[Sinner [23198303.28198703.31199006] please wake up.]

I blinked as my world returned to base reality. My head felt fuzzy, but I felt pretty good. My eyes adjusted to the low light of my chamber. Where was I?

The last thing I remembered was being loaded into the Ark. The final refuge for humans as Earth began its ecological collapse. Turns out that science was right, and we had messed it up. Bad.

My eyes punched me in the brain as a digital 2D bear in an officer’s uniform popped up.

[Sinner [23198303.28198703.31199006] you have a service sentence of 1,000,000 years left. To earn your freedom, all tasks and deeds will result in Service Merits. Earn 1,000,000 Merits and you will be allowed to return to society.]

I… what?

“I… don’t understand…” I whispered out. But it wasn’t a whisper. It was a clicking buzz. That wasn’t my voice. That wasn’t even a voice. I couldn’t even move!

[I am Pano! Your guide to your new life. Sinner [23198303.28198703.31199006] you are currently restricted. Please stop resisting.] Military bear said as it triggered the restraint system.

Electricity ran through me and my body convulsed. It lasted only for a couple of seconds, but I understood. I was not in a good place.

[You are now designated drone [#]-003. You are to report to basic training immediately.] Pano said as I felt something give. A door above my head opened and light-flooded my small space.

I looked around and saw that I was in some sorta hexagon room. It was small, barely larger then I was.

I lifted my hands and stopped. I stared.

Instead of the soft, pale skin of an IT worker, I had thick carapace bound hands. I had proper fingers… I looked down and I swallowed as I saw that the rest of my body was similar. What kind of body did I get?

We were promised proper regeneration!

[Sinner [23198303.28198703.31199006] you are running late. Service demerit increased by 5. You are currently serving a 1,000,005 year service.] Pano said with a smile.

The screams of others made me move.

I could complain to Central later. I had rights as a citizen of the USA!

I made my way out… and stopped like everyone else. I crawled out of the bottom row of what looked like a honeycomb. A wall of literal capsules that I was suspecting of transport us all here.

Into this giant warehouse… the sounds of industrial machines grated on my ears.

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There were dozens of us. We looked like living mannequins. Faceless heads, smooth bodies that held no gender, and we were also all gray.

I lifted my hand, and someone did as well. On a lark, we touched hands. I could feel them. But there was no warmth. No sensation. I didn’t know if the hand was rough or smooth.

We both stopped and then began to inspect the rest of our bodies.

I was going to guess rough since I could actually feel resistance as I dragged my fingers over my arms.

[Sinners! Welcome to your new purpose! As Sinners, you are all expected to dutifully serve out your sentence. Or else you will be discarded as you are currently taking in more resources then service. We will correct this immediately.] Pano said as his 3D form appeared above us.

He gave us a guideline and the floor itself lit up with a pulsing line to show us the way.

I fell into line as we started to move. People grumbled, but no one stopped.

It did not escape any of our notice that there where now guards. They were larger than us but also held glowing sticks. They looked like truncheons and I had seen enough movies to figure that it would most likely hurt to be hit by those things.

My capsule electrocuted me. These sticks probably did too.

—

The dancing Bearettes clapped their hands as the presentation ended. The good news was that I was now super flexible. I could pop a squat on command. Something I couldn’t do before without potentially ripping my tendons.

Even after a few hours, I still felt good. A little hungry, but they had passed out these small gourds of ‘honey’. It somehow slotted into the bottom of my chin, and pressure did the rest. Delicious, cool honey flowed into me and I felt satisfied in a way that only the finest meals could ever give.

The bad news was that I was in a literal Drone Body. It was a Frankenstein / Chimera hybrid of earth stuff. I had a link endo and exoskeleton. My brain was a small computer disk housed by my heart.

I was smarter in the sense that my digital brain could think faster. I was healthier since my body was an efficient machine of service.

Everything else, from the organs to the carapace skin was a mix of creatures ranging from insects to slugs, to human cancer cells, to starfishes.

Compared to a regular human on old earth, I was like a literal superman. I would have been invincible. Now? I was below average. A base template. The body could be grown to five times the current size.

I would have to spend merit points to earn anything beyond the included starter kit.

I would also receive a single ration of honey per day. I would earn 1 Merit point per hour of service. Only during service. Downtime on base didn’t count for anything but potential violations.

If you broke rules. Demerit. If you caused problems. Demerit. If you died. Massive Demerit. If you went AWOL. Massive Demerit.

I would also feel very hungry if I didn’t eat a full serving, 4 merits, and during intense days I will need to eat up to 3 times a day. 12 merits… my average day would allow for up to 16 hours of service.

So that meant, currently, I could earn 4 merits a day…

250,000 days of service. Or roughly 685 years.

Some people cried. Some people raged.

I just sighed.

Pona popped up. We were now to begin our first round of service! He clapped his hands together, and then his image changed so that he had drums and began to beat them as the guiding lights on the floor lit up.

We stood up and made our way over to where the first patrol would begin. Right away. Service has no limits… or so Pona repeated often during the presentation with his Bearette aids.

As we shuffled out, I noticed another honeycomb being brought in. Did that mean there were more drones being woken up? How? Why?

If they were anything like ours, then there were a lot of people in this warehouse.

Service… what was our job here? What did they need all of us for?

I looked around. I paid attention as I was satisfied and awake.

There was constant bustling of people in this warehouse. It was super big, loud, and full of workers.

There were probably thousands of people here…

I looked at the group I was with.

I frowned as I realized that we were all going to be in a bad place soon.