Reanimation begins with a scream.

"Bananas!" I screamed, twisting my head back and forth, my eyes squeezed shut, a vision of bloodied overtaken resonating through my brain. I could see one coming close, its eyes rolled back, blood trickling down the side of its head, a qwire in its hand, ready to stick me in the brain. I shuddered, and that vision was followed by a smirking @auroraloon, her reaction to my cheer of bananas as we stacked our barricade of zombies to protect ourselves. At least, that's what I remembered.

"Here are your bananas," I heard a resuscitation bot proclaim.

I opened my eyes, and sure enough, there were bananas. Not one banana, a whole cluster of bananas. I stared at the robot. It was a spider bot, with multiple limbs and a cartoonish smile with big eyes that were supposed to be friendly - the kind they would put on stuffed animals for little human kids. They were creepy as fuck if you ask me. Maybe not on a stuffed animal, but on a huge robot that greets you right after you are reanimated? Not for me.

I took a banana begrudgingly, since my new body was famished.

"Can I have some chicken waffles please?" I asked.

"No. You have requested bananas," it replied stoically. "You may have another meal in the mess hall when your vitals are verified."

Jerk.

"Bananas aren't a meal," I challenged.

The spider bot slapped me across the face and poured a glass of water on my head. I shrieked, sitting up straight in my bed, feeling the cold water trickle down my chest and back, sending a proper chill down my spine.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" I yelled, my eyes bugging out.

The robot remained poised as ever. "I was instructed to instruct you." It tilted its head at me. Sometimes I wonder if these spider bots are independent entities, living exponential intelligence in a mechanical body. Other times I suspect someone is operating them.

The reality is that it's usually both. I believed this spider bot would live a happy life if released into the wild, so to speak. But, as I've stated, I'm an optimist. In my mind right now, the robot was not pleased with its instructions. It was my friend and ally. We would escape together on a ship and have adventures.

"Do you have a name?" I asked. I had not thought to do that before. How shallow of me.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The robot beeped and whirred at me. I wondered if that was its name, and I considered for a moment before I played it back.

"Nice to meet you, beep beep whirrrr beep whirrr," I said.

The robot shook its head at me.

"You may call me Pokey." The robot looked around like it was about to get in trouble. It's big eyes shifting left and right. Nothing happened, so they proceeded to fill the glass of water, and this time presented it to me cleanly. I gobbled down the water, splashing a little on my already wet garments.

Okay, Pokey it was. That was easier to remember than beep beep whirrr beep whirrr anyway.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Pokey asked.

Back to business, I sighed. I thought about that. "I was on a spacecycle. I had just sent a message off to the Extrovert Starmada. My plan was to eject, along with @auroraloon. We were then going to store memoryshards and blow ourselves up. This was near 1941 Wild."

"Excellent," Pokey responded. "As you can tell, your message was received and your memories of the events up until your message have been amalgamated into your consciousness."

All I wanted in that moment was a hot shower. The water had reached my nether parts, making me even more uncomfortable. And I could use some time to think. I had a memory gap.

They knew I had a memory gap as well. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened after I sent the message. Was my other body dead? That was the plan. Stash a memoryshard and blow myself up. Did we make it? Were we captured?

And my heart sank unexpectedly the more I wondered about @auroraloon. What happened to her? Did she blow up with me? Is she alive somewhere? Did they reanimate her? She was certain the Introverts would reanimate her. Where was she? Would she remember me?

It was the last bit that saddened me the most. She wouldn't. @auroraloon wouldn't remember me.

A lot of Ifs stood between me and @auroraloon. The most likely scenario was that she had been reanimated, but that she did not remember the starlab at all. So she wouldn't remember me at all. Not only that, she wouldn't know that she had a memoryshard stashed out there near 1941 Wild. Heck, I didn't even know if we managed to stash memoryshards near 1941 Wild. Not only that, she was an Introvert. It seemed like everything was stacked against me. I felt hopeless.

Ever wonder why we hate memory gaps so much? This is why.

@auroraloon, in all likelihood, only knew that she had a memory gap. Like most of us aiways, she would assume that it was something bad, something that is actually better left forgotten. That doesn't stop us from picking at those memory gaps like scabs in our brains though. Mine was driving me crazy. I only hoped that she had a similar itch and would be on the lookout for ways to fill that gap.

I wanted a hot shower, yes. But more so than that, every particle within me wanted to head straight to 1941 Wild to search for myself, to search for what happened. And if I found something, I'd broadcast it on the widest public network I could to find her.

Not that the Extrovert Starmada had any intention of letting me do any of that.

No, they had another plan in mind, and to my surprise, it started with a promotion.