Chapter 3: Appeal
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1.3
“Hey.” Mono asks Atlan, hitting his shoulder from behind.
“Hm?”
“Where is the machine, you know, ‘Devil’?”
“Ohh, that. Yea sure, a bit, at least let me..” Atlan smiles awkwardly - “... finish my morning routine in the bathroom..” It was only 5 AM at their place.
On Mars, a day is 24 hours and 37 minutes long. 

“What a windy day..” Mono speaks to herself. “So where is it?” She’s still clinging on Atlan’s back - who is fixing the power line, doesn't know what to do besides trying to ignore her and keep on fixing, but it doesn’t seem to work that much. Mono keeps on asking on his back, the same questions repeatedly, to the point where Atlan has to turn around. He holds on her shoulders, “Look, I’m busy here. I have to take care of this place too y’know? Will you please calm down? I know it’s very important to you, but this is very important to me and my sister too. The calmer you get, the faster I’ll get this finish, understand it this way.” He looks annoyed. “Why don’t you go in and play with Miko? She’s upstairs.” He points up. Mono nods, zipping her mouth with her hand, as what Atlan said. “This girl..” He sighs.
“I wanna go see the machine..” Mono rolls over Miko’s bed, sobbing jokingly, while Miko is sitting at her desk, trying to study. “Hey miss, will you be silent for a second?” She looks really angry, “There’s a person trying to study here.” Mono gets up, came after her.
“What are you studying?”
“Engineering. I wanna become a great engineer, so that everyone can know my name, and also to become very rich from fixing scraps.” Miko looks so full of herself.
“I see.” Mono takes a look at a somewhat old book. It took her a few seconds to realise that “Hey, this is the book I was taught back on Earth!” She leans toward, pressing her chest on Miko’s head. “That’s cool but can you get your round objects off my head?!” Miko is mad. Mono immediately moves back, repeatedly saying “Sorry!”
“So, you learned this?”
“Yea, on Earth, was taught by my… friend.” She smiles as she looks down at her palm.
“Ehh.. ‘Friend’, huh?” Miko teases her with a mocking tone of voice.
“Yes, friends. We are just friends.” Mono restates her statement.
“Suree..” Miko smirks, turning her eyes at Mono. Suddenly, Mono feels flustered, turning away as fast as possible the moment their eyes meet each other. “J-just friends..” Mono covered her face, restating what she said once again.
“Hey, we are both girls here, you know? You can tell me all you want and I won’t spill a single word to that dumbass downstairs.” She smugs, gets closer to Mono and places her hand on the shoulder.
“N-nothing, really, we are just..”
“Hey, you two!” Atlan shouts from downstairs. “Come down here, let’s go to that place! Where the robot’s at!” He points to the left, while still shouting and calling them. Mono is so excited, that she almost hit her head on the door.
“Ah! It’s time to go! Let’s go!” Mono immediately switches the conversation to Atlan, as she immediately stands up and runs outside the room, leaving Miko behind, still smirking. “Sure thing, Miss~”
“Are you both ready?” Atlan stomps on the ground, fixing his shoes’ position. “Actually, I won’t even wait, let’s go!” He starts walking as he’s half way through the sentence, leaving both Mono and Miko behind, who are wearing clothes, “H-hey, wait for us!”
The trio walks to the South - leaving the village behind, entering what seems to be a deserted zone. They keep on walking, dragging their legs through the sand floor. It’s not hot, but it’s not cold either. It’s a weird desert’s habitat, perhaps only existing on Mars.
In the middle of nowhere, outside the village, outside the safe zone even… Atlan suddenly stopped, making Mono and Miko crash into him in the back. “What’s the matter?!” Miko’s angry, hitting Atlan in the back. “Well, here we are! Where the ‘Devil’ lies!” He points to nowhere. Mono seems confused, “I see..?” as she’s looking at where Atlan’s pointing. He held his breath, and burst out a big laugh. “You guys should’ve seen your face! Haha!” Both Mono and Miko stare at him menacingly. “Ehem!” Atlan fixes his voice, he reaches for something inside his pocket. It looks like a harmonica if you just look at it. He presses a button on it. After a minute, nothing happened but eternal silence. “What are you doing..?” Miko asks her stupid brother. “J-just a moment! A little more!” Atlan closes his hand, praying to them to forgive him. Mono feels a little shaky underneath. “Earthquake?!” She panics. Atlan reacts immediately, and holds both Miko and Mono out of the way. “Welcome to my secret base - Where even the Federal can’t reach!” Atlan holds them both in front of a somewhat big metal door, silver painted. It slowly opens from both sides, as he lets both the ladies off. “Can you atleast give us a warning..” Mono sighs disappointingly, but she doesn’t seem to be bothered that much anyway. Atlan laughs awkwardly, then takes both of them inside. The moment they all walked inside, the door immediately shut down, and they felt another tremor. “Yea, sorry about that, gotta have the security at max!” Atlan walks down the stare, while the girls behind positioning themself from falling. “You idiot..” This turn, Miko sighs.
At the end of the line, they reached another door. Atlan fixes his voice, then gets closer to the speech recognition. “Atlan.” He says his name clearly to the machine. It turns from red to green, then the door slowly slides to both sides. Flying right into their eyes, is a room filled with mechanical stuff. Mono is stunned, as she slowly walks inside with both siblings. She sees some familiar tools, and some weird looking materials, or tools, she doesn’t know. There are so many things that she has never seen back on Earth before. “Hey, Mono.” Atlan calls. “Y-yes?!” She snapped out of the stunning. “Look to your left.”
A metallic silver with navy blue mixed with some light gold strips colour lines. A face of a goddess. Yet, the body brings into Mono some weird feelings. It feels like she’s looking at some calamity. “This ‘Devil’ is a Mors type, or as you call it on Earth - Reaper. And this bad girl is named after its vibration when the engine reeves, its-” Atlan who is about to say the name, got interfered with by Mono.
“Falsetto.” She says out of her subconscious.
“Well I didn’t think you’d get the name but yes, ‘Falsetto’!” Atlan is surprised, shocked even.
“This machine.” Mono speaks to Atlan. He raises his head up a little as a “Hm?”
“Can I ride it?” She looked back at him. Her eyes are filled with determination, but there is something wrong, Atlan can feel it. It’s not just simple vengeance in there. It’s almost like she has found her soulmate. A soulmate to reap everything in her sight, a perfect partner. Atlan feels shiver down his spine. “This woman..”
He raises his voice: "Well, you are quite weak from what I'm seeing, you don't even have any Stamps on you. I don't think you can handle something like that." He looks at her hand wrists and judges them. "Well," Mono asks, "can you help me get some?", directly. Atlan is speechless toward this girl. Miko who has been observing from the behind, sighs. "You do know that only 'Human Waste' get Stamped, right?" Mono nods. "Like me." Atlan shows her his wrists. Atlan have 2 Stamps on both of his wrists.
Mono clicks her tongue. "I know.." She looks down to the ground. "I know someone who is a 'Waste' too." She looks at her palm. The little green light keeps on flickering, on and off. "So can you please," Immediately, she gets herself up and gets toward Atlan, "can you help me to become one?!" She shouts.
A sudden silence has once again appeared.
"Eh?" Atlan and Miko both startled simultaneously.  

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