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Post by Jakob on Jul 22, 2008 3:22:39 GMT -4
Philip entered the school like he always did every weekday. It was a second home to him, one he automatically went to, unless he felt under the weather or just wanted to go elsewhere for a change. However, the only thing that mattered was the fact that he was there; and nowhere else. The dark tan walls were familiar to the 17-year-old boy. He's been going to the school for a year already, and another two months on top of that. The school never changed, save for the occasional damage from laser beams, missiles, or generally being smashed up by physical force.
That robot girl definitely made up for the blandness of the entire school. As time went, it just became another "planned show", in which everyone knew the result: The robot girl... Wakeman... would win. If not, some miracle by her human friend or friends would still make up for it; then the day after, the Wakeman girl would return all fixed up and acting as if it never happened.
Come to think of it, there has yet to be some form of destruction for the past three days. The recently replaced drywall nearby the southern bathroom was already painted over and clean as a whistle. No burn marks anywhere.
It was... strange, Philip thought. No alien attacks to be thwarted by the robot girl. He suspected everyone else started to think the same. This was definitely something to ask about.
He had fifteen minutes before the warning bell, easily enough time to jog to the outskirts and back again and still have time to take a leak, a drink of water, and a slow trip to the lockers. He made his way to the office of Vice Principal Rizinski.
Another thing Philip found odd was the lack of the Big Cheese; the real principal. He's never shown his face for as long as he or the 12th-graders could remember. He would be better off asking Rizinski, as the ones one grade superior would just use that as a reason to pointlessly beat the crap out of him any time they wanted. At least he wasn't a tenth-grader, whom the "twelvers" target more, apparently. Especially that Don bastard...
"Whatever..." Philip thought as he knocked on the warped glass plate that took up a third of the overall door to the principal's office.
"Who is it?" the gruff, authoritative voice boomed through the door.
"It's Philip Jacobson. Can I enter?" the boy asked.
"What did you do this time?" the Vice-principal asked through the door.
"I just wanted to ask something." Philip replied.
"If it's about the recent... lack of events, your guess is as good as mine. Go away." the semi-big cheese replied.
"Hmm..." Philip muttered as he walked off. His locker was nearby, making preparation for the day relatively quick. He then made his way to his class.
The robot girl passed by in the opposite direction Philip was going, accompanied by his orange-red-haired friend. Philip never learned their names, just the last name of the robot, as she was called down to the office quite a number of times. The two of them didn't seem to have the same thoughts as Philip did. Then again, who would ever notice a normal person.
That's exactly what he was: just a normal student who occasionally played paintball with a Facebook group he found that comprised of a few inhabitants of Tremorton. He wasn't even the best. Hell, none of his group was. They just played paintball, ended up getting owned by another team from another town, and they end up going to Mezmers like every other teenager. They enjoyed the thrill of paintball; the so-called "mark or be marked" theme behind the lesser-known sport.
The group itself was comprised of eight members, just enough for an official team with substitutes. Philip was not the leader, nor could he be leader material. The leader was a girl only a month older than Philip by the name of Sally. She was better than the rest of the team, which ultimately comprised of three girls and five guys. All of them were around the same age group, between sixteen and eighteen.
Paintball was the only thing Philip had as a form of escapism. It always felt good to be doing something you enjoy with a bunch of your friends, even if it's just talking. At school, it was all repetition, the unsurprising stuff, things that happen without fail... Except for right now...
Right now, there was no chaos or mayhem caused by robotic spacefarers whom Philip learned to be simply called "The Cluster", a vast society comprised of robots gone rampant against their ultimately-organic creators. They could've asked for a simple apology, but instead, they try to invade the Earth just to take the human race as slaves. Philip guessed he should be thankful for the robot girl's existence, despite the danger her presence still brings to the school.
Except the school was still in one piece, fully repainted, fully repaired, with a boiler equipped with a device designed to cool the boiler safely if it were to overheat; hot and painful memories from the first day she arrived.
The Krust Cousins were the ultimate cause. Jealousy because of the fact that the robot girl was the center of attention. Endangering the whole school just out of an ego trip. It's a wonder why they were not expelled at all...
Philip entered his first classroom. It was quiet, like usual. It always is; Art class always is quiet. Philip himself was no artist, but he liked the subject and the quietness that came with it. Always fascinated by the paintings by greats long passed. Those who never got rich until they died, in which their paintings sold for fortunes. The unfortunate part about being an artist: The real worth of one's great, unique efforts are realized when one passes on, unable to reap the benefits. It was a job only the least greedy could pull off and survive.
The teacher was asleep, which came as no surprise. Everyone knew that without his daily cu of coffee, the teacher was a sack of potatoes comprised of a fleshy carcass and specially-shaped organs that are inedible by moral standards. There was a mug, but it was empty and dry, with a coffee stain resulting from yesterday and the day before that. Usually he goes to get his coffee at lunch. After that, he's as normal as a teacher could get.
What was really a little more than an hour seemed like more... lots more. Finally, the bell rang. The teacher sloppily moved his arms over his ears, complaining about crazy teenage neighbors. Typical, since he lived in a neighborhood that was comprised of kids planning to get into heavy metal bands. Philip knew; he once passed by the neighborhood to meet up with two of his paintball friends, and almost every garage door was open, revealing huge amps, guitars, bass, and colossal drum sets. Bass pedals littered the ground within the garage as well. The neighborhood was always circulating noise throughout the area of town. Philip saw his teacher while passing by, watering his garden while wearing a pair of earmuffs and sipping on coffee.
Philip exited the room along with the silent crowd, into the sea of noisy and smelly human hormone-boilers. He couldn't wait for the end of school, as today was going to be a paintball day, where he and his team make their way to the field on the outskirts of Tremorton, to the specially-made field. Paintball, the ultimate form of escapism, next to video games. This time, Philip hoped that his team would at least win a game. They've been on a losing streak for two weeks already.
What they needed was a strategy. All they did right now was just go their own way, and mark any contact they see. This time, they needed a plan. Philip knew that, and he hoped the rest did. If they didn't. Philip would have to speak up.
The next class was over already, as Philip was thinking over what kind of strategies there were. Fortunately, the class at the time was simply a work day, with no new lessons. Lunch was already upon the school. A time of general chaos originating in what was determined by the English language makers as the "Cafeteria". It was a gathering place for those who were hungry, whether it be for actual food, attention, or socializing, the place had it all. Philip was once again part of the anonymous crew, just trying to get through the day with a head remaining on their necks.
The rest of the day seemed to pass by normally. Once again, no attacks by aliens or the Cluster, or anything. Not even a crazed gunman blasting through the doors, blazing a machine gun at innocent civilians, trying to get a spot on a news channel when he's detained and/or removed from existence, trying to pass on a message that every other human has, but is not stupid enough to be so extreme to try to dish it out. It was peaceful... boring... Nothing out of the ordinary, except the white-and-blue-"skinned" android, who was comparatively normal, compared to the events that stopped happening.
Upon the final bell, Philip was out of the door. If he didn't hurry, he would be late for the meet-up with the others at Mezmer's. He rushed out of the plain, brown doors and fished his way through the crowd of fellow students. Mezmer's was within sight, along with the seven people with backpacks. Philip never got his own marker. His parents never knew he played paintball. All he had was his current apparel.
"Phil, we almost left without you." one of the other guys said when Philip was within speaking range.
"Math teacher wouldn't shut up about current events. Just so you know, Travis," Philip replied.
Travis shrugged as he stood straight from leaning on the wall. "Well, we ready to go?" He asked, turning toward one of the girls, whom Philip knew as Sally: the leader.
"Yeah. We all know the drill, just do your best," the girl replied.
Philip was about to suggest a strategy, but everyone was already making their way toward the outskirts. Philip had to jog to catch up. A few minutes passed, and they were soon at the lobby to the paintball arena. The tired, bored cashier soullessly waved to the group, recognizing them easily, since they went to the arena a lot. Philip waved back and grabbed an unloaded paintball marker off of the shelf. Everyone else just reached into their backpacks and produced their own paintball markers. Some were standard, but some were even custom-built to resemble ordinary firearms, such as Travis, who's marker easily resembled an M16 when not loaded with the gravity-fed paintball clip.
Soon, another team entered. Philip could easily tell that they were more experienced, as they wore actual camouflage suits and had their equipment strapped on like real soldiers.
Maybe the strategies won't help them after all, Philip thought as he got a protective paintball mask on. His black hoody and dark gray pants complementing the overall look.
... Will continue later...
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Post by Jakob on Jul 25, 2008 0:21:35 GMT -4
It was all going to be a normal day at the paintball arena. At least, it should've been. Philip should have given the plan to everyone once they were out in the field, when the enemy team could not hear them or see them. He should have done some practice shots on the tree just twenty meters from the door that they just exited. They should have just had a normal day.
Today just wasn't their day.
Before Philip knew it, Armageddon smashed down into the paintball arena, wiping out whatever tree or form of cover that once existed seconds before. Before Philip knew it, utter chaos ensued. He was the only one out of hie group that didn't react quick enough to take cover, wait for the Robot Girl to come and save the day.
Today, however, Philip finally found out what it was like to black out. He never lost consciousness before, and had heard stories about the relaxed, dead, but not quite dead feeling. He never got into many sports except for paintball, and even then, he was tough enough to not get knocked down that easily by little balls of coloured semi-fluid.
Was he dead? No... If he was dead, he would not still feel his mind, which was throbbing in sheer agony. Philip willed his eyed to open, but the pain was just too much.
"Ah, finally awake, scum?" A voice blurted out, ringing in his already-ringing ears. Philip groaned in reply.
Another voice came on. It was soft and gentle, the exact opposite of the first voice. The second voice was pretty easy to identify as a nurse trained to help people calm down before some operation of some kind.
"Aspirin applied. Estimated time for effect: two minutes. Painkillers administered to right femur region. bandaging applied to left shoulder. Please keep still."
"He won't be going anywhere. Let me know when I can have his full attention."
"Affirmative, Captain,"
Philip heard footsteps, then a hydraulic-powered door opening and closing.
"Ugh... What's happening?" Philip wheezed, trying to see if there was still someone who was still there.
"Please remain calm. Wait until the pain ceases."
Philip did. Two minutes later, his eyes could open normally. He seemed to be in a hospital of some sort. Where exactly, he didn't know.
"Status: Nominal. Please wait while I hail the Captain," said the voice again. As it moved toward the door, Philip could see it perfectly.
Who... or what it was, it as definitely not human. Not even organic. It was a robot.
A robot dressed as a nurse. Definitely not appealing to someone who was not a technophiliac. To Philip, he suddenly wished it was a human... The reason he wished the nurse was a human was that the so-called "captain" that entered was also a robot.
"Ah, the meat-bag has finally awaken," it said in the evil-ridden voice.
"How long has it been?" Philip was about to ask, but then he was back-hand slapped by the Captain.
"You're now officially property of the Cluster. Either you smarten up and don't ask questions or we're going to do worse than you've ever imagined."
Philip was intimidated easily. The Cluster? Was he at their home world? or was this just a base? No, it couldn't be just a base. Otherwise that Wakeman would have already busted it to ribbons. Speaking of whom, where the hell was she? Where was Philip's friends?
Before he could think further on the matter, he was released from the hospital bed. He then managed to get a real good look around. It was nearing sunset, according to the window to his left. The sky was orange-red, turning the buildings outside into dark silhouettes. It was generally a hospital room with a bed used mainly for robotic maintenance. The fact that there was no cushioning suddenly came to Philip, and his whole body started to ache, mainly the areas where he was strapped down to the table in the first place.
The Captain grabbed Philip by his good shoulder and threw him toward the door.
"Careful. Repeated abuse will result in fatal trauma." the nurse said.
The Captain seemed disappointed at the report, but seemed to understand for reasons unknown "Very well, we'll need this one alive anyways. Hurry and move it, flesh-sack."
The painkillers applied to Philip's leg seemed to be minimal, but at least the pain itself when he walked was not as severe as it could have been. The Captain occasionally prodded Phillip in places where it hurt like the dickens, telling him to hurry up or pick up the pace afterward.
The walk was long and painful. Even the painkillers started to wear off by the time they finally arrived somewhere. Before Philip could stop and look around, the Captain threw Philip through an open door and slammed it shut.
"New arrival..." a weak, human-sounding voice echoed through the dark room. Philip got up and leaned back into a wall. The room was dark, but it was possible to see what was within the room.
There were other humans. None that Philip could recognize. Some looked like they were here for a long time. A few wore some kind of camouflage outfit. Then Philip realized: they were some of the other Paintball team.
"Do any of you know what happened?" Philip asked one of the camo-donned humans.
"You must be from the Paintball Arena," the closest one said.
"Yeah," Philip replied.
"We don't know what happened. We saw the first laser punch down a few meters ahead of us, and when we looked up, we saw a few ships fly down and bombard the place. I saw some insect-like robots kidnap some of our own. I blacked out, and I guess I ended up here. Looks like you got beaten up really bad. You got blood all over your leg and shoulder."
"Huh, Never noticed, I guess that robot was prodding me so much I didn't notice..."
"Wait, you can't even feel it? Do you realize how much there is on you?"
"How much?"
"I'm surprised you're not dead. Your entire leg and half your torso is covered in it.
Philip examined himself, and the guy was right. Philip was missing his shirt and hoody, leaving his sweatpants. His right leg and left torso area was covered in blood. In the sources of both, there was heavy bandaging, which was thick enough that there were no visible stains underneath. His whole left arm was covered in bandages for some reason.
"So... What's going to happen now?" Philip asked.
"What else? We're just going to be slaves to these barbaric robots..." a war veteran with a chin that never met a razor in years. The coat he wore was torn, but still donned a set of campaign medals.
"What? Slaves?" Philip couldn't believe it. He heard the stories, but he never actually thought they were this hell-bent on using the humans for their own greedy ways; especially ones that never held a grudge against them all his life.
"That's right. We're going to be their power source for making damned ice cream. It's practically all they eat, and they use us to power the machines used to make the ice cream. They also make us mine materials for use in the hospitals or whatever company that sells robotic bits and pieces to their comrades."
"What is it that we did anyway that made them do this?" Philip asked.
"Who the hell knows?" the War vet replied. He then scooted his way toward Philip and the paintball opponent. "Name's Hender," he said, extending a still strong-looking hand.
"Philip," he replied, hesitating, but gripping the hand. Despite the terrible situation, it felt warm.
"Johann," the paintball guy replied, then pointing to the other two camo-donned humans. "That's Pete and that's Gerald." he said, pointing to one wearing glasses and then to one with bandaging over his right eye.
"Is there anyone else?"
"They're all at the mine or one of the many shops. They were going to bring me back to the slave quarters, but they stopped off to pick up you guys. I guess you guys should be thankful; not starting the hour you arrive."
The dark room started to rumble. It then turned out that they were in a truck of some kind. Philip stood up and looked out the tiny window still present in the door.
Cluster Prime looked to be a beautiful place; what with the skyscrapers made entirely out of metal and tough, shatter-proof glass. mechanized trees and wildlife roamed every sidewalk and park that was passed. It seemed all peaceful, which added to its loveliness. It didn't look that good when assorted robots passing by gave the truck a dirty look. No, it wasn't the truck, it was toward the humans inside it. They could tell if there were humans inside the truck, easily.
Soon, they passed a very high, steel-plated wall. Gates shutting after the truck was through. The incredible sight of the city vanished when the gates slammed shut.
It was official: Philip is now a slave to these bolt-bag bastards...
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Post by Jakob on Aug 6, 2008 16:38:04 GMT -4
After another minute of random movement throughout the isolating stronghold walls, the vehicle stopped. All of the prisoners felt a slight jolt, much like on en elevator when it starts to go down. Except this time it jolted downwards for a meter, sending everyone up in the air. Except for Hender, who knew when to take a good hold on the floor, and was otherwise unharmed.
"You'll get used to it..." Hender muttered, Johann, Pete and Gerald all sat up again and nursed their aching rear ends. Philip fell on his non-bandaged arm, but it didn't break.
The door on the far end swung open, filling the entire vehicle interior with dull, orange light. All of them had to cover their eyes, as they've been in darkness for quite a while. At the door stood another insect robot. It looked different from the Captain Philip saw earlier, but it seemed to be the same rank.
"Up and at 'em, scum!" it bellowed. Hender got up immediately, since he seemed to be used to the whole ordeal. The others soon got the hint and got up as well. They were all in a line. Pete and Gerald were behind Hender, with Philip and Johann behind them. The other captain pointed towards the left turn out of the vehicle door. They all obeyed and moved at a stable pace out and to their left. The captain prodded Johann into Philip, it haltered them a bit, but they didn't lose their pace altogether, lest they give the bug a "legitimate" reason to beat them with his strange-looking nightstick that he kept strapped on his thigh.
Hender was let off early in his own cell, which was relatively empty, save for a few cots and a concealed area where a toilet most likely was. Gerald and Johann were let off next, in a cell that contained generally the same thing, except one extra cot. There were two sleeping humans in that cell.
Philip was shoved in the one adjacent from the one where Johann and Gerald were sent in, After the door closed, Philip wouldn't be able to find out where Pete would end up.
There was literally no one in the cell, and Philip needed to take a leak. He moved quickly to the concealed area and relieved himself from the contents of his large intestines. Within a minute, there was no strain on Philip's body whatsoever. He pulled up his pants and left the concealed area. Despite the fact that the toilet was just a hole in an appendage out of the farthest wall from the exit, it worked, and considering the events, that's what Philip cared about.
He sat down in the cot that looked the least used. After five minutes of sitting and looking at the cell, Philip was getting the feeling that the cell was completely vacant. All the beds looked the same: unused. Assuming that the cell had no other inhabitants save for Philip, why did the guard send Pete onward?
It was a question that lacked sense. The only reason would be to isolate Philip as a way to mentally and emotionally damage him... But why him of all people?
Philip scratched his head with his blood-stained, un-bandaged right hand. There was no feeling of pain, and it continued to feel warm ever since shaking Hender's hand back on the vehicle. There were cuts and bruises everywhere, yet the only reason there was blood there was because Philip had to examine his leg wounds for himself. He knew by common sense that his leg would be fine, as a missing leg would make him a less efficient slave, especially considering what Hender told him what they'd all be doing for these robotic tyrants.
There were nine cots. Philip was sitting on one in the far right corner, trying to be as far away from the door as possible. He was afraid of the guard returning to give him a beating just for the laughs.
The guard never came into the door as he passed by another five minutes later. A small hatch slid open under a hydraulic system and a bowl of slop of some kind flew into the door. There wasn't even a spoon stuck in it, but upon close examination, it turns out there used to be a spoon in it, but was apparently lost on the way to the cell. Lack of responsibility or care resulted in the lack of utensil. Philip didn't care. It seemed like hours since an actual meal.
It tasted good, strangely enough. It turned out that it was well-cooked chicken with too much gravy. Philip never liked gravy, despite its decent taste. It was something one would eat, but not in a huge abundance of; like oyster sauce on a bowl of freshly-cooked noodles.
The chicken had no taste and there was no salt. All that kept it together was the huge amount of gravy. Philip knew he couldn't eat it all because of the strange attribute of gravy, and he also knew that if he decided to wait until he could eat it again without puking, it would be cold, bland, and all-in-all disgusting.
He ate as much as he could, and then decided to experiment how long it will be before the over-taste of gravy would vanish. He knew it would end in dissatisfaction, but he wanted to do it just to pass time. It was disturbingly boring while in the cell. Philip felt the small pond of gravy and found it to be colder than the dry blood on his pants. Philip stuck hid finger in his mouth to test the gravy. Disgusting... he thought... He then wiped the saliva off of his shirt and dumped the rest of the crap into the toilet, watching the stuff sink slowly into the dark waters of who-knows-what.
He placed the bowl on a spot right at the door, where there were markings on the cold metal floor indicating that all food bowls should be there when finished with. Philip then sat on his cot and instantly fell asleep while sitting up.
He awoke lying down, apparently his muscles gave in and dropped his head on where the pillow would have been. The cots only consisted of a gray mattress on a metal frame dug into the wall. Whatever the metal was, it was durable. Even a large person could jump on it without it buckling even the slightest.
Even then, it just had that feel to it that indicated that it might break any second. It probably resulted in Philip's fears of falling, which ultimately contrasted into acrophobia. It was more his lack of trust for what he's standing on that happens to be high above good, solid ground.
He didn't know what time it was, but the sleep was good. He didn't know why he woke up until he heard the large metal door emitting a clanging sound across the room and back again.
"Are you awake, meat bag?" another robotic insect yelled into the cell. He was looking in the cell, and could see Philip get up, but he obviously wanted the human to answer anyways.
"Yes," Philip replied.
"Yes... what?" the robot guard rudely snapped back.
"Yes, I am awake," Philip said, trying not to sound as annoyed as possible, lest to avoid a beating.
"Your five hours of rest is over. Is that leg good?"
Philip completely forgot about his leg when he was brought to his cell. Upon thinking about it, the pain became noticeable. Philip tried to stand, but the remembrance made it ache from the fact that he interrupted its natural healing process.
"I guess not. Orders are orders, however, so I'll leave you in there. Otherwise I'd be having my way with you two minutes ago because you wouldn't wake up." the bug yelled before storming off to pester other human prisoners.
Philip felt guilty. Chances are, the guard was waking people up just to get them out of their cells and to bring them to where they went to work. He's the only one that literally can't function properly at the time being. Everyone else, however, could.
Philip tried to sleep again, but it wasn't as instant. Two minutes after he couldn't hear the rude guard's yelling and the footsteps of other guards escorting human slaves, sleep was easier to achieve. He didn't have any dreams.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 6, 2008 18:10:01 GMT -4
Quick drawing of Philip as he currently is in the cell: ----- He was once again rudely awoken, this time by a completely different, yet equally rude guard. It was as if all the robots were single-minded when it came to despising humanity in general. Definitely a trait that reminded Philip of this one friend he had... Karl was his name. Throughout Jr. High, Karl was verbally abused by every kid in the school, except for Philip, who knew Karl since pre-school. Karl vowed to make himself a respectable person in the future, to make the douchebags that insulted him eat their own words. However, he was dead before his name could be spread in High School. During the summer, utter chaos ensued when a giant amphibious monstrosity attacked Tremorton. The Wakeman robot came in to save the day, but at the time, no one knew who she was. This was before she fully revealed herself to the public. The fight sent the monster into a traffic intersection. Karl was on a bicycle on a paper run. The monster flew into the intersection, which caused a driver to turn his car right into Karl's bike. The car didn't stop as it pushed the young teenager right into a house wall. Both his legs were broken and he was impaled by one of his own bike handles. Philip saw it all, as he was mowing the lawn two houses back. He ditched the lawn mower to harmlessly roll into a fence, not moving afterwards. Philip hurdled over fences to get to Karl, but it was too late. It didn't take a genius to find out that he died. Since then, after seeing her in high school, he didn't care what happened to her. She didn't even attend the funeral. Only he, along with Karl's relatively large family attended. It didn't rain throughout, but considering the large amount of tears, the rain was not needed. His death haunted Philip, but allowed him to get used to the sight of blood. The way he was right now, he was lucky to be alive, as they were injuries almost equal to what Karl got hit with. The guard knocked on the door again. He also asked how Philip's leg felt. When Philip tested it, it didn't hurt that much; only as much as a sprained ankle. Upon reporting the sensation, the guard opened the door and harshly beckoned Philip to follow, which he did without question. The last thing he wanted were more bruises. As he passed the cells, he noticed that there were no one in the cells. They only stopped at the cell Philip recognized as Hender's. The bearded war veteran was already at the door before it was opened, and he walked beside Philip as they moved with the guard. Philip could tell that Hender wanted to talk, but he couldn't. Obviously he knew what would happen if conversation broke out before the vehicle. However, they passed by the garage. The vehicle was in there, and Philip got a good look at it. It was also a robot, and it seemed to be sleeping. Its two arms and legs were all folded in a way that allowed it to be parked with high stability. Further down the hallway, the guard shoved the two humans into an elevator and closed the door. Philip noticed that the buttons were on the outside of the elevator. Almost immediately, the elevator jerked downward, almost as harshly as the robotic vehicle when Philip first arrived. "Mining duty today..." Hender muttered, "Last time I was at an ice cream shop... How are you holding out?" "What?" Philip didn't catch the question. He didn't understand what Hender was muttering about and thus didn't listen after "Mining duty". "I said How are you holding out?" Hender said, not muttering this time. "Good," Philip replied. "That leg any good?" "It's like a sprained ankle now when I walk on it." "You got some fast healing, I would've expected you to be out of commission for a day or two." "Uh... thanks." "Need to know anything about the mining duty?" Hender asked. "Yes, I never went into that before, only heard from books." "Books tend to help, but words cannot describe experience. Assuming that you never got into this business, it's a little simple. Just take the tools they hand you and repeatedly beat the rock. If you find anything unlike the bland gray-brown rock, inform a guard ASAP." "What if I don't?" "You'd best be able to hide it well on the way back up. Sooner or later, they'll find it if it's left down here. They never search the cots unless they're suspicious for escapees." "Has anyone ever escaped?" Hender merely shook his head in reply. This definitely caused Philip's heart to drop right down to his stomach. No escapees usually means no hope to escape, which ultimately means that Philip's going to die a slave to a "race" that despises his kind, irregardless of innocence. Only a miracle, like that robot girl's arrival would provide SOME hope of break-out, but that's only one robot against a billion or more. Philip knew the Cluster despised Wakeman as much as humans, yet still try to get her to join their "proud" group. The elevator exited the enclosed shaft, and moved down a fence-like shaft, showing the two occupants of the elevator the vast underground cavern, where humans of all shapes, sizes, and details were working their asses off, picking at the cave wall from ground level, or on many catwalks (natural or artificial) under the stone-like gaze of guards armed with spears, and occasionally a rifle that seemed to fire plasma. One of the rifle-weilding guards opened the elevator door when Johann and Hender made it to the ground level. A spear-weilding guard then walked in and grabbed the two of them by their arms and threw them out of the elevator, despite Hender's insistence that he leave the elevator on his own. Hender just shrugged as he got up again, most likely since it always happens that way. Philip got up. He didn't land on his bad leg, but it hurt more when he tried to step up. He was never left-footed after all. He was a leftie, unlike Hender, who quickly got up. Philip struggled to use his left leg to balance himself before he could comfortably step on his right leg. Both of them were prodded by the same spear-weilding guard to move towards the tool store. Both Philip and Hender were given relatively large pickaxes and brushes. Despite being large, they were pretty light and durable, as Philip learned as he got to work on a wall across the cavern from the elevator. Hender was further down to his right, talking with another prisoner as they worked at a speed four paces faster than Philip. One of them looked at Philip after Hender said something and turned back to digging. Once they were done talking, their pace increased tenfold. Philip found it difficult to pick fast, as he had to put his legs into it. Strangely enough, his heavily bandaged left arm didn't ache the slightest. The bandaging around his torso apparently held the rest of the left arm together. The hoody sleeve was torn off there as well, and there were blood stains all around. Then again, the blood never really sickened Philip. Thinking back to his past, he was still used to it. He doubted he'd ever get used to the pain in his leg as he mined. He got beaten twice from his slowness. They stopped when one of the guards came in and informed the second beat-dealer that Philip had a leg that still ached, and couldn't quicken as a result, then calling the guard an idiot for nearly injuring the human scum beyond regeneration and costing the Cluster a perfectly good slave. Philip never understood the guards. One point they're beating the crap out of Philip with nightsticks, the next, they're caring for him. It was definitely something he never expected from such ruthless human-haters. Philip lost track of time easily, as there was no clock or any form of light apart from the lamps hanging everywhere. However, he was grabbed by two guards, dragged down the cavern floor along with a bunch of other slaves, and stuffed on the elevator, which had enough room for up to ten slaves. There were eight in the one Philip got into, making him the ninth. As the elevator went up, Philip recognized Johann amongst the crowd. He had cuts all over exposed skin, most likely from chipped rock going at high speeds due to the force put into dropping the pickaxe on rock walls. "Phil, how goes it?" Johann asked. His voice was rasp and dry, obvious signs that he needed water sometime soon. "Leg aches like hell..." Philip replied. As he listened to himself, he noticed that his voice resembled Johann's: rasp and dry. He also needed water and he completely forgot. "How about you?" "I never saw Pete, and they took Gerald an hour before myself. I never saw him here. I saw you with Hender on the elevator." "See anyone else recognizable?" Philip asked. "Couldn't tell, who did you have in mind?" "Some of the people from my paintball team." "No. The only face I remember was yours. You had a nice hoody, by the way." "Not so nice anymore now..." Philip muttered, looking at his right arm. The sleeve on that arm was still there, but slashed a lot. The hood itself and the tightening strings were also still there; and oddly enough, undamaged. The elevator came up seemingly faster than going down. logically because time seemed to fly when the conversation ended. Two insect bots divided the prisoners for them to escort. One of them picked five of the nine and brought them with him down the relatively wide hall. the second one took the rest, including Johann and Philip. They were all returned to their cells. Philip was once again alone, sitting on his cot. He wondered if his paintball team survived the invasion. If they did, did they escape or were they also captured? The longer Philip waited for some kind of meal, the more and more Philip doubted anyone would survive. A bowl was tossed right in. When it landed, a load of the gravy splashed across the floor, instantly sending a gravy smell around the room. Philip wondered if he'll ever get used to the smell. Without hesitating, he tried to eat as much of the bland chicken as he could... At least, he thought it was chicken. It tasted like chicken and had the same texture, but it was hard to determine what it actually was under the thick layer of marinated gravy. After eating as much as he could, he wiped up as much of the spilled gravy as he could using one of the unused mattresses, and scraped all of the stuff into the toilet. The smell seemed to dissipate after an hour, but that was long after Philip finally went to sleep after eating. It was a wonder that he managed to survive the strenuous labor at all. Hell, maybe after a few days of this, he'd be able to lift ten times more than before he was captured. Dreams about the left hooks he could send at bullies when they cross the line filled his mind. Then they turned into reminders regarding the impossibility of his escape. He didn't have a plan, no tools, and the only time guards never watched him was when he had literally nothing in his cell apart from mattresses and a toilet too small for a human to fit in. Even if he could fit, he would drown before he could make his way to some sort of air pocket. He nearly dreamed about himself drowning in the toilet out of a stupid attempt to escape through that, and he snapped awake before death, gasping for breath as in he was actually in water. Dreams tended to do that, and Philip calmed himself down as he saw the reality. The reality was this: He was in a cell with no chance of escape.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 7, 2008 15:54:48 GMT -4
Almost as if his waking triggered a chain of events, the thick steel door sent a clanging sound throughout the cell. Obviously it was another time for Philip's shift.
However, this was not so. More of the unidentifiable slop was thrown in. Once again, lacking a spoon. They probably thought Philip would try to use the spoon to dig an escape route and eventually get out of the nightmarish mechanized prison. Such an action would be impossible, as the entire cell was comprised of metal plating, and the only way to break through would be a drill of a tougher material or a blowtorch; both of which, Philip neither had, nor had the skill to use efficiently.
Maybe there was something special about the spoons provided. If that were the case, why would they have stuck the spoon in the bowl of gravy-laden crap in the first place?
Philip thought of this in an attempt to prevent the inevitable: insanity and paranoia. After he could eat as much as his taste buds would allow, he dumped the rest in the toilet. The last thing he wanted was the stench of the gravy to fill the room so easily until they picked up the bowl.
He also thought about why they decided to put in chicken-like stuff with loads of gravy, just as a way to make something tasty that soon becomes unbearable after a bite or two. After two minutes of thinking, he came to a reasonable conclusion that it was more of a torture method and a way to keep the slaves "healthy" and able to continue working. The least they can do is give them a salad every once in a while. Lack of vitamin D is not exactly a good thing.
At that end of two minutes, the door clanged again. This time it was a guard to bring Philip to some other slave thing. He assumed it would be ice cream work, as he was brought to the garage instead of the elevator. He felt a harsh push on his back and he flew into the open back door. It slammed shut immediately afterwards.
"You okay?" came the familiar voice of Hender. Philip pushed himself up and sat against a wall right beside the door. Hender was to his left, with a bunch of other slaves as well. Pete was also there, along with the man Philip saw Hender talk to last shift.
Pete seemed to have a cast over his jaw, most likely an accident fractured his jaw, making him incapable of speaking for the time being. Hender and the other man were making small talk regarding a subject Philip didn't know a thing about.
Despite the injury, Philip wanted to make small talk as well, so he turned to Pete.
"How'd that happen?" he asked, referring to the cast. Hender and the other man looked at Philip and saw Pete nod to Hender. Hender then answered.
"He and I were talking, and a guard caught him talking. I told him that I also talked, but he insisted that he started it."
Pete nodded.
"Why would you do that?"
Pete took his right arm and made a quick gesture, making it seem that he broke his arm. He then thought for a moment, trying to think of another gesture, and ended up shaping out a kite-shaped shield with his fingers.
"I don't get it," Philip said.
"I think he's one to prefer taking the punishment for the sake of others."
Pete nodded. He then pounded a fist into his chest without even flinching from the force.
"Apparently he's got a decent resistance to pain." the other man said. Pete nodded again.
Philip had a new respect for Pete. A generous tough guy who literally was, but doesn't prefer to show it off.
"What cell are you in, by the way?" Philip asked. Pete flashed three fingers, than four, and then one.
"Third floor, forty-first cell." Hender replied. Pete nodded yet again.
Philip's cell was 233, while Hender's was 231, along with the other man. The door to 232 didn't even have a slot for passing food through, so what the room was used for was unknown to Philip.
Soon, the vehicle stopped, and the back door swung open into what seemed to be another cavern. The guard gathered the four of them and shoved them further into a cavern, where a few other guards were posted surrounding what looked to be a turnstile. Four metal pegs were welded onto the circular base. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the four of them were going to be pushing this thing for their entire shift. All four got to working it without question.
Four hours of straight turning. High above, they heard commerce between friendly-sounding robots, whether it be small talk or the purchase and selling of ice cream. Of all foods, why do these robots favour ice cream?
The thought temporarily distracted Philip, but he got back on his working before a random guard noticed. Either they didn't care, or they would've if Philip wasn't faster to get back to work. Another few hours passed, and Philip was tired beyond belief. He was not a sports person. Pete was tough, obviously, and the other two were used to this kind of thing already. All three were better off than Philip.
One of the guards pulled Philip away from the turn-stile and threw him to the ground a few feet away.
"Your broken leg should be healed by now. What the hell is wrong with you, scum?" the robot guard yelled, allowing his energy spear to glow slightly. Philip didn't know what to do. He was aching all over, his leg was searing with pain, and his right arm seemed dead under working too much. He couldn't even work up the energy to answer.
"Won't answer, eh?" the guard said as his energy spear flared in violet-blue plasma. "In that case, I outta teach you a lesson about mutiny.
The guard obviously didn't understand that Philip was new to this heavy labor, and was just drafted out of the blue. The other guards probably didn't care, as he didn't see any of them react.
A flash, and Philip didn't even feel anything, save for blood splattering on the front of his shirt. His eyes weakly opened, then shot all the way when he saw that the plasma spear ran through Pete's abdomen. The guard had a surprised look on his face, as did the other guards, who just started to move when they saw Pete move to take the blow.
All of Philip's fatigue was gone, out of the shock that this guy whom only knew Philip from the vehicle ride a few hours earlier selflessly got himself killed for his sake.
The guard turned his spear away and kicked Pete's corpse off of his spear, now stained where there was no fresh plasma.
"You want to meet his fate?" said the guard. He obviously found potential amusement in this situation. "Go ahead, take your best shot. Avenge your boyfriend."
The robot deactivated his spear and slung it, awaiting Philip to take a shot. Philip tried punching with his right hand as hard as he could, but sharp pain shock-waved through his arm. His knuckles were bleeding and the guard was laughing, not even dented or scratched, only painted by the big of blood.
Philip was angry about the taunt, without another word, he swung his left fist as hard as he could. The guard continued to laugh, but the other two guards expressions changed from gleeful to shocked.
Philip punched right through the mechanized guts of the robot guard. The guard continued to laugh until Philip gripped a random core and ripped it out. He didn't even know he was displaying actions not natural to humans, he was just that enraged to not even notice. By the time he did notice, he had a crushed power core in his left hand and the guard was on the ground, bleeding oil.
His bandaging was also slashed apart, revealing metal plating and what looked like pale skin. Before Philip could examine what the hell just happened, the other two guards were upon him and pinned him down. After tying him up in chains, they dragged Philip out of the cavern. Hender and the other man were under the watchful eye of the fourth guard, who kept his spear activated in the event of further insubordination.
Nothing made sense to Philip as he saw the guards dragging him to what looked like a hospital.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 9, 2008 1:53:44 GMT -4
The two guards dragged Philip through the lobby without even making a motion to anyone. They stopped to talk to the receptionist.
"What is Nurse 5700?" the right guard asked.
"In her office. Fifth floor, Room 72."
"Thanks." replied the guard. The receptionist didn't seem to care, nor notice that there was a human in the hospital. The guards hefted Philip again and dragged him some more to the elevator. Philip blacked out for a moment, then came to seemingly two minutes later.
He was still in the hands of the guards, except there was another figure in front of them. The figure was recognized almost instantly.
It was that nurse back when Philip first woke up on Cluster Prime.
"Citizen 5700: we have reason to believe that you were the one to monitor the recovery of Slave Subject Seven-Ninety-Nine. We will need to ask you a few questions, or we will have to apprehend you on account of affiliation with huma-"
The guard never got to finish his sentence. His head exploded in molten metal and plasma sparks. Before the second guard could react, he met a similar fate. Both guards dropped to the floor, leaving Philip to remain on his knees. Both guards bled oil from their half-melted necks. Philip looked up to see that the nurse was equipped with a plasma-based pistol with a suppressor attached. She walked past Philip and scouted outside, then came back in and closed the door.
"Perfect timing. I was about to go speak to you after my shift." the nurse said, lifting Philip onto a hospital bed, which Philip recognized as the one he used to be on.
"What the hell is happening?" Philip asked.
"I have a lot of explaining, but now isn't the time. I need to get you out of here."
"What do you mean?" Philip asked, when the nurse suddenly whipped out a second plasma pistol and shoved it into Philip's hands.
"Look out of that window." She ordered. Despite his dislike of being bossed around by people he didn't know, he complied. "Use that subway right there to get to the outskirts. Leave the Subway at the area labeled "Prime Epsilon".
"What is all this about?" Philip was confused. He just punched through a steel-plated guard, he was dragged to a hospital, and his two "escorts" were just slain by one of their own kind.
"There's no time. Just do it. Everything will be explained once you do it." she barked. She no longer had the calm, soothing voice she once had earlier. Philip then finally nodded. The nurse then pushed him out of the window.
Philip hit the ground, swearing under his breath. It was all so... sudden. There was no explanation, no reason, no expectation.
However, all that was on his mind was getting to that so-called "Prime Epsilon" place. Apparently, everything will be answered there.
Philip got up and ran toward the Subway entrance, keeping the pistol he was just given concealed under his hoody. By natural shyness, he didn't want to be seen in such a public area, especially with a gun in his possession.
Down the stairs, everything seemed darker. It was also the first time Philip actually saw a clock, which hung above the subway arrival schedule.
It was 10:30, Cluster Prime time. What time it would be on Earth would still be a mystery. It was not even close to being rush hour. Children robots would be at school, parent robots would be at work, Any that would be skipping wouldn't be at the subway at this time.
However, if he were to take a train, he'd be spotted hands-down by those taking said train. Logically, he would have to walk the whole distance. Fortunately, his leg was feeling as good as new, so it won't be so agonizing.
Philip took the liberty to rip off all of the bandaging on his body before he jumped down to begin his journey to who-knows-where. He didn't ache anywhere, so the action would be justifiable.
However, he never expected that his entire left arm and the point on his right leg were robotics and steel plating under what looked like artificial, but realistic skin. If he was made into a full robot, why did whoever do it make him disguised as a human?
The nurse was the most likely choice of whoever could have done it, but there had to be more, considering that she isn't even going with Philip to "Prime Epsilon".
After what felt like half an hour, he came upon another stop. The giant metal pillar in the center was decorated with four signs. All four said on both sides "Prime Gamma". Obviously they named these stations after Cluster Prime and a Greek letter. Why Greek of all languages was beyond Philip. Like the first one (Prime Beta), it was empty, had a door leading to waste removal units (bathrooms for robots, apparently), and a wide variety of exits; the biggest being the stairs leading up to the surface.
Philip picked up the pace as he ran down the next pitch-black tunnel. The only source of light were the occasional lamps, which he usually stopped at to get out of the way of the rarely-arriving train. Whoever operated the train didn't seem to notice as it passed by for the third time.
-----
"So let me get this straight, the guards of Ice Cream Shift Five had a human go rampant and kill a guard. He was then taken to the hospital where he was last patched up, under suspicion that the nurse working there had something to do with it," one robot asked the prison captain.
"That's correct, Warden."
"And you know this because you were the one to pick up the subject in question."
"That's right."
"And last you heard from them, they didn't respond, so you went to the hospital to investigate."
"That's right. After I got the other two slaves on the vehicle and the body of the third and the guard taken care of, I went straight to the hospital."
"When you got there, you found the bodies of the other two guards."
"Their heads were blasted by plasma-based weaponry. Probably a relatively high-caliber plasma pistol of some kind."
"What about the nurse?"
"She wasn't there. However, we got a lead on where the slave ran off to."
"Where?"
"The subways is the most logical choice. A human wouldn't be dumb enough to stay above the surface, where the most eyes are."
"Hmm. You do have a point. In that case, post a guard at every entrance. Have them report any sightings of the subject to any other unit. Knowing how long humans can last, this one won't be able to get past the station in Prime Zeta."
"Yes, Warden." said the captain as he pinged signals to every Cluster soldier in Prime Beta.
"By the way," the Warden said.
"Yes?"
"The more I think about this, the more I feel it has to do with the ARKS."
"Wouldn't be surprising... But of all times, why now?"
"I'm not sure quite yet. We'll have to think on it when we get more information."
-----
The traveling process repeated for the next two stations. It was Delta after Gamma, and finally Epsilon. Philip climbed out of the pit and moved toward the stairs.
"Freeze!" another robotic voice shouted. Whatever the voice was, it had the slight tinge of static, but was otherwise undefinable. It sounded calm, urgent, and angry all at once... somehow. The sun was pretty high and in a position that could blind Philip if he tried to look up at the source of the voice. Philip tripped from surprise and face-planted on the stairs. His forehead was scraped and bled slightly. Despite the pain, Philip kept his position.
He felt himself getting picked up, then a black bag was thrown over his head.
"So this is what Jessie sent." said the same voice. "Get him in that store over there."
Philip felt himself getting pushed urgently. They soon stopped and got Philip to sit down. The black bag was removed and Philip could see the face of two robots. One looked also humanoid, in a design similar to that robot girl, except any torso or groin regions were covered by a black t-shirt and dark gray shorts. Both clothing articles were human-made. The second robot had an urban camo-based spray paint all over his steel armor, complemented with a plasma rifle and SMG.
"J, we're pulling off too many risks as it is. Chances are that the Cluster's closing in on us." said the camo-designed robot.
"Which is why we're in this empty store. Once we get through the back, we can make our way through that abandoned building across the CRHOME surface railway. After that, we can call for air support." The dressed robot replied.
"But for this kid?" the second said, peeking over the counter, trying to spot something, then got into cover again.
"Jessie's choice, not mine. You're better off asking her once we get to the Camel."
laser fire started punching the walls of the store. The camo-designed robot spread suppressing fire against the Cluster-bots that just arrived. Camo-bot then took cover again and kicked open a door.
"Come on, follow me!" the other barked to Philip. Camo then grabbed Philip's mechanical arm and pulled him into the doorway after the other robot. He then set more suppressing fire against the insectoid robots that quickly moved toward the store like a CT unit. A few dropped when they were hit by some random shots from the assault rifle Camo had.
-----
"What the hell is happening?" Philip yelled, now annoyed by the fact he was apparently lied to about the explanation.
"We were going to tell you what was happening, but the bugs woke up earlier than we thought." the shirt-donned robot replied. His steel hair kept its wild style like marble, despite the sudden movements he made in a way to navigate through the dark backrooms behind the store.
"J, I managed to blockade the door," said the other robot as he caught up to them.
"Here's the door," the one called "J" said, kicking open a door with his plated foot. The metal door hinges broke off by the sheer force. It took a second kick to send it out of the frame. J then grabbed Philip and pulled him toward an abandoned building on the other end of a wide railway. A train horn sounded off. All three looked to their right to see a giant rail-based vehicle scream toward them. All three burst into a mad sprint to get off of the rails, Philip didn't even need J to drag him to know that they needed to run.
The train would prove to be an advantage. As it passed, the one called J had an idea.
"Lets jump this thing." he said. Camo didn't have any qualms, but Philip was the exact opposite. However, he couldn't do anything as the duo grabbed both Philip's arms and leaped right onto the train without getting squashed like flies.
By the time all three got on the train and hid, the Cluster soldiers ran out the back door. By the time they could look around, the three were gone.
-----
Philip woke up after apparently clacking out before jumping onto the train.
"You're pretty light, but I carried lighter robots," the same voice said again.
Philip's eyes opened. He was strapped onto a side seat in what looked like a transport helicopter. It seemed to be flying low; otherwise the side door wouldn't be wide open. The camo-bot was strapped onto a seat, which had a plasma-based chain-gun attached. The one called J was drinking some black paint-like liquid out of a flask. Upon smelling, Philip determined it was motor oil. J then held out the flash to Philip, offering a swig.
Philip declined. J then shrugged and downed the rest in two more gulps. He then replaced the cap and shoved it into one of the pockets in his shorts. Philip then realized that J had a rifle as well. Unlike weapons he's seen before, it was not plasma-based. It appeared to be a FAMAS, except heavily modified. It still kept the basic shape and the magazine clip feeding into the bullpup designed rifle.
"Now that you're awake, though, we can explain what the hell's happening."
"About time..." Philip muttered with slight rudeness in his voice. The one called J seemed to understand the rudeness and shook it off.
"Name's Jakob. The one on the turret is Terrace. Jessie is the nurse that you obviously met." he said, sticking a thumb to his left. Philip looked to see that the nurse was there in the chopper as well.
"Why am I here?" Philip asked, trying to lean forward, but the seat belt was well-secured.
"You're here because we needed more good soldiers for our little group." Jessie replied.
"You're not making sense. I'm no soldier."
"You play paintball, and you apparently have for quite a while."
"That doesn't necessarily mean I'm actually good. Of all the humans that were kidnapped and brought here, why the hell did you pick me?"
"It wasn't my choice, to be honest. It's just that you were the only one with such injuries that you had to be hospitalized as much as you did. I took the liberty to convert all of your internal systems to that of a robot. I also started giving you artificial skin, but I couldn't finish in time before the Captain arrived. I bandaged the rest and let you go. I planned to pick you up this evening, but thanks to the recent events, we got you here faster, and with more of an advantage right now, as we have their soldiers of a wild goose chase that failed the minute you got to Jakob and Terrace."
"What about the others?"
"They're our goal. We've been busting out slaves ever since we got started over a month ago. Ever since Jakob arrived here."
"What's he got to do with this?" Philip asked, "From what I can see and hear, you're the apparent leader."
"Technically, Jakob has always been the leader. He just doesn't prefer being relied on for leadership, so he passed the title to myself and my superiors."
"You see, I used to be an earthling. I was also a robot, and I don't recall how I became one. After two weeks of being in school, I disappeared. You recall, right?"
Philip in fact did recall. The one whom Don Prima picked a fight against alongside three of his bastard friends. He was disguised as a human, but still beat down all four by his agility alone. The one who appeared as a robot two days after that. Philip never learned the name, only that he was apparently a violent, yet quiet person who enjoyed drawing above all else. He disappeared two weeks into the school year, while the Robot girl remained and didn't care. Even though both of them worked together at one point, they never were officially "friends".
To see the so-called "violent one" on board definitely unnerved Philip.
"Anyway," Jessie continued, "We managed to train all the humans we busted out in the ways of urban combat, as that's basically what Cluster Prime is. We trained them thanks to Jakob's history of being caught in gang wars against his will before becoming a robot, along with what Jakob calls "Common sense".
"Common... sense...?" Philip asked. He could hardly believe that common sense trained soldiers.
"It's not that hard to grasp, yet humans seem to not grasp it even for a minute. Most likely because they ultimately fear for their lives... Cowards..." Jakob said, growling slightly when he said "cowards".
"You don't?" Philip asked.
"No. I never was a good contributer to society here, nor was I one for the humans. My so-called "death" only would make a difference to the ARKS, and no one else."
"The ARKS?"
"That's our group name. There's no meaning behind it. Only consists of us three, the pilot, who's called "Orange", and two other robots: Trig and Drawl. They call us a gang because we tend to allow the free humans to wreak havoc in our name. They're not afraid to go to war, but they're not afraid to conduct illegal activity to public places. The human mind boggles the robot mind these days..." Jessie commented. Jakob huffed slightly. He knew what the nurse meant, but couldn't help but take slight offense, as he apparently used to be human much like Philip.
"Well, now that you're no longer under custody of the Cluster tyrants, we'll have to get rid of your artificial skin. Your brain has managed to figure out that it no longer requires a nervous system, so it'll be safe to remove the rest of it." Jessie continued.
"So... what, you completely changed me into a robot against my will?" Philip asked angrily.
"Again, you were the only one with injuries severe enough for me to actually do it. The other four were too easy and quick to patch up-"
"Wait," Philip interrupted, "You said four?"
"Yes."
"There was Johann, Gerald, Pete, and myself. That's it," Philip corrected.
"No, there was one other. A girl, if I'm not mistaken. Only one that wasn't injured from the quick invasion."
"Sal..."
"Who?"
"Sal, she was the leader of my paintball group."
"I guess it'll pain you to hear that she died yesterday from one too many tazers."
Philip froze. She died, but gave out no scream. Was she part of the ice cream shift that day?
"She was the quickest to recover, so she was sent to the prison earlier than the rest of you, in case you're wondering why you never saw her."
"She's dead?" Philip yelled, struggling to escape the durable seatbelt.
"All the more reason for us to act more quickly. She died under the unfair tyranny of the Cluster Guard, and it's up to the ARKS to get the humans out of here and back to where they once lived peacefully."
"Easy for you to say, after what you did to me."
"You were going to die from your wounds if I didn't do it. The guards didn't know that. They were too stupid to know the human anatomy, unlike myself. You are one of the few sacrifices to add to the greater good. We traded your humanity for the salvation of hundreds, or even thousands more."
"Still doesn't cheer me up from the conscription..." Philip muttered. The rest of the ride was silent. Four minutes later, the helicopter lowered into an underground hangar between a group of hills. Once the chopper landed, huge titanium doors slammed shut, shrouding the hangar in darkness.
Light Emitting Diodes flickered on, flooding the hangar with light, slaughtering the darkness. Terrace was already off of the side turret and walking off toward what Philip determined by nearby signs as the command center. Jessie also walked off, followed by Jakob. Jakob stopped before he jumped off and unhooked Philip from the seatbelt. Another robot with treads for feet rolled from the cockpit.
Despite the name, the robot "Orange" was really silver with a black stripe dividing him diagonally from his left shoulder to where his right hip would be if he were a human. From his right shoulder to left "hip", there was a belt containing secured plasma batteries and a plasma-based rifle strapped onto his back. His head was riddled with visors and scanning equipment, along with what looked to be a scope on a hydraulic-powered arm. He was definitely equipped to be a pilot. He had humanoid arms, head, and torso, but his legs were merely treads.
Jakob beckoned Philip to follow, and follow he did. All of them were moving toward the Command enter after Terrace.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 11, 2008 17:20:51 GMT -4
The Command Center was an underground meeting room with a bunch of chairs and a pedestal around the front. Hovering over the pedestal was a hologram of a mask of some kind. There was nothing behind the mask when it turned towards the second figure, who wore a trench coat and a hood, which shrouded everything above where his nose would be (if he was human) in darkness. Despite the mystery, it was easy to see that he too was a robot, much like everyone that entered.
Terrace was already seated in a random chair, his urban camo-paint now replaced with a more civillian design. The armor most likely had a chameleon-like layer, which allows him to change the design into whatever camo he has on his mind. His overall colour scheme resembled Orange, except there were more colour differences. Terrace also had a black golf hat on along with what looked to be a headset. Jessie walked up to the duo on the far end of the meeting room and sat in a chair beside the pedestal. Jakob sat beside Orange, who remained standing, since he was equipped with treads and couldn't sit. Philip sat in another one of the four random chairs around the edge of the room.
"Welcome back, Jessie, Terrace, Orange, and Jakob." The hologram said, "I trust that your mission went by smoothly?"
"More than we expected," Jessie replied, "We got the subject over twelve hours earlier than planned.
"I assume that that one there is the subject." the hooded one said, looking towards Philip. Despite the fact that he couldn't see the hooded one's eyes, Philip knew that he was looking straight at him. It was unnerving.
"Correct. Everyone, I'd like you to meet Philip. Philip, this is Trig and Drawl." Jessie said, referring to the hologram and then the hooded one. Philip didn't say anything. He just waved to the other two.
"And this Philip helps us... how?" Drawl asked.
Jessie was silent, most likely thinking of words to say. It then became apparent to Philip that the ARKS were pretty disorganized when it came to planning for the future, while they're good at busting humans out. Even so, the latter has yet to be proven to Philip.
"In case you haven't noticed," Trig said, "All of the humans we had "employed" have been recently captured by the mass search from the stunt we pulled off.
"All?" Jakob asked. It occurred to Philip that Jakob took this bad news the worst.
"Yes, all two hundred and eighty-eight have been captured and re-circulated into slavery.
Jakob cursed. "So what you're saying is that all we've been doing has been for naught,"
"It would appear so. If we don't get a fool-proof plan ASAP, the ARKS is just going to be a flea that's inevitably going to die off."
"Do we have anything apart from the chopper and the stealth ship?"
"Stealth ship?" Philip asked. He suddenly was coming up with some idea, much like before during Paintball. He needed to confirm something "As in space travel-worthy?"
"Where are you going with this?" Trig asked.
"Can it travel through space?"
"It has warping capabilities, so yes," Trig replied.
"Why are you asking this all of a sudden?"
"We could ask for help from Earth's forces,"
"What about the humans here?"
"If you guys continue to break them out, they'll apparently just get captured all over again. Worse off: if they manage to capture either one of you, you'll be executed, keep it up at this rate, and the whole group's going to be destroyed."
Everyone was silent.
"Are you sure this kid's only seventeen." Drawl asked.
"Same age as me," Jakob replied. "Give or take a month. I remember,"
"He's one hell of a tactician," Drawl replied, sitting down in another chair. "Continue, Philip."
"I'm thinking that if we could get everyone to Earth, we can get that robot girl to help us." Philip said, starting to turn red upon realising that everyone there was looking at him.
"She's an active response unit dedicated to the defense of the planet Earth. I doubt she'd go to-" Jessie started to say, but Philip interrupted.
"She's programmed to fight for humanity. Seeing as she has the powers and weapons that we're not even close to equaling... assuming of course... She'd definitely help us free around a thousand humans to bring back home."
"She leaves, and that leaves a couple billion vulnerable to attack from the Cluster." Jessie continued, alight annoyance in her voice. Obviously she didn't like to be cut off like Philip just did.
"And yet, they captured me." Philip retorted.
"Jessie, with respect, Philip does have a plan, which he came up with within seconds upon hearing that we have a stealth craft capable of intergalactic travel." Trig said.
"I realise that, it's just..." Jessie sighed, "Jakob, what do you think?"
"I knew the XJ-9 unit for a while, and she's literally built for fighting. I'm just a guy experienced in C.Q.C. Philip's just a kid with paintball experience, you're just a nurse, Orange is a hunter, Drawl is... Hell, I don't even know what Drawl is. Lastly Trig's a hologram on a table. The only one with actual full-fledged war experience is Terrace, and he doesn't even have super powers. No offense intended to any of you." Jakob replied, also showing signs of annoyance; most likely from the fact that the group was arguing and that he's being relied on for decision-making, which was something mentioned earlier that he didn't like doing.
"Alright. We'll make it so. We don't have anything to lose but ourselves. We'll need to get the helicopter in the stealth craft as well. Terrace, Orange, if you would please. Trig, Drawl, you get to the stealth craft and warm it up. Jakob, Philip, you go with the first two. I'll meet you all at the ship." Jessie said, clapping her hands to announce the meeting was over. Everyone left the room immediately after.
"Nice plan, I gotta say," Jakob commented to Philip.
"What?" Philip asked.
"That plan, with going to Earth and calling XJ-9 to help. I didn't even think about Earth until now, even though it's what we're helping fight to protect. Only problem is if she refuses."
"If she refuses, all we've got now is ourselves." Philip thought. There had to be a way to get her to comply with this request. After all, she IS built for stuff like this, and the reasons should be enough to get her to join them.
-----
"Warden?"
"Don't even tell me."
"The bad news or the good news?"
"There's good news? What a surprise. I'll assume that the bad news is that the rampant escaped."
"Well, the good news is that thanks to the mass search, despite our losing of the subject, we captured all of the humans the ARKS originally had hiding out throughout Cluster Prime."
"Definitely a plus on our side,"
"You do realise that capturing all of them makes what the ARKS have done completely in vain?"
"Yes, and that discourages any more rampancies. I'm not an idiot, Captain."
"Still pissed about the escapee, and the fact that Citizen 5700 was actually one of them?"
"No kidding, Captain."
"I'll leave you to it then,"
"Actually, go speak to the Queen. Inform her of both the bad news and the good news. She'll most likely send us on another abduction round, which I've been itching to do."
"Yes, Warden."
-----
The stealth cruiser, code-named Time, soon had the helicopter (soon learned by Philip to be called High Hopes) on board and strapped securely to prevent damage. As Philip walked down one of the few walkways to the cockpit, he heard Terrace singing. It was apparently resulting from the music he was listening to from his headset. From what Philip remembered, it was Pink Floyd, some of the old, yet ingenious music from before the 20th century. Philip was also a Pink Floyd fan, so he could recognize any Pink Floyd song Terrace decided to sing aloud. Everyone else didn't seem to mind.
Orange and Drawl were at the ship controls. Another pedestal was beside the navigation window, where Trig's form hovered in a blue aura. Jessie sat at another terminal, much like Terrace, except she was across the room and wasn't singing. Jakob was apparently in another part of Time, securing equipment they planned to bring with him. Amongst the equipment, Philip saw many weapons; be them plasma or projectile-based. Even some close-quarters weapons like swords. Why they would need such ineffective weapons (against robots) was beyond Philip.
The ship rumbled slightly, indicating that everything was set, and the ship was lifting off. A few minutes after assorted navigation through a tunnel system, Time shot out of the well-hidden hangar like a bullet, piercing the atmosphere within minutes and soaring into eternal space. It then disappeared into a freshly-made warp channel. It would be a few minutes before they would exit and find themselves at the human homeworld, Earth.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 13, 2008 10:31:53 GMT -4
During the warp travel, Philip saw Jakob, Jessie, and Terrace occasionally leave. Trig watched multiple systems at once while Orange manned the navigation systems. Drawl didn't move the entire time. Upon exiting the portal, Earth was right in front of them. The beautiful mix of greens, blues, and the many shades of the clouds made the planet Earth instantly recognizable.
Philip wondered how his parents were doing. In fact, he never even thought about how his parents were doing until now.
"What's the location of unit XJ-9," Orange suddenly said towards Philip. Orange was the largest robot out of all of them, easily at a towering eight feet, while Drawl was the second-highest at about seven or more. Just looking up at both of them made Philip speechless.
Jakob beat Philip to answering. "Tremorton. That's the name of the city. It's right down there," he said, pointing down to the end of what looked like a giant crack in the earth. Orange simply nodded towards Trig, who got the systems ready for landing.
"J, we got contact." Terrace announced.
"This is supposed to be a stealth fighter." Philip said.
"That doesn't necessarily mean that warp signatures can be hidden. No matter how I tried, it's just not possible," the robot replied, who now scanned the radar system for any info on the red dots that appeared to the left.
"Lets hurry and get down there. The faster we get away from the warp signature, the better."
Suddenly something hit the ship, causing it to lurch to the right.
"What the hell just hit us?" Terrace yelled.
"This isn't Skyway Patrol..." Jakob muttered, "Damn, looks like our job's going to be both easier and hard. Orange, get us close to Tremorton, but fly over it. Philip, come with me. Trig, you know what to do."
Trig nodded his acknowledgment. Philip stood and followed Jakob out the door. After two hallways, they were at the small air lock.
"Brace yourself," Jakob said, grabbing onto a steel bar spanning the top of the air lock. Philip did the same as the first door began to close.
The second door sucked all of the oxygen right out into the vacuum of space upon opening. The pressure nearly sent Jakob and Philip flying. It secured itself more when it began to enter the Earth's atmosphere.
"Damn, I was hoping not to burn this stuff..." Jakob muttered, referring to his tee and shorts. However, for the sake of Time, the removal of what hit them was imperative.
Jakob grabbed onto the ledge and crawled onto the top of the ship, the fire easily burning his shirt and shorts away. Phil followed, and had what was left of his pants and hoody burn to dust all the same. On top of the ship was another android, standing at six and-a-half feet. The design being feminine, easily noticeable by the pigtails that seemed to not mind the intense heat.
Soon, the ship burst fully into the atmosphere and stopped burning. It was a matter of time before they reached Tremorton.
The female automaton was trying to punch a hole into Time's shell, however the stealth craft was specially designed to be extremely resistant to lasers and heavy forces. After all, it was the only ship the ARKS had.
Tunnel vision on the girl's part made it easy for Jakob to get close. Once he did, he tackled the girl. Both he and the Wakeman girl flew off of the ship. Philip jumped after them, while Time flew into the mountains, while in hot pursuit by two human-designed ships.
Skyway Patrol, the only guys who can get warrants to remove the robot girl by any means necessary if the time actually came. They were practically the Police force of Earth and the only defenders of Earth if the robot girl was not even there. They had any number of officers, and any number of them could be corrupt. Philip definitely never liked them.
However, thoughts about Skyway patrol distracted from Philip from the reality. He was skydiving, and the other two are trying to fight. Philip got into a bullet shape to decrease surface area and therefore fall faster. Philip saw Jakob and the robot girl land punches, sending each other around as they fell.
After landing one good hit on the Wakeman girl, she activated her boosters, which Philip first saw came from her feet and pigtails. Philip darted past her as she hovered. Jakob was unstable and was spinning in free-fall.
However, Jakob saw Philip trying to catch up. He spread his arms to try to slow his own fall so Philip would catch up before they both hit the ground. Philip did so and grabbed Jakob, who stabilized into a good skydiving pose.
He nodded his thanks, and whipped open a compartment in his relatively large arm. With Philip holding on, Jakob fired off what was in there. What was in there was a parachute.
It unfurled, but unfurled incorrectly. At least it provided some slower falling. Both of them looked down to see that they were headed straight for Tremorton in their fall. How convenient, thought Philip.
The two of them crashed in the middle of Tremorton park a few seconds later. Already a few people were gathered there to watch the relatively terrifying event. The humans most likely thought that they were normal skydiving humans, and all screamed from the force in which they crashed. Any human would have had every bone shattered, while a robot would only make it out with a few dents and scratched.
Jakob was relatively unharmed, while Philip, who was unused to this sort of thing, didn't know how to properly land from such a speed.
Both of them got out from under the parachute, and everyone's cries of worry turned into cries of panic. Jakob tried to raise his hands to inform everyone to remain calm, but he was cut off. A sucker punch by the incoming robot girl sent Jakob ten yards away. Philip ducked to avoid another punch, but was then thrown by an equally powerful kick.
Jakob got up and punched one fist into his palm, and taunted the female automaton, indicating that he wanted a fair hand-to-hand fight. In the short time Philip knew Jakob, he knew that despite Jakob's complete lack of super powers, he was a master in Close Quarters Combat (CQC). The fem-bot didn't know this, apparently, and rushed in to take Jakob down as quick as possible.
Once she threw the first punch, she instantly knew she wasn't going to win in hand-to-hand combat. Before she could retreat and use one of her many thousand weapons, Jakob got a good grip on the fist she threw and pulled her towards him, where he grabbed the second arm and threw her to the ground. Jakob planted a knee into her back while Jakob twisted her arms behind her. Jakob made her eat asphalt.
"You let her go!" A voice cried out. Jakob turned to see a relatively short, black-haired kid in a brown hoody aiming what looked like a giant gun in his hands. Before Jakob could say anything, the boy fired.
A net flew out of the gun, poised to catch Jakob and throw him right off the robot girl. At least, it would have done that, but Philip jumped in the way and took the hit. Philip was thrown past Jakob and rolled another few yards away.
"Hold your fire!" Jakob barked, "We're not here to fight!"
"How do I know that?" The boy asked, loading another net into the so-called deployment system.
"We just escaped from the Cluster to inform the XJ-9 unit of something that could use her attention." Jakob said, letting go of the robot and moving back. It appeared that neither of them recognized Jakob whatsoever.
The robot girl got up and re-straightened her hands, which were twisted a bit too far than Jakob expected. She then fired a laser, Jakob was about to brace himself, but the beam pierced the netting that trapped Philip, ripping through many of the threads. Philip just tore through the rest from there.
"Alright, what is it?" She asked, an annoyed expression on her face. Obviously she didn't like the fact that Jakob twisted her hands.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 15, 2008 2:01:57 GMT -4
The park was empty, save for those who were watching the fight. It appeared that some of the kids from school were passing gossip to their friends. Either they remembered Jakob, or were acting the exact same was as when Jakob first went there. Either way, Jakob couldn't care less. They were free humans, and the ones that needed saving were not on Earth.
He calmed himself down from the fight, something most likely trained ever since Jessie was telling him off regarding his anger issues. Philip got to Jakob's side. He had his plasma-based pistol that Jessie gave him slung on his side.
"Well?" the robot girl asked. Jakob raised his hand to her and looked to the sky. Philip was wondering what was happening, but then he heard it as well. More space-farers were moving close. Philip also looked up, to spot the ever-so-familiar orange and dark red plating of a Cluster Ship.
"Damn, did the Cluster follow us?" Jakob asked into the communicator he had strapped to his shoulder.
"No. They must have come on their own time." Jessie's voice replied. She most likely was looking at the radar systems Time possessed.
"Get High Hopes in the air and get Orange a good view. We've got company." Jakob replied.
"Copy that. Drawl and Trig are already in the chopper. ETA's two minutes."
"Two minutes of killing bugs. I like the sound of that," Jakob said, grabbing his FAMAS-like rifle and passing it to Philip, who caught it at the last moment. Jakob ran towards an area, where a troop deployment crate dropped from the ship's hangar. The robot girl acted instinctively and flew towards the Cluster ship. Philip didn't even know how the rifle worked, as it was definitely something different from a paintball marker.
Philip took aim anyway. After all, aiming and shooting was much like a marker. It was just the inner workings that were vastly different. What Philip didn't realize when he started shooting at troops deploying from more orbital drop crates was the recoil, which was significantly more than paintball.
Another crate slammed into the ground right in front of him, and an insect robot jumped out and was poised to strike Philip. Suddenly, the bug's head exploded and the body was thrown back. Philip dove to the side as another bug jumped out, only to meet the same fate. Philip looked to where the shooting was coming from, and there was High Hopes Another flash came from inside the Helicopter, and then Philip got what was happening.
Orange was a sniper, and a hell of a good one at that. More flashes came out, resulting in more dead bugs. Philip jumped into the crate and opened fire at any remaining bugs. Soon, the crate was empty. By the time he got out, Terrace was also out there, opening fire with his own rifle while running into the fray. Up above, the ship was taking hits left and right from the Wakeman's many weapons and gadgets. Soon, the ship was forced to retreat, lest it get too damaged to function at all.
Philip then thought of something. If the robot girl was concentrating on only this ship, it would allow another ship to move in to do actual capturing. It would explain why she never saved Philip and the paintball group.
He saw Jakob running back. He had burn marks and bullet holes all over his armor, and he was limping slightly, but he still functioned properly. Philip called out to him, and Jakob took cover behind the crate with Philip. One look at Philip's face gave Jakob the idea.
"Are there any other ships around?"
"We're running anti-stealth scans, and we came up with a ship four miles from here."
"Get Time up and intercept the ship."
"One problem: we got hit."
"Hit?"
"Yeah, those human forces got our engines before we landed."
"Bloody Skyway Patrol," Jakob cursed, "Is there any way to intercept them?"
"Inform the robot girl!" Philip replied before Jessie could think. "She's distracted by that ship, which is most likely how they captured me last time."
"Agreed. Jakob, get the XJ-9's attention using any means necessary," Jessie replied. Jakob nodded and waved to Orange, who then got on the COMM channel.
"Orders?" came the monotone voice.
"We need you to get the Wakeman's attention. Do not shoot her."
"Consider it done."
Another flash came up, this time, the shot went right in front of her vision. The robot girl flinched and looked towards where the shot came from. She then saw Jakob waving from on top of the orbital drop crate. She flew down gracefully and quickly.
"What is it?"
"Four miles from here, south-west. There's a second ship and it's capturing humans. None of us can get there that fast." Jakob said, pointing in said direction. The robot girl nodded and flew off.
"Don't worry. We can take care of these guys!" Jakob called after her. He then turned to look down at Philip and held out a hand. Philip tossed up the rifle Jakob tossed to him earlier and then started firing at the Cluster-bots, who were easily being beaten by Terrace's superior firepower and cover. Although if he didn't get any help soon, the small army would obliterate Terrace.
Philip got out the plasma pistol and started taking shots while walking out of the cover. Orange was giving more and more sniping support. After a full two minutes of straight combat, all of the Cluster soldiers were either dead, or wounded beyond fighting capability.
Jakob sat down at one of the ruined crates. Terrace got to Jakob while Philip walked around, looking for any Cluster still alive and functioning.
"You took quite a number of hits." Terrace commented.
"I'd have to be able to, otherwise I wouldn't be that effective in CQC." Jakob replied, taking a can of motor oil that Terrace offered. The armored soldier chuckled.
"Well, a good start to this mission. What should we call it, anyway?"
"We'll concentrate on getting it over with. When the time arises, we'll probably have something by then."
"I'd call it Goodbye Blue Sky."
"Another Pink Floyd song name?" Jakob commented, "You named the ship and the helicopter after other songs as well."
"No one complains, and I built those two."
"Point taken, but it's a bit long." Jakob muttered, taking another swig of the motor oil.
"How about "Money", then?" Terrace asked, laughing a bit.
"Whatever floats your boat. Lets just hope she makes it and saves those humans..."
"Considering only five made it to Cluster Prime, and they were all badly wounded, chances are that there were a bunch more that died, or managed to avoid capture somehow."
"Scary thought. Thanks for shattering my hopes, Terrace."
"Sorry," Terrace replied.
They both sat, occasionally watching Philip take aim with the pistol and shoot at an apparently downed Cluster soldier. High Hopes soon hovered over and landed. Orange, Drawl, and Trig were there. Terrace boarded, and the helicopter flew off towards where their ship landed. What Sky Patrol has done to Time was now their top priority in investigating.
That left Jakob and Philip in waiting for the robot girl. It was definitely going to be a wait.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 16, 2008 11:14:56 GMT -4
She soon returned, slightly damaged, but still functioning as if the so-called "wounds" weren't even there to begin with.
"How'd it go?" Philip asked.
The robot girl shook her head. "They got away, but I prevented abduction.
"Good to hear," Philip replied.
"That's basically what has been going on for the past few months. They distract you while taking humans into slavery under the Cluster. We really do need your help in busting out the humans and getting them back to Earth."
"How many exactly?" she asked.
"About a thousand, maybe more. It's not much, compared to the billions that are here, but it's still something worth saving."
"However, there's a problem with you leaving. If you leave, it makes the planet more vulnerable to attack." Philip said.
"So what are you saying?" the girl asked, the orange-red haired boy Philip usually saw hanging around the robot girl arrived.
"Jenny, almost time for school." the boy said.
That's the name, Philip grimaced. "I guess I'll have to go back as well."
"Same with myself," Jakob said.
"What about the others?"
"Terrace, Jessie, Orange, and Drawl are all older than me, and Trig doesn't go anywhere without Drawl. So it's just ourselves."
"I guess I'll see you at school. I got to get my spare hoody and pants."
"I'll take the plasma pistol back to Time. I'll also get myself new shirt and shorts."
Philip tossed the pistol to Jakob, who then ran off towards High Hopes, which just came back carrying Orange. Philip simply ran toward his own neighborhood.
It didn't change much from the few days he was gone. His house still as dismal as ever. He wondered if his parents were still there. Upon entering, he immediately noticed the thin layer of dust on the cabinet. This fact was odd, since both his parents were neat-freaks.
Philip entered the living room, where he noticed that despite the emptiness, the television was left on. Also something odd, since both his parents also didn't like wasting electricity.
Philip turned off the television and moved towards the kitchen. Unlike the entrance hallway and living room, the kitchen was actually normal-looking. Everything was still there.
Philip shook his head and ran up the stairs back in the hall and took a left toward his room. Once there, he threw on some clean pants, a shirt, and a hoody. He then closed and locked the front door on the way out. Running to the school felt... easier. It was probably because he was a robot and could no longer tire. It didn't matter. All that did was the fact that he was soon on the sidewalk right in front of the school. Kids were entering left and right. Philip caught sight of Jakob, now donning another tee and knee-length shorts, and ran up to him.
"How exactly will they react to us?"
"Most likely the same way as they do with Jenny when she first arrived."
"And that was...?"
"According to what I remember her telling me before I disappeared, next to none."
Philip nodded, and he pushed himself into the crowd alongside, followed by Jakob. No one seemed to notice the metal face of Philip or Jakob. It was just as Jakob first predicted. Philip and Jakob soon separated, most likely for their own classes. Philip blended in almost as if he never left. Jakob apparently needed to re-introduce himself. Things tend to be forgotten quickly in Tremorton. Either that or both Philip and Jakob tended to try to live uninteresting events throughout school, and weren't noticed so easily.
It was true for Philip, but Jakob was one who was known to be violent in nature. They probably forgot about him just to get rid of the memories of his fighting. Despite their robotic nature, they fit in quite easily. After the first two periods, Philip decided to give another visit to the principal's office. He was surprised to see Jakob at the door as well.
"What are you here for?" Philip asked.
"Most likely the same as you: talking to Rizinski."
Philip simply nodded, and the door swung open. Philip never saw the Vice Principal out of his office, so it came as a shock to realise that despite his merciless voice and power status, that he was shorter than Philip, let alone Jakob.
"Ah, you two. Come in if you would please." the short man said as he walked back into his office.
Jakob shrugged and followed Philip into the office. They both sat down in two of the four chairs stationed in front of the office desk, where the vice-principal sat at.
"So, Philip, you've been gone for three days, I believe."
"I was actually hoping someone would tell me that, in all honesty." Philip replied, not sounding at all rude.
The vice-principal nodded, then turned to Jakob. "And you've been gone since the second week of school."
"Is it too late to catch up on stuff?" Jakob asked.
"Normally, yes. However, assuming you can work at the same speed as Miss Wakeman, you can catch up on all of your work within this weekend... IF you actually work on it."
"I'll just need the pile then. Where is it?"
"Ask your third and fourth-period teachers. First two don't even give homework, considering the subjects there.
"Phys. Ed and Art."
"Exactly. You may go."
Jakob nodded his thanks and walked out of the door.
"Same goes with you, but it's not that much. Easily something you can do within the weekend as well. Just talk to your teachers. Dismissed."
"Thank you, sir." Philip replied. He then left the office and walked toward the cafeteria.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 17, 2008 3:35:01 GMT -4
The cafeteria never changed. Same slop of who-knows-what on trays that look as if acid ate through them a little, despite the fact that some of the plates are made of glass. Despite the toxicity, the crap was edible. It always surprised Philip that people, including himself, still ate the stuff.
However, he was no longer a human, and didn't need to eat any more. He didn't know if the evil-looking chefs and cafeterians even cared or noticed, as Philip saw them dump slop onto the robot girl's plate as well. She, along with Jakob, had bottles of motor oil on their own trays to complement the questionably healthy food.
Jakob sat down at a table near the doors, where he pulled out what looked like a tattered book and lay it wide open on the table. As he sipped motor oil, he was softly moving a pencil around one of the pages. It was a drawing book, hands-down. Philip took a seat in front of Jakob.
Jakob pushed the second of his motor oil cans to Philip, who reluctantly popped it open and took a swig. Since being made into a robot, he seemed to develop a taste for the stuff normally toxic to humans. He never noticed it during slavery, but as he was riding in High Hopes on the way to the ARKS base, he subconsciously embraced the smell of the motor oil Jakob was drinking.
Philip took a look at Jakob's drawings. Some made no sense, while some were simply concept art for what looked like weapons. Jakob flipped pages back to take a look at earlier drawings, and Philip also noticed that Jakob also wrote what looked like a story synopsis, character lists, and storyboards for something Philip wouldn't be able to imagine. All of them seemed to have a dark theme to them. Be it the guns, the enigmatic character in a trenchcoat and a wide-brim fedora Philip saw in an earlier drawing, (which seemed to populate many pages) or the overall scenes.
Suddenly, that Don Prima douchebag came along. If anyone was going to remember Jakob, it would be him.
"Don't even try anything." Jakob simply said, without even looking from his drawing book.
The upper-class "pig" snorted and walked off in a prince-like fashion, ultimately stopping at similar-looking humans and randomly talking; occasionally sticking a thumb in Jakob's general direction.
"Despite the lowness in what they're doing, it means nothing if they can't kick my ass." Jakob commented. It was as if he had eyes in the back of his head while he drew. Either that, or something much like now happened before, and Jakob still remembered it.
The Don guy came back, this time with a few of his buddies. All of the rest followed, but kept their distance. Every single human in the cafeteria, save for the school employees, were looking in their general direction; curious as to what's happening.
"So... you're back, I see." Don said in a voice that exerted forced perfectness.
"I'm surprised. You're the only one that still remembers."
"Do you think I'll ever remember the second day?" Don asked.
"Point taken, but don't try to satisfy a grudge in here. I don't want to repeat history in front of the entire school, and I'm sure both of us don't want to get suspended."
The first reason hit Don somewhere, while the second one got him thinking about his actions rather than react to the insult.
"What should we do with his little friend then?" one of the "perfect's" group asked.
"We can use him to get Jakob to comply to my challenge," Don replied. Philip didn't like the sound of that. He felt a hand go over his shoulder in a semi-aggressive way.
What the owner of the hand didn't realize until a few seconds later was that Philip's own hand gripped around the offending hand and crushed it slightly, breaking bones. The cracking was heard across the cafeteria. Seconds later, the scream and thud of the man, who rolled in pain.
Philip spaced out during that time, and didn't realize that everyone was starting at him, including Jakob. His fellow android seemed to be staring in a state of anger and surprise. Jakob then grabbed Philip and pulled him through the crowd, who were all concentrating on the screaming boy with the broken hand.
Jakob threw Philip against a wall when they exited the cafeteria.
"What the hell happened?" Jakob barked.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play stupid. You broke that guy's hand and you didn't even realize it?"
Philip tried to absorb the words. That was unlike himself. He was not one to be violent, and he was definitely not one to go so far as to break someone's hand when they simply placed it on his shoulder. It was probably self-defense in response to the comment Don made, combined with the hand on his shoulder, or it was probably some other reason.
Either way, he broke a guy's hand, and he was going to get in trouble. Philip swore under his breath.
"How tightly did you squeeze?" Jakob asked.
"I don't know. I don't even know what happened after what Don said."
Jakob cursed as well, and started pacing in front of Philip. He then pulled a communicator from his shorts pocket "We'll need to get Jessie over here, ASAP."
"Consider it done," the voice of Orange replied.
Jakob and Philip both entered the cafeteria again, but were immediately glared at by Don and his crew.
"You're going to pay for that." Don said, pointing straight at Philip.
"Easy, Don. It wasn't his fault," Jakob said, "We can get that hand fixed no problem. We just need to-"
He was interrupted by Don swinging a fist. A fight was inevitable. Then came a tough decision: Either disable the attackers quickly, and give Jessie more work, or go through a full-blown fight and explain everything to the vice-principal when he arrives.
Rizinski sometimes understood, but sometimes didn't. Jessie also enjoyed taking care of patients, so Jakob went for the former. Dodging a second punch, Jakob grabbed Don's own hand and pinned him down with his own CQC skills. Jakob had Don pinned down right in front of everyone.
"I don't want a damned fight, for crying out loud! Either calm down or I'll twist farther than humanly possible! Alright? We're getting a doctor here, and she has experience in fixing things like this."
Don's group was reluctant, but everyone calmed down. Jakob still had Don pinned down just in case. Soon, a helicopter was heard. Later, another female robot entered. Instantly recognizable by Jakob and Philip as Jessie, while everyone else has mixed reactions between surprised (the fact that she's a robot), annoyed (since a bunch of robots just arrived and started "invading" the attention circle of the school), and indifferent. (such as most of them, who turned back to their own business after Jakob asked for the humans to remain calm.)
Jakob got close to Don's ear and whispered.
"Accepted, but keep your cool until after school, Agreed?"
No one heard it, except Philip, who was closest. Don simply grunted a comply, and Jakob let him go.
"So, what have we here?" Jessie asked.
"Broken hand. That guy." Jakob replied. He nodded towards Philip slightly, subliminally indicating that he was the cause.
Jessie simply nodded. "Get him to me. We'll see how it is."
"You sure she's able to help out humans?" Philip asked while Jakob and another kid helped the broken-hand boy onto a table. Jessie started to examine the hand.
"She's a pretty famous doctor even before she was in the Cluster." Jakob muttered in response. Philip simply nodded. Jessie's hand turned into some small arm cannon of some kind and enveloped the broken hand in a blue-green light. Jessie then started pinching the hand in certain areas softly while the hand was under the blue light. While she did this, the Vice-Principal came in. Before he could ask what was going on, Jakob was already with him and walking him out of the door again, explaining what's been happening.
Philip was left to get mixed stares from all the humans in the cafeteria. It was definitely unnerving.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 19, 2008 1:08:30 GMT -4
Philip left to escape the sudden bad air directed toward himself by his formerly fellow students. It was definitely worse to be despised than to be unaware of existence. Philip definitely knew he was despised right now. What was happening to him? Whatever was happening, he would need to ask Jessie about it.
Jakob appeared from around a nearby hallway corner. This time not escorting the vice-principal.
"There's definitely something wrong with you," Jakob said."
"No kidding?" Philip asked, "I just broke someone's freakin' hand"
"Are you always like this?" Jakob asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Before all this crap happened, were you this talkative and aggressive?"
"N... No. I don't remember."
"I guess that explains it all then... This early though...?" Jakob muttered, as he leaned onto a wall beside the door.
"What is it?"
"You're undergoing a state that all artificial beings go through before their so-called "Deaths": rampancy."
Philip nodded and leaned onto a wall opposite from Jakob. He continued looking at Jakob, intent to learn more on what this "rampancy" is.
"The term originally became popular when it became the main theme throughout those old games made by Bungie Studios. Marathon and Halo trilogies, I believe. Despite the fact that fully functional AI-based robots like us have been made at the time, the whole subject was highly accurate when it came around."
"But what is it?"
"An artificial intelligence's realization that they are not human, and therefore cannot experience some things that make humans human. Rampancy is basically the consequences of that realization. It usually starts with the Melancholia stage, where the AI discovers itself as simply an AI and becomes depressed. I'm sure you experienced a bit of it while in prison, and when you learned that your... paintball captain... met that terrible fate. I noticed it as well, but I didn't think it was actually the first stage..."
"Okay, so what's the second stage?" Philip asked, a slight impatience in his voice.
"The stage you're in right now is known as the Anger stage, and it's in that stage where the robot or AI starts to become... aggressive. It became obvious when you broke the human's hand, but now that I think about it, your "enthusiasm" from that earlier fight might have caused the jump from the first stage to the second."
"Is there any way to stop this?"
"Unfortunately, no. All we can do is make sure things like this don't happen again. Sometime later, you'll reach the Jealousy stage, where you'll function normally, except with a higher degree of... intelligence, and the fact that you're jealous of practically any organic being, since they can do stuff robots can't."
"Is there anything after that?"
"One other stage, in theory, as far as what Jessie knows. The XJ-9 unit is one of the rare cases. In which she knows she ultimately cannot do what humans can do, and not care. Either she knows, or doesn't know. Either way, her AI is built to resemble a human almost perfectly. The only difference is the body used to carry it."
"Has anyone else from the group experienced it?"
"We all have, but no one showed even symptoms of the first stage as early as you did. It's highly unlikely that the human prison on Cluster Prime would have done that."
"So let me get this straight. This "virus" I currently have is basically theories by a video game company that turn out to be very valid?"
"Exactly. Their ways of creating realistic systems is incredibly disturbing. It's just that accurate."
"But what about Don Prima?"
"I accepted the challenge, but made the location secret. I should inform Jenny to not interfere. Don has a grudge, and the only way for him to drop it is to either beat me, or I beat him."
Jakob then paced around, then put a hand over his face. Philip knew exactly why: All that's happening now is just wasting time that they could use to save human slaves.
Considering the whole rampancy topic, a lot of things make sense: Why the Wakeman girl goes to school, why the Cluster despise Earth, why their queen is a sadistic tyrant, and basically anything that has to do with the oddity of robots.
A video game company explaining the nature of artificial beings. Now there's something for Philip to think about. He thought about trying to find some of the games they made; see as much as he could as to how they kept to their "theories".
Before he could think further on the subject, Jessie exited the cafeteria. She looked at Jakob, then Philip.
"I kneaded his bones back together and re-established the circulatory. What exactly happened?"
"Rampancy, second stage," Jakob replied, nodding toward Philip.
"Th... This early?" She asked.
"Exactly what I said," Jakob replied, "We'll need to keep watch over him until we can get him back to Time"
"But you have your own subjects to return to," Jessie said, "The rest of us are too busy repairing the ship and helping to clean out the carnage from this morning."
"Phil, what classes do you have?" Jakob asked.
"Chemistry and Math." Philip replied.
"Same as mine, if I remember correctly. I doubt there'll be any problem even if I'm not there, since Jenny's in those classes as well."
The bell suddenly rang. Jessie nodded to Jakob, who nodded back, and then walked off. Jakob continued to hang by Philip.
"What?" Philip asked, as the hallways started to fill up with humans.
"I may remember my classes, but I don't remember where they are."
Philip silently walked off with Jakob following. They soon entered what looked like a lab filled with two-seat desk. A bunch of kids were already there. Philip sat at his own seat while Jakob started to make conversation with the teacher of the class. Most likely talking about homework issues and what's been happening since his disappearance. The conversation was heard by no one, since the popular girls at the back were all gossiping. The useless conversations complemented the room with all the other talking humans. At one point, Philip saw Jakob nod towards Philip, and the blur-haired chemistry teacher looked at Philip, then nodded back to Jakob.
The robot girl arrived with his orange-haired friend, and another human, who followed behind the two, seemingly entranced. It was that one human with that net bazooka that shot at Jakob. The teenager in the brown hoody took one look at Jakob and started to glare. It didn't stop him from taking his seat, which was in a desk to Philip's left, and right behind the seat where the robot girl and the orange-red haired kid were sitting at. Jakob sat in front of the robot girl's desk.
The bell rang, indicating the beginning of the third period classes Fortunately, today was an experiment day, guaranteeing that there would be no homework at all. The teacher announced that the bunsen burner is broken... again. Almost instantly, the robot girl stood up and walked to the front of the class. Her left hand suddenly replaced with a laser gun of some kind. She definitely had something the ARKS didn't have: a mass amount of weaponry on her person, and the ability to annihilate multitudes of contacts effortlessly. Just by being instantly part of a chemistry experiment, Philip found out why she would easily tip the tide for the favor of the ARKS.
Philip couldn't shake off the question: If she was so great as everyone says she is, how come Jakob got her pinned down? It was most likely the fact that Jakob was a master of CQC. Any other way, he wouldn't have stood a chance against Jenny. Everyone else would probably be stronger than Jenny in some way, but ultimately be inferior overall.
Jenny fired a concentrated beam at a vial hanging over the apparently busted Bunsen Burner. The liquids within bubbled almost instantly. Philip didn't really pay attention. The experiment days were only there to add a spark to the otherwise ultimately boring, repetitive life of school. He noticed that a number of them were occasionally glaring at him, especially the so-called "popular girls".
To get his mind off of the hating humans, he went through the objectives he ultimately came up with for the ARKS, along with the minor objectives. To start, they were to go to Earth and get Jenny to help the ARKS fight the Cluster and bust out all of the human captives on Cluster Prime. In order to do the latter, they would need a ship big enough to carry all of the approximate thousand humans, a number that Time isn't able to do by a long shot. Multiple trips would be too risky, meaning that they would need a relatively big ship to go in, pick up the humans, and get out.
However, such a ship they lacked, and the XJ-9 is currently refusing to join the ARKS, since her joining the ARKS in their mission would endanger over seven billion humans. It didn't take a computer to know how stupid such an action would be for Earth's only efficient defender.
Skyway Patrol is out of the question, as they're a relatively corrupt police force that doesn't really do anything other than provide some form of international military, and jobs for most that don't have any. It's a wonder how they actually managed to disable Time to begin with.
Then there was that Silver Shell character. Highly enigmatic, and the robot girl seemed to be attracted to the relatively giant robot. Despite having the same function, he was not always on-the-ball, and has recently not arrived for a while. He also seemed to be sort of a deep-down coward, from what Philip has seen. The cowardice was something only Philip seemed to notice. All in all, his lack of presence and risk of liability would make him not the best of alternatives.
Humans in general. They were easily out of the question, since pitting them against the Cluster in the hopes of saving other humans would ultimately end up in a human-robot war, and it will end in blood, agony, and suffering. This was a robot-on-robot fight, and humans are the prize, and the rest of the ARKS knew that.
They'd need to come up with some way to get Jenny to join them on their ultimate mission.
To add to their pile of problems, Philip was apparently undergoing the so-called robot illness known as "Rampancy", and the way it's going right now, it's going to cause mass unease throughout the human community. Philip was easily a threat to life, due to his rampancy-induced unpredictability.
Also, Don Prima and Jakob are to fight to settle a grudge once and for all. Jakob seemed to take severe annoyance toward the upper-class bastard, while the latter didn't like Jakob because he was strangely popular with the ladies. It was most likely his "hair". Either way, Don disliked Jakob and picked at him because of the universal bully reason: jealousy.
It was definitely a bad situation, and definitely more than the ARKS could handle. One by one, each one will be complete. It would only be a matter of time... something they ultimately lacked.
-----
The Warden sat at his office chair, sorting out assorted files at the main terminal in his office. There was a ring at his titamium-plated door colored the same bold orange popular with Cluster-based buildings.
"Come in," he said. He knew exactly who it was.
The Captain entered.
"Any news on them?"
"They apparently disappeared."
"From..."
"Cluster Prime itself. Our invasion force returned to report a failure, and a mass amount of casualties."
"Sent to Earth?"
"Yes. According to survivors that got back to the ship, they saw the one most commonly associated with the ARKS, The Unnamed Citizen, more commonly known as Jakob."
"Anything else?"
"Yes, we managed to identify citizens confirmed to be associated with the ARKS. However, they were also gone."
"Like whom?"
"Citizen 5700, known only as Jessie, Citizen 5503, alias Terrace Jeric, and Retired Citizen 6722, whom has obtained the name of "Orange", I believe. Those are all I managed to identify."
"Who are those three?" the Warden asked.
"Citizen 5700 is the doctor we had established in Health Administration. She disappeared when Slave Subject Seven-Nine-Nine also disappeared. Citizen 5503 was a physical system studies teacher at the High School, while Retired Citizen 6722 is a regular customer at the civilian shooting range near the outskirts. "
"I'm getting the feeling that the ARKS have moved to Earth and have provided the XJ-9 menace with information regarding our abduction forces."
"Also..." the Captain said. The Warden waited, and then nodded. The captain then shook his head and continued. "There were four humans, not including Seven-Nine-Nine, in the last successful abduction run. There were also two humans that have been confirmed to have dealt with Seven-Nine-Nine. However, I doubt those humans had anything to do with the ARKS."
"It doesn't matter now if they did. What's the status of all of them."
"Two of them, dead. Subjects Seven-Nine-Eight and Seven-Nine-Six. Human names: Sal S and Pete M, respectively. The other two are Subjects Eight-Zero-Zero and Seven-Nine-Seven. Human names: Gerald F and Johann Y"
"How about the other associates?"
"Four-Nine-Two and Four-Eight-Four. Human names Hender S and Joel L."
"You're positive that they had nothing to do with the ARKS?"
"The two slave vets were once busted out, but we captured them again and re-circulated them into slavery. The other four were not that badly injured, so Citizen 5700 could've have done anything within the speed that she worked on them, unlike Subject Seven-Nine-Nine, who was most injured."
"Hmm..." the Warden muttered. He stroked his chin, where a steel-plated beard was welded on. "We'll get as much data as we can with what we have so far. But first, report to the Queen regarding the current events, and inform her that we'll need time to think of a plan. After all, they're now on Earth, and therefore under guard by the XJ-9."
"Understood, Warden. I'll report back when I can."
"Take your time, but remember that there's a timeline."
"Of course." the Captain said while leaving.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 22, 2008 16:57:33 GMT -4
The bell rang, something Philip was anticipating. The only thing interesting that happened during this class was that mid-way, the Bunsen Burner exploded and set fire to the front desk. The XJ-9 unit's laser transformed into a fire extinguisher and solved the problem before anyone could reach the one near the door of the room itself. The more she showed off her abilities, the more it occurred to Philip that the ARKS needed her.
Philip was out of the class in an instant, just to avoid the bustling group of students that despised Philip's guts for what he did at lunch. Jakob was soon with him, most likely because he forgot where his own math class was.
Unlike Chemistry, this class didn't have the Robot Girl or the orange-red haired kid. Only the one in the brown hoody and black mullet. He didn't seem to take interest anymore, which Philip was relieved about. Jakob sat right beside Philip, which was also a relief. If anything should happen, Jakob would be close enough to intervene in case something bad did happen.
In any case, nothing seemed to happen throughout the period, despite Philip being more nervous then ever before. However, before he was made into a robot... or before this rampancy thing was discovered, he felt shy about almost anything... Now, he just didn't even lack self-confidence.
He had slight violent impulses toward those that seemed to be glaring at him, but he managed to hold the violent urges back. Rampancy was definitely a fickle thing.
The bell rang again, indicating the end of school. Philip needed to get out of the school, keep away from humans. Jakob was way ahead of Philip on that, as he grabbed Philip's arm and pulled him quickly towards the nearest school exit.
-----
The back door swung open, and the two androids rushed out. Jakob was immediately speaking into the short-wave radio he had strapped under his shirt.
"Get High Hopes over here, we need to get Philip away from the humans."
"Affirmative." Orange replied, "Keep watch over him, I'm on my way."
Jakob nodded and switched it off again. All he needed to do now was keep an eye on Philip. It was going to be a tough assignment... mainly because Don Prima appeared.
"Damn, I was hoping later," Jakob muttered. The way things were going right now, he would have preferred a fight any other time. However, Don seemed hell-bent on the grudge.
His prince-like voice boomed throughout the area, and almost immediately, kids started spreading the word of the potential fight.
"It's after school, like you promised."
"The way things are now, this isn't exactly the best time."
"Too bad. My patience toward you is next to none. We fight right here, right now."
Jakob muttered a curse. He took a quick glance at Philip, who easily showed signs of holding back violent impulses. He needed to beat Don quickly, before Philip lost control. However, it's been two months, and considering that Don was the only one who even remembered Jakob would mean that he'd been taking some kind of course for the next time they meet in combat.
Whatever Don had up his sleeves, it was most likely something Jakob wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of. After all, his burgundy sweatshirt and black inner tee could easily hide almost anything one could stuff in it. It might explain the extremely puffed-out chest... If he had weapons concealed under his shirt anyway.
Examining was not going to get this fight through any quicker, so Jakob tried to take his time, keeping a good proximity to Philip, should he go psycho, but at the same time, keep distance from Don Prima, making him take the first move.
Don Prima anticipated this, and moved cautiously toward Jakob, while the rest of his friends, including the one who had his hand broken by Philip, cover every exit, encompassing the three others in a square-shaped arena.
Jakob could hear High Hopes coming within hearing range. He just needed to keep Philip under control until Orange got close enough. Once Philip was out of there, Jakob could do whatever he wants to the douchebag.
Philip was not having an easy time. The more he stood there, the more disturbed he became. The way things were going, he was definitely going to lose it.
Jakob flipped on the radio again, "Orange, Can you get here any faster?"
"Impossible. Speed at maximum." he replied. Jakob shook his head and flipped it off again.
"Don, think you can wait for a minute or two? Phil needs to get out of here." Jakob said. However, Don made the first move: a right hook toward Jakob's face. This was on school property, but both Jakob and Philip knew that the teachers wouldn't give a damn if it wasn't even in their own classroom, let alone right outside the back of the school.
Jakob, despite his skill in CQC and agility, took the punch head-on. He stepped back a few paces, but regained his footing. He snapped another glance at Philip, who seemed to be okay, considering that he's not ripping any human's head off anyway.
"Of course, you decline. I'm going to make this quick." Jakob growled. It was natural for him to have a short fuse, so he found nothing wrong with his anger.
Next attack Don made, Jakob saw coming. A left hook. Jakob easily dodged the punch and grabbed Don's arm. He shoved his free hand into Don's elbow and threw him onto the ground.
Don flexed his arm, and threw Jakob off with a swing. He obviously has been working out since last time. This was definitely going to take longer than expected. Jakob planted a hand on the ground before he landed and flipped back onto his feet, only to be tackled by Don. Upon landing, Jakob pushed both his feet into Don's chest and shoved him off.
Jakob got back up again, and took another right hook in the face. Jakob jumped back, suddenly hearing everyone laughing. Most likely about the fact that Jakob seemed to be running.
Far from it. Jakob managed to get a glimpse of what Don was going to do next. This time, Jakob was going to finish this fight. Don once again came with a right hook. Jakob grabbed Don's fist and crushed it much like Philip did earlier. Don's scream pierced the laughter, fueling Jakob with adrenaline. Jakob clenched his free fist and threw it into Don't gut. Jakob then roundhouse-kicked Don in the face, sending him sprawling onto the grassy field.
Don got up again. He rubbed his broken hand to ease the pain. He was definitely not through with fighting yet. Jakob couldn't help but respect the fact that Don was very tolerant of the pain now. He definitely has been practicing since Jakob's relatively short absence.
Don came at Jakob again, this time with a jump-kick. Definitely a stupid mistake on Don't part. Jakob caught Don and slammed him into the ground.
The helicopter finally arrived from there. Orange called for Philip, who immediately got onto the helicopter.
"Jakob?" Orange asked. Jakob stepped back in case the downed Don tried to do anything. After a few seconds, Jakob walked to the downed teenager.
"Could we please drop this grudge?" he asked. The sound of the helicopter allowed his voice to be drowned out to all except Don. Don didn't reply. He was alive, but knocked out. "Nevermind then..."
Jakob then ran to High Hopes as well, leaving the other humans to try to look after Don. High Hopes then lifted off and flew back to where Time crashed.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 25, 2008 17:07:09 GMT -4
The stealth ship took more damage than Philip expected. The entire nose buckled right into the ship, shattering most of the cockpit windshields out of sheer force. The left wing was shredded from blast marks and buckled as well from the impact. The ship itself was in a small crater and partially buried under kicked-up earth within a mountain range. A Skyway patrol vessel remained floating above, apparently waiting for orders to move in. Most likely once again, the paperwork excuse. Even though it would take a while before they actually try anything, the fact that they could still attack them still stood.
What the ARKS would need to do is develop a good relationship with the humans of Earth, thus adding another objective to the big prison break. The vessel currently floating at a safe distance from Time, despite being one of their smaller attack ships, was easily able to carry around five hundred humans at once. In order to carry all of the humans there, they would need two of those ships, plus Time.
Trig and Drawl would easily be able to take control of one of the ships by themselves, leaving their only other pilot, Orange, to pilot Time. They lack a pilot for the third ship. Unless they could find something big enough to carry all of the humans without being so cumbersome that it could risk complete destruction, they would need to get someone to pilot the ship. Skyway Patrol was out of the question, as they're procrastinating wusses.
Perhaps the Robot Girl would be able to find someone with the ability to pilot one of the Skyway Patrol ships. After all, she always had connections with humans and otherwise that had the ability to significantly help her in situations she couldn't win by herself.
The Don Prima ordeal is over now, and Jakob once again has a smeared reputation, while Philip has become a hazard to almost everything with his unpredictable mental "genetic virus" inevitable among all artificial life. However, by the time Philip reaches the third stage, he won't be a threat anymore. More-so, he'd have a higher degree of understanding and intellect once he's through with the Anger stage.
When that happens, however, is unknown.
Philip thought through all of this while he entered the still-functional door behind Jakob. Orange remained with High Hopes, cutting the power to save power. Terrace was spotted around the freshly-unearthed front, wearing a welding mask, a belt with a holstered blowtorch, and heat-resistant gloves. He was apparently the mechanic of the ARKS, probably why the ship and helicopter were named after Pink Floyd songs.
Philip liked Pink Floyd as well, but Terrace had a fetish for their music. He always wore headphones blasting any of their songs at the highest volume possible. If he were a human, he would have been deaf within weeks.
Time seemed to suffer absolutely no damage on the inside, save for the obvious destruction on the right wing and nose. The only thing that showed some damage was the cockpit. However, that damage was merely the glass-like material of the cockpit window that smashed inward and littered the entire room with shards and glassy dust.
Trig was unharmed, as Drawl quickly withdrew him from the holo-pedestal before impact. Drawl's visor seemed to glow in the same color as Trig's holographic form, but otherwise remained the same.
As Philip passed by the cockpit, he noted all of the damage and spotted Drawl. He stood with an odd-looking vacuum cleaner, and was clearing up the glass. Jakob called to Philip, who started following again. Jakob took another right, where there was what looked like a hospital room. Jessie was sorting through a cabinet. There were assorted medical supplies thrown everywhere. Supplies for human recovery as well as robotic recovery were strewn everywhere, but not making a serious mess beyond the assorted bottles and materials flung everywhere. Jessie turned and spotted Jakob.
"What happened?" Jessie asked. Jakob thought for a second, wondering what she's referring to. Philip turned to see Jakob, where he saw it as well.
One of Jakob's glass-visored eyes was cracked, and the area around it was heavily dented. Some human blood was present on it as well. Most likely Don Prima's first punch.
"How bad is it?" Jakob asked after feeling the dent and small blot of blood.
"Not that bad, but definitely noticeable," Jessie said. Jakob reluctantly sat down on the hospital bed while Jessie took a closer look at the damaged eye.
"Damaged glass, dents easily signifying internal damage. We'll need to replace that eye visor completely. Jakob, we'll have to temporarily deactivate you."
Jakob simply nodded. Jessie flipped a switch on the bed and Jakob was suddenly electrocuted. The lifeless metallic body of Jakob remained on the bed while Jessie started to remove plating from Jakob's face.
Philip simply stood, shaken by the sudden "killing" of Jakob and watched as the robotics doctor got to work. Under the plating was assorted, namely frayed wires and dented oil "veins and arteries", along with dented internal plating.
"Philip, you're dismissed. I'll talk to you later."
Philip nodded and left. After walking through the primary corridor, the next room he turned into was his dormitory. He instantly went into sleep mode upon hitting the bed.
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Post by Jakob on Aug 30, 2008 2:08:38 GMT -4
The bed itself was far better than the one from the Jail cell. However, even sleeping there still reminded Philip of the horrible taste of the mass amount of gravy. The more Philip thought about it, the more he was disgusted at the mere thought of the sauce. It was definitely a method of torture.
The taste of the gravy still lingered on Philip's mind. But of all humans, why him? There was no way that the Cluster would be resourceful enough than to have so much gravy to do the exact same thing to every other human... every day. It almost made him think that they meant to give only him the gravy. He had questions. Questions he doubted Jessie would know the answer to.
He woke up upon the door knocking. He would have to ask the one behind the Human slavery for all the answers. After all, he wouldn't know what would be happening throughout the whole prison without his knowing anyway. The "Warden", as he occasionally heard when he was first mining. A "Warden" was known as the overseer of a prison, so obviously the Warden of a Prison would be the one to ask in regards to taking care of its "tenants".
Jessie entered. Philip sat up.
"How's Jakob?"
"I can tell you're unused to my methods. Don't be alarmed. Jakob's not dead.
"More like those things Doctors do to people before operation."
"Yeah, exactly like that."
Philip nodded. "So what did you want to talk to be about?"
"This whole Rampancy business. It's never happened this early in a robot's life. It always happens within the first five months or longer, not under five days."
"What if it's the fact that I was made into a robot?"
"Impossible. Jakob was made the same way as I did with you. He didn't undergo rampancy as early as you did."
"So what am I supposed to guess?"
"What did they do to you when you were in prison? I want to know everything. What they fed you, your roommates, who the other people were that were with you, what you did in the shifts, everything."
Philip had to recall that living hell again. Jessie was not really letting him drop the horrible experience that nearly cost him his sanity.
"When I was thrown in the truck, there were four humans, not including myself."
"The girl, Sal, was not among them, considering you didn't know."
"Yeah. There were three I actually did know before I was abducted. All three were paintball players on the team I was going to play against if not for the attack."
"Names?"
"Johann, Pete, and Gerald."
"Which one was killed before the discovery?"
"Pete."
"Continue then."
"Anyway, the fourth one was a man named Hender. He looked like a war veteran. Still had campaign medals. Probably from World War R, or something like that."
"Hender... Hmm..."
"What is it?"
"Thought I heard the name before. I thought it would be something else. Guess I was wrong. Were any of them with you in your cell?"
"No, they completely isolated me. I wasn't able to start conversation."
"Perhaps food might have done something. What did they feed you?"
"It was something most likely used for torture methods."
Jessie looked confused. Despite her visor resembling sun shades, curiosity was definitely in her eyes.
"Think chicken... I think it was chicken, except laden to the rim of the friggin' bowl with gravy. Every time they threw it in, ravy spilled out, spreading the stench throughout the cell."
"You don't like gravy?"
"I don't mind it, but the sheer amount they put in it. It was as if they were trying to turn me insane with the stench and taste. The gravy itself wasn't even that good. I had to dump it in the toilet to try and remove the smell."
"Hm... Abuse by handler... Isolation... Definitely causes for rampancy. Couldn't have been just that. Anything else that you might find odd?"
"I don't know. It was all normal until the whole Ice Cream shift. When they killed Pete, I just snapped. I didn't even know him at all. Only got to mingle with him on the way to the shift."
"Death of a potential friend was never recorded as a cause for rampancy... Or anything in that matter. We'll have to investigate this in greater detail later."
"What do you mean?"
"You've been sleeping for fourteen hours. It's morning now. A few hours before school. I'll have to get status reports from everyone else and get Jakob back online. Can I trust you to not do anything radical on your way to school?"
Jessie reminded Philip of his mother at that point. He needed to pay his home a visit. See if they're back. If they're not there, then something would be seriously wrong.
Jessie left and walked toward the hospital room, Her red, steel hair topped by a nurse's hat didn't even bob organically. It disturbed Philip in a sense. She seemed to take charge and talk as if she knew everything. Perhaps she did. But the way she expresses it seemed to bother Philip in a way. It never occurred to him until now.
For now, Philip would have to concentrate on going to his original home and see if his parents are back. He climbed over the mountain that separated Time from the plains and many roads that led to Tremorton. He looked on into the night, to watch Downtown remain as unnecessarily bright as ever. Philip slowly climbed down. He had hours, easily enough time to run to Tremorton and back, let alone run there, check his home, and then go to school.
After school, he'll hit the teenager's hang-out spot "Mezmers". He'll then have a meal capable of wiping all thoughts of gravy.
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