Chapter Text
He opened his eyes, his vision was blurry. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. As soon as he could see more than just the impression of colours he took in his surroundings; he seemed to be in some kind of tunnel in severe disrepair, just below the ceiling there were circular lights, a metre apart, emitting a yellowish light. Every few lights one would flicker and few of the lights were simply not working. After a few moments he realised he was moving, he looked down and saw that he was standing on a conveyor belt. It looked old and worn, jolted occasionally and constantly made an uncomfortable screeching sound. Not far in the distance he could see an oval entryway and for a second the thought crossed his mind that it was a very impractical shape for a door but was quickly distracted by the distant sound of voices. It sounded like there was some sort of disaster going on based on the amount of shouting and angry exclamations coming from The Entryway.
As he was coming to the end of the tunnel he had the uncanny feeling that this was the place he was meant to be but he desperately did not want to get in the middle of that chaos. The conveyor belt jolted three more times and came to a stop approximately 3 metres from The Entryway and he begrudgingly walked the rest of the way. On the other side of The Entryway there was a seemingly endless hallway. The floor was made of a mitchmatch of different sheets of metal that were nailed together. Along the walls were doors it seemed someone had randomly removed from buildings all over the world. There seemed to be no pattern nor were there any similarities between the doors apart from the fact they were here and doors.
“Who the fuck are you!” he heard a voice from above shout. The shout caused him to look up where he first saw a white block with large windows. It seemed distinctly out of place, it had a sleek modern look while the hallway looked like it was being held together by hopes, dreams and the misguided notion that a few screws could make everything ok. “Hey! Stop gawking! I asked you a question,” the voice continued as she jumped down and landed right in front of him. The person was young and had her black hair tied up haphazardly in a bun. She was wearing navy blue overalls, the sleeves of which were tied around her waist, and she was wearing a grey vest. There were smudges of oil all over her arms and even some on her face. She had several prosthetics: right arm above the elbow made of shiny grey metal and one eye with a completely black iris.
“I- I am- Well I am not sure who I am but I have the identification number 1010,” he said although he had no idea where that knowledge came from, only that it was important.
“Oh for fucks sake!” he flinched at her clearly angry tone, “Sorry I am not angry at you it’s just that management didn’t tell us we were getting a new one today,” she said in a significantly calmer tone, “ I am going to get Coach just- just wait here OK?”
“OK,” he parroted although he wasn’t entirely sure it was. She jumped up, climbed the wall expertly and opened a hatch in the white block where he was sure there was nothing but a smooth white surface before. Only once she had pulled herself through the hatch did he realise she never told him who she was or where he was for that matter.
As he waited he turned back around to look at the tunnel he came from only to see that The Entryway had been sealed by another white surface. He turned back around seeing no reason to investigate further and waited until Coach came. Around a minute later he heard clanging from above. The woman he had met earlier and a gruff man who looked to be in his late forties jumped down through the hatch though the man seemed to struggle more and winced as he landed.
Coach had the same prosthetics so they were probably standard. That thought caused him to look down at his own arm, it looked the same as theirs but something at the back of his mind told him that it wasn’t. He didn’t know what to do with that thought so he ignored it and continued assessing Coach. He was wearing the same jumpsuit as the woman and in the same fashion, tied around the waist, but he was wearing a white vest that revealed tribal flame tattoos on his arms.
“Hey kid, I am sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, those bastards in management don’t seem to understand what ‘clear communication’ is. Right now you may not know what is going on or where you were before this but don’t worry your memories will come back soon and your brain will erase the genetic alterations they made to you. Once that happens we will teach you everything you need to know. You are now apart of this team, they make my life miserable-”
“Hey!” the woman cut him off playfully.
“- but we are a team. Oh yeah this is team 6-15-24-5-19 but we call ourselves the FOXES. Welcome and don’t get used to the hospitality,” when Coach was finished talking he turned around and started climbing up the wall. It was only then that 1010 saw that there were small footholds that had been screwed to the wall.
The woman gestured for him to climb the wall but he hesitated and asked: “Um what is your name?”
“Oh of course sorry- my name is Danielle but you can just call me Dan” she replied with a bright smile.
1010 nodded and climbed the wall. He was significantly slower than either Dan or Coach but he managed to get to the still open hatch. He put his arms on each side of the hatch and pulled himself through until he was standing on surprisingly plush carpet next to the hatch. Dan walked around him and closed the hatch. He heard the click of a lock and something inside him felt tight.
Coach gestured for him to follow and led him through a series of hallways with cream walls and autumn orange accents until they got to an umber coloured door with an ornate gold handle and a sign that just said ‘Abby’. Coach opened the door and went through,1010 followed them into a room with a shoe rack and coats hanging on the wall. There were a few pictures on the wall, one of them was of Dan and a group of other people some of whom were smiling and some of whom looked decidedly upset at having been included in the picture.
“Abby!” Coach called. A few seconds later a woman around the same age as Coach came into the room. She had a kind smile but 1010 felt some… unease, he couldn’t quite place the feeling. She was wearing different clothing to Dan and Coach, a dark blue top, a pair of jeans, white socks and her hair was put up in a ponytail.
She smiled when she saw 1010 but there was something tense about it. “I didn’t know we were getting an addition to our team today,” she said. It was directed at Coach but Dan was the one to answer.
“We didn’t either,” she stated, “but we could use someone new around here and we were due someone new after Janie.”
“Yes but it would’ve been nice with a bit of warning. Anyway, what is your name?” Abby asked.
“My identification number is 1010,” 1010 replied.
“OK 1010, follow me,” she said and started walking. He followed her through a living room and through a hallway into a room with cream walls, a bed along the far wall, a desk with a hoverchair and medical equipment on white shelves along the walls. There were also cupboards which he assumed also contained medical equipment.
“Would you get on the bed for me please 1010?” she asked. He obeyed and sat on the bed. She turned around, sat down on the chair and started typing on her computer. The reason she was using a keyboard when it was such ancient technology escaped him. She stopped typing abruptly and turned around. “I need to check you over to see if you are mentally OK. We can do some of it now and some of it later or we can wait until you have regained your memories. It takes the average brain 30 minutes to take over and you have been here for…?” She inquired.
“11 minutes and 47 seconds,” he replied.
Her nose creased in confusion, but she pressed on, “So you will remember everything in about 20 minutes, give or take a few minutes. So do you want to wait or do it now?” She asked.
There was something inside his brain, a voice, telling him to wait but it sounded far away or like it was on the other side of a slab of concrete. Nevertheless he listened to the voice and answered: “I would like to wait.”
“That's fine, I have some stuff to do so you can wait here and just call for me when you are ready to start, I will be within earshot the whole time so call if you need me.” Abby smiled and waited for his nod before turning and leaving, closing the door behind her.
1010 took stock of himself; he was wearing the same navy blue overalls but his was buttoned up completely, he was clean, and as far as he could tell, uninjured. The only thing missing were his memories. He was beginning to regain some kind of instincts, not full memories, just vague impulses. He knew that there was something that he had to get away from, he doubted it was these people, they didn’t feel safe per se but just not as dangerous as what he was running from. He knew there was something missing but he didn’t know what and he knew that he was different from these people but he didn’t know how. He figured that while he waited he may as well gather some information.
He got off the bed and looked around. He noticed that Abby hadn’t logged off of her computer so he went over and sat down on her hover chair. He knew how to use a keyboard but it seemed like far away knowledge so he assumed he didn’t use one very often which fit with how old these were. The computer screen showed a home screen with lots of files on it each with names that consisted of four digit numbers. He found a file named ‘1010’ so he assumed that these were the files of him and other people here. He ignored the other peoples files, he didn’t have much time and he figured that he needed to know who he was first.
He clicked on his file using the equally ancient mouse and it opened up to show an image of someone he guessed was him. He had dark brown, almost black hair and one brown eye the other prosthetic, he wasn’t smiling in the picture. Next to his image was the name Neil Josten. For a second he was confused why Abby wouldn’t just tell him what his name was since she clearly knew it, maybe it was some kind of malicious tactic, but then again maybe she just wanted to be able to see if he could remember who he was. He scrolled down and found very little information: his date of birth, identification number and something that said that he had ‘standard electronic body replacements’. That must be referring to the prosthetics.
Suddenly an image flashed in his mind, a woman- his mother covered in blood, putting a chip into his arm, telling him to never stop running. Telling him to promise. The light leaving her eyes, her going limp. He gasped and suddenly he remembered. He remembered everything.
His mother was dead. She had given him his new identity. He had to follow her rules and then maybe he wouldn’t get caught. Standard procedure at all plants was that he had the mental check up and then he would be introduced to the head of the plant who would tell him where his locker was. His locker would have his stuff. It was always the most nerve wracking part when he didn’t have his stuff but he knew that no humans touched it. The transportation system was fully automated.
He had around 5 minutes before he had to call Abby and say he remembers who he is. He closed down his file and sat back on the bed. This identity had been uploaded from the chip and hidden in his brain like a memory, the only thing that made that possible was the fact that his brain was 72.6% machine. Along with his memories, system control was coming online as well. He looked through his new identity, birthday: March 31st, age: 18, familian connections: working in other plants, little to no contact, personality: reserved and quiet, appearance: brown hair and one brown eye. The most standard, enough to go unnoticed until he had to move on. He knew how to do this, he had done it 22 other times just never without his mother.
He did a systems check like he always did after regaining his memories. Run a systems check. Temperature: 310.05 kelvin, Heart Rate: slightly elevated, Blood Pressure: slightly elevated, Battery: 72%, all electronic systems running at maximal efficiency. The irritatingly jubilant voice informed him.
He took a deep breath, 27 minutes and 18 seconds, that's how long he had been here, he couldn’t be too precise with the time because it would arouse suspicion if he regained his memories after exactly 30 minutes.
“Abby!” he called. After a few seconds she came through the door with the same kind smile as before, only now he knew why he felt uncomfortable around it. Kind people tried to help but their idea of help was being nosy, and nosy got him killed. Perform short range scan on humanoid labelled Abby.
Scan complete: No prosthetics, minor brain alterations including enhancements to ability to read and understand body language and deductive reasoning , 40 years of age, biosystems normal, no electronic systems, no bio or electronic weapons. Great, a doctor. He hated doctors because he had to be on his toes around them, they noticed things in people's body language that most other people didn’t.
“Hello again, have you regained your memories?” she asked although Neil thought the answer was obvious.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Great!” she said happily. And walked over and sat down at her computer. Neil could see her opening up his file. “I am going to ask you a few questions just to check that your memories match what I have here OK?”
Neil nodded in reply although he could guarantee that nothing there would ‘match his memories’.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Neil Josten,”
“What is your birthday?”
“March 31st,”
“How old are you?”
“18,”
“Now just a few questions to see if your brain is functioning alright. What is 7 multiplied by 12?”
He faked taking a second to calculate to seem more human. “84,”
“Can you read this aloud for me?” She held up a screen with a sentence on it.
“Blood - the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins of humans and other vertebrate animals, carrying oxygen to and carbon dioxide from the tissues of the body.”
“Good. Just one more now. Tell me what these shapes or things are.” She swiped on the screen and an image of a square came up.
“Square.” Swipe, “banana.” Swipe, “cuboid.” Swipe, “nonagon.”
“That's it for the mental check. The information under your identification number is quite sparse so I will have to do a slightly more extensive physical check up, just some blood tests, reflex tests and a few other things.”
He had never had to go through this before. They just did the standard mental check and then it was done, but those places often housed lots of people and the doctors were busy. It made it easier to go unnoticed but he got the feeling that this place was significantly smaller, the doctor even seemed to have her office inside her living space.
The physical check up went fine until she told him to unbutton the overalls and take off the vest underneath.
“Do I have to?” he asked, dreading the answer.
She gave him a soft smile and replied: “Yes, you have the standardised prosthetic set which includes an arm. I need to check that it is still attached properly,”
“I can tell you that it is still attached properly,” he said and he could. He had just run a systems check. But she couldn’t know that because that was not part of the standardised set.
“I can’t let you work before I do the full physical. There is doctor patient confidentiality, what I see here won’t leave this room, ” she said with a sad look in her eyes. He realised that he would have to because if he didn’t work he would be written up and then his father would definitely find him. He couldn’t hide his scars but he did make sure that his prosthetic looked like the standardised one even though he knew it did. Knowing he would lose his memory, he had made sure of it before he entered this plant.
“Don’t ask because I won't tell,” he said and unbuttoned the overalls down to the waist. When he took off his vest he heard her gasp a little. He didn’t look down but he already knew what she was looking at. There were scars all over his torso, a scar in the shape of a clothing iron was on his left shoulder and white lines zigzagged down his body like the strokes of paintbrush in the hand of a very manic painter. He had a large patch of skin that consisted solely of scar tissue on his right side, roadburn from jumping out of a moving car. The only place he did not have extensive scarring was his right shoulder and arm. He had made right shoulder and down to midway down his upper arm look like skin. He could change the outer appearance of the arm at will which was very useful, the standardised set only had a prosthetic arm that went three quarters of the way up the arm so it would arouse suspicion if people could see that the prosthetic really included his whole arm and some of his shoulder. He hoped she wouldn’t notice where the scarring stopped because then he would have to leave immediately.
“Neil-” she started.
“Is it still attached correctly?” he asked through gritted teeth.
She just looked at him sadly and then got to work. She asked him to move it then let his arm hang limp, checked the skin and then stepped back and told him he could put his overalls on again.
“Neil, if you ever want to talk about it, I am here.” she said. He just arranged his face into what was probably the fakest smile in history and nodded. She moved on quickly though, for which he was grateful and told him she would take him to Wymack, which he learned was Coach’s name.
They walked back through the hallways and he started creating a map of the place. He couldn’t make a complete map because he hadn’t seen the whole plant but he got the general gist. All work areas of plants were the same: one long hallway that seemed to go on for eternity with doors lining the sides but the living areas could vary a lot. This plant had one of the more odd living areas, it had winding hallways and he had seen a stairpad in Abby’s living space so it probably had two floors which was quite unusual.
They arrived at another umber door, this time with another ancient looking handle, this one was grey - stainless steel he concluded after a quick scan, it also had a very crude and ancient looking lock which likely wasn’t going to keep anyone out. This door had the name Coach Wymack on it. Abby opened the door and he heard Wymack shout “Coming!” Neil suppressed a flinch at the sound of his voice. It was nothing like his fathers, but it was the voice of an older man and he couldn’t help but be wary around them.
“Hey kid, you remember who you are now?” Coach asked when he saw them in the doorway.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“I am going to leave, I have some paperwork to do now Neil is here,” she gave him one last smile and left. He was a bit nervous about being left alone with Wymack but he knew that even if Abby was here she wouldn’t be able to do anything if Wymack tried to hurt him.
“So that's your name,” he commented, “I don’t know if you knew this when you were sent here, most of the others didn’t know what was going on when they were sent here, but we are an independent plant.”
“Oh, this must be Palmetto,” he stated. There were only three independent plants in existence. Evermore, which was independent only because it was run by someone who knew management. USC and Palmetto were the two others, USC had struck a deal, they were half independent, they followed management rules but had little to no checkups. Palmetto was different, they were independent because management wanted nothing to do with them. They sent people they didn’t want or didn’t fit in, to Palmetto. The delinquents. No one thought that Palmetto would make it, they were the most independent plant because management refused to send them food or water, they only sent them medical supplies and tools for the machines.
“Yes,” he said carefully, “So you know everyone here has.. a track record. So why have you been sent here?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. Neil matched the criteria to be here but he didn’t need Wymack knowing that.
“No, it doesn’t,” Coach sighed. That surprised Neil, he expected Coach to pressure him for answers.”Your locker is number 10, fits with your ID number. You will be sharing a living space with Matt and Seth. Matt will come and show you around and show you the locker room.” Not even 3 seconds later a very tall man with spiky black hair wearing the same overalls as the others but this time wearing them buttoned up, came bursting through the door. As far as he could tell he had the standard prosthetic set, prosthetic arm and one black iris.
“Hey Coach!” The man he assumed was Matt exclaimed.
“Speak of the devil,” Wymack replied, “show our newest recruit around won’t you.” Then Wymack turned and walked back the way he came.
Matt turned to him and said: “Hey I’m Matt, don’t mind Coach he is just always grumpy. What is your name?”
“Neil,” he replied.
“Cool, I’ll show you your locker first so you can get your stuff,” Matt turned around and they left Coach’s living space. “Welcome to the team dude. We are so happy to have someone new, well most of us are.” He cringed slightly.
“Who isn’t happy that I am here?”
“Um, well it’s nothing about you it's just the Monsters, they don’t really like when new people come. They keep to themselves for the most part. The Monsters are Aaron and Andrew who are twins, identical twins, like most of us have trouble telling them apart when they pretend to be each other, it’s freaky. Then there is Nicky the twin’s cousin and Kevin. Andrew is like really protective of all of them. The rest of us are nice though well apart from Seth he can be… a bit much but don’t worry about him he is pretty harmless. And then there is Me, Dan who you’ve met, Renee she is an angel like really so sweet and Allison.” He said, Neil took the time to categorise all of these people and put them into files with general threat level and weaknesses as well as hierarchy and leveredge. He would have to meet them to get the full picture but Andrew seemed to be the leader of ‘the Monsters’. For now he had to prioritise. Now that he knew this was Palmetto he also knew that Kevin Day was here and now he also knew that he was under the protection of this Andrew person.
All anybody knew about Kevin was that he was with Evermore and then he got injured in an accident and left. It made sense that Evermore let him leave, since they prided themselves on efficiency, but something had always seemed off about it to Neil. Evermore was a poster child for all plants to look up to, no one ever left, they got extra amenities and generally lived in luxury. Kevin was also like a brother to the second in command, Riko, so it was very odd for him to leave the closest thing he had to a family. Neil had followed what happened to Kevin and was both jealous and happy for him, he got to live comfortably whilst Neil was jumping around from plant to plant, living with the fear of being caught and killed.
He and Kevin had met when they were kids, before Neil went on the run. They were going to have private lessons together, Kevin, Riko and him, they were going to learn something more about the machines, something that wasn’t just about how to fix them. Sometimes he wondered what that was, but the day after they had had their first lesson, the day after they had watched his father torture and kill a man together, the day after he thought that maybe for the first time he might be able to have friends, his mother took him, stole a large sum of money and left.
Neil didn’t know what made her leave, maybe she just had had enough of his father and him hurting them or maybe there was something else. He would probably never know now.
“Here we are,” Matt said. He opened the door to reveal rows of lockers. Every plant had them but the people here seemed to have spray painted these in a very bright orange colour. He walked over to locker 10 and opened it using the fake ID chip in his arm. It worked, it was always nerve wracking, but he knew that these ID chips were as airtight as fake ID chips could be. He took out his duffel and turned around and saw Matt waiting next to the Larger Items conveyor belt. “You going to get the rest of your stuff?” he asked.
“Just this,” he said, lifting his duffel slightly.
“OK,” he said, clearly slightly confused. “I’ll show you to our living space.” He followed Matt and they walked in silence. He estimated that he had around 40% of the living area mapped. He couldn’t do a long range scan of the place without Matt noticing so he had to wait until he was alone. “Here we are, home sweet home.” He said as he opened a door with the names Matt and Seth on it.
He looked around, the door opened into a living room with couches against the far wall facing a pretty impressive holoset and in the corner there was another stairpad. There were two doors on each side of the living room.
Matt pointed to the door closest to the entrance on the left side, “That’s Seth’s room,” he then pointed to the other door on the left side, “that’s my room,” he pointed to the door across from his, “that’s your room and the other door leads to the bathroom. Upstairs is just storage in our room, and the doors to our personal rooms use an electronic lock that only opens for our ID chips. I’m gonna go and hang out with the girls, Allison, Renee and Dan. Do you want to come?”
“No it’s fine, I need to unpack,” Neil said. Matt nodded and left. Neil quickly walked over to his room, opened the door and looked around. The room was small, it was clearly intended just to be a place you slept and for most of your time to be spent in the living room. There was a bed against the wall and a wardrobe in the corner.
Neil put his duffel down on the bed and unpacked his clothes until he got to the only things that really mattered: 3 chips and his charger. 1 chip had all the information he was able to find on Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama so that if necessary he could delete that file in his memory core. The second chip is one he has never used but his mother told him to put it into his secondary control panel at the base of his head if he had no other choice, she told him it would send his location to someone nearly as powerful as his father. The third chip had the location of the next ‘rest stop’, this was where he would find the next stash of money when he had to leave here and buy a new ID chip.
Neil was exhausted, going to a new plant was always tiring. Battery 54% the obnoxious camp voice in his head enthused. It also always drained his battery a ridiculous amount, normally his battery could last for several days even up to a week on low power mode. His guess was that whatever he had to go through that erased his memories also fucked with his system. He knew from experience though that as soon as he slept and recharged his system would go back to normal.
He attached his charger to the base of his spine and set his system to do constant scans and wake him up if anyone came through the entrance to the living space or after one hour. Run long range scans. He got onto the bed and laid down, so if all else failed and someone came in he would just look like a normal human sleeping and powered down.
-
1 humanoid has come through the entrance - on course toward the room - will arrive in 10 seconds. Neil jumped up and detached his charger, Battery 94%, threw it under the bed, turned so his back was facing the door, so it didn't look like he knew the person was coming, and smoothed down his clothing. Powered down for 42 minutes and 57 seconds, ok so nearly an hour. Time in region 32: 1832. The person knocked on the door, “Come in,”
The door opened to reveal Matt, “Hey dude, dinner’s ready, we all eat together as a team. Even the Monsters,” Matt chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his head, “so you’ll get to meet everyone.” Neil nodded and followed Matt even though he knew exactly where everything was. He created a map using the scans he took whilst asleep and the floor plan was even more convoluted than he had thought, he had also only been able to map around 23% before he did the long range scan because of the upper floor. If he didn’t have a map he would probably have to spend the first week trying to navigate. That meant that he would have to fake being lost most of the time for at least the first few days.
Might as well start now: “It seems really difficult to navigate. How do you know where everything is?” When his mother had first told him that sometimes to fit in he had to ask questions he knew the answer to or state the obvious he had been incredibly confused but results don’t lie.
“Ha ha, well you get used to it, don't worry.” Matt said with a smile. They got to a dead end hallway and used a stairpad to get up, they could both fit on one because Neil was significantly smaller than average, but it was tight and Neil had to be pressed up against Matt’s side uncomfortably.
Then they were in the dining room, Matt and him stepped off of the stair pad. Neil felt eyes on him, there was a group of women including Dan who were helping Abby bring the food from the kitchen to the dining room and in the corner there was the group Matt had referred to as the Monsters. The Monsters consisted of a pair of identical twins, one was slightly smaller but both were about 155 cm, they both had blond hair but one of them had hair that was cut so it fell midway down his ears and the other had slightly longer hair that fell to the bottom of his ears. He decided to call them long and short until he was introduced. Long was wearing off work clothing like everyone else apart from him and Matt, he was wearing blue jeans, white shoes and a black hoodie. Short was wearing a black t-shirt, black loose jeans, black combat boots and black armbands that covered his forearms. The armbands were concerning, they could hold weapons since they looked like the type to have sheaths. He would have to get a bit closer to do a proper short range scan.
Short and Long were standing next to each other, next to Long was a man with light brown skin who looked nothing like the twins but had to be their cousin since the only other person standing over there was Kevin. The cousin, Nicky, was wearing a very bright pink tank top with a blue cardigan and very tight chinos. Then there was Kevin. He looked the same and completely different to when they had met when they were little. He had the number 2 permanently tattooed when before it was just a temporary tattoo, he had green eyes and black hair, he had grown a lot, he was around 185 cm. Neil could only hope that Kevin didn’t recognise him.
Matt pulled him along towards the women and they stopped helping Abby for a second to introduce themselves.
“I’m Dan, but you already knew that. I am kind of second in command here,” Dan said.
“I’m Allison,” said one of the women who was wearing a pink crop top, low waisted jeans, some kind of expensive high heel and had hot pink acrylic nails, as she flicked her platinum blond hair behind her. She had non-standard prosthetics, as far as he could tell, her eyes were both natural but both her arms were prosthetic, and they were good, not as good as his but probably the newest publicly available tech.
“I’m Renee, welcome,” this was the angel Matt had referred to earlier. There was something off about her, something Neil instinctively didn’t trust. She had white hair with the ends dyed in pastel blue and pink which clashed oddly with her conservative dress and the cross hanging from her neck. He didn’t trust her so he immediately did a short range scan, they were all standing so close no one would notice. Run a short range scan.
To make sure he wasn’t just standing weirdly still while he completed the scan he introduced himself: “I’m Neil,” he said. They started having some inane conversation about a bet that Allison had won and Neil tuned it out but recorded it for later if it became relevant.
Scan completed: 4 humanoids within scanning range - 3 females 1 male - Female 1/Allison: two arm prosthetics model 1990, two eye prosthetics model 1990R, minor standard brain alterations, 20 years of age, biosystems abnormal bone density, infertility, minor kidney damage indicating past eating disorder, electronic systems normal, no bio or electronic weapons
Female 2/Dan: Standard prosthetics set all model 1567, minor standard brain alterations, 20 years of age, biosystems normal, electronic systems normal, no bio or electronic weapons
Female 3/Renee: prosthetic chestplate model unregistered, prosthetic shoulders model unregistered, minor non-standard brain alterations including an alteration to flight or fight response and ability to register fear, 21 years of age, biosystems normal, electronic systems unable to measure, no bio or electronic weapons
Male/Matt: Standard prosthetics set all model 1567, minor standard brain alterations, 20 years of age, biosystems abnormal scarring of arteries indicating drug use otherwise normal, electronic systems normal, no bio or electronic weapons.
So Renee was different but just not in the way he thought. He would have to keep an eye on her, only illegal or heavily experimental prosthetics were unregistered, she also didn’t have an arm prosthetic so she was probably not meant to be maintaining machines. It sounded more like she was meant to be a fighter. She was definitely dangerous. He was also surprised about Allison, not many people got the choice to have hyper realistic prosthetics because they were expensive and she had the newest model, she had to be incredibly rich to afford that.
“Dinner’s ready!” Abby called and everyone jolted into motion. Neil ended up sitting between Matt and Allison. He was sitting across from Short and could feel his assessing gaze, it was very uncomfortable and he tried to focus on anything else. Dinner was zucchini lasagne, they didn’t eat together at other plants, they didn’t even eat the same food, they probably only ate like this here because they had to grow and prepare their own food.
“Hey! You must be Neil, you really are a sight, why didn’t you tell us he was so pretty Dan? Anyway welcome this is Andrew,” he pointed to Short, “and this is Aaron,” he pointed to Long,”that is Kevin - the guy who constantly looks like he has a stick up his arse,” he said in faux whisper, ”and I’m Nicky the twins’ favourite cousin” Nicky said all with a dazzling smile and more energy than Neil could ever hope to have.
Neil just nodded slightly stunned. This was his chance, he could scan Short who was apparently Andrew and the others. Run a scan of humanoids labelled Nicky, Aaron, Kevin and Andrew. The conversation had moved on so he recorded it whilst he scanned them, Andrew was still staring at him so he made sure he kept eating and periodically looking around.
Scan of 4 humanoids labelled Nicky, Aaron, Kevin, Andrew complete: 4 males - Nicky: Standard prosthetics set all model 1658, minor standard brain alterations and attempted alterations to the limbic system controlling love and attraction however attempted alterations were unsuccessful, 23 years of age, biosystems normal, electronic systems normal, no bio or electronic weapons
Aaron: Standard prosthetics set all model 1567, minor standard brain alterations, 19 years of age, biosystems abnormal scarring of arteries indicating drug use otherwise normal, electronic systems normal, no bio or electronic weapons
Kevin: prosthetic arm base model E2010 alterations have been made to fix damage done to lower part of prosthetic however those alterations were insufficient, one eye prosthetic model 2000R, minor standard brain alterations, 19 years of age, biosystems abnormal weakened immune system and traces of alcohol in the blood indicating long term alcohol abuse otherwise normal, electronic systems in need of repair, no bio or electronic weapons
Andrew: two prosthetic arms connected to prosthetic shoulder and partial prosthetic chest all unregistered model, one eye prosthetic model 1567, minor standard brain alterations and alterations to the hippocampus causing eidetic memory, 19 years of age, biosystems normal, electronic systems partially unable to measure otherwise normal, no bio or electronic weapons however 6 knives have been found two on each forearm and one in each shoe.
Fuck this wasn’t good, he now had to deal with an armed man who could remember everything, he would have to make sure his lies were airtight. He replayed the conversation that had happened whilst he was doing the scan at 10x speed and was relieved when he heard that he hadn’t missed anything important. Andrew was still staring at him whilst he ate and it was honestly starting to get a bit creepy. Neil was finished eating so he just pushed around the residue from his food on his plate.
“Alright maggots, help Abby clear the table,” Wymack announced. Everyone got up and the chattering continued as they cleared the table, now Neil was even more aware of Andrew as he walked behind him but he hoped that Andrew wouldn’t stab him with all these witnesses. Neil had started doing constant short range scans so he would be alerted if Andrew went for his knives, it would drain his battery a bit but it was nearly evening and he always recharged when he slept.
Unfortunately he couldn’t just slip out without anyone noticing and go back to his room because he was not supposed to know the way back perfectly, maybe he could just pretend he got a bit lost and then coincidentally found his living space.
“Me and Dan are going back to my living space to watch a holopicture, if you want to join?” Matt asked.
This was Neil's opportunity to get back to his living space without having to interact with too many people so he agreed: “sure.” Hopefully he could get out of watching a holopicture and just go back to his room.
They went down the stairpad one at a time and walked back the same way they had come, Matt and Dan talked and only occasionally tried to include him for which he was grateful. Neil hadn’t noticed it earlier but they seemed to be a couple if their linked hands and Matt’s doe eyes were any indication.
They arrived at the living space and to Neil’s horror he was somehow cajoled into watching a holopicture after he let slip that he had only watched two holopictures ever. It was something with a lot of explosions and violence that was so unrealistic it may as well just have been interpretive dance, he kept that last thought to himself since people didn’t usually like knowing what real violence was like.
-
Time in region 32: 2246 The holopicture had just ended and he had said goodnight to both Dan and Matt. Now he was in his room and trying to think of a good hiding space for his charger. The rest stop chip was so heavily encrypted that it would take even the best hacker in the world hours to access so he didn’t need to hide that. Nor did he have to hide the emergency chip since it couldn’t do anything unless put into his secondary control panel, it would just look like a blank chip if someone tried to put it into a computer and look at it. His Kevin and Riko chip whilst not as well encrypted as the rest stop chip would take a good hacker up to an hour to unencrypt. The charger on the other hand one look and any half educated mechanic would be able to see what it was, a charger that connected to the spinal column.
He needed a charger because no matter how much he ate his human digestive system wouldn’t be able to extract enough energy to power all his electronic systems. Two over the knee prosthetic legs that he could change from looking hyperrealistic to metal at will, they were the only pair in existence, they weren't even a registered model just his father’s scientist’s experiment performed on a living subject after his father had a particularly bad day and decided to amputate his legs. He was only eight when he got prosthetic legs, unlike the publicly available models they grew with him.
A year later after the success of his legs his father told him he was getting a present and then he was unconscious. When he woke up he didn’t know what had happened but there was an irritatingly flamboyant person in his brain telling him: All systems online, Temperature: 311.07 kelvin, Heart Rate: elevated, Blood Pressure: elevated, Battery: 99%, Electronic systems running at 53% efficiency, Biosystems: in recovery. When he opened his eyes a very excited scientist told him what had happened. He had had his arm amputated above the shoulder and replaced with an experimental prosthetic, his eyes had been removed and replaced by prosthetics that could do short and long range scans, the human brain could not handle all of that data so they had replaced as much of his brain as possible with an electronic brain, his neural pathways had been translated into computer code. During that brain surgery his hair follicles had been damaged beyond repair so it had been replaced by synthetic hair.
He found out later that while his arm was a similar model to his legs it’s main purpose was to be able to kill as efficiently as possible, this could have been dangerous to his father so Nathan had put a line of code into his brain that prohibited Neil from physically harming Nathan. That was when Neil had decided to learn to code, but even a decade later he was still unable to remove that line of code from his brain, nor could he figure out how to change the voice to something less grating.
Neil looked around, he couldn’t find any hiding spots so he did a scan: 1 hiding spot located, behind the wardrobe there is a hollow part of the wall. He moved the wardrobe and found the hollow part of the wall, he transformed his hand into a laser and cut a hole in the wall, he put his other hand into the hole in the wall and found a metal beam where he could rest his charger. For now he put the piece of wall he had cut out back and moved the wardrobe back into place.
Neil changed out of his overalls and put on a pair of sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. He set his system to do constant scans, and wake him if anyone neared the door to his room or after 8 hours, plugged in his charger, laid down and powered down. Run long range scans.