She was going insane. Terra had been stuck in that robot’s body for a few weeks now and there was no sign of being able to have full control. Plus, she hadn’t seen Alter since she arrived so she didn’t have anyone to talk to, so she’d resorted to holding mental conversations with herself. Being stuck in the robot’s body wasn’t doing great things to her psyche.
All Fishy was in charge of was cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking meals, and walking into the city to get materials. Although Terra was glad there wasn’t some sort of impending war going on, her world was limited to the trash heaps, her dusty walk to the city that always required a thorough cleaning afterward, and the hardware room, living room, and kitchen. Terra actually started hoping some sort of conflict would break out just to make things interesting.
It wasn’t until she had been there a month that she could start feeling some sensations. At first, she had thought it was just a glitch in the robot’s head that had caused her to feel a twinge in her imaginary hand, but when it was recurring she knew somehow she was finally connecting to her new body.
When Indo and Petri went to bed at some unknown hour, Terra would move to the hardware room and poke her robotic limbs with a screwdriver until she would feel a trickle of ice water pass over her brain. The days blurred together and Terra lost track of how long she had been there by the time she gained full control. She was glad robots didn’t require sleep otherwise the process would have taken twice as long.
From the conversations she had overheard between Indo and Petri, the body of the girl she had once inhabited was held in stasis just behind the locked door at the end of the hallway. Terra had constantly tried to get in, but her legs would lock up at the entrance of the hallway. But now that she had full control of her robotic body, maybe she would be able to pass through and get in.
Terra stretched out her limbs, making sure she had full mobility and left the hardware room. The entire living space was small, so it only took a few steps before she reached the hallway. Pausing, she started down to the door that had been taunting her all those months and vowed to reach it. Bracing herself, she took a step forward and was overjoyed to find no resistance. She quietly slinked down the hall, passing by the doors to Indo and Petri’s rooms along the way. The lock had a five-digit numerical code on the side panel, but that was quickly cracked with Terra’s robotic fingers tapping away rapidly at the locks. 02-764.
The door unlocked loudly with a hiss and retreated into the wall. Terra stepped forward into a dimly-lit lab illuminated by plants hanging from the ceiling and lining the shelves. It was a circular room and two large stainless steel tables sat slightly off center, a microscope and stacks of files and books on one and a multitude of test tubes and Petri-dishes stacked neatly on the other. A cylindrical canister lay near one of the walls with the label ‘Subject 4.’ Seeing that was the only thing large enough to house a body, Terra strolled over and peaked in. Initially, she thought she was seeing Alter, but she had to remind herself that Alter was just a hallucination of hers. It felt odd to be staring down at her own body.
“Fishy, stop.”
Terra’s limbs froze up and she cursed to herself; the door had probably woken up Indo. The lab lights flickered on, revealing Terra/Fishy staring down at the canister containing Terra’s body.
“Fucking hell. Fishy, go to the hardware room for reformatting.” Indo’s voice growled from across the room.
Terra cursed again. If her body was reformatted, there was no guessing if she would still be able to move around. Plus, they would probably switch to a different robot and not even bother with this body anymore. She still wasn’t a hundred percent sure why her consciousness was even transferred to this new body, but she suspected it had something to do with the mask. Needless of how her bodies were switched, she wasn’t going to let all that time spent training her limbs go to waste!
Fighting her body’s urge to turn around and head back to the hardware room, she focused on standing still. After a few seconds, the urge faded entirely.
“Fishy, go to the hardware room.” Indo repeated, a hint of curiosity and irritation creeping into his voice.
The urge hit her again, but Terra kept mentally telling her body ‘no,’ remaining locked in her position until it was gone again. When the impulses passed, Terra rested her hand against the pane on the tube that held her body, her metal fingers creating light tings against the glass. There must be a way to get back.
“Fishy?” Petri’s voice echoed in the room.
Terra whirled around and faced the two others that stood in the room. She ambled over to the desk covered in papers and found a pen. In big letters, she wrote My name is Terra and held it up for them to see.
“What? Fishy, what’s going on?” Indo asked.
If you call me Fishy one more time I will literally burn this place down. Terra wrote.
Indo and Petri stared at her wide-eyed, afraid to open their mouths.
“Alright...Terra...what is going on?” Indo inquired again.
Difficult to explain. Want to talk. Terra pointed to her throat. Writing everything down would be such a pain in her ass and she’d much rather prefer being able to talk again.
“First, what company created your software?” Indo insisted.
Terra gripped her pen and repeatedly circled the word ‘talk’ on the piece of paper so Indo could get the message. Indo and Petri’s eyes were wandering towards the equipment near them and Terra knew that if she didn’t somehow gain control of the room they were both going to come after her with scientific instruments. She pondered the thought since the closest things near them were a trowel and potted plants, so they wouldn’t be much of a threat and would be easy to subdue. But she wanted them on her side so they could program her a voice.
I am her she wrote and pointed to her body in the tube.
At least they weren’t looking for weapons anymore since now their eyes were exchanging glances, nonverbally saying ‘that’s a loony, no doubt.’
Voice now
Terra was getting impatient with these two. She’d been working as a slave for them for months and now that she was finally free to move around as she pleased, she couldn’t even get answers because she didn’t have a voice. Frustrated, she turned and walked to the stasis chamber that held her body. Maybe if she got her body out her consciousness would automatically switch over? She really wanted to know how this whole thing worked because there was no way she was going to spend the rest of her life underground under a junkyard serving those two people. Gripping one of the tubes that ran from the wall to the tube, she gave it a good tug but it stayed put.
“Wait!” Indo cried out.
Terra turned to him.
“I’ll program a voice simulator if you just leave her alone.” His eyes were wide with terror. “Just step away from her and I’ll do whatever you want.”
Well, at least Terra knew that her old body was in good hands considering this old man was willing to do anything to protect it.
She stepped away, arms raised.
“Petri, go grab me the mod creator.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Petri returned shortly carrying a rectangular box. Indo grabbed it and sat down on the ground, opened up the box, and began furiously typing. About a half hour later, he plugged in a small cube into the box via cord and waited for a few seconds, then unplugged it and tossed it to Terra.
“Plug it into the panel on the back of your head and download its contents. That should let you speak.” Indo summarized.
Terra felt around on the back of her head, finding a slot that matched with the cord attached to the cube. Mentally preparing herself and hoping the old man wasn’t tricking her, she plugged the cord in. Icy water flooded her brain and she was almost overwhelmed with its cold grip.
Indo and Petri jumped at her, raising an empty planting pot and trowel respectively in the hopes of knocking her unconscious. Terra had already suspected this attack coming and swiftly dodged both attacks.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she asked. When a robotic voice came out, she was pleasantly surprised and did a quick fist pump before focusing her attention on her two attackers.
“That should have flooded your system!” Indo cried out. “I downloaded the entirety of all our world’s languages on that. Your CPU isn’t meant for that!”
“I guess I’m special then,” Terra said, still elated that she could finally speak her mind. “And to answer your question, I don’t have special software. I don’t know why you’ve been so paranoid all this time, but I’m not a spy or whatever.”
“Then what are you?” Petri chimed in.
“Black crystal extraordinaire at your service.” Terra mockingly gave a bow.
“I don’t know what that means, but what do you want with Subject 4?” Indo questioned, scooting closer to the stasis tube.
“That’s my body, and I’d really like to get back to it. Don’t exactly know how yet, but it’ll come to me.”
“I don’t fully understand, but we found that girl dying in a crater half a mile from here. She’s in the tube to keep her alive, and she’ll probably die if you take her out. She sustained major injuries!” Indo stated as if Terra didn’t know the condition her own body had been in.
“Why help her then?” Terra wondered. It was intriguing as to why these two were even bothering to keep her vegetating.
“She holds the answer to our world’s problems.”
Terra was taken aback.
“Excuse me, what?”
“This girl’s chemical and physical compounds are fascinating, I’ve never seen anything like it. Her hair is actually alive. It had a green tint because of the chlorophyll, and her body takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Her body acts just like trees do!”
Well, that was news to Terra.
“If we could unlock the key to why she exists then we can solve our environmental problems. She is the key to saving the world!”
Terra was at a loss for words. Of all the explanations she was expecting; being good samaritans, saving her body to sell to the slave market, trying out different drugs on her to see how she’d react, this wasn’t even on her list.
The banging of metal on metal broke her thoughts and she turned to Indo for answers. His face had paled and dread seeped from his every pore. Petri was in a similar state.
“They’re here.”
Indo jumped forward and Terra brought up her guard, but he sprinted past her into the hardware room. Petri had jumped into action as well, running to the kitchen and grabbing a pack full of food. Indo and Petri frantically scrambled gathering materials and bringing them back to the lab as the banging continued.
Terra walked out into the living room to the origin of the banging. The door to the outside world was showing dents from something large impacting it.
“You idiot, get in the lab!”
Terra felt Petri grab her arm and try to drag her back into the room that held her body, but she held firm.
“Who are ‘they’?”
“I’ll explain later, just please get in the lab!” Petri cried.
Terra sighed and started walking down the hallway while Petri pushed her back to walk faster. Instead of going back to the lab, she went into the hardware room and picked up a crowbar.
“Hello, my old friend.” Terra adoringly told the piece of metal.
Petri looked at her with horrified eyes and sprinted to seek shelter in the lab. He probably thought Terra was going to beat the shit out of him for pushing her, but she had other thoughts. It had been a ridiculously long time since she had been able to properly let out some steam.
She took a few minutes to stretch out her robotic limbs and made sure everything was responding properly before she walked out into the living room. She heard the lab door swing shut and lock, but she didn’t care. Whoever the people on the other side of the hatch were, they would be in a world of pain.
If she had facial muscles, she would have been grinning ear to ear. She was going to have fun. Climbing the ladder she spun the wheel, unlocked the door, and poked her head out.
A large mechanic beast nearly took her head off as if swung one of its heavy legs down on the hatch. Rolling out of the way, she watched as the four-legged robot continued pummeling away and the closed hatch.
“Who do we have here?”
Terra turned and saw a man and three robots strolled in her direction, trying to look calm and composed but the trash piles were making it difficult for them to find their footing. Terra watched in amusement as the man struggled to keep his calm facade while one of the robots ended up getting caught on something rolled the rest of the way.
“I’d ask the same thing, but I can see you’re obviously compensating for your lack of friends with your robot posse so I’d rather not. I’d like to know why you’re attacking my house. I just finished cleaning it.”
The man seemed caught off guard by Terra.
“Wha--Oh, I see. I must be speaking with Indo. From the reports I’ve gotten, I always thought you were a quiet old man. I almost decided on capturing you alive, but given the glib, I’ll just go ahead and kill you once and for all.”
“You think I’m that old guy? Are you fucking blind?” Terra was honestly wondering. Why would this stranger think she’s Indo?
She wanted to keep berating this easy target, but the mechanical monster nearest to her kept banging on the hatch and it was really getting on her nerves. Every three seconds it hit the metal door. Bang….Bang….Bang….Bang….Nope. Terra needed to deal with that first before focusing on the man and his robot friends.
The machine must have been solely programmed to bang on doors because it didn’t pay attention to her when she walked right underneath it and plunged the crowbar into its gears. She ripped it out again and swung at the legs, knocking them out one by one, and then beating at the joints until there was no way it could move anymore. She used her crowbar as a cane and leaned back, admiring her work.
“You asshole!” She heard the man cry out from the other side of the robot mound.
The three robots that had been at his sides sprinted at her. Terra smiled when she saw they had no weapons in their hands and only came at her with fists. In this age of robots and technology and yet the robots themselves had no weapons. She chuckled to herself while dodging the robots’ fists.
A bullet pinged off her mask and she turned her attention to the man who held a gun to her. Well, since he started it…Terra began her counter attack.
She swung the crowbar at the nearest robot’s knees, knocking it down and causing it to fall into the path of an oncoming robot kick. Terra ducked as a robot’s fist whizzed past her head and used its momentum to grab its outstretched fist and launch it over her shoulder, knocking it into the other two. With all three of them in a heap before her, she made quick work of bashing their heads in with her weapon. She turned to the lone male and started sauntering towards him.
She could see his hand shaking as he kept pulling the trigger and only two out of the six rounds he shot had landed, but it didn't affect her whatsoever since she was made of metal. Terra wondered if she was still able to manipulate black crystals in this body since her other one was out of commission because then it would really be like she was back; body immune to physical attack (minus black crystal attacks) and whatever weapon she wanted in her hand.
“Please don’t hurt me!” The man cried as she approached. He tried backing up, but he slipped on garbage and he fell onto his back. Terra stood over him triumphantly and pointed her crowbar at his throat as if were a sword.
“You’re going to join me in my bunker and you’re going to give me some answers.” She said, crouching down and putting some pressure on his neck.
The man was sobbing hysterically at this point and Terra wondered if she was going to get any answers from him before he had an embolism. She stepped away from him and gestured for him to lead the way. All of a sudden some sort of shock burst from her body and she fell to her knees. Luckily the man was in too messy of a state to react fast enough before she regained her senses.
“Tracker disabled.” Her robotic voice called out automatically.
Terra was surprised she could send out EMP pulses from her body to disable trackers but hoped it wouldn’t automatically do that. She could imagine herself facing someone with actual combat skills and crippling herself when her body decided to disable a tracker. She would speak with Indo about it.
The man practically fell down the hatch and Terra quickly followed behind. Indo and Petri had hesitantly left the lab when the banging on the hatch had stopped and stared in dismay at Terra leading a scouting officer through the living room towards them.
“I’ve got a present for you guys!” Terra said cheerfully as she prodded the man forward.
Man, she was glad to be back.