"You're in terrible pain?" Kahli repeated back at the strange, mechanical man lying on the ground post impact of the kick from her summoned boulder.
"Yes, but it is okay, it will pass," he said matter-of-factly. And it was so that, in only a few seconds, he suddenly leaned up, spun his head around three hundred and sixty degrees on the neckless pivot point that connected to his shoulders and then stood up jerkily to tower over Kahli. "Ah, I am doing much better now. I appreciate your concern, though I must reiterate, it was wholly unnecessary."
"Um, do you mind me asking something a little invasive?" asked Kahli.
"Not at all, because I do not mind anything."
"Are you a robot?"
"I do not know what you mean. I do not know what a robot is."
Kahli stared at the strange man's chest as she watched gears click around it. "Well, I think you might be one, anyway."
"That could be true. I am not sure what I am, so if you say I am a robot, then perhaps I must be," said the man in a voice devoid of all inflection. His glowing blue eyes scanned around the dusty, dark surroundings of the now seemingly post-apocalyptic downtown Gifflenberg. "You are lucky you are alive in such an inhabitable area. Is this planet always so bleak?"
Kahli was even more confused. This metal man, this potential robot, seemed to have no idea where he was or what had just happened. "Sorry to sound rude, but do you remember anything from the last hour? Downtown Gifflenberg was just victim of a meteor crash. And I do mean victim, some alien man intentionally crashed the meteor into town with a goal of destroying the whole planet. He, um, he asked me to team up with him." She smiled with a smug pride at the last point.
"What are you doing with your face? It confuses me," replied the man.
Kahli didn't even know what to say. Had this weirdo not ever seen someone smile before? Or was this some sort of a tongue-in-cheek jab at the fact that she was once again messing with the plaster over her face and that she was going to affect how the eventual living wood formed over her countenance? Either way, Kahli was a rubbed the wrong way a little by this man and his strange lack of social acumen.
"It is fine, you do not have to answer," said the man. "I will be okay with this lack of information being provided."
What was his deal? This was just obnoxious!
"Okay, be real with me for a second," said Kahli. "Because you seem like you're from outer space or something. So, are you from outer space? Did you come from the meteor, too? Are you here to destroy Nomachiato? Who are you? If you aren't from space, where are you from? And what exactly are you doing out here? I'm out here because I'm a total fool and wasn't paying attention to the fact that the sky literally looked like it was bleeding before the meteor made impact. What exactly are you up to, sir?"
The mechanical man stood there, stiff as a board for a second, as the gears in his chest spun together in their locked fashion at triple the normal speed. And then, he replied. "I have absolutely no idea. I know not where I hail from, I know not of what goals I may or may not have. I know barely anything at all."
Kahli balked. Froufrou squelched with a similar inflection, as if they were almost perfectly on the same page in this situation.
"So, sir, you're telling me you have no idea who you are or what you're doing?"
"Essentially, yes, that's exactly it."
Kahli stood there in the turbulent, dusty air, staring at this strange automaton. "What do you know? I mean, you're able to communicate with language, so obviously you know some things." For a second, Kahli wondered if she should just... run away from this weird being. What if all this was some elaborate fabrication, kind of like how she'd misrepresented her current situation with Lloyd in order to avoid whatever apocalyptic thing he'd planned to do to her?
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Still, the man seemed more aloof than he did threatening, though his mechanical appendages seemed quite forceful and strong. No, she decided, she could not run away. Kahli was far too invested in whatever the hell was happening to do that. Lloyd, of course, was still afoot, but that strange little alien was far away from her at some point and even though he was powerful, he was also a bit of a fool. Probably, the biggest threat he posed was one of appearing before Kahli and begging her to bring forth the end of the world with him - and at least for now, there was no way in hell that was happening, so it was really a moot point. Of course things could change, but this was the case for now.
"I know three things. I know that my name is Unit 5a23. I know that I have a purpose, although I do not know what this purpose is. And finally, I know that I must protect the subject at all costs."
Kahli blinked a few times, trying to process this bizarre string of information. Clearly, the man was a robot. Who else but a robot would have a name like Unit 5a23? The purpose thing was intriguing, but she didn't really know what to think of it. And of course, there was the last thing she thought, and that was the most intriguing thing of all. She was dying to figure out what the subject was.
"That's one of the many issues I've identified," replied the robo-man. "I haven't the slightest idea what or who the subject is."
Kahli sighed. Great. What had she stumbled upon, here? Who was this robot guy, and why did he seem to have a complete lack of memory? What was wrong with him? And why was this mechanical entity so heavily gendered?
"Can you just please, for the love of Theseosus, tell me to the best of your mechanical ability what you remember? Like, as in, how did you get here?" In truth, Kahli had quickly become concerned that she'd cause this strange automaton to develop amnesia from blunt force trauma dealt by her rock kicking technique that had initially hit him. But the last thing she wanted to do, was to say that. "If you don't mind, of course."
"I am not certain what you mean by stipulating that I should only answer if I do not mind. This seems almost to me to be a misnomer, though my mental faculties seem to be emptied as such that any normal colloquialisms are essentially nulled," responded the robo-man. "Regardless, let me please talk to you about what I do remember from what appears to me, though may not in actuality be, a fairly brief existence."
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It all began when Unit 5a23 was defined as a design for a concept in a system blueprint. This Unit 5a23 blueprint was nebulous as all hell and Unit 5a23 had barely any memory of this, but knew that at some point it was so that the concept of a thing known as Unit 5a23 was born in the mind of something or someone else.
The rest, Unit 5a23 explained, was a large sea of null values that Unit 5a23 could barely parse or interpret to any degree without encountering such a debilitating amount of mental errors that Unit 5a23's own psyche effectively timed out.
With that defined, Unit 5a23 was able to move forward and explain further what it could functionally remember. See, Unit 5a23 could see that there were memories in his internal database, but he could not interpret them, they were in a way either corrupted or locked behind some sort of a proverbial walled garden that prevented the mechanical man from properly accessing the information. While the source was unknown the effect was clear - there was a large chunk of Unit 5a23's history that was a complete mystery to himself.
Regardless, Unit 5a23 did indeed have access to some of his recent memories.
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A hot, burning pain. A brace for impact. And then the cold dirt covering a mechanical body.
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Screaming. So many screams. Crying. Agony, but not physical - mental agony, a palpable concept that was disturbing for an automaton to discern, and yet at the same time all too real to ignore.
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A fading fuzziness. A corruption. A concoction of static gripping the senses that wreaked havoc on Unit 5a23's perception and tore it into thousands of tiny little pieces, none of which seemed to really amount to anything other than the expenditure of energy.
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And then, Unit 5a23 remembered gaining awareness on the surface of Nomachiato. This was Nomachiato post impact of the meteor.
He was holding a small pink ribbon. Unit 5a23 had no idea who this ribbon was from, or what it meant, but it made him feel a terrible sadness that seemed almost impossible for an entity so mechanical.
Unit 5a23 wandered through the dark shadows and turbulent winds of the smashed space rock that littered Nomachiatio. It was as if Unit 5a23 was wading through a sea of doom and pain, and then a large rock smacked him in the face and sent him tumbling to the ground.
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"Wow," replied Kahli. "You've been through so much, and at the same time, so little. What a dreadful existence."
Unit 5a23 did not respond except for a small beep, which sounded remarkably forlorn. Kahli did her best not to show it, but she was greatly relieved that Unit 5a23's lack of memory did not seem to be due to her hitting him with a rock.
"I also have a warning for you," replied Unit 5a23.
"What?"
"I must warn you of something," reiterated 5a23. And what he said next made Kahli's jaw nearly drop to the floor.