[It's a sentiment he's heard before- not from Nick of course, but Kyna, Morgan... hell, even Tucker. Rome is at the point where he can admit that there's some merit to it, but just how much, he doesn't know. Surely not enough to invalidate his years of training, but beyond that?]
I don't know what you are, [he finally admits, his tone blunt as usual,] you smell like oil and leather and metal. There's no blood or bone in your body. That does make you a machine, doesn't it?
[He pauses there, understanding that this wasn't quite the point, but also... kind of not. After all the horrible things he's done, Rome is still absolutely naive in some ways, and so when he poses the question, it's completely innocent.]
[Nick takes neither Rome's confession, nor his questions with any offense. In all fairness, that last one is a good question, one he's asked himself several times. He answers his subordinate's innocence with honesty.]
To be completely frank, I don't really know. All my behavior comes from the memories and personality of a cop that had his brain scanned about two hundred years ago. Well, two hundred years prior to where I'm from.
[Explanations get a lot more complicated when one has to consider other worlds and times. He sets his eyes on the spires ahead and continues, that weight at the back of his neck tell him that he should:]
I feel human enough, but all it takes is a look in the mirror to remind myself that I'm not. I'm a synth, Institute-made. This body runs diagnostics like a computer, lets me know what should be hurting, even when it doesn't. I don't have to sleep or eat. I don't bleed the same way a real man might, even the man whose judgment and reasoning are programmed into my main hardware.
[So he isn't real, is absolutely a machine. Does that make him less of a person? That's a question he's asked himself several times, too.]
[Romulus considers that for a moment, as a few more things about who Nick is begins to fall into place. He'd never known much about him, really- all of his interaction with the guard had mainly been through Maketh, and Nick... well, he knew that he was some kind of robot, that's about it.]
You want to, though.
[He comments, unusually perceptive.]
To be human. Maybe not- the body or the flesh, but I've always felt that there was something more to them, something that feels... different. How smart they are or how emotional they are, or how they know what to do, or- [it's hard when he's never quite learned the words to describe what it is he's trying to convey, but it's an important conversation and he tries his best to make some kind of sense.]
-maybe it's a soul. Maybe you know what it feels like, if you used to be one. I've always accepted that I don't have what they have, whatever it is... I can't really tell if you have it either.
[He's gotten a little off topic now, more wondering out loud than anything at all, and when he realizes that he's trailed away from the conversation, he shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walk.]
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I don't know what you are, [he finally admits, his tone blunt as usual,] you smell like oil and leather and metal. There's no blood or bone in your body. That does make you a machine, doesn't it?
[He pauses there, understanding that this wasn't quite the point, but also... kind of not. After all the horrible things he's done, Rome is still absolutely naive in some ways, and so when he poses the question, it's completely innocent.]
Do you think the way humans do?
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To be completely frank, I don't really know. All my behavior comes from the memories and personality of a cop that had his brain scanned about two hundred years ago. Well, two hundred years prior to where I'm from.
[Explanations get a lot more complicated when one has to consider other worlds and times. He sets his eyes on the spires ahead and continues, that weight at the back of his neck tell him that he should:]
I feel human enough, but all it takes is a look in the mirror to remind myself that I'm not. I'm a synth, Institute-made. This body runs diagnostics like a computer, lets me know what should be hurting, even when it doesn't. I don't have to sleep or eat. I don't bleed the same way a real man might, even the man whose judgment and reasoning are programmed into my main hardware.
[So he isn't real, is absolutely a machine. Does that make him less of a person? That's a question he's asked himself several times, too.]
no subject
You want to, though.
[He comments, unusually perceptive.]
To be human. Maybe not- the body or the flesh, but I've always felt that there was something more to them, something that feels... different. How smart they are or how emotional they are, or how they know what to do, or- [it's hard when he's never quite learned the words to describe what it is he's trying to convey, but it's an important conversation and he tries his best to make some kind of sense.]
-maybe it's a soul. Maybe you know what it feels like, if you used to be one. I've always accepted that I don't have what they have, whatever it is... I can't really tell if you have it either.
[He's gotten a little off topic now, more wondering out loud than anything at all, and when he realizes that he's trailed away from the conversation, he shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walk.]
I just know what they tell me.