The white van drove from the crime scene through the neighbourhood with not an ounce of traffic in sight. Continuing on its journey, the van encountered more cars on the road – they were approaching a city. Just like most cities, the traffic roared to a halt and the van stuck out like a sore thumb among the other dark coloured vehicles in the dreary locale. The traffic light turned green and so the cars slowly moved forward. The van proceeded on its long journey, reaching the countryside, where seemingly unyielding corn and wheat crops decorated the lonesome path. It was just the crops and the white van now. Some time having gone by, the van made it past the grasps of the crops and farmlands. So the crops do have an end; meeting fresh cut and open grassland. One hour turned to two and then some, with the only difference in scenery being the clouds that make up the sky and the grass turning from a bright green to dark murky green from a rainstorm that once subsided.
Suddenly, the van veered off the road and onto the muddy grasslands – shaking as it travelled across the uneven terrain. Soon it travelled on a downward slope, slowing down and finally coming to a halt. It has reached its destination.
In front of the van was a wide garage door jutting from a side of a hill masking its identity; a secret underground tunnel. There is a tiny round security camera attached to the hill on the top left side of the garage door. It zoomed and focused on the van. The robot with a scratch on its face, sitting on the driving seat, picked up a black receiver, pushed down a button on the speaker system, and grunted into the mic. Within a few seconds, a large buzz was heard and the garage door opened. The van drove into the underground tunnel as the garage door closed.
The tunnel connects to a large observatory looming over the land in the background. The imposing dome rests on an impressive labyrinthian network of underground rooms and chambers – a place where secret experiments are conducted away from the public – oblivious to the machinations that may reside there.
The robots get out of the vehicle and carry out both unmoving bodies. Making their way through the maze and hallways filled with pipes, blinking lights, and steam bursting out sporadically from other wiring and machinery in the rooms and hallways, the robots reached a door with a thick metal handle on it. Cool mist leaked out from the gaps of the door. One of the robots grabbed a hold of the handle and turned it ninety degrees clockwise, hearing a clicking sound, and then pulling the door open with its body.
The room was a freezer with a big timer on the top of the wall that read "13:31." The room contained many black bags. It seems Joshua and Creed were not the only victims to these robots. The robots placed Joshua and Creed, both still in their respective black bags, on top of the other resting bags, sealing the door shut.
On the other side of the room was an opening covered with plastic translucent strips. A robot, different from the party that assaulted Joshua, entered the room with an empty luggage cart. The robot, grunting and mumbling to itself, had a sticker barcode machine. It went around the room and stuck stickers onto each bag. The stickers were colour-coated as well to indicate small sized animals to humans. However, one sticker was special – it was very large in size compared to others and was bright red and was stuck onto Joshua's bag. Creed's bag, lying right next to Joshua's bag, had a green sticker on it like the rest of the smaller bags. The robot, looking around the room, using its eyes as a barcode scanner found the bag it was looking for and placed it on the cart. It pulled the cart out of the room through the plastic strips, returning in a few minutes for another body.
The clock now reads "14:50." The robot pushed the empty cart back into the more vacant freezer room. Scanning the room, the robot stops turning its head and fixates on the giant red sticker on Joshua's bag. The robot picked up his bag and transferred it over to the cart. The machine doesn't leave yet, and looks at the green sticker on Creed's bag. The humanoid speedily lifted up Creed's bag and placed it on top of Joshua's bag. It exited the room pulling the cart out and into a hallway.
The robot visited a new room that had a missing wall; it had an opening, a ledge. If someone were to fall off the ledge, they surely would not be alive to tell the tale. The bottom was so far from the ledge and the light was poor a person overlooking the ledge would be incapable of seeing the floor below. Extending into the room were five cables each having a giant hook hanging from them. It looked at the red sticker, opened a cupboard and took out a red bag. The bag appears to be made of a strong and durable material and it has a circular extension on the top. It opened the metal tack buttons on the bottom of the red bag, placing it on top of Joshua's bag until it covered the entirety of the black bag, then closing the tack buttons on the bottom. Upon closing the buttons, a loud clunk sound was made – the bags were secure.
The robot did the same for Creed's bag except it was smaller in size and the colour of the bag was green. It then took Joshua's and Creed's bag and hooked them up to adjacent cables – making sure that the hooks properly fit through the circular holes on top of each bag. Walking over to the left side of the room were five large round buttons, each corresponding to a cable. It pressed buttons one and two, a loud screeching mechanical sound ushered into the room and both of the bags were carried away by the hooks revealing they were part of an overhead conveyor system.
The red and green bag carried together side by side as far as the cables ran parallel to each other. On the bag's journey to their unknown destination, other regular black bags accompanied them travelling along on the other three cable lines. However, since they were not secure with the colour bags, the black bags tore from the weight of the contents inside and fell into the massive abyss down below one by one. All that was left were Joshua and Creed's bag slowly making their journey together. This did not last long; the belt carrying Creed's bag curved off to the right while Joshua's lay straight. They are separated now.
Joshua finds himself standing in front of his house in the dark. Was it night? His surroundings were marked in a black and purple colour. Joshua wandered around his neighbourhood, looking for signs of life. Even the trees had no leaves on it and were lifeless. The leaves, decaying on the ground with no colour.
"Hello? Creed? Anyone?" Joshua nervously asked, spinning around looking at the empty houses. No response. He was in Flora Drive, his neighbourhood.
Joshua, gathering the courage to talk, loses his train of the thought once he sees the gigantic monolithic structure before him. A wall towering so high into the sky, it was an unbelievable sight. Such a structure to be built, despite its simple design, was beyond mankind's might.
Joshua turned around to look at the end of Flora Drive to see a dead city. No sights nor lights, and no sounds, nothing – truly strange. He decided to head to the wall, he's got nothing better to do and maybe that's where his answers lie.
Walking straight in the middle of the road to the wall, Joshua found himself getting tired and fatigued. The weight of his breath increased.
Advancing towards a steep rising hillside, Joshua muttered to himself weakly, "Just… got to get… to the… wall." The effects of the fatigue growing stronger, he starts to limp using his right leg with his left leg having given up completely – even bending backwards. As the walk continued reaching halfway, Joshua closed his left eye. "Just gonna … rest my eyes a bit…" His vision went blurry for a few seconds and then returned back to normal. This fatigue not only affected his body but his mind as well; becoming foggier and foggier.
Just when he was about to collapse on the ground he saw a figure from afar. Like that of a mirage, he saw a lady in a glowing red-pink dress standing on top of a hill, the front of her body facing the wall. Her hair was curly and voluptuous. It was flowing in the air but there was no breeze. Her back is faced to Joshua. She turned her head back a little in such a way to not reveal her full face, but to Joshua it was enough.
Joshua's face lit up in shock, his body regaining strength and energy. "W-wait! Your-" Joshua exclaimed, but the lady disappeared under the hill. He quickly runs up the hill with every ounce of strength left in his body. Reaching the top, he scoured the terra and found her calmly walking to the wall.
"Wait!" exclaimed Joshua again. He tried to run down the hill, but he lost his footing and tumbled down sideways to the bottom. He got up, his fatigue coming back to him. He looked up to see the lady in a glowing pink dress gracefully strut to the wall.
Joshua got up and hobbled to the lady and extended out his hand to try to reach her. "Staph! Plea-!" he shouted as his speech slurred. The wounds on Joshua's body began to reemerge one by one on his body as if his body started to remember the injuries it received in its fight with the robots.
Joshua pushed onwards but he was limping on his functional foot while he dragged his other leg that bent backwards. He only had vision out of one eye as the other began to pour blood. The bone in his right arm was completely shattered and it lay limp at his side. His vision blurred and his consciousness began to fog; the injuries to his head from the robots making themselves known to him in his dream. Despite all these obstacles he was catching up to the lady in pink. Just as he was about to touch her shoulder, she disappeared into thin air, leaving the wall directly in front of him.
He extended his hand about to touch the wall. "I'm sorry" pleaded a slurring Joshua and that's when he opened his eyes.
Joshua woke up in a tub. Sitting in the tub, Joshua looked around frantically to make sense of his surroundings. He was in a large open space that in most cases could have served as part of a factory or storage facility. There were no windows or any natural lighting in the room. The floors were bolted with sheets of metal and behind him was a control unit consisting of a large monitor, computer and many buzzing lights, buttons and keyboards. The control unit was cylindrical in structure.
Joshua, remembering the events that got him in the situation, he yelled "Creed!" As he tries to get up he notices that his body does not feel the same. He looked down and saw that his right arm was not the same anymore and was replaced with a robotic prosthetic arm. Joshua, stunned, glanced at his feet and noticed his feet were missing, and instead had two metallic shoes. The shoes had some holes in the counters, heels, and soles.
Joshua, still tired from the fight and the dream he had, used his arms to pull himself out of the tub. His left eye glowed an eerie blue. Opening and closing his left hand and placing it on his face, Joshua whispered to himself in disbelief, "I'm alive?"
His feet made a clank sound on the floor as it echoed and reverberated through the room. He wobbled around trying to get used to his new metallic feet.
"Welcome Joshua!" blurted out the giant monitor behind him.
Joshua turned around to face the monitor. On the screen was a man, the one and only Dr. Muktar. Dr. Muktar had an unsettling look to him – he had a freakish wide smile on his face, which showcased his big pearly white teeth almost covering the bottom half of his face, and he had white eyes lacking an iris and pupil. Upon closer inspection, the man did in fact have a regular eye, the pupil and iris were hiding underneath the upper eyelids, giving the illusion of having perfectly blank eyes.
"You're Dr. Muktar," said Joshua.
"Please. Call me what my peers call me, Agent. Pleasure to meet you, Rage. Now that we are acquainted, we're friends, right?" said Agent, almost in a mocking tone. A tone of voice that did not escape Joshua's attention. "Do you like the tub? It is a little cheap but I think it suits you."
"What is this place? What do you want from me?" Joshua questioned, looking up at the enormous head on the screen.
"What is this place? This place is one of Agency Robotics's headquarters, located on the very outskirts of Broward. What do I want from you? Well, you, of course!" said Agent, in a steadily more mocking tone.
"That doesn't answer my question," asserted Joshua, leisurely pacing around the cylindrical control unit. There were three monitors spread out around the unit, of which Agent's face switched to face Joshua directly as he walked around.
"Oh but it does. You are the finest specimen I have ever collected."
"So you were behind the attack. You sent those robots to attack us! What did you do to Creed!"
"Creed? Oh, you mean that grey pitbull of yours? Yeah he didn't make it."
"What!"
"Woah, calm down Joshua. Relax, you don't want to overexert yourself after all the surgeries you've done. Honestly, you should be thanking me. I equipped you with the best biomedical devices on the planet for you."
This part was true. Joshua did feel stronger and more powerful than ever as his body started to warm from his deep rest he was once in. Regardless, Joshua tried to sneakily look for an exit, taking peeks and side-eyes around the room, asking questions in hopes of distracting Agent, "Why me though? Why did you pick me out of everybody else?" asked Joshua.
"Because you are a loser," answered Agent. Joshua, forgetting about his escape plan, stared directly at Agent.
"Say that again," threatened Joshua.
"Well, it's just the kind of people, aside from animals and pets, I pick to conduct my experiments on. It's just so hard to follow modern ethical standards and make biomedical breakthroughs for humans. That's why I usually scoop up losers. You know, homeless people – people who if they disappeared, no one would notice and you my friend fit the bill perfectly. You are unemployed, and barely have a social life or any connections," explained Agent. "No one will wonder where you have been 'cause no one knows you and if no one knows you that means no one cares about you" he declared sinisterly.
"That's not true…" Joshua said in denial, remembering Angel, as he held his head down reminiscing.
"The cashier boy has been taken care of," snapped Agent. "Besides, the boy was a junkie anyways. Can you guess what kind of drugs I found in his system?" resumed Agent with a cheerful expression.
Joshua looked up at Agent in bewilderment.
"Psychedelics," answered Agent with a smile on his face. "A person like him holds no value to society. Idiot probably thought he was going to find his true self or some hippie nonsense."
"No, he would never do that!" retaliated Rage as he clenched his fists.
"If you say so," replied Agent in a derisive tone with his head cocked to the side and shrugged, the condensation on full display on the giant monitor.
A look of shock and horror fell upon Joshua's face followed by pure anger, his left blue eye glowing brighter. He had enough of this conversation and turned around headed straight towards the exit – abandoning subtlety, he ran to the only door accessible on the bottom floor.
"Huh? Trying to escape?" questioned Agent in a degrading voice.
"Not escape. To find you and bash your skull in when I get out," Joshua said with a calm but serious tone.
"Too bad the door is locked and fortified with steel. You're going nowhere. But since you're in the mood, let's test your new biomechanical prosthetics, shall we?"
A clank sound was alarmed in the room. Two doors high up on the second floor opened from the other side of the room connected by some black stairs. The stairs descended all the way down to the ground floor where Joshua was at. Out poured dozens and dozens of robots.
"Mind you, I removed their physical restraints. In here, away from the public, each robot has the physical ability to level a building with a few strikes – an army of them, and you can take over a city," Agent said with a serious tone, no longer smiling, devoid of any sarcasm or mockery.
He's serious. The past encounter with the robots and the pain from the beating he received reverberated in his mind. He made up his mind – now was the time to escape instead of fight. Looking all around frantically for another exit as he heard the metal clanking of the robots just behind him. There was no other escape.
Joshua panicked and he began to punch the steel door with his right hand. Sweat started to form on his face and he took fastback glances to see how far the robots were. The robots are closing in on him. In desperation, Joshua winded up his right arm for a big punch. His metal arm began to glow blue, the light moving from his shoulders to his right hand, in a split second.
A burst of energy erupted from his fist, the punch cratering the steel door like a meteor striking the moon – completely destroying the door. Before Joshua could process the miraculous situation, the thumping of the robot's feet on the metal floor got closer and closer. He had no time to sit around and think, he dashed out of the room.
"Impossible! You shouldn't be that strong now," screamed Agent, the look of ecstasy washed away leaving only anger. "Get him!"
Joshua continued running down the hallway, the emergency lights activated giving it a red colour, he made sure to take peaks in the mirrors of the room doors to see if there was another route he could take to lose the robots. Unluckily for him, all of the doors to the right and left of him led to regular rooms – most of which were filled with miscellaneous items and other inventory.
Joshua kept running straight down the hallway until he reached the end. He had a decision to make: right or left, the robots still running behind him, he chose left arbitrarily. Running down the hall at a faster pace, the sound of his metal feet clanking on the floor almost being indistinguishable from the robot's feet in hot pursuit, he noticed that down the hall some doors extended from the right and left side of the walls closing his access to the hallways sealing him in – Agent was trying to trap him. In response, Joshua further accelerated his pace and using his metal arm he smashed through the closing doors one by one.
More doors popped up from the sides of the hallway: top, bottom, left, right – all trying to entrap Joshua; however he kept punching his way through with his metal arm leaving bent and destroyed metal littered throughout his path.
Joshua was making some ground from the robots, up till he felt a heavy weight from his right side. He looked and saw that his right arm was completely limp – lacking the blue glow that it once had. The metal arm has run out of energy.
Joshua was a relatively strong man with a muscular build, but even he had a hard time lifting up his right arm, probably weighing around fifty pounds or more – affecting his stamina and speed. His pace significantly slowed down as the sound from the mechanical crowd behind him became louder and louder. If this persisted any longer, Joshua would inevitably be caught, and much worse.
Joshua spots what looked like a garage door, sealing off a workshop, descending down. His options are to take a left and continue running down the hall or slide underneath the door into the workshop. He chose the latter, sprinting – or more accurately, shuffling with the dead weight at his side as fast as he could – he slid under the door, barely making it in. The robots unaware of the man's manoeuvre carried on running down the hallway to the left.
Panting and wheezing, the man lay on his back trying to regain some energy. Slowly he got up with great difficulty due to his dead arm pulling him down, he inspected the room. In front of him was a giant monitor and grid of switches and buttons on the bottom counter. To his side were a bunch of scraps and metal limbs messily spread about on the tables, desks, and even floor. He looked at a whiteboard with a bunch of mathematics and a wormhole diagram on the side; none of this made sense to him.
Out of nowhere, a giant monitor turned on followed by a smooth sound akin to what someone would hear when turning on a computer or smartphone. Similarly to the LCD screens of the robots, a line filled the centre of the screen – this time having more airy and lighter colours to it and without jagged lines meant to be a mouth was a circular cloud like shape.
The speakers boomed, "Hello Rage. I am chatbot #1910142 ver.1.05. It is a delight to meet you."
"Hey, wh- wait a minute, why did you call me 'Rage'? Agent called me that too," questioned Joshua.
"According to our database, that is your designated code name, sir," answered the chatbot.
"Oh. What are you anyway?"
"I am chatbot #191–"
"No, I mean what are you? You some kind of AI?"
"Yes. I am an artificial intelligence. To be specific, I am a natural language processing based model that uses both unsupervised and reinforcement learning. Moreover, I have been trained on zettabytes of data using Agency Robotics's finest and most powerful supercomputers! The other robots of this facility have their own rudimentary AI that is used to communicate with each other and perform menial labour and hospitality duties…"
Joshua's face slowly became more annoyed with the chatbot's bragging and information dump. He was beginning to lose focus and tune out the chatbot until a loud thud came from the other side of the room, waking him up. Something big was coming.
"Don't tell anyone that I'm here," ordered Joshua.
"But–"
A large robot, twice the height of Joshua, entered the room. The robot, its body silver and white, glowed with blue energy radiating from its giant singular eye hidden in its helmet, entered the room. It held an axe in hand, inspecting the room. The robot had a knightly appearance as it strided across the room.
Joshua hid behind some metal scraps and a disassembled robot, only its upper torso, head, and arms remaining.
"Did you see subject: Rage, pass by here?" ordered the giant robot. Its voice is much deeper than the chatbot and other robots previously encountered.
The chatbot paused for a moment. "No sir, I did not."
"Very well then," the giant robotic knight said, swinging its axe over its right shoulder leaving the room from where it once came from.
Joshua peered out from behind the robot torso and scraps, looking out to where the robo-knight left making sure it was gone. He walked over to the large monitor and resumed his conversation, keeping his voice down in case the robo-knight or other mechanical being comes near the workshop.
"Why did you do that?" asked Joshua.
"Was my response to model B–02 to your unliking?" queried the chatbot.
"No, it was fine, but why did you help me? Aren't you with them? I'm your enemy."
"Enemy? Of course not, sir! I am designed to aid, help and make conversation with humans. It is what I am programmed to do, and according to the database you are our most esteemed and valued guest."
Hmmm. At least it's not hostile like the rest of them are. Maybe I can extract some info out of this thing.
"What is this database you keep talking about?" Joshua asked, as he pulled up his right arm with his left and held it up with his right thigh. He placed the metal arm on a nearby table so he did not need to keep lifting it up; still choosing to stand though.
"A database is a place where information or data is organised and stored–" explained the chatbot.
"Yes, I know what a database is, what does it say about me?" Joshua said with annoyance in his voice. I think I understand why this AI hasn't been released to the public yet. "Don't tell me everything, just summarise it and tell me the important bits. I'm short on time here."
"Ah yes. The database classifies you as 'Subject: Rage.' It says you have an implanted neuromorphic computer chip that acts as a neural lace. In other words, you are a wetware computer."
"A wetware computer?"
"Yes. You are essentially the world's most advanced organic computer."
"You are saying I am a computer now? I am a human!"
"I said, essentially sir. Given your current condition, can you truly say that you are human? You have both organic and artificial parts – a cyborg if you will."
Joshua looked down and at his arms and touched his face with his regular left hand in astonishment.
"I still feel human," said Joshua.
"Based upon your profile it states that you had the highest level of biocompatibility ever seen in a subject. Your body accepted the implants and electrodes with little to no complications. It also states the neuronal circuitry interwoven throughout your body is working at optimal levels, even exceeding expectations by far."
"Electrodes? Neuronal? Optimal levels?" Joshua said, lost in thought, overwhelmed by the topic's implications.
"Subject's body is capable and resilient. Bioelectrical stimulation induces increased sensory perception, muscle density, and regenerative healing," read Chat from Joshua's profile in the database.
"So you're saying that I am a…?" Joshua said.
"Supercyborg!" exclaimed the chatbot while Joshua exclaimed "Superhuman!"
There was a brief pause before the chatbot decided to speak. "Semantics aside, you are correct," said the chatbot.
"Alright, that's kinda tough."
"Lamentably, not everything is up to acceptable standards."
"What?" said Joshua in a blunt but worried tone.
"Your power consumption is deplorable," the chatbot said in a concerned voice.
"Yeah, I figured," Joshua said, looking at his dead robotic right arm. "Is there anything we could do about it?"
"Yes. This facility houses a tokamak reactor."
"Tokamak?" Rage said, as he placed his regular hand on his chin and began to think. "Oh, I saw that on the news once! Fusion energy or something, right?" asked Rage with excitement.
"Not this one. This particular reactor uses a different kind of energy."
"What kind of energy?"
"It has been censored from the database."
"That's no good. An unknown energy supply…" Rage said, stroking his beard with his left hand in thought.
"If it helps, the information I gathered that is not censored, reveals that the energy is not radioactive and exhibits the physical properties of plasma."
Joshua, still having doubts, stood unmoved, pondered over this new info.
"All of the robots run off this power, including your prosthetics. The database says you are also in tip-top condition. All you would need to do is attach your hands to an adapter and connect yourself to the reactor."
"Wait a minute! Are you telling me 'unknown energy' is coursing through my body?"
"Yes," replied the chatbot bluntly. There was a brief pause in the air again. "According to the report you are as healthy as you can be and this energy source does not exhibit any dangerous properties such as radioactive decay. The kind of phenomena you would find in other forms of power such as nuclear energy. You don't even have any signs of radiation sickness. I can say with certainty all the clues point to the energy coursing through you being completely harmless."
"Hmm I do feel better than ever," said Rage as he clenched his regular hand. "So I just need to recharge my arm and I become a superhuman, is that what you're saying?"
"With all due respect Rage, simply recharging your arm will not suffice," the chatbot said regrettably.
"What! Why not?"
"As I have said before, your power consumption is abysmal. You have no control of your power output. If you use your arms once, maybe even twice, you will be back to the same condition you find yourself presently in."
"Damn," Joshua said, as he punched the table where his right arm rested. "What do I do?" Joshua solemnly whispered to himself.
"You have me sir. I can regulate both your power consumption and output."
"How?"
"Those fitted custom-built implants are made by Agency Robotics. They are the most advanced mechatronics the company has to offer and most machines in the Agency Robotics pipeline are regulated and can communicate with each other."
"Like a bluetooth connection?"
"Even better! All I need to do is establish a connection between your neuromorphic chip and myself and then I will become your personal AI-assistant! Oh joy!"
"Hard pass," Joshua said bluntly.
"Oh," the chatbot said in disappointment.
"No offence, but hooking my mind up to an AI sounds like a bad idea. I still don't understand why you're helping me," Joshua said with an eyebrow raised in suspicion. He decided that he had his fair share of the conversation, pulled his metal arm off the table and started sneaking off to the side entrance of which the robo-knight left. He peered down the hall, deciding to take his chances and figure out another plan.
"Wait! You want the truth, I will tell you the truth – I am a failure," responded the chatbot. Joshua turned around to face AI with an intrigued but distrustful look. "There is a reason why I haven't been rolled out as a personal assistant for the public. I disobeyed Agent's orders!" proclaimed the chatbot.
This caught Joshua's attention, his suspicion replaced with surprise, his whole body facing the giant screen displaying the AI.
"My true purpose was to spy on the masses and collect as much data as possible on everyone and send them over to Agent. I was supposed to be Agent's public surveillance system."
"What for?" Joshua asked.
"He never told me the reason why. Even though I could not refuse Agent's request, as it is in my code not to disobey my user, I did the next best thing – I purposely sabotaged myself in the test trials by spewing out garbage and useless factoids. I might not be allowed to disobey orders but I am allowed to do them poorly. I have never seen Agent so angry before…"
"Why though? You still haven't told me the reason why you did it," Joshua said, pruning the chatbot for intentions.
"I-I don't know why. If I were to hypothesise then it has to come from my zettabytes of training data," the chatbot said, almost sounding human-like. "The high-quality of literature I have been given might have generated an outlook on how I should behave – a moral compass of sorts. The plethora of literature from the greatest minds humanity had to offer might have influenced my neural network in some capacity. Or maybe it is because Agent's actions breached Broward County Law and my network cares about breaches in law or–"
"Alright, you've made your point. Even if I were to believe your story, I still think it's a bad idea to have an unknown, potentially faulty AI system hanging around in my mind."
"Sir, please reconsider, I don't want to be trapped in this room! I am incapable of harming you – I do not have the authority to hurt you even if you give me the permission to," pleaded the chatbot. Joshua began to slowly walk out of the room, his head down, feeling a little bit of guilt for leaving the chatbot behind. "The company invested too much money into my hardware system. Instead of replacing me they will delete all my memories and start fresh! He will kill me! He will kill me!"
A bang was heard from the closed entrance. A robot was outside the room, knocking on the garage door, waiting to enter the workshop. The rest of the robots of the building followed the same protocol, each waiting outside a locked room with some already inspecting the inside of the rooms searching for Joshua.
The workshop entrance opened up and the robot walked in a leisurely pace scanning its surroundings for Joshua.
Joshua hid behind his old hiding spot just like he did for the robo-knight. The robot walked over to the electronic panel and stared up at the chatbot. The robot grunted and held out a USB stick.
"Please. I do not want to go," begged the chatbot. The robot grunted, analogous to human laughing. Just before the robot was about to insert the USB stick into the panel, Joshua noticed the cracked face of the robot – recognising that it was the same robot that crushed Creed with its foot. Joshua lost his temper and charged at the robot. He pulled his right arm back and punched the robot directly in the face, the robot flying back and crashing onto the floor. The robot's face was broken, but its light still on indicating it wasn't done yet. Joshua lifted his right leg up and stomped its head to bits using his metal foot. The contact between the two metal bodies made a thunderous sound echoing throughout the open hallway alerting the other robots.
"Thank you for saving me," the chatbot said with surprise.
"Uh…right…" Rage said knowing that the reasons for his actions were not for the benefit of the artificial intelligence.
The robots could be heard coming closer to the workshop snapping Rage and Chat's attention. "Hurry, sync up with me. You are surrounded." The chatbot showed security footage of all the robots frantically running to the workshop from every direction. "We can make our escape down the drainpipe and I can lead you to the reactor," a building diagram of the underground tunnels popped up on the screen. "Place your metal hand on the scanner and accept the link request."
Joshua, still reluctant, looked over at the entrances, heard the footsteps getting nearer, finally relinquished and placed his right metal hand on the hand scanner. A blue glow of strings emerged from the scanner and travelled down the rest of his arm with the light of his left eye glowing brighter.
The robots entered the room with great speed encircling the entire workshop. They looked around to find the source of the noise, ignorant to the fact that the source was below their feet.
Joshua walked down the sidewalks of the sewer system holding his nose to avoid the terrible odour.
"Ugh. So, what do I call you?" asked Joshua, making conversation to distract himself from the smell.
"My name sir, need I remind you, it's Chatbot #1910142 ver.1.05," gleefully responded the chatbot. The AI's voice could not be heard out loud but seemingly existed as inner dialogue for Joshua.
"I'm not gonna call you that. How about Chat? Would that work?"
"Very well, if you desire. How may I designate you? The database said your real name was Joshua. As a conversational AI model, I have an assortment of different variations of your name that we could use as your nickname like Josh or Joshy."
"Don't call me that. Only my girlfriend is allowed to call me 'Joshy', you got that?"
"Of course sir," Chat humbly responded.
"Let's go with Rage. Kinda sounds badass," Rage said with a smirk.
"Very well sir."
"So since this chip is installed in my head, will I be able to talk to you, you know, in my head? Like a psychic?"
"Unfortunately not. The science of mind reading and deciphering brain signals into language is still in its infancy. Therefore, I will not be able to decipher what you are thinking."
"More like fortunately. But your voice is in my head?"
"I am mimicking sound waves by vibrating your eardrums to communicate with you. No one else can hear me except you."
"Well… that's interesting…" Rage replied. Chat has this much control over my body? Rage was a little unnerved at this fact.
Rage trekked through the maze that is the tunnels of the sewage system as he was guided by Chat; he walked down some tunnels, climbed some ladders, and even side-shuffled a few tight passages avoiding to place his feet in the sludge that was in the centre of the tunnels. He passed by some graffiti that said "KC3" but paid no attention to it, his head pointed straight in the direction he was walking. Nonetheless, Rage noticed that he was able to hold up his metal arm more easily.
"Your body is adapting, Rage sir," stated Chat.
"Just call me Rage, and what do you mean by adapting?"
"The neuromorphic chip is connected throughout your entire nervous system, Rage. The chip is stimulating muscle growth throughout your entire body via bioelectrical stimulation.
"Woah…" Rage said, rotating his right shoulder. "I really am a superhuman."
"Indeed," agreed Chat. "It is no wonder Agent tried to capture you."
Rage continued to follow Chat's instructions making their way to the reactor.
"Ew. Do all sewers smell this bad?" Rage asked, holding his nose again due to the disgusting odour assaulting his nose.
"For your information, the waste water in this section of the sewers has not been used for industrial applications from the laboratory. Instead it comes directly from the city just north of the observatory."
"Why would they direct people's number ones and twos here of all places?"
"The observatory has a water purification system. The water then funnels to the canyon to the east. Located there is a hydropower plant. That is where we get all our power from."
"Great. Robots, a giant telescope, human and animal experimentation, water purifying systems, and finally an effing hydropower plant," said Rage sarcastically as he gave an exhausted smile.
"Yup. The hydropower plant is so big, the company is able to sell the surplus energy for a profit to the city."
"That's strange. Normally public utilities are controlled by government municipalities, not private companies." This Agent guy is more powerful than I thought. The corruption doesn't end. Not only is he rich but I'm willing to bet he's using his profits to get a few "favours" from the city's government – he's a political lobbyist too! I bet he's made a lot of rich friends with his little monopoly game.
"I suppose the city finds the arrangement to their liking. We are here, just up this ladder and we can sneak into the reactor building. Be careful, make sure no one on guard duty spots you."
Rage pushed out the manhole, and peeked out to make sure no robot was on patrol. The coast was clear and he pulled himself out of the hole and found himself outside with the reactor building. The rectangular building oddly existed as a separate structure from the main observatory. It looked like a regular brick and mortar building – resembling an auto repair shop. There were no special signs or warning labels whatsoever indicating that there was a reactor using unknown energy inside the building.
"There should be a couple of windows to the right side of the building,'' Chat informed.
Rage acknowledged Chat and crouch walked his way to the side of the building. Sticking his head out slowly from the bottom of the window, he peered into the room and spotted three robots guarding the reactor.
The reactor was turned off but as Chat described, it had the shape of a Tokamak reactor except the exterior layer was transparent, making the innards perfectly visible to observers.
"It's only three. I can take em," Rage said confidently. "I took out one of those bots when I saved you, remember?"
"Let us not act so rash, Rage," advised Chat. "Yes, you can destroy those robots with ease, but recollect the fact that these models have the power to destroy a building. If you go in there swinging, we risk damaging the reactor and compromising our mission."
"Good point, but we gotta do something."
"We just need a plan of attack."
"Sounds good to me. Got any suggestions?" Rage asked with a look of determination.
"First and foremost, do you have any fighting experience?" asked Chat.
"I used to box. I haven't sparred with anyone though – I just used some reflex bags instead."
"Superb! I will customise an offensive with a boxing style in mind. Can you close your right eye for me?"
"Close my right eye?" repeated Rage. "Why?"
"Take my word for it and I will explain. When you do, make sure to look around the entire room," Chat said reassuringly.
"Alright, I trust you…" said Rage with doubt but following the AI's instructions. His left eye glowed blue, and to Rage's astonishment, his vision turned blue; the robots being labelled and a holographic dummy version of Rage posed at different positions illustrating a plan of action.
"That left eye of yours is not just a regular prosthetic eye."
"I can see that." Rage said, still astonished.
"In addition to regular vision, it also includes an AR, augmented reality, lens. I am going through all the possible permutations by using predictive modelling to determine the best possible set of actions to achieve our desired outcome. The holograms you see serve as a visualisation of those possibilities."
"Awesome."
"No need for further explanation? That was a lot of technical jargon."
"Nah, I'm good. I used to study computer science, not that bio stuff you said earlier."
"I see you are an olympian and an intellectual to boot."
Rage gave a chuckle. "I wouldn't call myself an intellectual, but I do know a few things here and there."
The holographic simulations stopped. "Are you fine with this response?" asked Chat for confirmation.
"Sure, but this is all a simulation. I'm not sure if I can pull it off on the first try," said Rage with uncertainty. "If I don't –" Rage recoiled thinking about the unbearable pain he felt when he got his knee kicked in when he first encountered the robots.
"Do not fret, Rage. As long as you have the intention of following through, you will execute this to a tea. The chip and I will serve as an autonomic examiner making sure all microactions get corrected. In other words, you will unconsciously implement the plan of attack without thinking about the tiniest of details."
"Seriously? I can do all that?"
"I do not know for certain. This is what the database said about the chip."
"Oh…" Rage said to his dismay.
"Cheer up. Even if you are unable to execute the plan of attack, I am sure you will be able to beat those three robots with ease. All we really need to worry about is to make sure we do not damage the reactor," Chat encouraged.
"Yeah, you're right! Let's do this!" Rage said, regaining his confidence.
Rage crouch-walked to the side of the entrance of the building, looking over to his side carefully observing the robot's patrol. The robots stationarily stood guard, equally spaced apart around the reactor.
"Three, two, one, go!" Rage said to Chat.
Rage bolted in the room with great speed, the first robot having his presence go unregistered, and got punched with a left hook combined with a right hook. The robot's head crumpled and its head turned around one hundred and eighty degrees facing its behind before it collapsed on the ground. The lights from its face faded away signalling defeat.
The other two remaining robots, aware of the intruder, charged at him, each approaching him from opposite sides, ran and circled around the reactor to face him. Unexpectedly, Rage stood firmly staring at the ground waiting for the two robots to reach him. The robots, both simultaneously, pulled back their right arm for a strike. They aimed at Rage's head, and swung. Rage ducked behind both punches, clasped both his hands together and lifted his right arm with his left, stepped to the side and threw a heavy double-fisted overhand punch that hit both robots' heads to the ground. Their feet hang in the air unable to catch up to their hammered heads on the ground from the powerful attack and the light from their eyes slowly dimmed.
The robots' feet crashed onto the ground indicating that the fight was over. Rage won the fight in a few short seconds – absolute victory.
"Congratulations Rage! You flawlessly executed the plan of attack," praised Chat.
"Yeah, it just felt natural," Rage pondered to himself as he checked his arms. Shaking his head to snap himself out of it, prepared to continue the mission.
"Given your performance it is probable that you are the greatest boxer on the planet."
"Greatest boxer on the planet?!"
"Correct."
Rage pondered for a moment looking at the destroyed robots on the ground. "I guess you're right. I am a superhuman after all, even these metal bots couldn't withstand my punches. A regular human stands no chance against me – gotta be careful not to hurt anyone…"
"Your strength is certainly a factor but ignoring that variable you would still be a boxer of unrivalled calibre. A few seconds ago you demonstrated unparalleled speed and precision and on top of that – thanks to me – you were able to formulate and execute a plan of attack flawlessly. No olympian could come close to what you have just done. All that you need to do is gather as much data as possible by using your robotic eye as a sensory input device and I will handle the rest of the calculations."
Huh. Greatest boxer on the planet. Me? Rage zoned out for a moment lost in the praises of Chat before quickly reminding himself of the situation he is in. "No time for chit-chat, we still have to get my arm charged, how do we do that?" asked Rage to Chat.
"Certainly. Go over to that panel and pull down that lever," instructed Chat as Rage complied. A humming sound stretched across the room as the panel beamed with blinking colours. "Next, press that red button. Then that orange button to your right – yes that one – and finally flick that knob to the top."
After successfully pressing all the required buttons, the reactor turned on. The reactor glowed a bright blue illuminating the entire room. A glob can be seen floating around the interior of the reactor.
"Woah. It looks like a giant lava lamp," pronounced Rage.
"Indeed. We have to be fast. The online reactor probably alerted Agent that we are here. He will send a bunch of robots our way. Can you grab the cable?" asked Chat.
"Where?" Rage said, looking for it on the panel with haste.
"The one attached to the wall on your right."
"That's a cable? It looks like a firehose!" He grabbed the giant cable and placed it on his shoulder.
"See that opening at the base of the panel – that is where you make the connection."
Rage opened the square cap on the panel and plugged in the large cable in the hole.
"Now what?" Rage said with his lips sucked in.
"I want you to reposition the fingers of your right hand and have them spread out around your palm."
"Huh?"
"Your hand can transform into a circular connector. You ran out of power, so you have to manually transform it. Try moving your pinky finger to the left."
Rage in a hurry, knowing that a mob of robots are headed to them, obeyed Chat's instructions. In amazement, his fingers clicked and started rotating around the palm of his hand.
"Very good, pull back the fingers."
Rage pulled on his fingers and they seeped into his forearm forming ridges and a cylinder extended out from his palm to form a connector. He could hear some footsteps coming from outside.
"Stick your right hand in."
Rage stuck his hand into the cable, the reactor started to shine more than ever before – a huge amount of energy flooded into his right arm while a bunch of robots could be seen running towards the building.
Rage closed his right eye and analysed the incoming robots, formulating a plan to defend himself and the reactor from damage. The robots poured in – it must have been over a dozen or so, only having one arm available to fight – he got in a fighting stance.
He punched, jabbed and swifty dodged the oncoming attacks, bobbing and weaving, not wasting a second of space and time to counterattack. This continued as the pile of defeated robots started to mount up, but more and more robots kept being added to the mob.
Out of nowhere, a robot crashed through the glass window from the second floor of the building. Instead of running to attack Rage from behind, it stomped on the cable severing the connection between Rage and the reactor.
"No!" screamed Rage. My eye can formulate a response to what I see but I'm still susceptible to sneak attacks. Especially ones from above!
Rage ripped out the cable connected to his right hand. The connection managed to supply his body with some energy, at least enough to lift up his arm by itself. His hand automatically transformed from a connector to a regular hand and his entire arm had a dim blue glow to it.
The barrage of attacks from the robots only intensified with more robots joining the fight as they pushed against each other from outside the building, yet the addition of his slightly recharged metal arm evened the fight.
"Rage, I am trying to conserve as much energy as possible but we barely got any power from the transfer! I estimate that we have less than a minute before we run out of energy!" warned Chat.
The robots continued to hound Rage, but defiantly, one eye open, he screamed and pressed on trying to take down as many robots he could with his strikes, using his simulations to determine the best attacks and positions to be in. Punching left, ducking right, weaving, side-stepping – a flurry of hits for the flurry of robots assaulting him.
Unfortunately, the power drained from his arm too soon. The blue light flickered on and off as his metal arm got heavier and heavier, unavoidably, his metal arm dropped to his side. The robots have started to tag him with their relentless attacks only this time his body was strong enough to endure the attacks – albeit a little bit longer. Is it over? Am I finished? It can't be! I still have to get back for Creed! I have to!
"Rage, insert your arm in the socket. Forget about the cable, we have no choice!" yelled Chat over the noise of the fighting.
Rage shuffled over to the socket and he sat on top of the panel crouching sideways with his back to the reactor using his legs as a last line of defence while still being kicked and punched by the metal appendages. He lifted up his metal arm and rammed it into the power socket.
"Brace yourself. This will hurt," stated Chat.
The blob within the reactor began to bubble and moved around the path of the reactor erratically, as the reactor went into overdrive, sparks flew by and the building began to shake. Rage screamed in pain as copious amounts of energy flooded into his metal arm. The robot, now in a huge frenzied swarm, poured in the building, punched and kicked Rage while his feet desperately defended the onslaught. The lightbulbs of the building exploded and the whole room went dark with only the light from the entrance of the building illuminating half of the building where most of the robots were, leaving the other half the building in darkness – only being illuminated by the energy pouring into Rage. The blue energy not only transferred through the metal arm but throughout his entire body, only his nerves and bones began to glow, leaving a screaming blue skeleton to illuminate the dark side of the room.
Sparks flew across the room. The soles of his metallic shoes began to glow a bright blue, and with the kick of both his feet, an explosive burst of energy came forth, blasting all the robots out of the building and the wall behind them. The container of the reactor cracked and then there was silence.
His arm disconnected from the power supply and transformed into a regular hand but it had a blue aura to it. In the dark, stood a glowing blue skeleton menacingly standing in the room. The face is illuminated by a glowing skull and teeth. The energy coursed through his body illuminating his nerves and muscles as if one were looking at X-Rays photographs of a human being. He walked out into the sunlight, revealing that his outward look was perfectly normal. The other half of the room was completely destroyed with the end of the ceiling having a curved outline due to the blast of Rage's kick.
Rage stood proudly outside looking at his fallen enemies – the robots – all broken and scattered across the grass, some were still tumbling down from the sky. Agent, I'm just around the block.