This was surely the end of his life. Clew was sure that there was no way that he could escape this with his life intact. The General... nay, his Papa, was the main architect of his life being a miserable one since birth. How was he expected to take this all in as truth? The man who resembled his Papa could have easily been a machine created by the real monsters in this world of theirs.

Yes.

That was the truth he wanted to believe. Even though that was not the truth that was true.

"Prepare the transfer of data, Nico," The General spoke and Nico saluted his understanding as he left the room. Clew wanted to ask what that order meant but his Papa beat him to it.

"I'm sure you are wondering what I'm doing here?"

"It's crossed my mind."

The General laughed lightly at his quip and made his way towards him. Clew was scared, and there was no shame in admitting it to himself. For all he knew, this could be the reanimated corpse of his father staring back at him. But it seemed unlikely. Technology had advanced, but not to that level.

"Well... I'm only here because of you, son."

Because of him?

"Yes. You have done well with the instruction I left you. Your mind is sharper than I would have expected it to be even with the Neos tech I injected into you at birth."

Injected? At birth? Clew was trying to keep up, but nothing was making sense here. He had not known his father for more than a year before the war made him, Mama and Grandma move to the Outer Division. What clues did he live him?

The Journal! Yes, he had been curious about some of the things inscribed in the book. Most of them seemed to need human trials and he had only restricted himself to doing thing with machines. In fact, the Cell Degeneration Inhibitor had required Neo tech to be administered orally for a period of time before use of the machine. He had thought that was too risky and resorted to letting the machine take all the risks.

"Your work with the Neos tech is revolutionary. But I don't think you truly understand what you have created," He said and made his way to a wall opposite of them. He placed his hand on it and the panel glowed green to outline his palm before it parted way to reveal another room that resembled the one they were in save for the panels of holograms there.

"Many people remember me as the Scientist who cracked the Neos tech formula. That is true, but only partially," he said and the closest table to them emitted a hologram of a machine with three heads and eight tentacle-like hands. Clew had seen what Neocallers looked like so it did not scare him that much.

"My work with the machines made me uncover a very interesting detail about them. Their biological genes were almost similar to ours. They were a living organism encased in a system that controlled all their activities. The only way to truly understand them was by going to their source. Their leader had much to tell me. His genetic code was the key for me to create what you all know as the Neos tech."

"But of course, I could not create it without a test subject. So I fathered you for the specific reasons of knowing if I could survive merger of the Neos tech and my own genes. Well, it worked out better than I expected because here we both are," he chuckled at himself and moved deeper into the room.

"We had won the war and everyone was over the roof with joy. But I was not. I knew that our battle with them had caused the start of our extinction. We needed to evolve in order to maintain our existence. I didn't come back to you. You were of no use to me as you were at the moment. I had to create a world here first."

Clew was listening to everything this man in front of him was saying and still couldn't fathom what was happening. No use for him? Only fathered him for testing genetic matches with the Neo tech and his genes? But he was already making connections to mysteries he had not solved. The journal was about understanding Neo tech better. He had been exposed to the technology so early in life that his body had created a resistance to it. Injection of the serum again in his bloodstream was not fatal to him as the men who had never had it in their system before.

But another thing that was missing in his data was the time. He was well over the twenty nine minute limit of displacing. It seemed that administering it to your bloodstream gave the person more time in the space displaced in.

"I couldn't just walk up to the President and pitch my idea of global genocide that will be replaced by machine Individuals. So I created the need for my work."

Clew knew immediately what he was talking about. The Meltdown of the Upper Division. He was horrified. The officials and Authorities had said that the explosion had been caused by faulty wiring somewhere in the factory. The disaster had almost wiped out the entire country's population.

Maybe it did.

Papa had actually gotten read of real humans to create Individuals that would bow to him no matter what he spoke to them.

"I can tell you have already made the connection. But I know you understand. We are both Scientists. Science requires risks and sacrifices."

No. He was nothing like him! There was no way that he would even be anything like him. How could he believe that murdering over a million people and replacing them with genome engineered robots was at all fine?

But wait a minute... he said that he had been kept waiting. That meant that there was something he needed that only Clew could give him. That must be the only reason he had not killed him the moment he had entered this building.

"I still have a problem, Clew," he said and turned back to him, "The Individuals I create do not last more than two years in our life span. They become... obsolete, so to speak. But the work you did on your machine, the way you facilitate its use of Neo technology at such a cellular level... that is the information I need to ensure that our race does not become extinct."

Clew didn't believe it. Papa had been a hero among the Commoners. Everyone knew about him and they all spoke of his bravery in ending the Neos' reign. But he was just creating new ways to kill mankind. The Neo tech... it was not meant for continuous consumption. The toxins would eventually get the better of one's brain. Was this it then? Had his father actually turned into a Neocaller himself in his attempt to save mankind?

He did look bereft of health now that Clew was paying better attention to him. There were the obvious signs of blood poisoning in his body that even one with no medical history could deduce. The fast breathing and the flush of his skin... the same thing that had kept him alive was now slowly killing him. But there was still one mystery that he did not understand. And it was the most pressing one in his mind.

"Why have you created an Individual who looks like me?"

The General smiled to himself. It seemed as if he had been waiting for this question since the beginning. He told him to follow as he made his way back to the clone on the table. With the push of a panel, there was an opening in the space between them and another table rose with another machine that Clew was also very familiar with.

"Aisle?"

There was no mistaking it was the woman he loved. That copper brown hair was the very same as he had left her all those weeks ago. She was dressed in the same white paper cloth as Clew's clone. What the hell was Papa up to?

"The answer is simple enough... I was building a host for my consciousness. If you haven't noticed, Clew... I am dying."

So the man had been aware of his flaws. And creating the Individual with his consciousness was just a backup so he would not die before he had finished his plan... and that was archiving immortality. There was just one problem, the knowledge of how to bind the Individual's tissue cells with the Neos tech, which he had done beautifully with the machines he had built to facilitate space displacement. Clew couldn't let him have that knowledge. That would be the end of all humanity as he knew it. He would rather die than have his genes encased in metal. But that was the reason that he had brought Aisle here... leverage.

But even Aisle would agree that it was better to die than give his Papa what he wanted. She would understand if he chooses to save the entire world instead of her.

"You'll have to kill me first before I give you what you want."

The General looked at his son with a puzzled look. He did not understand what he was speaking of until he realized what the image of the girl had seemed to him. He was laughing as he answered his statement.

"That was actually my intention."

He pressed his palm on the table that the Individual lay on. There was a moment of silence before the General emitted a cry of pain. Clew could actually see the Neos technology, mixed with his blood, sipping from his body and into the machine. It was the sickest thing to watch, yet Clew couldn't look away. Fear had rooted him to the floor where he stood.

It's not often when he got stare at himself coming to life.

* * *

Aisle was not fully aware of her surrounding until she felt the light touch on her shoulder. She opened her eyes to look at her ideal vision of bliss. The luminous blue eyes were staring down at her. She must have died then. She must have gone to paradise. That was the only way she could explain why Clew was looking down at her with that much love in his eyes.

"Hey beautiful."

The mere fact that he spoke was enough to convince her that she really was dreaming. That and the glow that was all over his body. He was angelic in every way possible.

"Clew?"

"The one and only."

"Where are we?"

"Take a look."

That was an odd reply, but she glanced around to see exactly what he was talking about. The room was bright and white. But that was all she could say about the environment being good. There looked like a battle had just ensued here. A few of the surfaces are what were not damaged. The rest were broken or missing outright. Aisle was just about to sit up when she noticed the boy on the table next to hers. He had blonde hair and luminous hazel blue eyes. Aisle was terrified when she saw the trail of blood from his mouth to the pool already forming there.

"What's going on, Clew," she turned to him and was finally noticing the bruises and cuts on his face. Aisle didn't know what to make of the situation before she felt the pain in her midsection and her hands involuntarily clutched her stomach. Did she actually throw herself of that cliff and still survived? Did she lose her baby?

"Hey, its alright... the baby's safe and sound."

Now she turned to him with a surprise on his face.

"I guess I have some explaining to do," he said as he sat down next to her, wiping the blood from his mouth, "Ok, so the man who made you and fathered me is the main reason we are here today."

If that was him explaining things then Aisle thought he was not very good at it.

"Ok... Let's try it another way. The General of New Earth was killed, together with almost all the human population of the Upper and Middle Divisions by my father. He is the man who created Individuals and tried to steal my genes to create an immortal body from the Neo tech."

Well, that was a bit better even though it was still confusing. Aisle glanced at the foot of the tables and saw the body of an old man. It seemed like it had been decaying in the inside for quite some time.

"That's him," Clew spoke and Aisle just nodded. She didn't know why, but the man had an uncanny resemblance to the machine she had been calling father all her life. Speaking of all her life... she turned back to Clew and asked him how he knew she was pregnant.

"My Papa told me right before he tried to have me killed. He had manipulated your programming to have a great deal of attraction towards me. Apparently my genes are adapted to hosting Neos tech for long periods of time.

"So this Clew on the table here..."

"Yes. That's the machine that he tried to revive but failed."

Well that would a bit more of the situation. But what about the violent scene in front of her.

"That actually is the reason we should hurry up and get out of here," he said and helped her up, "The machines might be coming back."

Aisle was still dizzy as she stood up from the table. He body ached all over, but that was to be expected from a fifty foot roll on a rocky plane. She was just wondering how she hadn't lost her baby let alone her life with that stunt. Probably her body handled shock differently than the average human.

That got her curious as to what truly laid on the table next to her. If it was true that the General of the New Earth had cloned Clew because he believed that he was the only human who could hold the Neos tech in his system, then what was the possibility that the one on that table really was her Clew? It made all the sense for the machine to lie to her that the procedure had failed and the General had died by his own sword so to speak.

"We need to go Aisle."

He extended his hand for her to take it but she hesitated. There was no way she could be sure that the boy standing in front of her truly was Clew. It could be a clever trick by the machine to get what it wanted. But if the machine had killed Clew for real, then how was it supposed to get his active cells from...

"The baby," she whispered to herself and took a few steps back from Clew. She had conflicting emotions in her right now with this revelation. On the one hands, she felt joy to no bounds that the child in her was Clew's because she was now bonded with him for life with this. On the other, she was terrified that this baby she carried was Clew's because that meant that the only reason his death was acceptable to the machine's plans was because the genes could still be harvested once the child was developed enough.

"Aisle, we don't have time. They are almost here," he said but she kept her distance from him. She couldn't know whom he was. There was no way that she could know if he truly was her Clew. His eyes were the same color as she knew. His physique was also similar to how she remembered. His blonde hair was the same length and tint just as she also remembered. But the problem was so were the boy who lay dead on the table.

"How do I know you're really him?"

"Aisle... what are you talking about? Of course it's me."

And that was exactly what the machine would say. Aisle was not going anywhere with him until her gave her reasons to.

"Prove it."

She watched as he narrowed his eyes at her. The same way she remembered he did when he did not understand what he was viewing. He glanced at the body on the table and finally nodded his understanding.

"I get it. Of course you'd be skeptical. I should have started with this."

Aisle watched as he reached into his pocket and drew out the bracelet he had made for her a long time ago. That still didn't prove anything to her though. He could have easily nicked it from the real Clew's body just now.

"You gave me this bracelet on the last day I saw you. You said you didn't think you could love me and I told you I would never let go. And then I asked you to wait for me. I'm here now, Aisle. I'm still never going to let go... and that's because I'm still in love with you."

Aisle was already crying. She didn't need anything else. She didn't need him to be anything else than what he was right now. She was already in his arms before she could stop herself. What did it matter if Clew was now a machine or not. He was still willing to love her as she was. That was all she could have hoped for. Maybe the time for humans really was over. If she and Clew were machines and were still capable of love and procreation, wasn't it finally time for that to be a reality?