"You are… a human?"
'Take a deep breath, be cool, be cool, be civilized, be reasonable,' this was what Leon's rational mind told him, but his instincts flared.
"What? Am I the first human that you have ever seen?"
"…"
Silence.
Leon stared at them, and they stared back at him.
Her gray-green eyes were calm as she accessed him, but her partner was not as calm. Leon's answer seemed to have confirmed something terrifying or crazy to him as he stared at him with wide incredulous eyes.
In the end, he broke the silence. "You are really a human?"
Leon paid more attention to him.
According to the System's Snoop function, his name is Kain Rhea. Unlike her though and just like him, he was an F Rank Proto Mechanist, but what attracted him the most was the race that the System assigned to him- Synth.
By now, from the little exchange that he had with them, Leon could already tell that she was the leader while he followed her.
He also realized that she was the culprit of the unknown source signal.
But unlike her though who was at least still 47% human, this guy was something else entirely. His body was 82% synthetic, and only 18% organic.
And according to the System, that 18% organic composition of his body was primarily his Neural Core and cranial tissue.
Leon's eyes stayed impassive, but in his head, dominoes of explosions ravaged. 'How?! All logic and science says he should not be alive…'
'How is he breathing? Does he even need oxygen to survive? His consciousness, what is it? Does he even have a brain? Is this guy even remotely human or am I standing in front of an alien?'
Despite his distressing thoughts, the expression on Leon's face stayed impassive like an immovable rock as he calmly stared at them.
His priority at this moment was surviving. 'They stopped attacking because the guy said I'm not a Neon Beast. That means they're not Neon Beasts too, right?'
For the first time since she blocked his attack with her plasma knife, Leon finally got the courage to take his eyes away from her after confirming that she would not attack immediately as he focused on the other man to truly observe him.
He already noticed the signs since, but he was still taken aback by what he saw.
This guy was a fully mechanical lifeform!
His skin was a smooth titanium with visible seam lines along his jaw, neck, and forearms. Faint cyan light was constantly leaking from vents around his armor plates. At this moment, his dull gray cybernetic eyes were wide in shock as they stared at him.
His two mechanical arms were encased in oversized mechanical gauntlets that screamed power, and they both held kinetic pistols.
Leon was briefly distracted as he admired the craftsmanship of the pistols.
Still, he didn't answer their questions, and so the standoff continued till Talia made the first move.
She didn't move to attack though, rather…
Click!
She slipped her rail-pistol back into her side-arm holster even as she kept her gaze on him. Seeing that his attention was back on her, she raised her plasma knife to show that she had no intentions of attacking before also strapping it back.
Then, her gray-green eyes squinted.
"I have an ability that enables me to detect nearby neural devices," she said as she stared at him. "Whatever neural device that you're interfacing with, it doesn't belong to the Omnicore, so we're not enemies".
"But," she stared at his body. "Who exactly are you?"
Now, it was Leon's turn to be shocked all over again. 'She can detect the presence of the System?!'
'It's that Ping Scan ability of hers right?'
'Is that the power of NetRunners or it's just her?'
He didn't answer but he looked at her with more wariness now.
She didn't seem to mind it though as she pointed at the server monolith behind him. "How did you manage to get a reaction out of that relic?"
"Me and my crew, we've visited this ruin more than twice already, and yet we never managed to get a reaction out of it. How did you do it?"
This time, Leon answered. "I just approached it, and it reacted".
"Oh…" She looked at him cynically, then she gestured at his body. "Is this some kind of illusion or a new cybernetic skin," she paused, "or is that really a human skin that's covering your body? Are you a real human?"
Leon stared at her.
From the very moment that she suddenly stopped attacking him, his brain was working on overdrive. Omnicore, Synth, Geneform, her questions about if he was a human or not… he took in all these new terms, trying to make sense of them.
He already had a few ideas, but they were not concrete enough.
Besides, he was still suffering from memory loss. This new world, he didn't know much about it; he had so many questions that needed answers to, answers that his System refused to give him all in a platter.
And for the first time since his awakening, he met something more than mindless Neon Beasts. They may not be exactly humans, but they were intelligent lifeforms and that was fine with him.
The only question was he didn't know whether to trust them or not. Heck, he knew not to trust them, the actual question was, should he take the risk?
'Should I take the risk?' His black eyes gleamed.
"Maybe we should show some sincerity first," she offered in the end. "My name is Talia, and this is my partner, Kain. We're freedom fighters, we're both operatives of the Freegrid Collective".
"Sorry for attacking you, the circumstances forced us. During our previous expeditions here, we never met anybody else. Seeing you here was a shock; we thought you were already corrupted".
"Corrupted?"
"Yes, like getting corrupted by ADE…" she suddenly paused and squinted her eyes as she realized the question that he just asked.
Leon stared back at her. "What?"
"You know, I have this trait that enables me to deeply understand people's emotions, and at times even their thoughts. It's why I listened to Kain and stopped attacking because I could tell that you are an intelligent lifeform, your emotions register as one".
"But apart from that, I've noticed other things".
"When I mentioned Omnicore, your emotions flared erratically. At first, I thought it was because you're an Omnicore agent, but the reaction was not aggressive or hostile, it was more of confusion".
"And now, when you asked 'corrupted', your emotions also flared chaotically, clear signs of confusion".
Leon's expression almost faltered as he finally shifted slightly.
He felt like an open book in front of this woman, and it unsettled him.
This didn't escape her notice. "All this evidence points towards just one thing," she continued. "You lost your memories, right?"
"…"
And finally, that broke Leon's impassiveness as his eyes widened. "What are you? A detective mind reader?"
She didn't react, but Leon secretly heaved a sigh of relief.
From the moment that they stopped attacking, they had been observing and probing each other. From their questions, he began to contemplate if it was worth the risk of revealing his vulnerabilities and lack of knowledge to them.
Leon may not know a lot of things, but he was not naïve. He knew better than to go around telling everybody he met that he was suffering from memory loss. That was an invitation to take advantage of him.
He was not too shocked by her deductions though. Afterall, his System already showed him her Neural Empathy trait.
It was one of the reasons why he stayed so impassive. The moment he saw that trait, he began to plan around it.
He didn't want to reveal too much to her. Afterall, he didn't want to trust her and her companion yet.
Due to how respectful the mechanical lifeform acted around her, Leon decided to trust in her competence and her special trait. She didn't disappoint him, she managed to deduce the truth from the little evidence that she had.
But with her making the deduction herself, she played right into his ploy.
If he took the initiative to reveal his secrets to them himself, they, she especially may be skeptical if he was telling the truth. And even if he was, she would still be skeptical if he was telling them just some truth and leaving out others.
This was why he gave her autonomy with his silence.
With her making the deduction, she automatically limited her expectations of the truth, and Leon would flirt around that barrier to manipulate the truth that he would decide to reveal to them.
He could finally reveal a bit of truth to her while hiding the core truths about himself that he absolutely did not want to reveal, especially the fact that he suspected that he was from the past and the true nature of his System.
He took a deep breath and answered. "Yes, I'm a human. And yes, I lost my memories. All I remember is that I'm an engineer".
"I woke up a few days ago and Ascended to become a Mechanist".
"You became a Mechanist just a few days ago?" The Synth finally spoke again as he interrupted in an incredulous tone.
Leon stared at him. "Yes, what?"
The mechanical lifeform stared at his hand. "That spear, did you craft it yourself?"
"Yes, why?"
His dull gray eyes widened. He alternated his gaze between Talia and Leon, almost like he was asking for permission before he answered.
"Um… most Mechanists take up to a year of practice before actually crafting their first gadget. A Spear like that? Integrating Flux Crystal? I saw its effects, I can barely craft something like that and I've already been a Mechanist for 3 years".
"Most never even become good enough to craft a weapon of such quality throughout their whole careers as Mechanists".
"Most Mechanists focus on only repair".
"You're either a genius, or you attended a stellar Mechanist Academy".
"Wait! Did you attend SOA, Synth Order Academy?! They're the best Mechanist Academy on the planet!"
Leon stared at this mechanical lifeform weirdly, and then pointed at his head.
"Oh, right, your memories". He nodded.
Leon looked at them again, calmer now. "So, tell me, what brought you guys here? What is this place? And can you please tell me what the Freegrid Collective and Omnicore means".
Talia silently stared at him.