The town was small. It's buildings were gray-colored, close to the 
ground, made of clay and cement. Holes in the walls served as 
windows. Doorways were chiseled out of the hard material and 
leather covered the openings. Sand pooled around the base of the 
structures, staining the white-washed-now-gray walls a dull brown. 
Little ripples in the air distorted the light from the beating sun. It 
was so hot, it seemed as though you could burn your arm off just by 
pointing at the angry boiling ball in the sky. 

G-1 stood in the entrance to the town. The cement and mud-hardened 
fence stretched out and made hard right angles around the perimeter 
of the community dwelling. An arch over the unbarred entrance 
framed the main street of the sleeping place. On smooth, hardened, 
dirt porches people sat propped on stools or against each other; the 
town slept in the afternoon heat. A breeze, warm and parched, 
stirred the granular sand at her feat, then gave up.

Remotely, in the back of her conscious being, she scowled at the 
brittle quality of her hair, the way the dust was slipping between 
the tight binds of her black leather garb, the way the circuits along 
her neck were humming from the heat, and the way the people of the 
town were sleeping: too relaxed, too trusting. She tossed her head.

Scuffling the sand on her way through the street, she found some 
perverse joy in kicking it up, making a mess. Lighter dust billowed 
up in clouds. The people lining the street coughed in their sleep. 
Little faces peered from dark windows but made no sound. She 
allowed her black scowl to surface. The sun's heat evaporated their 
inquiring eyes from sight.

It didn't matter if the people woke up, so she didn't waste energy 
being quiet. She wasn't being loud either. Where three streets met 
she set down a tripod that seemed to grow its legs itself, and pulled 
from under canvas covering the tools of her trade. The black and gray 
metal shone brightly in the sunlight. Flashes of sun-lightening 
streaked across her eyes and the walls of the building around her. A 
series of clicks and snaps, several adjustments, some standard 
testing. When she was absolutely sure she was ready, she loaded the 
ammunition.

	Rain
	Like tin angels  falling
	down
	Like a mission and we're 
	halfway there
	From some old dried up
	fried forgotten town

She hummed the tune blissfully to herself. Violence made her blood 
sing. A few buildings here, a few there. Bigott wouldn't care either 
way. She cackled under her breath. The sound was like shattering 
water.

Her finger was on the trigger, ready to pull back. The massive 
mechanics contained in the armed weapon vibrated pleasantly 
beneath her touch. A little bit of dust rose and fell with the weak, 
hot, breeze. She aimed at the only building higher than the others, 
perhaps a little whiter. A cross, polished wood fixed firmly in the 
cement plaster peak, crowned it.

"Who are you?"

The voice made her finger jump from the trigger, and she whirled to 
meet the intruder. A little boy stood in front of her, staring 
someplace past her shoulder with a dazed, fixed expression. His eyes 
were a cloudy blue. His hair was a dirty, corn-gold color. He was 
shorter than she, dressed in a cotton cover-up that hung in bulky 
folds about his thin form. Stick-like legs sank into half-chewed 
shoes shedding dust in little, irregular waves.

"If you know what's good for you you'll take off right now," she 
growled. "I am not in the mood to play with little kiddies."

"I don't want to play," the child said, a little scornfully, even. "I just 
want to know who you are."

"I'm Agent G-1, representative of Zalem," she said testily. "Now go 
away." She turned around expecting the kid to leave. 

"What are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she exploded. "If you don't retrace your tracks 
right now I might just train this thing on you!"

"Train what?"

"This!"

"What is it?"

"Can't you fucking tell what a gun is?" she snarled. He didn't move. 

"You're lying. Guns are illegal, you can't have one."

"What...?" She stared at him like she would analyze a bug. The kid's 
eyes were still staring over her shoulder. 

"You're not a human," he said. 

"I think it's a little obvious," she bit out. 

"Yes, I suppose so."

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Only what I said."

"Do you need glasses or something?" she asked hurtfully. "I don't 
think you're seeing things clearly." 

The boy began to laugh. Peals of laughter echoed between the 
buildings. "I don't see what's so funny," she said darkly. 

"Glasses couldn't help me, I'm blind," he laughed softly at her, the 
mirth receding. "You didn't think I could actually see did you?"

"Um..." She was speechless. 

"I must be getting good at this then," he said to himself. "I don't get 
to gauge the reaction of strangers much." He smiled at her shoulder. 

"But how... how come.....?"

"Why am I blind? I've always been blind. I don't see what's so strange 
though... I mean, people say they can see, but who knows what it's 
really like? Can you describe it?"

"Of course!" she said, taken aback. "Seeing is the perception of light 
and dark values, when light bends to create what we commonly call 
colors. In fact..."

"What are colors?"

"Colors?"

"What do they look like?"

"Well..." What did colors look like? How does one describe sight? 
"Colors are....." There was no way to describe it....

"See?" he laughed at his own pun. "You can't tell me, they can't tell 
me," he gestured at the sleeping people, "so I'm not missing out on 
much." He laughed again and it rang inside her head. She didn't want 
to have this conversation.

"What do you use to see?" he asked her. 

"Eyes," she said numbly. 

"Where are they?"

"Here..." she said, after a moment's hesitation, and dragged her 
fingertips over his lids. He was startled by the touch but the 
expression quickly vanished. 

"You're teasing," he said reproachfully. "Those are for crying."

"People use them for seeing," she said. 

"But you're not a person, are you?"

Silence.

"Are you?"

"I used to think I was," she said.

"But you're a robot!"

Hate flashed in her blood stream. 

"Good bye," she said.

"Wait! I want to talk with you!"

She picked up the tripod and the legs fled back into their 
compartments. 

"Where are you going? What are you doing?"

"It's a shame you can't see for yourself. Then you wouldn't have to 
make so much noise," she said cruelly. The boy was shocked into 
silence.

"That was a terrible thing to say," he whispered.

"I'm not a person, remember?" She shouldered the equipment, not 
bothering to dismantle it, and began walking. 

"No! Wait!" the boy yelled plaintively. 

She didn't answer. She kept walking. By nightfall she was thirty 
miles from the town. 

G-1, you didn't fall through with your mission.

--No. I didn't see any evidence of upheaval. Based on chapter fourteen 
paragraph 67 of the Regulation Public Relations Interaction Code 
Book there was no call for violence. 

Just proof that your hunches aren't right all the time, G-1. We'll be 
charging you with a new mission on the morrow. I'm turning in. 

--'Evening control. Have a nightmare, courtesy yours truly.

Sure, G-1. ---zzztt--- 

The connection broke.

Gally slept.