Codex

Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the long wait to update! Been a busy week and Spring Break hasn't been a break either! ^^"

It's so strange being sedated. At first, it's not so bad. You're not in control anymore, you can relax. It's like sleeping, but you're awake. Then, as the sedative wears off, you become more aware of things. You begin to regain control. 

Which is what happened to me as soon as I could move.

I awake to four faces staring back at me. Three smile, one doesn't. I spring up from whatever I was laying on and get in a defensive position. Whoever these people were, they took me away from my cell. My life.

Well, if you called it living.

"Woah, we got a feisty one here, Click!" One of the males said.

A very young female sat on a chair, holding her knees and smiling. "Wow! That was some fast reflexes!"

"Guys." The other female held her arm to block the two excited ones. She sighed. "Let me handle this."

The elder female walked slowly towards me. I put my fists near my face, too scared to say anything. She held her hands up in a surrendering position. "It's okay, ALX."

My readiness to fight faltered. Why did she call me ALX? I raised a brow.

She smiled comfortingly. "Yeah, I know who you are. You're what they called Project: ALX." She stood straight when she figured I wasn't going to cause harm. "Don't worry, we're all like you. If not a little different."

I squinted. What did they mean by that?

She pointed to herself. "I am Project: MCH." She shrugged. "Everyone here calls me Mecha." She stepped closer. I watched her intensely. "You'll be feeling like that for a while, but I'm sure we'll grow on you."

I studied Mecha. She had silver-grey hair and pale - almost a lavender color - skin. One eye was a shiny grey, the other hazel. Several wires connected her face to her earlobes. Her left hand was robotic, while her right hand wasn't. Her torso and half of her legs were mechanic. She reminded me of the androids that helped my guardians.

"Yeah, by the way," One of the boys chimed in. "Mecha over here is the first successful human cyborg." 

My eye widened. Cyborg? What was that?

I felt Mecha knew what I was thinking. Either that, or my expression told all. She shook her head, sighed, and said, "I'm a human who has mechanical parts attached. Don't worry if you haven't heard of things like that. I figured they wouldn't have taught you that."

I desperately wanted to defend myself by talking, but my mouth couldn't form words. Had all those years of silence made me mute? I squinted again.

Mecha turned and pointed to a boy with messy brown hair only on the top of his head. "That boy with the long mohawk? He's Project: JTR. We call him Jitter."

"You know, I prefer Jay. You could mention that!" Jitter crossed his arms. "What's so great about me, you might be wondering? Here, I'll show you." He lifted his "mohawk" away from his forehead. I noticed that there was a long scar circling his head. "That was what they did to me. Unlike Mecha, I have the first robotic brain, complete with A.I. and Kokoro. Human emotions." A corner of his mouth twitched. "Kinda sucks if my head is itchy though."

The younger female laughed. "Yeah, he thinks he might open up his scar!"

Mecha smiled comfortingly. Even though I didn't want to, I felt safe with her around. She extended a hand to the younger female. "She's the youngest of us. She is Project: LOA, but we call her-"

"I can say this part!" Project: LOA interrupted. "Those science guys called me LOA, but my name is Loan! You wanna know the cool thing about me?" Her dark skin seemed to brighten when she smiled. "I'm part fish!"

My brow shot up. That scared me. I remember eating fish before. Mecha rolled her eyes and patted Loan on the shoulder. "What she means is that she was mutated with a fish. She can breathe underwater."

"Uh huh!" Her dark red eyes even looked like they were smiling. "But I can still breathe in the air, if only a few hours at a time." She frowned.

A familiar voice projected from the back of the room. "So, we've introduced everyone, let's get down to-"

"Not so fast." Mecha interrupted the voice. "Don't leave yourself out. That's just plain rude."

"Fine." I recognize the voice as the leader of the fake guardians. He turned around in his seat, not even bothering to smile. He had long, shocking blue hair that fell past his waist. His eyes were pale grey. "They called me CLK. Everyone here calls me Click. I'm a human camera." He turned to Mecha. "That enough for you?" He swiveled back to whatever he was doing on the table.

Mecha signed, relaxing her shoulders. "Please don't mind Click, he's not a people person. Especially since he can record them."

I raised my brow, unsure what to do. Nothing they said made any sense to me. What did they mean by people? What were humans? I had so many questions, but I still couldn't speak.

Loan hopped in front of me. "So, how about you? What are you to them?"

Jitter rolled his eyes. "Loan, you know ALX wouldn't know that. We had to learn everything from Doc."

I tilted my head. I figured all these years of not speaking took its toll. I couldn't speak no matter how much I wanted to. Mecha walked toward me and put a hand on my shoulder. I flinched. She may seem safe, but I was still on guard.

"I know this is all confusing to you, but don't worry. Maybe after a shower, we can better acquaint with you."

Shower? Where? I wasn't in my cell. Loan hopped up and down, raising her hand. "Oh! Let me do it! I need water anyway!!"

Mecha chuckled. "While that's very kind of you, I think ALX knows how to take care of themselves." She walked away from the room to a grey hallway, extending her arm out. "Come with me, I'll show you where everything is."

Of anyone in the room, I trusted Mecha. I eyed the others as I followed her down the hallway to an opaque glass door on the left end. She held her hand against a black screen. The screen scanned her hand, the imprint glowing red. It took a second, but the door slid open.

"Don't let the scanner bug you. They're everywhere for people's privacy." 

"People's"? Were there more here than those four? I quickly darted my eye left and right before following Mecha into the room.

The room was tiled with pale blue and white tile about the size of my hand. There was a sink, a toilet, various closets and shelves, and a huge, floor-to-ceiling shower. Besides the occasional pale blue tile here and there, everything else was white. It was pretty blinding.

Mecha opened a closet and grabbed a couple of bottles, placing them on a small shelf by the shower head. She wet to a shelf and took a large white, fuzzy, blanket-like fabric, along with a white rag and placed them on the toilet lid. She turned to me and smiled. 

"I'm pretty sure you know how things work in the bathroom. Go ahead and take as long as you need in here. When you're done, just come back out into the hallway. We'll have everything explained from there." She turned and left me to my own devices.

I looked around the room. There was no windows, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't just walk out of there. I sighed. Looked like I wouldn't be able to escape so easily. After five minutes of moping around, I decided I should just take a shower. After undressing, I turned the faucet on, letting the warm water fall on my back.

So many questions... So many questions...