Chapter Text
She stood above them all, always watch, always peering. Through a one way mirror, a camera, the bars of a cell. It was through those dispassionate eyes that subject 37 was judged and found wanting. It was this judgement that ran through its head while it lays, broken and forgotten, on the shattered pavement of the abandoned lot it found itself in. Ceramic armor rendered useless, cracked and weeping, external motivators rendered impotent, and a right arm missing entirely form just below the shoulder, further evidence of its incompetence. If it could self terminate it would have a long time ago but its implants would not allow it to die no matter how much it tried wanted just let me die you bi…
[POWER RESTORED]
…Pulse Stabilizing…WARNING: Respiration compromised…
Subject destruction imminent: constraints removed, partial limb mobility restored.
Seek immediate maintenance to reduce further damage to underlying substrates.
It would not do that. It could not do that. If it could it would scream but She removed that as an option. She hated when Her things made noise without Her express permission. It did not have permission to scream. It did not have permission to die either, so it got up and moved toward its prison drop pod for retrieval, or at least it tried. The damage was more extensive than it had assumed. It lacks the kind of diagnostic tools required to assess the damage fully, though most every fiber of its body frame was screaming. Pain is not new, however, so it pushes its frame over and starts dragging. It gets one paw- span out of the alley before darkness takes it again.
Her eyes were cold and grey as She cut out my own installed ocular implants into its frame. It no longer even needed the restraints that held the frame to the operating table, it had barely even stirred as the scalpel mad contact. The last thing it saw was that damn knife and Her cruel eyes.
WARNING … Critical systems damaged. Rep*rt *o **** for ******
This is not its pod, nor is it its cell that it waits in between assignments. With its frame firmly strapped to some kind of inclined gurney, it has little choice but to look around its new surroundings. It appears to be in some sort of workshop, clutter clings to every surface. Whoever captured it must intend to disassemble its frame, likely to try and understand some of Her secrets. Others had tried before, none had succeeded. One of its lower prosthetic limbs lies splayed open on one of the nearby benches, its ceramic carapace having been removed, likely to get at its innards. What could be divined from that mess of broken gears and severed wires, it could not know.
After some experimentation it finds the frame’s left paw operational and unbound. Amateurs. When the time comes it will free itself loose the frame and kill its captors. Then it shall return to Her, to receive its punishment.
A distant bell jingles and it stills, better for the captors to think that it is inert. It waits for what seems to be hours before there is the sound of footsteps behind it. “Jesus fuck, am I glad that is over.” The figure exclaims, throwing some sort of cloth over its field of view. Damn, it seems its captors are more cautious than expected, obviously blinding it in the off chance that it is awake. Very clever, now it cannot properly plan its attack without revealing itself.
“Now that that unpleasantness is over we can finally get acquainted, my pretty little thing.” it tenses, readying itself for whatever attack this figure plans to bring to bare.
“Alright gorgeous, let’s get a better look at you.” As the cloth is removed its captor is slowly revealed. First it sees a dull coverall marred with various dark stains, a circle of torn stitches marking were a patch once was. Stained hands pull the stained cloth away from its sight and certainty from its thought as the captor’s face is revealed to be not some grizzled veteran or severe scientist but that of an excitable engineer. She seems oblivious to its confliction as she turns away to rummage around in the clutter of a nearby workbench.
It will not just wait for her the captor to find whatever implement of torture she the captor is searching for, surely a drill to pierce its frame or maybe a scalpel. It reaches to its side, blindly groping for a weapon to threaten the captor with, knocking a pile of detritus clattering to the ground in the process.