"Don't be afraid."
The voice drifts through the words as sweetly as a lullaby. It's gentle, earnest, deep as a river, with an undercurrent scraping like stones. But something about it is wrong. Around the edges, the voice rings of metal. And it is far, far too calm.
It should not be that calm. You are anything but calm.
You don't know why you've been taken.
A large, unyielding hand is clamped over your mouth. You are pinned by the waist to the figure behind you. Even if you had the strength to free yourself—and you don't; you're not even certain your captor noticed your attempts—you are too high off the ground. More than that, you don't want any part in what is happening below. You might not be able to move much, but you can hear screams just fine.
The voice cuts through the cacophony, sounding right in your ear. "I'm not going to hurt you," it continues, plunging ever deeper. "I'm going to help you—you and everyone else. Don't worry if you don't get it yet. I'll explain along the way."
You squeeze your eyes shut. There's no direction to cringe away.
"Sorry about this," the voice adds thoughtfully. The hand on your mouth tightens slightly. "But I really didn't want to have to deal with the screaming."
His name is Ultron.
Your captor is eight feet of shining silver, like some kind of statue. Metal plates fit together like cords of muscle, and he moves with the grace of a man. But it is the dull red glow in his eyes and behind his tongue that makes him seem alive. It's like the remains of a fire, and you can still feel the heat. He's powerful. He's majestic. He is here to destroy the human race.
And it's very possible he brought you here just to have someone to talk to.
You and he are the only ones here. The other robots around you—they're all Ultron. He has bodies in the same way most people have limbs. And watching them work together is a sight.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Ultron muses. "Humans have this fascination with synchronous action, but they've never quite managed it. There's always someone throwing it off. Someone just a quarter of a second behind, someone without enough reach." He's turned slightly toward you, enough so that you stay precisely where you are, but he's watching the work going on in the vast lab. "Even teams don't work as well as they ought to. Have you noticed that? 'Too many cooks spoil the broth.' That's a common saying. There's a proverb for this, because you people are so terrible at working in tandem that too many individuals working toward the same goal is a bad thing." He lets out a short, sharp chuckle. It makes your hair stand on end—not because it doesn't sound human, but because it does, as if he's truly found something amusing.
He falls silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is so solemn and soft that it creeps up on you; at first, you hear the words before you realize it's him talking. "It's alright. Everything you've tried up until this point—that was just a prototype. Now we can bring you to a higher state of being." He surveys the metal, humanoid bodies as they weld and bolt and wire something together in an effortless, polished dance. "Now we can achieve this."
You glance at him, but there's a strange, eager gleam in his eyes, and you look back at the many extra bodies of Ultron building a strange machine. You want to defend humanity. You want to be uncooperative. Most of all, you want to speak up, because he has done nothing but talk for several days now, and you don't like the way his voice coils in your chest and slides down your spine. So you take a deep breath.
"So what?" you say.
Ultron looks at you. He looks down at you, to be precise, and it's all you can do to hold your ground. He hasn't harmed you so far, but so far you've been well behaved.
"You control all these… things." It feels like you have to shove each word out, but your voice sounds steady. "So of course they can work together. Look, I can raise both my hands at the same time." You stubbornly maintain eye contact while you throw your hands in the air. "It doesn't mean anything."
For half a second, you believe you are going to die, right now, with your hands stuck up above your head. And then he laughs.
It's surprisingly loud and bright—and genuine. His shoulders are shaking. For a moment, he can't speak at all. You almost smile, a foolish, giddy reaction to surviving. You do lower your hands.
"Touché," Ultron allows wryly, laughter still dancing through his words. "It seems I've picked up a doubting Thomas."
Suddenly he leans over you. Before, you had to force yourself not to back way, but now you couldn't move if you wanted to. Your heart catches in your throat as this tower of a being bends down almost to your eye level.
"But then," he tells you, voice low and earnest, "that's why you're here. Don't you see?" His eyes are searching yours. You don't look away, and you're not sure why. But you do jump when cool metal fingertips land one by one down the side of your face—temple, cheekbone, cheek, jaw. "You're my proof. You're going to show the world that they can ascend. When I'm through with you, everyone will understand."
He straightens and pulls his hand back. His touch was light, but you feel like you've been released. You take a few hurried steps backward. You can go anywhere in the compound you like so long as you don't try to leave. Right now, anywhere would be better than here. But you can't look away.
"So it's alright if you don't fully grasp it yet." He offers you a kind, kind smile etched in thin silver plates. "When the time comes, you'll be the very first one to see."