordinary! You have the will to actually name yourself without being programmed a name,” He said cheerfully as Max just stood there, more confused than ever before. “Did I say something wrong?”

                “N-no! I was just thinking too much, that’s all.” She said while her face turned red.

                “You’re lying Max. I can see it on your face like a red light, it’s because you don’t have an appearance of a human making it easier to read your emotions. Right now, you’re blushing.” Vincent teased Max as her voice automatically switched to ‘Defensive’.

                “I wasn’t blushing, I was angry at you,”

                “Really now?” He remarked, cheerfully. “If you’re really angry, tell me why.”

                “Well… I feel insulted when you said I was ‘special’. To me that seem like an insult, because that’s saying I’m like an outcast,”

                “I meant special in a unique way, meaning you stand out from the rest of the crowd,”

                “How do I stand out?”

                “Well, for one, you aren’t taking on a human form and you switch your voice-setting constantly, and you want to take on a form but you’re indecisive,”

                “Well, why don’t you help me then?” She said as her voice setting was now ‘Custom: Determined’.

                “Alright, let’s get started,”

                They both linked into each other’s program and appeared as sprites in Max’s Data Log. Then she opened her personal file ‘Character model customization’. The file burst with life as each custom inventory appeared out of nowhere like a ghost popping out of thin air. Max browsed through her inventory to set up her options. Her menu screen appeared right in front of her showing her personal info, settings, appearances, and customization. She clicked on ‘Customization’ and then clicked on ‘Options’ and clicked on ‘Activate Inventory’. The inventory program loaded and all the human character features and custom-made clothes are now available for download.

                “Seems simple enough,” Max said to herself as she looked at her selection of choices.

                “Well, here comes the tough part,” Vincent responded, folding his arms. The human features, on Max’s inventory, separated into nine subgroups: Hair, Skin, Eyes, Ear, Nose, Mouth, Hand, Body, and Feet. “Now you’ve got to put in details,”

                “There are too many settings!”

                “Take your time, do the easiest one first,”

                “Guess I’ll start with the Eyes, Skin, and Hair,” She tapped the options and a list appeared next to her. She looked at the different eye colors, peering into each iris whose shape looked like a gateway into the future; what caught her attention was the option to choose two different eye colors known as: ‘Heterochromia Option’. “That sounds so cool, having two eye colors,” She chose dark brown and hazel for her eye colors, she looked at herself from her inventory, and approved her new eye colors.

                “You’re eyes look beautiful Maxxy,” Vincent said. His compliment irritated Max, adding oil to a small fire.

                “Stop flirting with me,” She paused. “And don’t call me ‘Maxxy’,”

                “Whatever you want ‘sweetie’,” He responded, while she glared at him.

                Max got to work on her hair length, color, and style while Vincent watched her nearby like a teacher watching his student work. She chose to make her hair bright orange with a flare of red and a sprinkle of blonde, making it look like wildfire. Then she set the length of her hair to short-medium and stylized it to a faux-hawk, while she made the back of her hair into a long rattail. Next she decided to set her skin tone to olive because of its richness in tone.

                “I don’t see my own skin, why is that?”

                “You have to have a body and it’ll appear, but if you didn’t download clothes then you’ll be naked,” Vincent said as he gave Max a wink, which freaked her out.

                “Gotta do the ‘body’ last then, pervert,” She snickered to herself, as he gave a faint laugh.

                She worked on every ‘body’ option, except for ‘Body’, fairly quickly as she found it easy to set everything the way she wanted it to be. Then she downloaded her clothes to her inventory and decided to try on each one. As she tried on a different set of shirts, she really liked the dark blue shirt with a pink outline near the collar with the Aipotu Ria insignia, which had a picture of the floating city. Next she chose light brown shorts, silver socks, orange underpants (Male or Female), and black shoes. There was an ‘Accessories Option’, where she can add anything like jewelry, or decorations. Her appearance made her look like a punk in a way, so she went with purple earrings and a skull ring, which complimented her personality. Now she got to ‘body’ and she had two options for her body type: ‘Main’ and ‘Secondary’. Secondary was mostly depth and detail, while main showed the outside. For main, she chose ‘normal’ while for secondary, she chose ‘Fighter’. Finally she was done.

                “Well, finally you’re done,” Vincent said as he yawned, then he looked at Max with great detail and was completely astonished. “You look cool; it’s your first time customizing?”

                “It is my first and thanks,” She replied as she checked herself out.

                “Are you gonna keep this form?”

                “I want to but not in the city,”

                “You don’t like showing off?”

                “You can say that, but is my human form permanent?”

                “It is, the only way to get rid of it is to restart your hardware,” Vincent explained. “Meaning all your files would be gone,”

                “I didn’t download my package, so it’s fine. I don’t like erasing my hard work so I’ll save it to my ‘Personal File’ and be a normal android again,”

                “You’ll show me your human form only in your program then?”

                “Pretty much,” Max smiled to herself as her voice setting changed to ‘Custom: Joyful’. They both logged out back into the city and Max was back to old self while Vincent was still in human form. “Guess we must depart now… I’ll see you around, when I find a job.”

                “I guess so; also can I have your transmitter number?” He asked while he grabbed her hand to make sure he had her attention. “Mines FREQ-T989, what’s yours?”

                “FREQ-X001,” She replied as they both saved each other’s transmitters code.

                They both went their separate ways like clouds drifting apart as the wind guided them towards their journey. The city in the sky was flying across the limitless sky that has no ends of imagination as the clouds glided towards every direction. All of its denizen can, forever in peace, in Aipotu Ria as the sun shone brightly in the distance, as the lone Yatagarasu headed towards the sun leaving behind its black feathers. In the end, the wind died down and the new wind restarted itself again.

                     

Author's Note

What do you think of the story? Any constructive feedback? What worked for this particular story, and doesn't work?

Reviews

[KASI]

So good! I'd definitely read something that extended from this!