Chapter Text
Cognitive Data Transfer active.
[RECORDING STARTED 13:08:05]
Why is there a constant humming in my ears? It is as if there is a generator in my head that refuses to shut up. With slow motions, I open my eyes only for several displays to pop up into my sight and nearly blind me. Did I fall asleep with my VR on? Why is the light so bright? It is a plain, white you’re-stuck-in-a-psychiatry-and-don’t-know-it-yet light.
My eyes dart over the endless displays. For some reason, I already know what they stand for. Battery, environmental recognition, and more things I should not know of. Things I know my goldfish brain would have never remembered. More importantly though, are my surroundings. I let my eyes roam over the grey room I'm standing in.
Yeah, so, why the fuck am I seeing a Grievous Cosplayer?
Did I get wasted at a Convention? I don't feel a headache. Well, I don't feel anything right now, except a phantom movement of my fingers twitching. The only evidence that I am actually moving and alive. Am I in a dream state? The movements feel like a distant memory you cannot quite grasp.
Like those crazy dreams you wake up from but forget the moment you try to tell your friends about them. I call that ragebait.
"You will not fail me again!" The cyborg yells around and smashes a B1-Droid's head. The sudden sound makes me flinch internally. This guy has no sense of public behaviour.
I watch the B1-Droid fall apart by a mere punch with his claw.
Rest in Pieces, my friend. I’m glad it wasn’t me.
After a second of mourning that very well-made, very accurate dummy, I look around the strange room. Definitely does not look like my bedroom. Yet, it still feels oddly familiar. While admiring the view of a monitor portraying space, where the windows are supposed to be, I actively try to blink away those stupid displays. Why do I even see them? Are these hallucinations or light reflections?
"You will depart in 2 standard hours!" The asthmatic humpback whale sneers out at nobody in particular. The voices must be particularly loud again. I get that. Right after yelling, he breaks out into a wave of hysterical coughing. Somebody get this guy some water. Can he even drink water in that costume?
My body starts moving on its own, following a trail of Commando Droids down the frigate's hall. Frigate? I pause internally, because I can’t really control my body. Or whatever ghost-like shell I am in.
Am I dead?
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that I am on my way to the Rishi Maze. I have a mission to infiltrate and take over the Rishi outpost. Yeah, definitely high. Or the voices. Maybe even both, because I genuinely am losing my sanity.
Is this something you tell your therapist about? Because she won’t be pleased at all.
Maybe I am stuck in a sleep paralysis. That Grievous lookalike is supposed to be the monster. I can live with that.
We turn left into what my sudden knowledge catalogues as a Droid charging station. Without further thinking, I just make my way into one of those stations and curl in on myself like an embryo in its mother's womb. I can see the displays telling me that my system's shutting down. My system? What system?
---
The next time I wake up, I have full control over my body. Or whatever's left of it, because I cannot feel a single thing I'm touching. Every movement feels more like a calculation than a physical reaction. As if each twitch was looked through and then approved.
By who? I don’t know, get creative.
My display starts reacting to my eyes. Each display moves out of sight, as if they knew when I want to look at them and when I don't. Creepy. This is some boss-level Science-Fiction, “Robots are taking over and we are all going to die!” type of thing.
Fun!
I curl myself out of that embryo state - I don’t even wanna know how I looked doing that - and wander around the frigate. A map opens in my head. A map that feels like it was built into my brain since the beginning. Which somehow sucks because I want to learn for myself.
B1-Droids march past me, saluting courtly before they resume their patrol. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm high, dead, or actually in a Droid's body on a Separatist's frigate. Because this suspiciously looks like Star Wars. I mean, why else would there be beige stickmen with triangle face everywhere I go? And they are even armed!
As I turn yet another corner, because apparently this is not enough of a maze already, I hear Droids talking. It is prohibited for Droids to talk during active hours, at least during authoritative presences. That’s mostly because Grievous gets annoyed at voices that are not his own. To be fair, he probably does have enough voices in his head.
So, that guy yelling and throwing a tantrum is the real Grievous? That is, if we lead on with option number three. Which kind of sounds the most fun one of them all. I bet dying can be fun too, although I have not met anyone who could report back.
My curiosity pulls me toward the waiting room the voices are coming from. With a quick click on a button, the heavy durasteel door opens and reveals a small room. Inside are a standinf Droideka and a B1-Droid. Both their heads snap towards me immediately - each at their own pace, considering a Droideka's movement restrictions. They might be incredibly strong but their reaction time really is a joke.
Did I just walk into a Droid affair? Why the fuck are they hiding in a waiting room like lovers from opposing families?
"Fuck." The Droideka swears under its breath and the B1-Droid, sticks a Droid Deactivator to my body. What an overly boring name for a device literally made to destroy AI. Now, I can’t even be proud of that creation because I’m a bot myself.
My system shuts off yet again. The second time since I woke up in this fever dream.
Rude.
—-
“We need to reactivate it.” “Are the cuffs secure?” “I don’t know, I don’t have arms to check, dumbass!” “Oh, right. Then hold the Droid Deactivator ready while I check the cuffs.” “Are you stupid?”
My system starts to reboot slowly. The orange displays flicker on again and all the information I gained before is back. There really is no cognitive state for a Droid. Either you function or you cannot use your brain at all. Or the chips, in their case. Not that I have one.
I blink at the two Droids before me, trying to get rid of those annoying displays. The B1-Droid crouches down in front of me. I don’t think I have ever seen a B1-Droid crouch before. It moves it’s hand before firth and back in front of my face, probably tracking my sensor movement.
”I see you.” I reply to that. I almost flinch at my own voice. Well, not my own voice because I sure as hell usually don’t sound like a chain smoker who discovered autotune. Not even my voice is right.
Is this the moment I give in to insanity and accept my fate?
Only now do I recognise the blinking red dot on my display. It keeps appearing and reappearing. Apparently, it marks my body’s restricted areas. My arms are cuffed, I cannot move them. My attention goes back to the two unusual droids. The engraved program in my head, screams at me to knock them out with my feet. But I’m not a mindless Droid and this is genuinely entertaining.
Besides, I don’t even know if I could do that. I’m not very sporty.
”What do we do with it?” The Droideka asks. The Droideka asks? Droidekas don’t have vocoders to speak, so why can this one? Is it a special unit that has not been added into my database? Weird. But again, this whole situation is weird. Grievous? Two Droids having an affair? Me being a Commando Droid?
I genuinely think school has started getting to me. My teacher’s incense must have had a too calming effect on me.
My visors lock onto the Droideka. “Let me go.” Again, I almost flinch at the voice. I keep forgetting how disgusting it sounds when it echoes inside my head. “This is a breach of protocol. You are malfunctioning.”
What am I even saying? I am the malfunctioning one here. Droid or not, I am genuinely losing it.
“We need to kill it.” The B1-Droid says to the Droideka. “Kill it? Droids can’t die.” It replies. “You know what I mean.” The B1-Droid sighs. “We have to deactivate it for good.”