Another day, another death. At least that's how it was beginning to feel.
Sitting at her office desk in Zynima's central tech station, Shock System stared down at the blaring phone. She knew exactly who was calling, and why.
It was disconcerting at first, but as the days progressed, it became too routine for comfort.
[https://zynima.net/assets/lit/soulless0.png]
“Central tech station, Chief Medical Officer,” Shock picked up the phone, running through the same lines she'd rehearsed a hundred times before.
“Uhh, we've got a machine in terrible condition down in section two of the city's outskirts. Major damage to the drive, coolant system, and, uh, optics. Hull breaches have been sealed but we'll need to get something more permanent in place as soon as possible.” Dmitri had such a distinct voice that she immediately knew it was him on the other side. “It's, uhh... it's a mess, ma'am.”
Same dry speech. Same hint of urgency as always.
“Who's down there already?” Shock replied.
“Myself and a new trainee from Omega Square. But, uh, we can't be throwing greenies into shit like this. We're gonna need some help down here.”
Normally, it would be a no-brainer to send a couple of her other well-qualified techies down to the scene, but she suspected that this was not a regular case. For the last while, all of her cases had been violent assaults, and they all had a consistent pattern to them; this one lined up with the rest from what she gathered from Dmitri's report.
“I'm on my way.”
“Roger,” he finished his report.
Shock dropped the phone back onto its base. Her shift was almost over, but this streak of cases piqued her interest so much that she'd willingly stay late for another shot at figuring out this mystery. She stood up from the front desk, donning her technician's cap and bright yellow vest overtop of her plain work outfit. Just before she was about to head off down the hallway to find someone to accompany her, a familiar face stepped around the corner.
Pink skin, cute nurse outfit, and a globe for a head; her friend was a sight for sore eyes.
“Macky, are you busy?” Shock asked before Macky even had a chance to acknowledge her presence.
“I was just leaving, why?”
“I need you to come with me. We've got someone in critical condition.”
Macky didn't look too impressed by having to work after hours.
“Come on. We've got an attack victim on our hands, and I'm not letting another assault turn into a murder on my watch. I'll make it up to you afterwards.” She grabbed a toolbelt and a large kit full of various robotics equipment from the nearby wall.
Macky sighed. “Okay, then. What's the situation?”
“I'll brief you on the way. Let's go.” Shock walked around her desk and accompanied Macky outside. “We'll take the emergency transit.”
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Dmitri wasn't kidding. It was a mess. Turquoise liquid had been splattered everywhere, and the victim wasn't even in view yet. But before long, Shock and Macky arrived at the scene, which was no less of an eyesore. There stood Dmitri and a mortified medic-in-training beside the body of the attackee.
“Dmitri!” Shock howled.
He quickly spun around to face her as she ran over.
“What's our patient's status?”
“Uh, bad, and not getting much better. He fell into emergency sleep mode, I think. Drive and optics may need replacement. Coolant's all over the place, and he's starting to get really hot. Can't identify him either.”
Shock could see that coolant was most definitely all over the place, but when he said the drive needed replacement, her hope subsided.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Okay. Get that apprentice out of here and let Macky replace them. I need you to block this place off and keep watch.” With that said, she knelt down beside the victim of the attack. Macky quickly joined.
“Unconscious, huh,” she muttered while taking a pocket flashlight out of her toolbelt and examining the damage. The massive gashes in the robot's body were all lined with burn marks - the final detail Shock needed to confirm it was the same perpetrator as the last several cases. “Mmm. Coolant circulation looks repairable… drive, well…”
Macky and Shock both gave the robot's drive a thorough examination before Shock realized, just like each other time before, it was clearly too late.
“Yep, the drive's ripped apart. He's sure as hell not in sleep mode.” She paused after uttering those unfortunate words. “See about resealing the coolant tubes, would you?”
“Right,” Macky quietly replied, hastily pulling out some more equipment from their toolkit.
"Dmitri..." Shock began as she stood up and walked back over to her associate, who'd been keeping watch as per her instructions. “The drive's been shredded to hell and back. We're not going to be able to salvage his memories, personality, experiences, nothing. We wouldn't even be able to do a backup restore if the entire drive is wrecked – which it is.” She shook her head and looked at the ground. “We can probably salvage his model, but he'd be an entirely new person. We would have to get a replacement drive among other things, including massive hull repairs.”
“So he's lost.” Dmitri's face turned solemn.
Shock's body language spoke volumes.
“Shit.” Dmitri took a few steps around and looked upwards as if hoping for some sort of miracle.
“Call your guys down here to take care of this. Mack's fixing up the coolant pipes as much as he can so it's not leaking everywhere, but other than that, there's nothing else for us to do here. Make sure the final report for this bot gets to my desk pronto.”
“Roger that.”
Shock gave him a pat on the shoulder before crouching back down beside Macky again.
“I have to go write up what we know about what happened to this bot. You're free to go home after you finish up with these coolant pipes; I'll sign you out when I get back to the station. Dmitri's calling his guys to come and take over afterwards.” Shock paused and glanced around. “Like I said. Two… no, three. Three energy packets on me, tomorrow. I really appreciate this.”
“Of course. No problem, boss.”
“Make me proud, Macks.”
Her outward persona was much more cool and collected than how she felt inside. Shock figured she may as well just copy the initial medical report from yesterday or the day before, since the attacks had all been so similar. But she knew she'd have to sit at a desk for twenty minutes, typing up all of the same dreary details of an unavoidable death again. It drove her to her wit's end not knowing who was doing this and why they were doing it.
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Shock stepped through the doorway of her home, kicking off her shoes the instant she arrived inside.
She looked over at her small living room. The couch offered relaxation after an arduous day, but the cabinet near the entrance offered “beverages” that would instruct her internal systems to emulate a calm and stress-free state. Shock didn't even make the effort to take off her pauldrons or the beams connected parallel to her back before cracking open a violet capsule from the sideboard. Rather than using a glass, she decided to drink what little liquid there was in the small container straight up before taking a seat over on her couch.
She turned on the radio to listen to some music to help her relax, but fate had other plans for her.
Beep beep! Beep beep!
Unusual. Shock wasn't expecting any calls.
She wearily walked over to the computer where the call was coming from, expecting an emergency callout or something equally as unpleasant. However, to her surprise, the screen said it was Aural Automaton who was calling.
Hey, she thought, not bad. Seeing one of her long time friends drop her a line after a hard day was relieving. She answered the call.
“Hi, Aural. How've you been?”
“Shock!” Aural's voice rang through the speakers in a panicked tone. “Where are you?”
“I just got home, why...?” Shock was taken aback by her sudden shouting. It wasn't hard for her to assume the worst.
“Shock, I-” Aural paused abruptly before speaking much closer to the microphone on her end. “I need you to listen. I was in my home and this bot just smashes through the door like nothing. It tried to attack me, but I got out of there before it could trash me. I'll tell you everything that happened, but I need you to get down to Zynima's border near the outskirts. Near the bottom of the tower I live in, there's that public phone. That's me right now. I'm kinda hurt and I really need help.”
Shock wondered if Aural's assailant was the serial killer that had been plaguing her mind. Paranoia convinced her so, and in that case, she had no intention of letting her friend be next in line.
“Christ, no...” she muttered. “Can you hold out until I arrive?”
“Yeah yeah, yeah, I'll be good. My leg just got a bit busted up and there's a bunch of rowdy-ass punks all over the place around here.”
“Okay. I'll be down there in a couple of minutes. Don't go too far and don't let those punks hurt you.” Shock stressed the word “don't” a bit harder than she meant to.
“No worries – they couldn't take me down anyway. Thanks so much though. Hurry if you can!”
“Be there soon.” She hung up and bolted away towards the door at an unexpectedly fast pace.
Shock enjoyed being a medic most of the time. However, working first hand on a terrible streak of deaths all caused by the same unknown source was beginning to take a toll on her sanity. With Aural Automaton potentially next on their hit list, she was beginning to think that Zynima wasn't such a great place after all. But before she made any rash judgments, she told herself to wait and gather the facts about this situation before doing so.
Shock would get to the bottom of this.