Pain. The sharp sounds of it echoed off the metal walls of the cramped room; a single, soft rap on the wall, a click of a trigger. That was the sound pain made. Eta cowered in the corner, her arms wrapped around her head, trying to crush herself into the smallest space possible. A whimper threatened to escape her mouth, but she knew if she let it out punishment would follow. All noise was choked back; her body resorted to shaking violently. Voices grunted to each other just behind her.
Eta’s head hurt. She tried to fight through the fog in her mind for memories. They came slowly, but they came. This room she was in, this tiny little space, it was the only thing that was hers. She’d lived here her entire life, the only constant after a long time running and dodging and weaving through tests…all to escape the muted noises that meant pain. She fought to remember why her memory had been fogged this time, what she’d done for this. No answer presented itself. Bruises and cuts covered her arms, but her memory fiercely blocked out how they’d gotten there. She’d done nothing wrong. Then it was just another test.
Eventually the harsh voices from behind directed their words towards her. Eta scrambled to her feet, but not fast enough. The trigger clicked innocently, and silent agony washed through her side, crippling her body. It burned and stung until she fell to her knees again, then stopped as immediately as it had begun. One of the men barked at her, and Eta rose shakily as soon as her breath returned. Her blurred vision fell on the odd-shaped white gun in the hands of one of the uniformed men; the burner, the sting. The Switch. She shuddered and followed when beckoned, her lungs burning from her recent shock. What had she done wrong? Again, she couldn’t see what her punishment had been for. She needed to work harder, give them no reason to hurt her, a model trainee like the other girls.
Eta kept her head down and her hands behind her back as they passed down the hall, just like she was supposed to, but her eyes ignored her pleas, darting up regularly to glimpse the other polished, vaulted doors that appeared periodically. Eta couldn’t remember learning what the marks on the doors meant, but she knew what each said and mouthed what they stood for as she passed them; Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda. The girls that were doing so much better than her.
The men came to an abrupt halt in front of an unmarked door, one with only a lock instead of a vault handle. A rough hand pushed her between her shoulders, and Eta inhaled sharply as she hit the floor. She landed on her freshly injured side with a gasp, then jumped to her feet again, trying her best to pretend that she hadn’t stumbled, hadn’t shown further weakness. The door slammed behind her, an ear piercing sound that echoed strangely around the room.
Eta turned around. The chamber was much, much larger than her own. A test room. A small space in the middle of the floor opened up. Eta’s mind began whirring much too fast, calculating every movement of the mechanics. The small pedestal rose from the ground, no taller than her knees. She approached it carefully and slowly, ducking so close to the ground she was nearly crawling, half circling around it warily. The stand offered only a silver little pebble with a logo emblazoned on the top. Eta’s hand twitched at the sight; the same mark, burned into the flesh just below her neck, on her collarbone, began itching and festering.
A soft noise made Eta throw her head up so fast her neck popped; she stared intently at the wall as it slowly slid open, revealing a dark space behind it. From the black emerged a tall, stiff figure of metal, a little rusted around the edges, wearing a faded blue outfit that didn’t fit and odd blue shoes. Eta, still on her knees from examining the podium, staggered backwards a little. She knew exactly what was going on now. These were the kinds of tests she got punished for. She couldn’t kill. What the other girls did so effortlessly to actual living, breathing people, happily rewarded for their efforts, she couldn’t even inflict upon the clunky robots they offered.
Eta’s lip quivered. She’d told herself she’d do better this time, but now she didn’t know if she could. The robot began taking lumbering steps towards the silver pebble and Eta backed farther away from the item she was supposed to protect with her life. Maybe she could just let it take the rock and return to its hole in the wall, and everyone would be happy. No. No one was happy here. Eta’s mark below her neck burned more and more unbearably as the metal man grew closer to the stone. Images flashed through her mind of past successes and how she’d been rewarded; the impossible courses they set her through, the countless near deaths, and the ultimate trophies upon completion. Once she’d even gotten one of the kinder guards’ apples from his lunch. They’d been trying to get her to fight like the other girls for years, what food would they offer her this time? Her mouth would have watered at the promise of food if it hadn’t been so dry from her current situation.
Eta’s hands clawed at the mark burning her flesh. Anger bubbled up inside her. She tried so hard not to be angry in this place, but now the frustration was too much. It felt like someone had hit a button, something inside her had clicked and all her fear was swallowed up in her blind rage. She rose to her feet, shaking very differently from the way she shook when the men broke into her room and pulled the Switch on her so often. Now she was trembling towards them instead of away.
The robot reached a disfigured hand out towards the stone, and the mark above her chest exploded. Everything began to blur. Eta vaguely felt like she was screaming, and suddenly she was on top of the metal man, ripping at every loose piece of scrap she could find, making sure his cold hands were never laid on the precious stone. She pulled and pried until her fingers bled from the sharp edges, and abruptly found herself standing in a pile of twisted metal and shredded cloth that she was very sure was not there before. Eta panted hard, looking around in confusion. Where had the robot gone? He’d left behind his awful blue shoes. And possibly his feet, too. Oh. Oh, no.
Eta stumbled away blindly before crouching down and hugging her legs tightly, her breath quivering. Her eyes stung with tears, and her hands prickled like they’d been bit a thousand times by something small. Her throat burned behind her mark, and her head began to hurt. She felt none of it; she was too empty. Had she just done that? She had, without even realizing it. She thought she’d be proud to be like the other girls, but she’d never known they did what they did by losing themselves. It wasn’t even voluntary; she’d had no control. They’d finally gotten those things they put in her head to click and now she was just like all the other girls, just another thing, another robot that could be controlled with buttons and dials. Eta buried her head into her arms and cried. Rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, she knew whatever food she might have earned had just turned into more punishment, and she cried harder.
