Stranded

Chapter 8

     "Blood pressure, normal. Brain waves, normal. Heartbeat, normal. No defections on outer shell, inside remains unclear. Ready for second inspection." Iarim reported, tapping a load of buttons on his screen. The electronic bed with the little boy laid on it moved on to inspection room two.

"Poor little thing, we should have checked the code at least 7 times before send off. We put it through too much. Didn't we 0426-861?" Asil smiled down at the returned project and prepared to scan the inside of the robot. He stroked the robot from the bottom of the collar to the belly button. The outer shell split apart and the interior was exposed.

"100-69, Perform external diagnostic on 0426-861. Full scan." Asil instructed, and a robotic arm swung in from the ceiling.

"Command accepted." 100-69 began the scan, and Asil turned his gaze to the monitor on his right. Tonnes of strings of code flew through the screen and he read the code as fast as he could and found the bug. 34.x78 had a fault.

"Scan complete" 100-69 disappeared through the hole in the ceiling. Asil began the report.

"Structure, normal. Condition, normal. Temperature normal. Code, faulted." At the word "faulted" the lights in the room went red. Asil sighed and said,

"Prepare for repair." The lights went orange and a massive keyboard appeared. First he removed the bug and destroyed the coding. He then recoded the gene from scratch and named it DBug-34.x78. He carefully inserted the code in place and refreshed the system. The code was accepted and joined up with the previous lines of code.

"Repair complete." He said, and the lights returned to normal.

"Ready for initial retesting." Asil said, and lay back in his chair. The bed moved onto testing room one, an empty room, with no windows on the white walls, a chair, a bed and a table. It was meant to closely resemble the last room the robot was in as much as possible. The robot was laid on the bed and the electronic bed disappeared through a flap in the wall that sealed after the bed was gone.

"Go." A voice said, and the switch in the robot was flicked. Everything in the laboratory went silent, and Matthew opened his eyes. He rose into a sitting position, and got out of the bed. He walked around the room, and tried to remember anything that happened to him. The only thing that came to him was

"Excuse me, excuse me, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Darren." He whispered, and fell into the chair. On the table appeared a piece of paper and a pencil. He drew Darren's face again, just as he had done the first time, but this time he added shading, to make it more realistic. He put the pencil down when he was finished and sighed.

"Evelyn what have you done?" Matthew asked the area around him, and her voice rose into the air.

"Initial test complete, ready for second function assessment, 3, 2, 1, go." But this time her voice sounded robotic. He jumped out of the chair and backed up against the wall, staring at the door, with the pencil in his hand again, ready to strike. The door slowly opened and Leinad walked in. Matthew screamed in fear. What was this monstrosity that had walked into the room? He slammed his back against the wall and warned the creature not to come any closer to him, only realising afterwards that the creature may not understand. The door closed behind the monster and it sat down on the chair.

"0426-861, Matthew." Leinad said, sitting down on the chair.

"Who are you?" Matthew asked, still shaking from fear. The pencil was still ready to impact the midnight blue skin of the moving object.

"I'm Leinad. Matthew, do you know why you are here?" Leinad started, calmly and peacefully so to not scare the robot.

"No, I'm not crazy!" Matthew said.

"You're right, you're not crazy. Do you want to know who you are, and what you were before the plane crash? I don't want to scare you Matthew. I will only tell you when you are ready." Leinad stood up and started to move closer to Matthew.

"No! Put me back! I don't like it here! Let me go!" Matthew threw the pencil at Leinad, but Leinad caught it. Leinad stopped walking.

"Very well. When you are ready to know the truth, you will return to us." Leinad closed his square eyes for a moment and spiked his ears up. Leinad turned around and started to walk for the door again. He turned and smiled before the door was closed.

"Prepare for re-entry." Evelyn's robotic voice filled the air and Matthew started to feel extremely dizzy. He couldn't remain standing so he stumbled to the bed and lay down on it. He passed out with sirens blaring in his head.

*-*

Matthew opened his eyes slowly to a beeping sound and a mask over his face. His whole body was aching and his head felt extremely heavy. He saw bright lights and a white ceiling. He tried to sit up but he was strapped to the bed. The beeping sped up as he panicked and a nurse rushed into the room.

"He's awake!" She called, and a male doctor sauntered into the room. He lowered his glasses and peered at Matthew as though he were a laboratory experiment.

"You've been on quite an adventure haven't you? From what we could tell the nightmares lasted a very long time. But it's alright; you're safe with us now." The doctor said. Matthew relaxed in the bed and struggled to speak. The nurse removed the mask from his face and Matthew cleared his throat before speaking.

"Where am I?" He asked.

"Farnham Hospital." The doctor replied.

"How did I get here?"

"A girl found you collapsed in a field and brought you to us."

"Hikari? Where is she?"

"Oh, she's waiting for you to get better. Would you like to see her?"

"Yes please." Matthew replied, and his heart started to beat faster and the nurse and doctor chuckled as the beeping rate increased as well. The nurse left the room and a few moments later Hikari walked in. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail and she was wearing shorts and a pink top.

"Hello trouble." She said as she approached his bed.

"What happened to you?" Matthew asked, meaning the marks on her face and the bruises on her arms.

"You're pretty strong you know." Hikari said, winking.

"I did that to you?" Matthew shrunk away from her and sunk into the bed. He was a violent monster.

"You were so delusional, muttering something about squares and someone called Evelyn. Who's Evelyn? Your girlfriend?" Hikari asked, her voice sounded slightly disheartened.

"No, I don't know anyone called Evelyn." He said, struggling to remember where he was before now.

"Oh, that's funny, because you seemed pretty damn certain that she was the cause of everything. Anyway, you're going to have to stay in the hospital for a while until you get better." Hikari said.

"Okay." He said.

"Don't worry, you'll get better." Hikari assured him.

"And you're beautiful." He said. Hikari blushed and put her hand on his face.

"You're the bravest I've ever seen." And she left the room.

n