The Unremarkable Super Zero
Chapter 2: You and I
It was nice to see that everything seemed unchanged outside the gym when I arrived, indoors was a different story though. The old coffee table was gone and part of the wall was poorly patched up and needed repainting as well as a few other questionable dents in the dry wall. Something had definitely gone down.
I found Misty up on a ladder in the dimly lit aquarium area, must have been feeding time. When she noticed me standing there she nearly fell off the ladder in shock but thankfully only dropped the bucket she was holding, it hit the ground with a loud CLANG. Misty hopped off the ladder and scooped her bucket and asked if I was there to challenge her, apparently not recognizing me. To be fair I probably wouldn't have either, this manufactured face wasn't exactly a gracefully aged progression from my previous one. I didn't look like a dopey little teenager anymore, I looked like a full grown adult.
"Hey…wait a minute." Misty stepped closer squinting, staring particularly hard into my eyes. "No way, I don't believe it. Is it really you, Tracey?"
"I sure hope so."
"Oh we are going to have to keep Daisy away from you."
"Hmm? What?"
"Never mind! But we really need to catch up, it's been a long month!"
Before I could protest or ask any questions Misty was dragging me to main office, she forced me to sit in the kooshy desk chair and took a spot on the desk with her legs crossed. She leaned over resting her chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee. A look of curiosity lit up in her eyes, I could tell she was giving me a good once-over.
She bowed down dangerously close to my face, squinting at something hard. "Would you look at that, they even gave you little freckles. Not a detail overlooked!"
I gulped and laughed anxiously. "Yeah, totally! They even kept that dopey gap in my teeth!" I beared my top chompers at her, Misty bubbled with laughter and shook her head.
"They can change your body but they can't change you…" The laughter stopped and she caught her breath, her face relaxed and she blinked curiously at me. "That being said, how are you handling things?"
How could I answer that honestly? There was so much to talk about, yet I didn't know where to begin, and there was so much more I needed to ask. Most importantly, what happened the day I blacked out? "Uh…alright I guess, you know for a brain pilot in a robot suit."
She seemed puzzled by my little joke, at that point I don't think she was quite aware of the full extent of my enhancements. How I was basically gooey human parts inside a solid cyborg shell, kind of like those weird chocolate eggs everyone seemed to sell around easter. I shifted the topic somewhat and asked where everyone else was, she started rattling on about how her older sisters were continually neglectful of their duties at the gym and vented her frustrations about their irresponsible behaviours. You couldn't help but feel bad for her, she basically ran the gym all by herself.
"Hey, wait a minute. Let's not get too off track here, as your friend I demand to know how you're really doing." Misty shoved my knee with her foot and narrowed her eyes at me.
I sighed, my head was starting to ache a little. I wondered how much of that was programming or not. "Misty, the last day I was here. I don't remember arriving at all, the last thing I can recall is being on the path and the next thing I know I'm waking up in some strange room."
"And you want me to fill in the gaps?"
"Mom said you might be able to."
"I should be, definitely not a day I'll forget for a long time."
Misty opened her mouth to start but the door to the office flew open and in a swirl of blonde hair with the scent of roses was Daisy staring rather intently at her cell phone, barely paying attention to us. As she walked in and dropped her handbag on the desk she almost bumped into the chair I was situated in, but without so much as a blink she kept on walking until she was right beside Misty.
"Okay, so when are you going to move that stuff in the front? I almost tripped over it again!"
Misty glowered at her older sister. "I don't see why you're so incapable of moving it yourself if you want it gone so bad."
Finally peeling her eyes away from her phone, Daisy held up her hand with the back of it facing Misty and huffed. "Hello? Manicure! Just got one and I am not-!" Stopping mid sentence Daisy snapped her head in my direction and squinted, she went to speak but stopped herself. I could practically feel her eyes jumping all over me as she leaned in closer, all I could do was sit there awkwardly with a feeble grin. "Oh my-NO WAY. Tracey? When did you get hot?"
"Okay, DOWN GIRL." Misty yanked Daisy away from me by the back of her blouse before she got too close for comfort, and second longer and those eyelashes may have been close enough to brush my cheeks. And despite Misty's efforts Daisy couldn't seem to help but stare, and who wouldn't? A month ago she knew me as a short, stumpy teenager and now I was…well, the complete opposite. Even with the facial imperfections they kept I would still be deemed a "grade A hottie." I wasn't very keen on that and the potential attention it might bring.
"What? I just want to look, maybe see how real his new skin feels." Daisy wiggled some fingers and fluttered her eyelashes in my general direction, I wanted to die right on the spot.
"Totally inappropriate, Daisy."
"Oh you're no fun at all."
Misty threw her hands up and returned to her perch on the desk, Daisy grabbed a stool from the corner and joined us. I tired my best to ignore her wandering eyes, but despite being visibly uncomfortable with all this new attention she was laying on me Daisy didn't back down. Misty kicked her sister in the knee, not enough to hurt her just a bump to get her attention. They both shot nasty glares at each other.
"As I was saying before Miss Daisy came in a interrupted it's definitely not a day I'll forget for a long time." Misty said with her voice drenched in annoyance, she flipped another fierce glare at her sister before continuing. "You said you don't remember arriving at the gym?"
"Yeah, last thing I recall is walking on the path and-"
Daisy shot up from her stool, knocking it over with a loud clatter. "Wait! Are you telling the story about the day Tracey went super scary robot on us? I want to tell it!"
"Daisy I don't think it ma-"
"Please, please let me tell it? I've totally been going over it in my head for weeks now and I could clearly tell it better than you."
At her wits end, Misty was defeated and hopped off the desk. "You know what, I give up. I'm gonna go get some fresh air."
So much for protecting me from the gazes of Daisy that were clearly undressing me.
With her little sister gone Daisy claimed the spot on the desk and gleefully did a small clap. "Fantastic! Misty isn't really that great at telling stories you know."
"Oh? Really?" I just wanted her to get on with it, enough of this running around.
Daisy nodded and twirled some hair in her fingers, biting her lower lip in deep thought. "Let's see…Like, it was so scary, Tracey! You have no idea!"
"I honestly don't." Nope. Not a clue.
"Well, like you came here like you always do to help me with my chores because you're so awesome and nice. And like there you were on the ladder helping me install a new security camera, I was supervising of course, when this horrible guy burst in the front doors! I mean, he smelled awful like he slept in a drawer of icky gym socks. Don't even get me started on how fried his hair look. Anyhow, he came in and started yelling at poor Misty-"
A head of red hair bobbed into the room momentarily. "Before Daisy gets too ahead of herself the same guy was at the gym the day before. That's why Daisy had you in putting up a new camera, he'd had a tantrum after losing to me and trashed the foyer. The camera was the first thing to go."
Daisy crossed her arms and growled. "Thank you Misty, but as I was saying! So yeah, the guy was yelling at Misty and was super pissed off over losing the match and saying she cheated him, he started demanding a badge. As if Misty would just give one to a sore loser! Anyhow, he started going towards her and it looked bad so you got down from the ladder and put yourself between them and told him to leave. You looked super brave but you sounded super scared, it was so cute!"
I slid lower into the chair, covered my eyes with a hand in embarrassment. "Oh god…"
"So the smelly, angry dude pushed you aside but I guess you were feeling gutsy because you totally confronted him again. Well, this guy was waaaay bigger than you and picked you up like a rag doll and threw you on one of those coffee tables we have in there. Misty and I were totally freaking out and ran into the aquarium area to try and get away but we ended up coming back when we heard a scream that totally sounded like the angry guy. We came back and it was totally freaky Tracey! You were like standing over the guy and your eyes were all blacked out and your face was ripped open and sparking like fireworks, and when the guy got up again you shot him!"
Startled I straightened up in the chair gripping the arms, if I had a regular blood system knuckles would have been going white. "I did what?!"
"Well, not like with a gun. I guess you have some kind of a cannon thing in your arm." Daisy held her arm out and flexed her hand, holding it out flat. "Kind of like this, the light came out of your palm."
"…well, that's a detail they failed to inform me of at the Facility!" I wondered what other details were being kept from me, they had seemed fairly open about answering all my questions but were not very inclined to just give me information. Would have been nice to know though, that I was apparently a walking weapon.
Daisy must have sensed my slight panic, she slipped off the desk and took me by the shoulders. Admittedly I shrunk back in her gentle grip a little, fearing another attempt on her part to get too close to me. "Don't worry, you didn't kill him. It just kinda stunned him." When she felt my shoulders relax slightly Daisy let go and returned to the desk, jumping back on and crossing her legs. "Moving on then, I got totally scared and wanting to defend my little sister from the raging robot I grabbed a hammer from the tool box and slammed it across your head!" With that statement she mimicked picking something up and swinging it with force, her face scrunched into some grotesque cross between fear and anger.
"Uh…"
"Brutal, I know!" Daisy returned to her usual sweet self and yammered on. "...but we didn't know how dangerous you were. So like, robot you started to move towards me all twitchy but then you just fell. You know, like totally dead. I so thought I killed you. We had to lock the doors and stash you in the closet while we called the cops, we just told them the angry guy was drunk and they took him away for us."
"I am far too sober for this story." I muttered, in that moment a 40 of vodka would have been an appropriate companion.
"Let me finish! Thank you. So after the police left we had to do something with you. We broke into your backpack and found your cell phone, we thought we were calling your creator but it ended up being your mom which I guess she kinda is your creator but that's not important right now. She just told us to keep the gym locked up until a white truck came to fetch you. We were taken with them though and no one told us what the heck was going on for hours, poor Lily and Violet were totally worried when we didn't get back. But like eventually a woman showed up, she was totally pretty and kinda looked like you Tracey! Obviously it was your mom, she ended up crying and telling us everything about you being a cyborg and how she felt super guilty for not telling you about it."
My mothers guilt was the one thing I could completely accept, she'd displayed it rather clearly in the last few days her and I spent together. If I thought back far enough in my life I could actually find moments where that guilt and sadness was seeping out, little things like the expression on her face when I couldn't join the other kids for school trips or lying to me when I asked what the clicking sound in my head was when I tried to sleep at night. How she had kept it in for so long without cracking was a mystery, it probably hurt to keep it locked inside. Still, that didn't solve the biggest question of all. "…I don't understand something, why don't I remember any of this? I mean, Daisy I took down a guy, I shot him with some stupid arm cannon no one cared to tell me about. How the heck does someone just forget all of that?"
Daisy sat there in silence for a moment going back in her thoughts, she became much calmer and more reserved in her body language. I think part of her was starting to understand that this was important to me. "Well, your mom said that there's some kind of program in that brain thing of yours, I think it was called an augmentation? I guess every time you're in enough danger and you get hurt it's supposed to take over and save you. She said it happened another time when you were 12 but she didn't really talk about it."
No doubt another manipulated memory, something meant to be forgotten. I'd have to call mother and ask her about it another time.
Now that the story was told, I felt emptier than before and had a whole new block of questions I needed answers to. Still, I had a feeling that no matter how many questions I asked or how many answers I sought there would always be something that would always feel incomplete. I hated to admit it, but some of that feeling was betrayal. I wished my parents had just told me the truth long ago, this dance around the truth my entire life was something no one could keep up with forever.
The idea of it alone was too exhausting. The effort put into keeping me human, the fact that for years a group of scientists and technicians had been working to create the perfect illusion of humanity. It seemed stupid, like a waste of time. Why me? Why bother. I wasn't special, I wasn't worth saving.
Without a word I stood up and left the office. Make no mistake though I wasn't upset with Daisy and I didn't leave the gym since I wasn't exactly ready to head back to Pallet, I still feared that the professor would be judgemental. I actually had no idea what to do with myself at that point, there was too much information to digest and I was feeling another existential crisis creeping up on me, did any of the other Facility brand cyborgs go through the same ups and downs?
I wasn't standing in the aquarium for too long knocking my forehead repeatedly against the glass with a Luvdisc starring concerned at me when Daisy came strolling in, she stopped about 10 feet away and put her hands on her hips and tossed me an irritated glare. "Alright, no feeling sorry for yourself."
"Easy to say when you're not a walking science experiment."
Daisy stomped over angrily and shoved a finger in my chest forcing me to stop banging my head. She was right up on her tip toes trying to get in my face to make her point.
"You know that none of this changes who you are, you're still Tracey. Cyborg or not."
"I know."
"Right. Well start convincing yourself, don't go around sulking and getting your face smears all over my aquarium."
"I don't have have face smears, my skin isn't real. And gee Daisy, isn't that a little insensitive? I mean, I just found out about all this a few days ago and you expect me to just get over it like that? And another thing, you just let it slip that I'm basically walking around with a concealed weapon in my arm, what if I hurt someone or kill them? Do I just get over that as well?" Okay, now I was pretty upset and despite me uncharacteristically raising my voice in anger she didn't once lower herself and just stood there starring at me defiantly.
Daisy grabbed the front of my shirt aggressively and yanked my face down to her level. "I'm not asking you to get over it, I'm telling you that this doesn't change anything about who you are!"
"But I'm not normal!"
Daisy let go of me and threw her hands up in frustration. "Newsflash, you never were! I don't know if you've ever noticed but like, you are totally not normal at all and it has nothing to do with you being a cyborg. Like, what teenage boy seriously wants to sit around a look at monsters all day?"
"Hey, they're cool..."
Daisy stomped her feet like a small child and blew up again, her hair flying every direction as her head thrashed about."Don't interrupt me when I'm scolding you! Ugh, Tracey whatever-your-middle-name-is Sketchit, I swear-!"
"Lee." I squeaked out, she somehow heard me and stopped dead mid-fit.
A single blue eye blinked from behind a thick curtain of blonde hair. "Pardon?"
"My middle name, it's Lee." I replied sheepishly, I know I know. My parents totally gave me the most masculine names on the planet.
"And do soulless robots have middle names?"
"I really can't say for sure."
Flipping her hair back and brushing her fingers quickly through it Daisy took a few calming breaths and walked back over to me, her eyes still leering. "Well then Tracey LEE Sketchit, you're welcome to stay here as long as your life crisis about your place in the universe is bothering your pretty little face but if I catch you questioning your content of character again I totally have no reservations about strapping you to the hood of my car and taking you for a joyride."
"Y-you wouldn't."
"Oh? I wouldn't? Would you fight back if I came down here with bungee cords and a roll of duct tape?"
"Is that a fact or a proposition?" The second I realized what had popped out of my mouth I suddenly lost the ability to form proper sentences, went white as a sheet and high tailed it out of the gym, I really hadn't meant to say anything of that nature but sometimes you get too caught up in the moment when you get a back and fourth banter going with someone. If anything that was a confirmation of my humanity, robots don't fall into innuendo ladened traps and regret it.
Needless to say, I didn't crawl back to the gym until long after sunset.
