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Mumbo’s story is one that was turned into a song, though one that they changed the names for. His memory of it was fuzzy, the only information they had was that of security footage they found as well as messily written notes that Mumbo wrote after waking up from nightmares of his life before his mechanization. His memories are scattered, with that his story is too.
The security cameras that the crew were able to access showed Mumbo in a room filled with computer screens. He’s chained to a chair. It starts with Mumbo unconscious, it always does. Unconscious in a chair while the screens slowly cycle through environments, as if figuring out where to set him.
As Mumbo’s eyes begin to open the computer scenes begin to settle, leaving him somewhere. Sometimes it’s a van, a small yet cozy RV at times. A vault other times, locked tight and secure. Sometimes it seemed as if Mumbo was in a town, the places shifting, but all similar enough that it could be a town. A lively version of the town where he was found by the crew.
Once Mumbo awakens to see himself wherever the AI, Grumbot, has decided to place him it always speaks. The cameras have no audio with them, just visuals. It’s unknown what exactly Grumbot says, unknown other than the fact that it is a greeting of some sort. Something happy, kind, trying its best to seem innocent.
Mumbo remembers Grumbot calling him father, parent, creator, the words changed from time to time, but he knows that is what it called him. Never Mumbo, no, always father, parent or creator.
Mumbo remembers few things, knows few things, about his past, however he knows the AI was named Grumbot, he knows that the AI called him father and he knows that the AI wanted to be duplicated. Above all of that Mumbo also knows that Grumbot was dangerous. He should have destroyed the AI. He was sentimental. He would not and did not allow himself to make another AI. Grumbot was too dangerous alone, there was no hope for humanity if there were to be two.
Grumbot would then plead for a companion, without fail, every time. The hope for a companion was what drove it. It didn’t wish to be alone, to be the only one of its kind. It would do whatever necessary to gain a companion, even if that meant tormenting the man that it called its parent.
Mumbo, upon realizing that he was chained to a chair, either while Grumbot greeted him or sometime after or during its plea would pull on the chains, pull and pull. Then he would still.
He would remember the creation of the AI as if swimming through a fog of memories, nothing quite sure, nothing quite set, less and less every time. He would remember the destruction that Grumbot caused. The deaths on his AI’s hands. On his own hands due to his creation of the AI. Tears would fall down his face.
After that he would shout, refuse, shake his head and thrash, trying and trying and trying to get free.
Then the AI’s usually smiling face would turn to a frown and gas would fill the room. Mumbo would convulse and his eyes would close, leaving him asleep again. Sometimes his nose would bleed.
Each time the cycle continued, each time the gas was used his reactions to it would be worse. It took him longer to wake up. Longer to notice the chains. Longer to begin his thrashing. Longer for him to get out of his memories.
The gas was slowly killing him.
Slowly.
Slowly.
The day Mumbo was found it was because of the AI trying its best to reach out, to find anything like it. It made contact with Tango.
Grumbot told Tango of how lonely it was, of how its creator wouldn’t tell it how to create anything like it for it to have company. Tango asked about its creator, maybe he could help convince him to make Grumbot a companion.
That was when he was shown the video footage of Mumbo.
Scott called over Skizz as they watched the silent footage of a man they didn’t know as he was tormented by an AI that he had created. From there Skizz ran to Pearl and stocked up on everything she would give him. Gas masks, guns, swords, Gem.
By the time they made planetfall Skizz, Gem and Impulse were ready to storm whatever facility the AI was keeping Mumbo in. Pearl and Cleo stayed with Tango to act as backup just in case while Scott and Joe got the medical bay ready. The man would need help. They weren’t going to let him die, not when he reminded them so much of Skizz and Impulse, of people that they cared for and called their own. They were going to do whatever they could to help this man. They wouldn’t leave him to die at the hands of his own creation.
Tango watched as Impulse’s pickaxe broke into the wall, Gem running in to pick up Mumbo while Skizz smashed at everything he saw. Impulse watched over Skizz while he smashed things to his heart’s content. Grumbot screamed, tried to plead with them to stop, to give him back his father, to leave him be, to just let him have a friend. Skizz didn’t hear the pleas, smashing to his heart's content as he remembered when he had been waterboarded for information on Impulse and Tango.
Mumbo woke up without his memories, barely even knowing his name as he opened his eyes to a room he didn’t recognize, a woman he didn’t know with bronze eyes sat at his side.
“Hello?”
The woman turned to face him, a small smile on her face.
“Good to see you awake. You’ve been out for a while.”
“Who are you? Where am I?”
“Pearl, she/her, Gunner of the Tango Tek, the ship you’ve found yourself on. Welcome aboard.”
She held her hand out, Mumbo taking it before speaking.
“Mumbo, I think. He/him? I don’t know. Everything’s fuzzy.”
Pearl’s smile soured a bit as she responded.
“That’s alright. You were killed by a pretty nasty neurotoxin, nerve gas shit, painful and slow fucker. Got to ya in time for Joe to fix you up.”
“Killed? I died?”
How? He was breathing.
“You did. For a bit, not long, never long with Joe here. You’re immortal now. We probably should have asked but you weren’t gonna wake up and well- we have a bit of a problem with remembering or even being able to ask before someone dies. I’m sorry.”
“You saved me.”
“We all had a hand in it.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“You should have gotten to choose immortality.”
“Is it really a choice if the other option is death?”