Mark woke up with a start, bolting upright and flicking his tableside light on.
The room was dark, casting long shadows across the brightly painted walls and floors.
Mark scanned his room. Everything in this hospital was colored white, which caused stains or other impurities to stand out to the staff.
There had been a noise; he had heard something and it had woken him up. He found that slight noises would interrupt his rest more often as of late.
The human’s heart pounded as fear caused adrenaline to surge through his blood stream.
The door clicked and it drew his attention. He could not see the doorway from his bed, since there was a small hallway before you exited his room, but now he knew that someone had just closed his door.
Someone or something was entering his room and Mark reached for the shovel next to his bed. It wouldn’t be able to actually harm most combative species, but he didn’t have a gun and this was his only option.
He hefted it slightly and wished he had placed it on the opposite side of the bed so he would be able to use his healthy side. Though the hole in his lung had almost resealed itself, he was still partially stuck together with magic and glue.
As the footsteps grew closer he readied his grip on the farming implement in his hand, and then he saw Zirrilit turn the corner and the tension left his body.
“What the fuck Zirrilit?” Mark demanded, “You scared the shit out of me, why are you sneaking in here like that?”
She stepped forwards, tilting her head and whining. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Mark sighed, “So… Why are you here?”
Zirrilit pushed herself onto the bed, crawling over Mark and pushing him further into the bed.
“I decided I’m going to sleep with you…”
He felt her breath on his face and began to flush.
“Zirrilit, no I’m not going to-”
He felt her tug his blanket off, pushing him down slightly and Mark reflexively covered himself with his hands, pushing back and away from her as she rolled onto the side of the bed and wrapped his blanket over herself.
“What the fuck- Zirrilit did you just steal my blanket!?” Mark screeched.
Zirrilit moaned, “I haven’t been sleeping good. Just keep the first watch in case of demons, we can switch over in a few hours.”
Mark shoved her, then got onto his knees and started shaking her before giving up.
She was already snoring.
Mark got up and put his pants on instead, it was still dark outside but it felt more like early morning than late at night.
He sighed and turned the television on, leaning back against the headboard and flipping between different people talking in unrecognizable tongues. Taking in how similar every species looked.
There were only so many body types you could have, small, thin, big, or bulky. And over that body type you had skin or fur or scales which could be any color.
You could be small and furred like one of the rat-people talking about a sport he didn’t understand the rules of on his television.
Or you could be big and green like his orc nurse.
Mark saw two groups of large individuals, orcs and other creatures of similar size. One group was wearing a primarily red uniform with small purple lines crossing around it. Another group had a primarily yellow uniform with red lines.
The channel switched back to the rat person talking and Mark continued watching in the hopes that the two groups would begin competing and he would find out how the sport was played.
The rat person began talking as half the screen showed of one of the larger orcs walking, displaying some form of number over the orc’s head. Mark began wondering if that was some form of point system or if it was the player’s number.
Mark sat up slightly as the screen changed, hoping for something to explain what was happening, only to be disappointed when the rat person started talking to a frog person.
He shut his eyes as the sun began to blind him, holding a hand up to keep the light of the sunrise out of his face.
A knock on the door took Mark’s attention and an orc leaned in through the doorway.
“You’re awake?” The orc was surprised.
Mark nodded at Zirrilit’s sleeping form and he raised a brow.
“You slept together?”
Mark grunted, “No. She stole my blanket and passed out.”
The nurse chuckled, “I’ll see about some anxiety meds or something. But while she’s passed out I have something for you.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Mark held out a hand, expecting some kind of vial or something to sate his addiction.
“No, something else. I thought you would be interested so I came to get you. We can wait for Zirrilit to wake up if you want.”
Mark considered, he might want to bring Zirrilit with him for this? It was a fairly strange occurrence.
Usually for a doctor’s appointment they would just tell him to go somewhere without caring for his personal opinions, and those were usually scheduled for later in the day.
“Is it dangerous?” Mark asked, “What do you need me for?”
“We recovered something that belonged to you, Mark.” The orc scratched the back of their head. “One of those machines, the servant models. They were salvaged from that warehouse you were taken to by the dee-man.”
“A machine- Core?” Mark stood up, “You found Core?”
“I- Yes, they originally didn’t want to give it back to you because they believed it may be controlled by a third party.” The orc explained. “Honestly with hardware like that it's best to just destroy it and get a new one if enough brainiacs touch it before it gets to you.”
“Oh because the demon might be controlling it?” the human clarified.
“No, because the human research division might only be giving it to us to spy on you.” The orc continued. “They would probably want to keep technology like that which has been exposed to a new type of creature just to see if anything anomalous has happened. They definitely wouldn’t just spend a couple weeks looking it over to make sure it's not obviously tampered with and then toss it back to some kind of newly discovered primitive species.”
“I’m not primitive, asshole.” Mark clarified. “So we should probably wait for Zirrilit to wake back up just in case it attacks me or something right?”
“Either way, it's not like one metal service drone is going to be a threat here. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the general staff is filled with combat medic types, just in case something happens. Killbots are only good when they outnumber you by an order of magnitude.”
The orc stood in the corner in silence as the television finally began broadcasting the sport in play.
Mark stretched and laid down fully, watching the two teams pulling a rope and attempting to force the other team past a line drawn in the middle of the grass.
“Ah, tug of war.” Mark figured.
“Your species calls it tug of war?” The orc asked, “We refer to it as football.”
Mark paused for a moment, “...Why?”
The orc shrugged, “I don’t know. Most sports are called football, and people get very angry about which one you are referring to.”
The human sat in silence trying to figure out if he was being messed with or not.
The orc chuckled, “I’ll go get you some breakfast. We’ll see if Big Z is ready to go by then.”
Mark just nodded and drifted off, falling half asleep in front of the television.
~
“Mark! Mark! Maaaaaaark!”
Mark tried to wait for her to stop yelling his name.
“Maaaaaaaaaark! Mark Mark Mark Mark! I feel so rested!”
He sighed, “You were only asleep for four hours, Zirrilit.”
“Really? I slept in.” She nodded, “But what are we doing over here?”
“It's a long story.” Mark grumbled. “It's hard to explain.”
“Okay, but can you just start while we walk over there?” Zirrilit asked.
“So basically they found a robot in the warehouse, which they discovered was Core. And now they are sending it back to me because I technically own it.” Mark started. “But the hospital staff think that they are just sending it back to me so they can spy on me, because it's been exposed to anomalous creatures and most researchers would fight each other to be allowed to study how tech would interact with a newly discovered species.”
Zirrilit nodded. “That was a really long story.”
“Shut up. We're here anyway. Room two-fourteen.”
Mark knocked on the door labeled two-fourteen with a small placard to its left and stood for a moment.
A muffled voice yelled, “Come in.”
The human twisted the knob and walked into the room.
Core stood perfectly still in the center, five of the hospital personnel in their plain white attire were surrounding the singular server drone.
One had an appearance similar to a shrew and was tapping on some kind of tablet, a device with a glass screen and glowing text.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.” The shrew clarified. “But we don’t have the personnel to run a hard diagnostic. Five people and a day or two isn’t enough; we aren’t specialized in robotics.”
Mark watched quietly as the group in protective bleached-white clothing prodded at the machine. A tall silver colored lizard person was poking with a finger that crackled with electricity, another darker colored shrew had a full computer set up with two dozen wires trailing to the drone.
The darker colored shrew barked at the human.
“Oi, guy, get over here.”
Mark looked to the side to see if he was gesturing at anyone else before wandering over. Making sure to step well above the wiring and giving one of the standing lamps a wide berth.
The furred person didn’t even look up, continuing to type into their device.
“Guy, tell the bot to reboot and run a diagnostic.”
Mark nodded before turning to the machine and repeating, “Reboot and run a diagnostic.”
“Guy, you need to start with the precursor command.” He grunted, “Guy say Coors, immediately reboot and run a diagnostic.”
“Coors immediately reboot and run a diagnostic…” Mark paused as Core remained inactive, after a moment he understood the problem and corrected the phrase. “Core, immediately reboot and run a diagnostic.”
“Acknowledged, rebooting and running a diagnostic immediately.” The machine answered, its eyes and various seams across its body beginning to glow a faint blue.
It played a small tune and the lights switched off, before playing the same small tune and flickering back on.
The hospital staff observing the machine suddenly became more invested in their activities, checking for sudden deviations or new programs starting without user permission.
“I’m still not seeing anything.” The silvered lizard person hissed, “I am all clear.”
“No, we are not all clear, the Human Research Division doubtlessly possesses hundreds of times our number. Five is not enough to ensure a complete diagnostic. We are outnumbered and they possess too many resources.”
Mark stood slightly awkwardly as people began to argue over the usefulness of his machine.
“A complete diagnostic is not the goal.” Mark heard his nurse voice off.
He turned to see the orc walking into the room.
The shrew hissed. “A complete diagnostic is always the goal. You should never use an item you do not know the objective of. If you want this machine, give me two weeks, I will melt its base components into slag and reform it back into an exact copy in my spare time. Then it will be completely pure.”
“What good will the purity be, Buevile?” The orc asked.
“Then he will know that no one tampered with it, Han. If you need me to, I will explain basic cybersecurity Han. Because if you didn’t know it's bad when people can listen in on you whenever they want Han. Because that is how people get sex tapes and bank account information Han.” The shrew continued working, pausing for only a minute to yell, “Haaaaaaaan. Making me explain stupid common sense HAAAAAN.”
“And then the human will know that you did not tamper with it Buevile?” The orc mocked, “Yes, instead of taking a machine that the researchers had for a couple weeks, he will take the machine you had for a couple weeks. How smart. You should write a book about being so smart.”
“Guy fuck you Han - no one asked.” The shrew growled.
The translation didn’t seem to be working properly. Mark noted, he could tell the last sentence wasn’t quite right. Cursing him out and telling him he didn’t ask were both stated with the same sentence possessing a double meaning, similarly the shrew tended to start sentences by saying ‘guy’, so he felt like it didn’t mean what it was being translated as.
It was some kind of accent?
Either way, the human felt extremely self conscious watching the two arguing as he literally stood between the two. He would back up further from the fighting but he was worried he would trip on one of the cords.
Mark decided to speak up when the shrew started throwing half full cans of chips at the orc.
“Why are you guys so angry about this? Can’t you just talk?”
The shrew threw a boot at the orc. “I’m a nurse. I’m always angry!”
The boot bounced off of the orc’s chest doing nothing, but they turned to the human. “Mark, this is where you decide. We can throw away the drone. Or you can keep it. Or we can perform a full factory reset by sending it to the engineering facility in the basement where they can melt it down and reprint the pieces so they can assemble it again.”
Mark looked between the professionals, he turned to Zirrilit and back to the machine.
He had no clue what answer he should give.