Systems Nominal

Chapter 4 Rocket Man

After you finally blacked out during the procedure on your arm, you are dragged back to your bunker, where you were set back on your top shelf. The bunker itself was empty, besides a couple of small novellas made for a child much younger than you are, and the scrap pile of metal with the human face.
The bunker was originally made for eight people, thus the eight shelves, but you were the only inhabitant. The walls were made of concrete and were crudely painted over with a color that was fairly darker than the concrete itself. The floor was made with splintering wood and had dark spots scattered across them. Most of them were there when you arrived and others seemed to just appear unknown what caused them. The lavatory was simply a hole cut into the ground with thin sheets of paper as toilet paper.
The bunker was essentially a prison cell to keep you in and isolated.
The guards that dragged you in now began to lay out the scrap pieces of metal and wire into a formation. Other guards began to clean up the blood on the floor from when you stepped on the metal and was thrown to the ground by the steel door.
It turns out that the pile of metal, when put together properly, forms a somewhat human-like robot. Or an android if you would.
After the basic layout of the android was set up, the guards left, but soon returned with a man in a lab coat holding a briefcase. The man in the lab coat approached the android parts and settled down beside it. Opening up the briefcase, he then carefully put on a pair of synthetic black gloves. Within the briefcase was mostly medical supplies, spare gears, and wires. What was interesting was that underneath all of the supplies was a spherical orb of sorts.
The orb had a gentle golden glow to it.
Cautiously the man in the lab coat signals for the guards to leave. The guards do what they are told but not before double checking the surroundings.
When the barrier was shut once more, the man in the lab coat gingerly took the orb into his hands. When he lifted it, it seemed to float upwards like a bubble and he had to cradle the orb between his hands.
The android figure was still flattened out before him, and the man took one hand off the orb to fix the pieces where the chest would be.
Bad idea to let go.
The orb nearly rolled out of his hands only to be caught just before it hit the ground. The result was a hiss from the man in the lab coat, for he had caught the orb with one of his forearms. The orb had managed to burn away the white cloth of the lab coat and left a scalding mark on the mans forearm.
He grumbled loudly to himself while he readjusted his hands on the orb, continuing what he came here to do.
He placed the orb carefully over where the chest was.
The orb glowed blindingly bright as the metal objects and wires around it seemed to levitate off the ground and pull together the form of the android.
Then the light grew dimmer and held a gentle glow once more.
When the orb resettled again, the man quickly made haste to leave the room before the android, or you, woke up. He left the briefcase behind.

When you finally awoke you found yourself back in your bed in your bunker.
'What? How did I..?' You trailed off, wondering what happened.
Then it struck you, your arm...
You begrudgingly turned your head to the right to see your right arm completely normal.
You moved your arm slowly, bending your elbow and twisting your wrist before moving each finger individually. When you found that nothing was wrong you let out an audible sigh.
The sigh was followed by a couple of clicks and whirring noises from something other than you... Then you saw out of the corner of your eye movement.
You slowly turned over on your side and peaked over the edge of the bed.
What you saw astonished you. It was an android, walking about the room in a curious manner. The android came across your books on the floor and tilted its head.
The android was facing away from you, but you decided to take a chance and wait to see if it was a threat.
The droid picked up one of the books and began to curiously look at it. Turning it over in its cold metal hands. When it dropped the book, both you and the droid jumped.
The book fell open and the droid looked at it as if he had never seen a book before. It picked the book back up and gingerly began to turn the pages, one by one, taking in every ounce of info the book had to offer.
To be honest it was quite amusing seeing it learn. Especially with the book being about Winnie the Pooh.
Deciding that it was not a threatening being, you slowly lowered yourself off your bed and onto the floor. You winced in pain, the cuts on your feet still not healed up entirely. You whimpered slightly causing the droid to jump. The droid dropped the book, again, and turned quickly to look at the source of the noise, silence fell between you two.
Standing up straight you slowly began to walk to the left. Following your movement the droid walked to the left. You two began to circle each other slowly but surely making the circle smaller and smaller. All the while never looking away from each other's faces.
When you came face to face with the droid you noticed the face was the exact same one you found in the metal pile.
'Come to think of it', you thought as you spared a glance around the room, 'where has all that junk gone?'. You saw a mysterious briefcase on the floor and made a mental note to check it out latter.
When you turned back you were a bit taken aback at how close the droid was now. You took a step back, the droid seemed so confused and yet so curious.
You held up one hand, and he mirrored the movement, slowly you brought you hand closer to its hand. The gap between the droids and your hand were mere inches apart.
The droid finally backed off and straightened its back, but it still held up its hand as well as you. You did a once over on it and noticed the metal was old and rusty, and that it had a golden orb in its chest.
'Odd', you thought.
You leaned in closer this time and the droid followed the movement. You now came nose to robo nose with a droid.
You took care to lower your hand, knowing now that the droid will most likely follow the action. It did.
You didn't back away from the droid, not wanting to show any fear of it. You don't want it to get the wrong idea. So, you studied its face close up and it did the same for you.
You noticed the had no definitive irises but instead a gold light as pupils and black instead of where white would be on a human eye. The rest of its face was peculiar, it had high defined cheekbones and a mouth that looked almost soft... It's metal was brown and rustic ruining the droids beauty.
'Very odd...'
You straightened your back once more and finally broke the awkward silence.
"Hello", you said quietly yet friendly.
It only stared at you.
You cleared your throat before saying:
"My name is subject 652... What's yours?"
It didn't respond.
You have a quizzical look before asking "Can you understand me?"
Silence.
"Hmmm...", you thought, before making a motion of talking and pointing to you before pointing to it then back to you while saying:
"Do you know what I am saying?"
Oddly, you found it offending that you said it so slow as if the droid was stupid. You went to apologize but was cut off by the droid.
"Yes." It had a generic choppy human-like voice with a British accent.
"I understand.", it continued.
You smiled happily before asking for its name. It responded by shaking its head and saying:
"I do not know. But, I know that they call you a name other than subject 652."
You were dumbfounded.
'How did it know about my real name? I can only remember part of my own name.', you thought.
You were about to ask how it knew about yourself when the steel barrier opened and the mongrel ordered for the droid and you to follow with the briefcase.
"Where are we going?", you asked automatically.
"To the ship Celestial Compound 3.5", he said almost normally.
"We're going to space." Said the droid.