Almost lifeless.
That was the best possible way to describe them. They had all the properties of something that was full of emptiness and unfeeling. Yet inside them there was something- a spark that flickered whenever something remotely interesting happened. Not that it ever did, usually.
The test subjects used to come in plenty, each and every one seemingly more stupid than the last. But lately, they came less. First they only came twice a day, but then it was only once a day. Then once a week, once a fortnight, once a month. Eventually, it came to be that it was a miracle every time something came in through the testing door.
However, when they did, they were usually too dull to realise that the soft-speaking, pristine machines were the last thing they would ever see before the .9mm bullets pieced their orange jumpsuits and left them bleeding on the floors. Then, of course, there was the Ratman.
The story of the Ratman had differed between all nine of them, who resided in Chamber 204. There were some who said he was a ghostly test subject, who had been resurrected by the life-giving powers of the mistress. There were others who said he was the result of an experiment conducted by the company that built them to create a cross-breed life form. The latter was often dismissed, as they were infinitely confused by why they would choose to cross-breed a human with a rat.
However, they often chose to have these conversations limited to instant electronic communication waves, in case the mistress picked up on them. No-one wanted to anger the mistress. They had not seen what happened to the violaters, but they often heard their scream echo throughout the clean chamber walls. This was more than enough incentive to keep conversation limited.
They had no name for themselves, because they were programmed with an inability to have self-realisation. But about two standard months ago, a rare occurrence came when two test subjects came in, a man and a woman who looked like his daughter. Unfortunately for them, the daughter had dropped her portal device, which all of them despised. When a portal was placed below one of them, sealing their doom, their murderous programming was fuelled to be more effective by a burning sense of revenge, and their bullets seemed twice as powerful.
When the two of them came in, the automation nearest the door awoke and spoke softly, greeting them with "I see you," and the sides opened, poised to fire.
"Turret!" the daughter shouted and dived for a cover wall. Unfortunately, the older man did not have her swift reflexes and was riddled with bullets, his face frozen in an expression of fear and pain. However, when he fell to the ground, his mouth was positioned in a small, thankful grin, as if he was happy that this nightmare was finally over- forever.
The young woman screamed in terror as the only other person with her died. She began to sob, her eyes filling up with tears, and the near-lifeless machines shared around the name she had given them- turrets. They had finally found a name for themselves.
They then turned their attention back to the last subject, who was drying her tears and starting to radiate an air of anger and hatred. She picked up the portal device and took some deep breathes. The turrets knew what was coming. Everyone had attempted it before. The mad dash to the button.
They activated their sensors and waited for the dash. They waited a good thirty seconds, poised and ready to fire. Nothing happened, except more breathing and slow, rhythmic tapping. With their bullet sensors twitching, the turrets started to take notice of the sounds coming from behind the wall cover. Their white-plated 'arms' started to move up and down as their electronic minds began to process the tune and turn it into a beautiful sound.
All of a sudden, a small sound came out of one of the turrets. The others stopped and sent instant messages to him, asking what he had done. He had no idea, he said, it happened as a randomly occurring event.
Then one of the others tried it, and a slightly higher note sounded out, echoing throughout the chamber. One by one, they all gave it a try, each coming out with a higher or lower note than the original. At the end of it, all twelve turrets had given out their sounds, and had unknowingly organised themselves into an orchestra of automations.
Then she ran.
They didn't have much time to react, and in that time she shot twice, placing a portal beneath one turret and one above another. In the space of a few seconds, there were two disabled turrets in a small pile. In that time, she reached the mounted button and slammed her hand against its red surface.
The blocking wall was activated and slammed down in front of the turrets and blocked their bullets just in time, stopping them from riddling the youth with bullets. The turrets were amazed. They had never seen someone move so fast. She was the first one ever to escape the turrets.
After they heard the elevator doors close and the lift move up the tube, the chamber automatically reset itself, as it always did. The two deactivated turrets were carried up by a mechanical arm, which then retracted back into the ceiling, with a panel covering it up. A couple of maintenance robots were brought down and they set to work on repairing the bullet-riddled glass windows.
The turrets did not bother them. Instead, they messaged each other excitedly. For the first time, someone had gotten past them. Did this mean vaporisation? Instant annihilation? A one-way trip to Robot Hell?
They continued this until a flat, monotone-robotic voice came on over the speakers. They all instantly stopped, mesmerised by the sound coming out.
"How truthfully disappointing. You have served me well for all this time, and you are beaten due to a simple rhythmic pattern." Their small, tough bodies seemed to weaken under her hypothetical glare. This was it, then. The mistress was displeased and they were going to pay the price.
"I built you to be killing machines, not jukeboxes. I'd say I'm sorry to do this, but I'm not. Frankly, I'd be rather glad to finally get rid of you old models. Now, goodbye."
As she cut off the connection, the panels below them started to fold back underneath each individual turret. Soon, they all started to fall into the dark abyss below the chambers that eventually led to the incinerator.
There was silence as they fell down the massive hole, awaiting their inevitable doom. Not a single solitary sound came out of them as they tumbled through the pipe. They had accepted their fate, and knew their robotic lives were almost at an end.
So, one after the other, they began to play their sounds.
First the song started in low, then a gradually higher pitch until the whole group of doomed robots were making harmonious music.
They continued to play, allowing the music to flow out of their mechanical bodies, as the darkness was lit up with a fiery red light and the pits of the incinerator came closer and closer.
Long after that, the song still echoed throughout the white and empty corridors, rebounding off the pristine walls and fitting in through vents, until they rested on the ears of the very same girl who evaded them.
"Ignore the sound," the intercom said in a flat, robotic tone. "They had what was coming to them. They were worthless and lifeless, kind of like you." The intercom shut off, and the woman was left with her own thoughts.
She smiled sadly and looked back at the elevator, thinking back to that moment where she had been in trouble. She didn't think that the turrets would take any notice of the rhythm she used to keep herself calm. They had pleasantly surprised her to the point that she regretted having to kill them.
She turned away and proceeded to the end door of the chamber she had just finished. Just as the doors were about to close, she muttered softly "Almost lifeless."