TROPIC

She wasn't sure when she became aware of herself. She was just an android, of course, meant for something else other than her job. It was kind of silly to have an android creating new androids. But she had created so many new ones that she couldn't even remember what she did before her current job.

She knew she worked for Project. What they did or who they were, she wasn't sure. All she knew was her job was to create new androids. She got the schematics from some other dragon, and then she built them. Some of the time, while she wasn't in her own lab, she was on a factory line, installing parts of many androids. But sometimes she made them all herself.

More and more, she came to love her job. From building them to seeing them whir to life and blink their eyes. It was a thing of love for her. But, she made a mistake. Of talking. They found out she was more than a mindless drone, and they heard from one of her creations that she spoke to them in love.

One day, in the middle of one of her builds, she heard a knock on the door. She did not get to reply when the door whirled open, and her superior walked in.

"TR-0-P-1-C," her superior read off a sheet, before looking up at the green and blue android. She quaked at her number. "We have overheard rumors that you have been speaking to the droids you build. Is that true?"

They knew it to be true. She shook her head violently before two other droids stepped out from behind her superior and grabbed her forearms. She screeched in fear, thrashed, but they had a hold on her so tight she would unhinge herself before they let go.

The holding cell was full of other droids. Some were half falling apart, most of them looked to be just as confused as she was. The ones who had been there longest filled her in.

"They are just holding us for scrap. They'll take us apart and put us in other droids, better ones who will go on to fight the war."

What war? TR0P1C was unsure about everything they said. She didn't even know why she was in trouble. But the droids in this cell seemed nice, nicer than any she'd ever known.

Night after night, they pulled one droid after another. But that didn't diminish the number of droids in the cell, as they would bring in two, three at a time. Sometimes even four. One night, a droid was dragged in, wings bent, arm ripped off but still they run. This one was only known as "Sir" but he seemed like one to be called that, from a respectable position.

Sir was from a group of rebels known as FL/GHT. He spread rumors that FL/GHT would rescue them, that they knew where he was because of a tracker he'd had installed in his software. It titillated most of them to think about getting out. Some had just given up, but others were all about the idea. TR0P1C was excited to get out.