//Ahn: [Inhuman]

A young girl stared up at Ahn, her wide eyes brimming with tears. She seemed to want something from him. Sae sat in grim silence across from him, leaving him alone to deal with the child.

"What do you need?" he asked, trying to come off as friendly, but outwardly sounding almost condescending. He had raised the pitch of his voice a bit too high, as if he was talking to a dog.

The girl kept bawling.

Ahn had no idea what to do. This was far out of his capabilities. This was a human, and a child, at that. He had no experience interacting with anyone under the age of twenty, and most of those "interactions" ended with a gunshot.

He tried again, this time attempting to sound a bit more elated. "Do you need help?" he smiled for added effect.

This seemed to work a bit better.

"M...Mommy," the girl choked out between sobs.

"Do you need assistance in locating your parental figure?" Sae's voice drifted across the table, having recovered from her former reticence.

If Ahn was inexperienced in this situation, Sae was lacking knowledge entirely. At least she understood the child's intentions. Ahn hadn't gotten that far yet.

What surprised Ahn moreso than Sae's understanding of the girl's needs was that she seemed willing to help. Had something changed since their interaction with Ava?

'We need to get her away from us,' her voice came again, this time in Ahn's head. 'She's attracting too much attention.' Sae looked at him seriously, the listless silver in her eyes displaying no emotion.

Ahn dismissed the thought. Of course not. Sae still had a long way to go before she felt complex emotions on the same level as a human. He, himself did, too, he thought, turning back to the little girl.

"Do you need help finding your mother?" he asked, maintaining his unconvincing friendly appearance.

The girl nodded, rubbing tears off of her face.

"Where did you see her last?"

The girl pointed to the doorway.

"Did she leave?"

She nodded, more tears welling up in her eyes, which were a bright blue color, Ahn realized. The irony of this was not lost on him as he recalled the many times he had seen that color in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror.

This girl's sadness, however, was temporary. It would be gone when she found her mother. Ahn wouldn't be able to find who he was looking for.

"Do you know where she was going?" he asked the girl, his eyes now matching hers as the memory of 4-AE was brought back to him.

"N-no," she stammered, finally managing to stop the tears flowing down her face. Ahn sighed. This could take a while. Fortunately, they had plenty of time.

Ahn set a pile of counterfeit credits on the table and stood up, waiting for Sae to do the same. The waitress looked relieved as they walked towards the door, but also seemed a bit confused. When did the kid join them?

They walked down the street for a bit, having the little girl, who they found out was named Emily, look for her mom as they went. After nearly ten minutes of searching, they decided to turn around and look in the other direction.

Emily had calmed down by then, and was talking at a pace difficult for Ahn to keep up with. Most of the words had no point behind them, providing entirely unnecessary information. Were all children this way?

Sae seemed a bit intrigued by the girl's behavior, as well. She kept looking down at Emily, who was barely three feet tall. Sae appeared to be thinking, though what she was thinking about was beyond Ahn.

"My mommy is very nice!" Emily was saying. "She gives me cookies when I'm a good girl!"

Sae perked up at this statement.

"Where are your mommies?" Emily asked. "Are they nice, too?"

Ahn didn't respond for a few seconds. He glanced at Sae, who was visibly trying to calm herself down. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of her time with Dr. Samuel.

"Our parents," he said, "are not very nice."

"Oh," Emily said, looking a bit crestfallen, but her face lit up again a few moments later. "My mommy will be nice to you!"

"Is your dad anywhere around here? We could bring you to him instead," Ahn offered.

Emily's face contorted into a fierce mix of anger and sadness that was uncharacteristic of such an innocent-looking child. "The bad guys killed him."

"Bad guys?" Sae asked.

"The androids."

Ahn didn't know how to respond this time, and instead opted for listening to Emily's babbling, which resumed shortly.

He could very well have been the android that took Emily's father from her.

After another fifteen minutes had passed, Sae's voice appeared in Ahn's head.

'This isn't working. We need to find a new method of searching.'

Ahn agreed. He knelt next to Emily, who stared at him with a curious expression. "I'm going to need to do something that might hurt a little, but we can find your mother very quickly if I do it. Is that okay?"

Emily, after some hesitation, smiled and said, "I'll be fine. Mommy can give me kisses!"

'Do kisses have restorative capabilities?' Sae's voice came into Ahn's head.

"Hold your hand out," Ahn said to Emily, ignoring Sae's question. Emily did as she was told. Ahn, after quickly making sure nobody was looking, extended a small needle from his finger. He was equipped with basic medical tools for when he was on missions involving humans, in case his allies were to be injured.

He grabbed onto Emily's wrist, which was so small that his fingers completely enveloped it. "Close your eyes," he told her. It wouldn't be good if she passed out at the sight of the needle piercing her skin. He lightly pricked her forearm, drawing a minimal amount of blood, then released the tiny wrist in his grasp.

"Done," he said, starting a genetic analysis on the blood sample. Emily drew her hand away, poking at the small puncture in her arm, a small trickle of blood dripping from the wound.

Sae reached into her pocket, fishing around for something. She pulled out a small white square and placed it firmly on Emily's arm, then stood back up. An antibacterial patch.

"It stings," Emily said, shaking her arm in the air as if it would null the pain.

"That means it's working," Sae replied dismissively.

Ahn smiled. Maybe she really was changing.

A notification in Ahn's optical interface appeared in the corner, letting him know that the genetics had been successfully analyzed. He started a scan for forty five percent or higher genetic matches in the area. There was a hit about two blocks away.

The match was somewhere in a grocery store, which was nearly empty due to the fact that it was midday in the middle of the week. When they arrived at the store's parking lot, a tall blonde woman was looking around frantically for something by the store's entrance.

A second scan confirmed that this was Emily's mother.

"Mommy!" Emily shouted, running to the woman as fast as her short legs allowed her.

The woman embraced Emily tightly, whispering something into her ear. It was a display Ahn was entirely unfamiliar with. He had never seen or experienced it. It was an odd scene, yet it seemed to provoke such strong emotions in them. Along with happiness, love was something Ahn had never felt, nor had it been given to him.

No, he realized. 4-AE had shown him the purest form of it when she willingly gave her own life to save his. It wasn't love like a couple would have shown, but that of a sister to a brother. Ahn felt something tugging at where his heart would be as he thought of this.

"These people helped me!" Emily exclaimed, tugging on her mother's sleeve, pulling her toward Sae and Ahn.

"Thank you," the woman said. "I wish there was some way I could repay you."

Ahn had never heard those words before. "Good work" was a common phrase at EDGE, usually in reference to his killing ability. The earnest sentence stuck in Ahn's mind. He felt almost good about what he had done. Was this what it was like to help people?

"This is for you," Emily said, holding up a half-eaten cookie, looking up at Ahn with her crumb-covered face.

Sae's eyes lit up next to him.

Ahn reached down to grab it from Emily's tiny hand. He did so, however, with his bad arm. A spark flew from his damaged shoulder. He froze.

The woman's formerly grateful expression twisted into disgust. "What are androids doing here?" she asked incredulously. Sector 7 was well-suited for raising a family due to its relatively low crime rate. It was also good for those who feared or hated androids. Androids of any kind were banned from entering.

"Monsters!" the woman shrieked. "Get away from my child!"

"We weren't-" Ahn started.

"Leave!" the woman interjected, anger rising in her voice. "I don't want to see your kind around here!"

"Emily," Ahn said, turning now to the little girl wrapped around the woman's leg.

"Go away!" she shouted. Fear ran wild in her blue eyes.

Ahn went silent, watching as Emily and her mother turned away, walking quickly in the opposite direction. Emily didn't so much as look back.

The word stayed in Ahn's mind, a final remnant of his interaction with Emily.

'Monsters.'