A/N – Thanks for all the reviews and alerts! Especially as this is just (to my mind anyway) yet another fun way of whumping poor Rodney that I thought I'd share! :P
Chapter 2 – Unstoppable
Unit 318 stared out into the room. For all intents and purposes and in the eyes of his creators, he was male. But essentially 'he' was still in actual fact an 'it.' Although the sentience and ability to reason built into his programming made him more human than most of the things his creators had made; which could neither speak nor think for themselves as he could.
His internal clock took the most time to adjust to his reactivation and after a while, it informed him that it had been thousands of years since he was last online, and he was alone. The subspace link was silent, but he knew that if he could find the others, then these new humans, in their innocence and curiosity, could be persuaded to reactivate his fellow units. Time was meaningless to him; he didn't desire to remain switched on or turned off. In fact, he desired nothing at all; other than perfection and the compulsion it gave him to set the galaxy in order, such was his programming.
While he stared, sparks of thought ran through his neural pathways and he analysed them and recorded all that he heard and scanned with his optical sensors.
The two human males who had reactivated him were standing nearby. Even the one he had touched and burnt had come back after a few hours. They were not the same species as his creators. One was slightly larger than the other as they stood side by side; the larger one was the one who had reactivated him.
He had already assessed the threat level. Zero for the two males in front of him, low to medium for the others who carried crude weaponry in their hands. The level was sufficient for him to calculate that he needed to take action or risk being damaged.
These humans were quite similar to his creators; in how fragile and overly sensitive they were to any touch or impact.
He also listened while he stood there.
The smaller of the two, Zelenka, asked, "Are you sure that you are well enough, Rodney? It is a bad burn. I do not mind working on my own until you feel better."
The other man, McKay, held a bright screen in his hand while the other rested against his midsection. He hissed as he twisted to face Zelenka. "No. Not as long as the bandages and pills are keeping me upright. I wouldn't want to miss this!"
Zelenka pushed the two circles of metal attached to his face up against his eyes and sighed. "There is no hurry and you do not look so well."
Unit 318, not programmed with any emotions, could not recognise any in the humans either. Although he had learnt to crudely read expressions in the brief time his creators had used him before they finally managed to stop him and his kind.
McKay mumbled, but Unit 318 could hear all. "It's not just a burn. But a massive bruise too." He straightened up and his pale face tightened as he closed his eyes. "But this is far more important and I wouldn't want you getting all the credit."
Zelenka curled his lips up into a smile, "No, I did not think you would."
McKay tapped on the screen he held and then looked up, right into Unit 318's eyes. He glanced at the tablet again and then said, "That's amazing!"
Zelenka nodded and replied, "I know."
McKay carried on; "It has different tools in each of its fingers, a laser cutting beam in its forearm…" His eyes widened and then he looked across at Radek as he gushed, "An internal DHD!"
Unit 318 kept on glaring out into the room indifferently. The humans had barely scratched the surface of what he could really do. His analysis of the data his silent observing had gleaned informed him that these two humans were most definitely the ones he needed. They were fairly intelligent, as far as humans could go, and maybe they could help him to reach his goal. And if they didn't want to help, then he was sure that he could change their minds.
He flexed his jaw and ran a rapid diagnostic. All the hinges of his face were in order and as perfectly preserved as the rest of him. He moved on to his vocal processor and said, "McKay… Zelenka…"
The two men stopped what they were doing and looked up at him. He shifted his optical sensors down towards them and continued, "I require your assistance."
McKay frowned and said, "So you can speak." His voice rose in pitch as he asked, "Why did you hit me?"
Unit 318 replied in the same even and unreadable metallic voice, "I apologise for that. I believed that you were a threat."
"I turned you back on, Barbeque Fingers, and you thought I was a threat?!"
Unit 318 looked on impassively, not being able to process the emotions or to understand some of the words the human used.
Zelenka raised his eyebrows at McKay and then turned to Unit 318. He asked, "How can we help you?"
Unit 318 had been made in order to do his creators' bidding, but they had forgotten to give him the most basic of programming; not a shred of compassion, obedience or morality could be found in him; which was probably why the project had failed so badly. He was so completely devoid of all emotion that his only human trait was his shape. All the Units had long ago leant to lie and manipulate in order to fulfil the only system goal that had ever been programmed into them. The one given to them as part of the very first experiment: Perfection.
His creators had never even had the chance to programme in the second experiment.
The dirty, smelly and weak little creatures surrounding him would never reach perfection, but they could prove useful; especially as they had him caught behind a forcefield. He might be able to break it, but that would not create a good impression and he might get damaged.
He said, "I would like you to lower the forcefield and then I will tell you what I can do."
McKay held up his free hand with the palm facing Unit 318, "No no no! Not after that hit. Besides; Sheppard would never let us, and with good reason."
Zelenka looked down at his screen and agreed, "I am sorry, but it is too dangerous. Besides, your eyes are red."
McKay nodded, "And red is bad."
Unit 318 sealed and quickly adjusted his optical sensors. When he opened them again, the two humans were looking up at him and frowning.
McKay stuttered, "Green? How did you do that?"
"I am a machine of my word. If the colour of my 'eyes' is unsettling for you, then I will change them. There is nothing to fear. I was created only to protect." Which wasn't lying outright – the next stage in the project had been to reprogramme the Units to be a new, tireless and unstoppable army for their creators. They had just never got that far before they moved onto other 'more stable' projects and consigned Unit 318 and all his kin to the scrapheap of the planet where he needed to go right now.
"We still can't let you out," McKay said. "Not until we know more."
Unit 318 quickly made his decision. Although only a fraction of a second for a human was time enough for his brain to process thousands of thoughts and calculations, so to him it was an eternity.
He crouched down and placed his fist on the floor.
"What're you doing?" McKay asked.
Unit 318 did not reply. He couldn't yet scan beyond the edges of the forcefield, but for humans to be on Atlantis, they must have access to the stargate in the main tower. He quickly discharged the electro-magnetic pulse.
The blue light spread out and the shield wavered and then came back.
One of the men with the weapons, Lorne, shouted, "McKay. I want that thing deactivated right now before it breaks loose."
McKay and Zelenka both typed frantically on their screens and McKay looked up at Lorne, "We… we can't! Not without direct access to its neural net."
"You're telling us you turned it on and now you can't turn it off?!"
McKay snapped, "I can see why you're second in command to Sheppard!"
Unit 318 stood up and punched his fist into one of the pillars of the cell. He charged up and released another EMP. As the shield wavered this time, he used his other hand to break the pillar and shoved it until it buckled outwards. It tested his strength, but he succeeded. Without the fourth pillar holding the field stable, it flickered out of existence and he was free.
Lorne tapped his ear and shouted, "Colonel, we have a problem!"
McKay stepped back as Unit 318 honed in on him and walked over with a heavy thud from each step of his ton-weight metal frame.
McKay held up his hands, even the one where he was still clutching the screen, and asked with wide eyes and a high voice, "What do you want?"
Unit 318 uttered, "Perfection. However, you are not perfect."
McKay lifted his chin up and said, "Well, huh…"
Unit 318 reached forwards and grabbed the human's lower jaw in his hand and reeled him in.
McKay reached up and grasped Unit 318's forearm with both of his hands and shut his eyes tightly.
Unit 318 loosened his grip slightly when he remembered how humans were so easily broken, and if too badly damaged they ceased to function completely. He recalled that the soft, organic beings were able to self repair to an extent, but more often than not they would run down and eventually stop working all together through his persuasion tactics.
He had to be ever so gentle not to pull the lower jaw right out of this human called McKay in order to coerce him. He was really only testing his power and strength, because all the humans around him needed to learn that he was stronger than they were in every single way.
Unit 318 looked down at McKay and said, "You are imperfect. To admit it is the first step."
Zelenka called out from off to the right of Unit 318, although he could now 'see' everyone using his sensors. "Rodney, what harm would it do to say it? It could kill you if you do not, and it is only your ego."
McKay spoke in a low voice, although it was difficult for him with his jaw trapped, "N-n-no. I'm not p-p-perfect."
Unit 318 rewarded him by running a low electric current down into his hand and through McKay via his grip. McKay's eyes rolled back as he tensed up briefly and then went limp. Unit 318 dropped him to the floor and then rounded on his second target.
Lorne shouted, "Stand back, doc, and we'll shoot it."
Zelenka evaded Unit 318's grasp and small fragments of metal started impacting 318's outer shell. The pings of the bullets were not doing any damage, but any moment now, he knew that a lucky shot to one of the weaker sections might cause minor damage. He re-routed his electric stun charge beam through the EMP generator, plunged his fist into the ground again and electrified the floor.
All the humans in the room quickly fell down and lay still.
Unit 318 grabbed McKay's shoulder and looped his hand under the human's arm, and then took Zelenka by the ankle and dragged them along the corridor. His scans showed him the way and he remembered the corridors like he had been here only a few hours earlier, even though his chronometer told him otherwise.
He was met with little resistance as he proceeded. Sealed doors were easy to pry open. Not many of the humans dared to use their crude weapons against him in case they hit the two he needed.
When he reached the gate room, a single man, Sheppard, stood between him and the gate he had just activated using his internal dialling device.
The human held out his hands and said, "Stop. Whatever you want, we can help you here on Atlantis. There's no need to go offworld."
Unit 318 did stop, and eyed him. Sheppard looked down at the unconscious forms of the two men and then back up at Unit 318, "You don't need to take them with you either. They can help you from here, but not if you hurt them."
Unit 318 said, "There is nothing perfect here. I need the others to help me correct that error. You cannot stop me or make me stay."
With that, he dropped one of the men and shoved Sheppard out of the way. Sheppard fell and slid across the floor, then suddenly stopped moving due to the wall he had just hit. He was too dazed to get up again.
Nothing any of the human's could say or do would change Unit 318's mind anyway.
The robot reached down and grabbed Zelenka's ankle again and dragged him and McKay through the gate to the place where he would finally be able to activate his brethren and together they could reach their goal.
TBC
A/N - Our psychotic robot friend is modelled on a Borg drone from Star Trek (but without the squidgy bits) I love the Borg so much *sigh*