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It was a bright room.
Well, no. It was a bright white room. Still bright, but not in the terms of light as it was now in the terms of the color.
The Spine sat up, squinting his photoreceptors to make the dull ache behind them stop aching.
He wanted to ask where he was, but he noticed that he was alone.
There could be speakers, He thought. But I don't see any.
Still, he asked in a somewhat scratchy voice, "Where am I?"
He received no answer, naturally.
"Where am I?" He asked again, looking around and standing up.
No answer still.
The Spine shook his head and looked at the door. He walked over to it, hearing some faint voices from the other side.
1955
Project The Spine
Millions of dollars
Upgrade?
Weaponize.
Not a cent.
Own.
This...didn’t make much sense now, did it? The Spine raised an eyebrow and knocked on the door.
"Where am I?" He asked.
The voices stopped. And then started again.
Answer it?
Not everything.
Yes.
No.
Answer it.
The door opened, and The Spine took a step back as a young woman walked in with a clipboard.
"Project The Spine!" She said, clicking a pen in her left hand over and over before actually writing something. "My name is Fitzpatrick. Doctor Fitzpatrick. How are you feeling? Disoriented? In any pain? We took caution in getting you here, we couldn't afford to let you get hurt. Much too valuable, yknow."
"Um...My eyes kind of hurt from this room, but I'm fine. Where am I?"
"Ah, right. Hm, advanced photoreceptors that can actually feel! Interesting. What do you remember before you were here?"
The Spine frowned. "Why am I telling you this? I have no idea who you are. I have no idea where I am -"
"Honesty is key."
Immediately The Spine tensed up and no longer was in control of his mouth.
"I was sitting in the lounge room of Walter Manor, reading a new book I borrowed from the library nearby called 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'. I was on page 57 when Rabbit, my older sister, tripped over her stuffed bunny and fell on the floor. I got up and left the book on the coffee table as I went to help her. She had a dent on her knee, but other than that she suffered no problems. I sat back down to read but i heard Hatchworth say something. I can't remember what it was, but he said something. I got back up and went down into the Hall of Hamburgers, because that was where I heard Hatchworth from. And then I blacked out and I woke up here. Sir. I mean Ma'am."
The Spine could only stay still as he heard himself spew everything against his will. How on Earth could that have happened?
"Oh, so the codephrase Granddad programmed in you still work! Fascinating, for a trick he taught you at least 60 years ago."
"How...who...Your granddad?"
"I'm sorry, I said too much about that. Lost my professional demeanor for a few seconds."
"What's going on? I-I don't understand what's happening."
The Spine took a step towards Doctor Fitzpatrick, raising one of his arms as if about to grab her shoulder.
"Ignorance is bliss."
That awful feeling of tenseness overtook the poor robot, and he stumbled, trying to resist.
A sharp twang of pain shot through his mind and body. He yelped as he felt twin streams of oil being forced out of his eyes like tears.
What was he doing before here? He was...what was he reading? No, he was...Rabbit had fallen. Or had Hatchworth fallen? Or had he fallen?
Ignorance is bliss, He remembered as he fell to the floor, twitching.
"I tested two of the codephrases. They worked." He heard Doctor Fitzpatrick say as she left the room and the door shut.
~
The Spine awoke, feeling rather confused. This was not the Hall of Wires. He had powered down for the night in the Hall of Wires, right? This didn't feel right.
His head ached wih a sharp pain, and when he reached to rub his metal temples his hands came into contact with oil. Oil?
How...
What?
The door to the room opened, a young female in a lab coat walking in holding a clipboard.
"Good morning, Project The Spine." She said, clicking her pen again and again before actually writing something.
"Where am I?" The Spine asked, standing up and rubbing the oil off his face.
"You're currently in your room." The female said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't have the authority to leak the exact location of where we are."
This all felt familar. The general feeling...1955. The government labs. The 'upgrades'. The weapons. The reprogramming. No. Nononono.
"Where. Am. I." The Spine asked again. Well, he did not ask. This was more of a demand.
He took a few steps at the doctor woman before all-out lunging and easily pinning her with the sheer weight and force of this metal-on-human collision.
Other people in lab coats gathered, checking phones and clipboards and devices.
The Spine raised his fist to threaten the doctor woman before hearing an awful word he hated.
"Cellophane."
He felt his arm go limp. And the rest of his body. He fell to the floor, twitching and limp. What was happening? Why couldn't he move?
"Get him to the lab." He heard the female he had tackled say as she shoved him off of her.
The lab? No.
God no.
He could only weakly stare at her as a small group of the humans lifted him up and set him in an upright position.
"Loyalty is key, Spine." The woman said. And he remembered. Doctor Fitzpatrick. Rabbit. That book. The words she used - But he could do nothing. He said nothing, and expressed nothing as he obediently walked alongside the other scientists. He couldn't do anything to resist - It was like he no longer had free will.
He was led quickly into a large laboratory with a chair he felt he would have to sit in. The chair was next to a tray of items like sharp knifes, needles, screwdrivers, and wores.
This did not paint a very pretty picture.
The Spine was sat down in the chair. He leaned back and expressed no resistance as Doctor Fitzpatrick picked up a long needle and held it in her hand.
"We're going to inject your photoreceptors with a fluid that will burn the insides and leave a hollow shell. Then we're going to take out the hollow shells and fill them with better programming. After all, why waste the beauty of these spectacularily carved orbs of metal?"
The Spine said nothing. At least, on the outside he said nothing. On the inside he screaming, begging, sobbing for them not to touch him. Not to do anything to him. To just let him go.
You see, funny thing about screaming inside your head. People do not hear you.
Doctor Fitzpatrick held the needle outside the spine's left eyeball, two fingers holding the eyelids apart so his natural defense instict to shut them would not come into play.
She quickly shoved the needle as hard as she could through the metal of the photoreceptor and The Spine could not help but scream.