How can it be? I ask myself,
     that they avoid decay.
Their skin is still intact it seems,
     It does not rot away.
Perhaps the atmosphere is strange,
     the air out here thin?
I'm grasping at the straws of reason,
     struggling within.

The ghostly faces stare at me,
     I'm struck by detail small.
How similar the dead can look,
     no matter short or tall.
But something else disturbs me so,
     an oddness to be noted.
A thing quite insignificant,
     yet here has been promoted.

The eyes on every face I see,
     are looking straight ahead.
Is it not the long accepted norm,
     to close the eyes of dead.
And now I see Yolanda,
     traverse the graveyard pile.
Dragging with her bodies,
     in her customary style.

"A-M One Oh Two" she motions,
     "A-F Sixty Three.
A-F-S One Ninety Two
     Your android family."
Up close I see some skin is torn,
     inside I see no bone.
Just metal shafts and coloured string,
     "Their skin is silicone"

"They're not alive?" I question her,
     still, disbelief I'm feeling.
Confusion overcomes in waves,
     at just what she's revealing.
"No" she says. "Robotic",
     but I'm unsure of definition.
As solace grows with crumbling towers,
     both struck with demolition.

Three bodies lay aligned like sticks,
     a child oft arranges.
When playing in the meadows as,
     the season round them changes.
Dichotomy of life and death,
     preserved for time eternal.
The cursed abominations,
     from the realms of the infernal.

I stoop, then wipe the dust from face,
     it seems to come to life.
As perfect as when walking Earth,
     assigned as Father's wife.
Her hair revised but even thus,
     I'd know her anywhere.
The expression on that stone cold face,
     the locked ethereal stare.

Yet here she lies and somehow not,
     a twist on irony.
The beauty of my Mother,
     now besmirched in villainy.
The likeness is uncanny,
     and serves as admonition.
This world, deceives with ne'er a pass,
     a conscience, or permission.

On thinking back the pieces fit,
     the puzzle near complete.
Their actions always slightly off,
     a con, a rouse, a cheat.
Artificial actors,
     in a bid to win my trust.
But now I see behind the veil,
     their gamble ends a bust.

Her words make sense now, perfectly.
     For ne'er I'd have believed.
The notion of another,
     A twin so ill-conceived.
Yet now I scour the pile,
     overflowing with rejection.
I tally ten or twenty,
     with identical dissection.

"They need a source of power?" I ask.
     "Their energy is spent?"
She nods, then pulls a lever,
     that's concealed from malcontent.
Mother's chest emits a steam,
     and opens to reveal,
A cavity, a void which strikes,
     in me chord, surreal.

"There should be a reactor here,"
     she points at absent part.
"But Reapers likely stole it.
     It's kind of like a heart."
I nod, "I see". A lie, I don't,
     and find I break a smile.
She laughs, a hearty warming laugh,
     my ignorance worthwhile.

And then I start to feel it to,
     a rumbling volcanic.
That fills my mind with first concern,
     then morphs to morbid panic.
How can I laugh? And how can she?
     How dire our situation?
And then I see the answer,
     is the cause of jubilation.

I laugh until I'm on my knees,
     and for my breath I'm reaching.
The two of us, a partner fair,
     guffawing, crying, screeching.
Great rivers flow from soul's window,
     my cheeks distinctly wet.
Attacked by raging waters,
     we continue our duet.

I see a weight gone from her frame,
     a boulder truly lifted.
She smiles at me amid her tears,
     and with comfort I am gifted.
A perfect silence follows,
     two souls negotiating.
Evaluating choices,
     and overtly concentrating.

Yolanda sits, I follow suit,
     she opens mouth to say.
Then pauses as a different thread,
     now steals her breath away.
"I'm sorry" Y begins anew,
     her bearing now is set.
"I never introduced myself."
     I feel her deep regret.

Extending arm, with tender act,
     she smiles, "I'm Yolanda."
And from her path that seemed so straight
     I cannot help meander,
I promised I would hide my name,
     the only thing I own.
"Xavier" I want to shout,
     "but Xav is how I'm known."

A nearby building crumbles,
     in my moments hesitation.
As if it wished to speak for me,
     and join the conversation.
Yet am I ready to divulge,
     that part of me unknown?
The name I whispered to myself,
     when oft I was alone.

Can I be sure, intentions pure,
     she bids me fortune true?
Or have I been deceived,
     did I her actions misconstrue?
She's saved my life, bound my wounds,
     with food my body nourished.
Though Berdholdt's actions stacked alike,
     and credence in him flourished.

I put my trust into his hands,
     and hoped he'd cradle berne.
Alas it seems he preyed upon,
     my failure to discern.
He made my faith a trinket.
     a charm or worse a toy.
Encased so tight in his control
     twas easy to destroy.

I open heart and pray to God,
     I've missed his guiding hand.
Yet fault of mine and mine alone,
     I failed to understand.
"Forgive me Lord" I say inside,
     "In you I place my trust.
For give me for deserting you,
     I caved to wanderlust."

So now my hand extends to hers,
     and here in city slain.
I pledge to build a city new,
     a fortified domain.
The past cannot be altered,
     least I know of no technique.
So armed with resolution,
     I too extend and speak.

"Xavier" I take her hand,
     the warmth infects my skin.
And shaking gently thrice or more,
     again we now begin.
It feels right, a spotless slate,
     with which to start anew.
And by my side the Pharma Queen,
     with those eyes of Cobalt Blue.

Her gaze descends, the smile fades,
     and to her thoughts she's lost.
Her fingers trace the letters,
     on my sisters arm embossed.
A meeting of extremities, one warm,
     and cold the other.
Alisha's doppelganger lays,
     at rest beside her mother.

She takes the hand in hers and asks me,
     "Did you love her so?
Did she manager to convince you?"
     I answer, "Yes, Although,
I always felt a distance,
     a gap I could not cross."
In truth her bright demeanour,
     was a sheen of glinting gloss.

She smiles, it fades, then reappears,
     she gently places hand.
And looks right past me, left to right,
     at the desolate wonderland.
Another giant falls, retires,
     as if subservient.
To rules and codes of conduct,
     ne'er likely to relent.

And setting sun ablazes sky,
     with fire all consuming.
Preparing for the end of day,
     and nighttime's reign resuming.
The panoramic mural high,
     unique, yet also fleeting.
Gently warms spectating souls,
     as light begins retreating.

I could sit forever here,
     beneath the sun now setting.
Erasing all from atmosphere,
     as nature starts forgetting.
Tomorrow morn, the sun will rise,
     a new day will commence.
As if to pay its debt to night,
     a solar recompense.

An hour passes, maybe more,
     I find her hand in mine.
Our palms are clasped together,
     our fingers intertwine.
A feeling so familiar,
     as if our bodies one.
Extensions of each other,
     our boundaries overcome.

I see her gently breathing,
     I sense my own heart beat.
And in a way, I feel today,
     no longer incomplete.
In Bertholdt's death my sentence passed,
     released from tyrant's grip.
Allowed to roam the world again,
     and form this partnership.

"Tomorrow we'll talk memories,"
     she stands and walks away.
I rise and aim to follow,
     till she stops and turns to say,
"I'm glad you're the obsessive type"
     I dare not disagree,
But blood has ne'er run colder,
     when she says, "We'll need your key"