When I arrived on your world,

"Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit here?" the young man asked as he carefully balanced a breakfast tray on his right hand. He did not want to sit with anyone, but the hall was very crowded and this table was the only one with an empty seat.

The long head of black hair didn't even look up from the table to answer. "Whatever makes you happy."

He didn't bother introducing himself as he sat down. It was a side-effect of not taking his medication, this inability to care. But as he quietly ate his food, he noticed something familiar about the other man's way of carefully dissecting every morsel before lifting it with one finger into his mouth.

"Trigger?" he ventured.

The black hair parted slowly to reveal a face. A pair of blood-red lips appeared first, followed by a regal nose, then a pair of dark black eyes. After a moment, recognition replaced the initial look of anger. "Long time no see, Omega. What brings you to this hole?"

"The usual: reprogramming."

"What is it this time - still having those dreams?"

Omega had not seen Trigger since six months ago, the last time he had been in for rehabilitation. It was then that he was given his last warning. This time he was actually up for a complete programming alteration. The dreams themselves, he had been told, were not the problem. If he continued in his attempts to think independently, the dreams were merely a side-effect. The doctors were, of course, lying. His dream circuits had been dysfunctional since he was a mere school-drone. That was where he and Trigger had become friends, though the first time they met had cost Omega a trip to the hospital.

Trigger was a toy of researchers. His imbalanced and slightly retarded brain were not aborted as is the usual practice. Instead, his birth was the beginning of a very long inquest into the catalogue of human brain functions. He had been implanted with nearly every device ever invented, including fully functioning reproductive organs of both sexes. Omega, not knowing what else to think, always thought of his friend as a he.

His unusual friend, because of these experiments, often suffered from what his doctors called reality-induced rage. Omega had once asked Trigger why he so often had these fits of rage and instead of an answer came a seductive smirk. That had been merely hours after a fit, in which Trigger had destroyed everything in the classroom, including the teacher and three classmates. His punishment was to visit Omega in the hospital, who had merely received a broken arm.

He had been kept in school for years despite the fits. His teachers and classmates were expendable. He was not. Omega was only twelve when the two had met and already the experiment had been going on twenty years. Trigger's age was as close to infinite as Omega could imagine.

Despite the incident and their differences, the two went on to become friends. To one particular statistician's amazement, Omega survived the next six years of Trigger's experiments. He laughed at the accusation that he actually gave suggestions when asked who was next to be killed during the next so-called fit. Trigger enjoyed talking with Omega who, although not in favour of violence, always had interesting ideas of destruction and actually listened. In return, Trigger did his best to pretend that he cared about Omega's strange dreams of the Holy City.

"Of course I'm still dreaming. But that isn't the real problem-"

Trigger looked around furtively. "You're not taking your medications are you?"

Omega smiled mischievously at his friend. "Why should I bother? They don't do anything for me. Of course, then again. . ."

"Damn it, just give them to me, will you?"

Trigger reached his open hand under the table to receive the pills. He brought them up to look at them, admiring each as if they were priceless white pearls, before throwing the whole handful into his mouth. He swallowed and turned his eyes back down to his food, picking each bit apart before eating it. Omega made no attempt at conversation as they ate. He knew that his silence during his friend's concentration was appreciated.