This is super short.
The helmet was incredible.
Truly, it was a piece of work that no human could replicate. It ran off of mental power, and it in turn made its wearer smarter than any being on the planet. Woody had just barely scrapped the surface of what he was capable of, but that brought about new worries in him.
Before the helmet, Woody won't have been interested in the military matters. He'd be sleeping peacefully along with his cell mates. But the helmet was forcing him to think. When his teammates had nodded off, leaving the young man to his own thoughts, a sense of worry overcame him as he thought about their situation. They were prisoners of DETIA, surrounded by military personnel who were hostile toward them. And then there was the original Champion, Adam, who wanted them dead.
So, when his helmet showed the capability of enhancing his hearing, Woody took the chance and listened in on the commotion in the room above him.
Adam was beating away at the training post, venting out his anger and frustrations. Woody couldn't see how the beating was going, but judging by the noises, Woody was thankful he was not the inanimate object. After listening to the venting process go on for a few seconds longer, Woody was prepared to seek out a new source to further test the helmet's capabilities when he heard footsteps. Seconds later, Emory spoke to the Champion, and it was easy to tell by the man's resistance to speak that he was upset by the day's training.
"We can cut the pieces off," Adam whispered conspiringly to the colonel, his voice urgent, attempting to convince the man it was a good idea.
Woody's heart dropped into his stomach almost instantly upon hearing that. When they had first arrived, the question of why the military didn't just take the pieces off had been brought up. The answer was that they wouldn't come off willingly. At that time, Woody had pushed it aside, taking the statement at face value, but the horror of this statement came to his mind instantly because yeah, cutting them off had also been a possibility. And what would be the consequences? Zach and Hagan would lose an arm respectively. Herman would lose both his legs. Woody would lose his head.
The thought of losing his head was sickening, but Woody couldn't change his focus. He needed to continue listening to the conversation that was meant to be private.
"Jenkins was wrong," Emory argued, and Woody's spirits lifted a bit at the defense. Perhaps Emory wasn't entirely bad.
"How can you say he's wrong?" Adam argued, raising his voice to be heard over the general. "He said we could do it."
"Without them we have nothing!"
"The suit is meant to work as a unit. We separate the pieces, they're not as powerful. You can forget about using the Dark Matter Ray or any of the other higher suit functions."
Woody was intrigued by the mention of these "higher suit functions," but he was more focused on what Emory's answer would be. Emory was in charge of everything at the base, and whatever he said goes. His life (and the team's lives) was in the colonel's hands. To his great relief, Emory told the man to train their team. But Adam wasn't finished.
"They'll fail," Adam argued after the colonel told him off. "And then we'll have to cut those pieces off."
The conversation was over. Adam had made his statement, and Emory didn't fight it. That terrified Woody because Emory was basically consenting to the terms. If they failed (Woody considered it a possibility, though Adam was certain it would happen), then their lives were basically over (though Woody's life would be 100% over).
Woody couldn't let that happen, and fell asleep with Adam's final words in mind.
How was he going to stop this?