Chroman's mask glinted in the light of the setting sun, like a beacon in the dark of this rotten city. Lucille's heartbeat began to quicken. Her legs trembled beneath her, hot blood pumped through her veins in a way she didn't know it could.
He looked at her, his strong, masculine figure towering over the bloodied corporate corpse, which just a moment ago had violently tried to defile Lucille's virtue.
"What's the matter with me?" her mind raced. "Why him? Why me?" Hundreds of questions burned inside her brain. But, when she finally parted her lips to speak, only one question emerged: "Who are you really?"
Chroman took Lucille into his cold, metal hands. She flinched at the touch. "You know I can't tell you that. They'll find you, they'll rip my secret out of you any way they can... and then kill you.
"I--I don't care about any of that! I love you... I love you!"
She couldn't feel his face, his real one, concealed under that veil of chrome, but she could have sworn she could hear a note of emotion in his deep voice.
"You love a dream. You don't know who hides under this mask."
"I don't care what you look like."
"What if I'm disfigured?"
"I'll pay for the operation."
"And if I'm an android?"
"It doesn't matter!"
"And if..." Then, suddenly, in one swift motion, Chroman removed the mask to reveal... the face of Damita de la Veli! "... if I'm a woman?"
Lucille stood there, dumbstruck. A tempest of emotion swirled in a frenzy throughout her being. But after a moment passed, the storm calmed and she smiled warmly, taking her savior's face into her hands. The proverbial clouds of her tumultuous mind began to part. Lucille was beginning to see clearly at last. "How many times does a woman need to say she loves you," Lucille smirked and whispered softly, "before you believe her?"
