MACHINE

9. All Animals are Equal, but Some Animals are More Equal than Others

I felt a strong electric pulse jolt through my body, and my eyes shot open. My stolen, tattered clothing was no longer on and I wore nothing but my metal skin. I was in what looked like an abandoned warehouse, a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling illuminating the ground in a circle around me. I was tied to a chair with rough rope, and I could dimly see faces staring at me from the shadows.

Three faces stepped into the circle of light. A young woman with freckles and auburn hair, what looked like her twin brother, and an older man about fifty with an arm made entirely of metal. The young woman stared me down and slid a gun out of a holster on her thigh, poising it directly at my forehead. "Why were Shadows after you?" She asked in an assertive tone.

I hesitated, taken by surprise by her sudden questioning.

"Talk or I shoot." She said.

I guessed she wouldn't actually shoot me, otherwise why would they bring me here? Why not kill me in the alley? But I decided to tell the truth anyway. Part of it, at least."I escaped." I said. "I was their project."

"A new AI robot." She muttered to her brother.

"Not quite." I interjected. "I don't think they could figure it out, Botulinum tech, they didn't make any AI Bots."

"Then what the hell are you?" Asked the woman. "You're clearly sentient, unlike the rest of em'."

I shook my head. "My name is Jeremy Echinanea, I grew up in Alter. I'm not a Bot."

"Human to Bot consciousness transference." Mused the older man. "I've heard it was possible, but I've never seen it done."

I nodded grimly. "Botulinum's trying to pass us off as AI Bots. Lucas and I ran off a couple weeks after being sold and hitched a train here."

"Lucas?" Asked the woman.

I grew silent suddenly. After getting knocked unconscious and being extremely disoriented in awakening, I almost forgot that I left him behind, that he wasn't here with me. "Uh-" I started, the fresh pain of my memories stunning me for a moment. "He um... He didn't make it. But he's out there, I just need to find him."

"He could just be saying what he was programmed to say, and the whole 'running from Shadows' thing could've been staged." Said the twin brother calmly, cocking his head to the left slightly and regarding me with curious hazel eyes. "How can you prove to us that you're not just another regular Bot, acting off of their code alone with no sentience or intelligence?"

I thought for a moment. "I can't." I concluded. "I could tell you my whole life story, that Tera is evil and everyone in it is, I could tell you how my daughter was killed in a Cull and I could tell you how Deathmongers nearly beat my partner to death. I could describe to you in detail how we were kidnapped and how we woke up in bodies that weren't our own, I could describe what it feels like to be in a body made of metal and screws, I could tell you who I was sold to and the name of the scientist that trapped us. What would that prove? Nothing. It could all just be a script written for a mindless Bot."

The young man remained silent but his sister did not. "This." She said temperamentally. "This is exactly why we shouldn't have even brought him here. He could be telling the truth, but much more likely it's all staged and he's here to kill us!"

"Oh come on." Said the middle aged man. "This is ridiculous, stop trying to kill the guy!"

"Every second he's here we're in danger! As soon as he figures out where we are he'll send some message to the Shadows with his mind and they'll come in here and murder all of us!" Insisted the girl twin.

The older man sighed, shaking his head. "There's no way to know for sure, but I think he's telling the truth. He sounds much too sincere to be government."