Lost Soul

Umbilicus

"What's a.. 'Belly button'?" I asked as I tilted my head much like a confused puppy. The old droids jaw dropped. " You've gotta be joking , right?" He sighed as he turned away. I began to notice a flickering of blue lights beginning to shine brighter and brighter as I peered over his shoulder then in an instant his eyes glazed with complete luminosity as turned back in my general direction projecting an image of the human body. " You woulda went blind if you stared at me while trying to get this function to start up. But this is a hologram of the human anatomy-" He said in awe as it rotated. " and THIS-" he exclaimed with emphasis. "This , right in the center of the abdomen, is the umbilicus. Colloquially known as the belly button. Its the scar at the attachment site of the umbilical cord after the detachment from a mother and its child." For someone who has been locked in here his entire life , he sure had lots of information behind those optical orbs. And some pretty cool tricks. " hmm.. So the fact that I don't have one means what?"
"That's the big mystery now isn't it? You're quite the defective specimen to say the least." He chuckled."there was a rumor that somewhere in this so called corporation, they have been working on genetics. But that was something I heard centuries ago. There's no way you could be apart of that." I pondered the thought but decidee there must be more to learn. "so what else can you show me?" I had to find out more. " well these optics are obviously not just for looks." He puased to look at me with a smirk as if there was some hilarious double meaning to the sentence he just uttered. I stared back at him, eager for him to continue. " Ah.. No sense of humor..moving right a long then." The hologram faded and light dimmed as he rolled his eyes. " An Androids optics contain all the information the android has ever witnessed. Like memories. Think of them as archives. And can act as projectors. I guess it was a way for the creators could send an android somewhere and acquire information to relay back with any casualties." He explained how it all worked with technical terminology that caused me to space out, I had more important things on my mind. Like what did he mean by casualties? "And the plasma! Don't even get me start on what that's made of." He dragged on. "Ok I won't. You said something about casualties?" He definitely liked to talk a lot, I assume its because he hasn't had anyone to really converse with so I took my opportunity.

"Right , see humans started building Androids a thousand years ago with the technological advancement support of an alien race, The Anoras, in exchange for astronomical planetary resources. Humans , being creatures of impulsive behavior and corrupted by power, felt that after they had this potential for great things, they should be the only ones with this power and programmed their developments for war. Thus began the new dark ages. And since earth had been drained of a lot of its "valuable" resources they decided to take the battles around our solar system. And the fight for territories erupted." He stopped realizing I had no idea of what a solar system was so he explained in mass detail. He caught me up on the history of the recent universe. I was so intrigued that our conversations began to last for countless hours complete with full detail hollograms. many times he asked if I was tired and wondered why I didn't need sleep but when I asked "what is sleep?" He replied " ya know what kid , if you don't know what it is , I'm not going to ruin your life with it." We were starting to bond. My eyes became more accustomed to the darknes. When I noticed letters stamped on his shoulder hinge that read "S.H.A.D.E" I read out loud. " what does that mean?" I asked. "Oh yeah that.." He said as he twisted his neck to look at the branding." 'Project shade' they called us. The first Synthetic Humanoids Assembled to Destroy Earth. We were to infiltrate the human race without them being any the wiser. They had no idea what hit them." He proclaimed menacingly. "I kinda like it, you don't mind if I call you that from now on do ya? I mean I'm getting tired of not having a name for you." I asked, oblivious to the dynamic impact of his statment" how do you think I feel kid?" Shade remarked with a smile. "You said that your optical orbs can project your memories right? There has to be footage of when I was tossed in here. "
" that's a good point kid. Let's take a lo-.." The sound of a door slammed open. Followed by..
"No..no wait..No..Not m-me.. Not- AAAAaaahhh!! Uugh grgrgr......" A blood curdling scream of agony shook the corridor outside of the room followed by multiple footsteps and a dragging sound as you could hear the door close again.

"Is it that time already?"
"Wha-what time shade?"
" remember how I said 'they've given me quite the beating over the years'?"
Shade asked as if that happed months ago. "Of course."
"Welp it sounds like its about that time." Shade said reluctantly.
The steps were getting louder, a clear indicator they were headed towards our chamber.
"We'll see about that" I whispered as I cracked my knuckles .
"Don't even think about it kid , you don't know what you're getting yourself into. I respected your guts but don't risk it for my sake , I've been turtured relentlessly for years.Besides you're injured , what could an injured human do that an android built for war couldn't?" Shade was being sincere. But I won't let his condescending robotic judgementalism cloud my mind with doubt. "I may have forgotten everything about this world , my life , this reality... But there are things a Soul will never lose.." I declared with a furious undertone in my voice .
Shade tilted his head down and lowered his eyes. Then asked with a cocky proud sense of approval "heh, and what's that kid ?"
I slanted my head back in his direction and glanced at him with my pupil in the corner of my eye as I gave him the one sided smile. " The will to fight for what's right."
Suddenly the footsteps stopped.