Keno found the muzzle of the hand cannon aimed at him. He opened a muzzle in his own hand and aimed it at the robot. Yassin stared at Keno for a few moments, trying to understand what he was looking at. Gradually, things began to become clear, and he remembered what had happened in the competition.
A great explosion echoed in the place after the projectiles from both Keno and the robot collided. A large part of the mall was destroyed, and the flames rose high from the force of the explosion, shattering the glass that adorned the ceiling, in an attempt to touch the sky.
Yassin fell to the ground from the force of the explosion, but fortunately, he was far from its range, so he was not scratched. He leaped to his feet again, staggering, and peered into the flames in an attempt to see what had become of things. He hoped that Keno had survived, but in his heart, he did not think he could survive something so massive. Suddenly, he saw something moving amidst the flames. He stared eagerly until he saw something flying toward him from out of the flames. He closed his eyes and raised his hand to protect himself, activating his power. The flying object passed through him and lodged in one of the shops, destroying it.
Yassin opened his eyes again, then followed the trail of the unknown object, but he saw nothing but rubble. He turned his eyes toward the flames again and found someone emerging from them. Yassin prepared to flee, hoping that it was Keno who had survived. But his worst fears were realized. He saw the face of the silver robot emerging from the flames. He retreated, and his facial features contracted involuntarily. He prepared to run away, but suddenly its head fell to the ground and began to roll, detached from its body. Keno emerged from behind it, laughing at Yassin’s reaction.
"Don’t be afraid, it’s me," he said, reassuringly. "I wanted to see your reaction. But it seems you don’t react much. Maybe it’s because of your strange, bluish skin color. Who knows."
"And what is a reaction?" Yassin asked.
"It’s a long story. You’ll learn later, when the time is right."
Yassin saw Keno emerge from the flames, his shirt and trousers burnt to his knees, but his glasses were still intact. Yassin ran toward him, examining his body. "Are you really like that iron thing? But why are you attacking it? Aren’t you relatives?"
Keno adjusted his glasses, a sarcastic smile on his face. "Cyborg, please."
"Cyborg?" Yassin said, surprised. "What does that mean?"
"It means I’m half human and half robot," Keno replied, dusting himself off. "And the robot is the metal thing I just destroyed."
Yassin took a step back and stared at him skeptically. "Half robot and half human? How is that? I saw you at the competition, and thought that you throw fire from your hand because you have a strange power like the rest."
Keno was silent for a few seconds, then continued, "No, I’m really not kidding. I am one of many attempts to merge machine with man. But when I woke up in this strange tower, I found that new functions had been added to my old modified body... some modifications, to be precise." The source of thɪs content is 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵※𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮※𝓷𝓮𝓽
"Some modifications like what?" Yassin said, circling Keno and examining his body like he is watcing an animal in a zoo.
Keno felt strange and embarrassed by what Yassin was doing, but he had expected it. "Attack and defense mechanisms have been added to my body," he said calmly. "And I have become much stronger than before. Not only that, but my hearing, vision, and physical strength have developed far beyond that of a normal human. I’ve become a little faster with some interesting things up my sleeve. Strange things have been done to my body that have taken me to a whole new level. I don’t know who did this, but I am grateful to them for not touching my heart, taking away my feelings, or my mind, or any of the things that made me feel like I was still human after all. Otherwise, I would have become like that thing that attacked you, a robot without feelings, moving only according to its programming. And it’s funny that many humans are not much different from that robot; they move as society dictates."
Yassin stopped examining his body and thought carefully about what he had said. Then he said in a quick, stammering tone, "The same thing happened to me. I woke up here with a strange power. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t remember anything! I don’t remember having a life before! It’s like I’m lost! Or like I was just born! But despite this, I can speak and understand many things, which I assume is evidence of a previous life, but I don’t remember it yet! Do you remember anything about your life?"
Keno rubbed his chin, trying to remember. "No, I don’t remember. That part of my memory has been erased. I have a special memory slot in addition to my normal memory as a human, and this memory records everything my right eye captures, which is an artificial eye, by the way. It works like a video tape and records all events, so when I forget something with my human memory, I access it to remember everything that happened exactly. But I noticed that a part of my real memory and my artificial memory has been erased, and I can’t remember anything, unfortunately."
Yassin was amazed by the strange things Keno had inside his body. "How were you modified and became this thing called a cyborg?" he asked curiously.
Keno looked at the moon, which was sending its light through the shattered roof of the mall, then sighed. "It’s a long story, but in short, my brother worked in robotics. He was one of the best scientists in his field. You could even say he was responsible for the industrial revolution of robots, because he was able to solve the problem of super artificial intelligence, which humans feared because of the possibility of robots rebelling against them if they were able to evolve over time to gain consciousness like humans."
"My brother laid down three laws for robots and called them Asimov’s laws, in honor of the famous American writer. After that, the industrial revolution of robots began, which took humans to another stage of progress and development. My brother received many awards and prizes for this. And since we were the only two in our family, we were very close to each other, because our parents had died a long time ago. We did many things together, and we didn’t hide anything from each other. But one day, I was coming home from work in my flying car, and I was feeling very sleepy. I drifted off for a few seconds and didn’t wake up until I heard the horn and saw the lights of another flying car in my face. The light blinded me, and suddenly everything went dark."
He was silent for a moment, trying to remember, then continued in a gloomy tone, "When I woke up, I found that I had become a cyborg. Of course, I went crazy from the changes I found in my body, but my brother tried to calm me down and began to explain what had happened. It turned out that I was on the verge of death, and the only solution for survival was an experiment that my brother and his colleagues in the field of machines were working on and developing, so that the human body could reach a new stage. He began to explain to me that with the integration of machine and man, we would treat paralysis, blindness, deafness, muteness, and incurable diseases. Not only that, but man would become much smarter, more aware, and more immune to diseases."
Keno was silent for a moment and took a deep breath as he examined Yassin’s astonished expression at his strange story, then continued, "They used small nanomachines that swim in the bloodstream, inside the glands, arteries, and every cell inside you, to be like an update for your new body, which makes them attack the most stubborn viruses and incurable diseases, like cancer cells and diabetes, eliminating them as soon as they try to spread in your body. The immune system has become invincible now. And not only that, but it will also repair any damaged cells inside you. That is, if you cut off your hand, it will grow back, but it will take some time."