EDITED ON 10-7-15.
Chapter Ten
Revised Pretenses
"I-I don't know..." she whispered and her voice cracked painfully at the admission, "I just don't know."
Tiron was unsure what to say next. What could he say? In all the vorns he had known Alchana never had he seen her admit to not knowing... to fear. She was once of the best scientists he knew, always digging for more, pushing the limits of science just to see what would happen. The unknown had never stopped her from poking and prodding the universe in vain attempts to bend it to her will.
He didn't bother to pull back when she flicked her tentacles roughly out of his grasp.
Alchana was lost in her own frozen thoughts, trying to make sense of the emotion locking her into place. It made no sense to her, the reasoning behind her own fears. There was no logic behind it, only raw freezing emotions that she couldn't control or understand.
That in itself frightened her most of all.
Tiron rubbed his temples and angled himself down to pick up the scanner that Alchana had dropped. He ran it over the prototype once, then again and a third time for good measure. The prototype stopped playing with its servos and began to follow Tiron's movements as he ran the scanner over its chassis.
With his focus on the scanner Tiron didn't notice that he was being quietly observed.
Everything was so new to the prototype, everything from the berth he was sitting on to the way his digits bent. An insatiable curiosity filled him since the first moment he came into awareness. It was hard to take in his surroundings; there was so much newness about them.
His optics flickered briefly, his systems still calibrating for the first time being online, and his gaze followed the creature in front of him. It wasn't paying much attention to him, more focused on the device held in its long thin appendage.
"Alchana you need to look at this." Tiron started, his voice tinged with unease. When she didn't respond immediately he turned around and shook her gently by the shoulders. "Alchana, snap out of it! NOW!"
Alchana shuddered slightly before looking at him with bleary eyes. Her brow creased darkly and Tiron moved away, dropping his tentacles and handing her the scanner. She snatched it out of his hands and began to repeat the same process he had just gone through. He could tell she was shaken despite her best efforts to hide it; unfortunately one did not spend as much time around her as he did without learning how to read her movements.
At the moment he sensed a certain apprehension towards the prototype as well as a small degree of curiosity and bewilderment hampered only by her fear. Her movements jerked with an edge that also led him to the conclusion that she was being eaten with anger; anger at herself for her fear and frustration with her inability to conceal it. She was still the same Alchana he knew; only now he saw her differently.
Now she was beginning to rant under her breath about scanners telling her how the laws of physics no longer applied. Tiron took a breath to steady his nerves somewhat before he ventured to speak.
"From what I can tell, the spark ore has integrated seamlessly with the prototypes internal systems."
Alchana snorted and turned to him with a look he was all too familiar with. "Your powers of observation never fail to amaze me, Tiron." She said sarcastically. "Everything is exactly as I predicted. The spark ore was successful in balancing the unstable properties of the energon crystal." Tiron raised an eye ridge at that statement and she tossed the scanner to an empty berth parallel to the one where the prototype was situated.
"The scanner is useless, spitting out some slag about how physics no longer exist as we know them." She growled in frustration.
Nope, she was definitely still the same quint. "Have you considered that it might be right? We could be dealing with something beyond our understanding." He said slowly, careful to keep his tone neutral.
He had theories on just what the spark ore might be, and he didn't like any of them and the repercussions they might have if he was right.
"Nothing is beyond science!" Alchana protested determinedly, "Everything is defined by science; we need only find the definition. And then understanding will come."
Tiron had no wish to pursue the matter after seeing her vehement response. The way he saw it, it was better if she found a way to explain the un-explainable to suit her frame of mind than if he tried to convince her otherwise.
By now the prototype had taken an interest in its surroundings and its optics roamed freely between Tiron and Alchana as they spoke. Every little thing was so new to the mechanical being and it observed every detail, taking in the room around it with infantile curiosity.
"I assume you added vocal processing units?" Tiron asked even though he didn't need to. He still remembered the main aspects from the datapad she had given him. That should mean that the prototype could process and respond to vocal commands. He had no doubts that Alchana had not skipped over any programming in such regards.
"Command: State your designation." He addressed the prototype directly. He didn't need to see Alchana to know that he had her attention completely.
"Unit designation A-003. Subclass: prototype." Before he even knew what he was doing he was responding. It was an automatic response, ingrained in the core of his programming.
The prototype's voice was deeper than either of them had expected, startling both of the quints, and crackled with static.
A-003 looked up to observe the two beings before him more closely. They looked so very different from anything he had seen before, with round oval bodies and thin, whip-like appendages. They were certainly more organic, with strange devices that seemingly allowed them to float. The prototype held up his own appendage, his right servo with four individual digits, and flexed it slowly, taking in the all differences between them.
Tiron could feel Alchana's curiosity rubbing onto him as she hovered behind him, almost eagerly, to see what he would do next. It baffled him slightly that she was allowing him to initiate the first contact with the prototype. Or rather, A-003 as he had been officially designated. It was different though, unnerving even, to have the prototype speak its own designation.
"Unit A-003: state your function." Tiron asked slowly. He watched as the prototype tilted its head in thought, one could almost hear the gears turning in his processor.
"This unit has no function." A-003 responded sadly after a moment's thought. His voice cracked slightly. He didn't understand why, but to not have a designated function made him feel hollow. Like he was empty inside.
Tiron could almost hear the disappointment in its, no, his voice. The prototype's design definitely warranted the use of a masculine pronoun.
Alchana shifted from her place behind him and approached the prototype directly for the first time since it had activated. He noticed how her eyes were kept carefully trained on the prototype's optics and made a mental note to construct a colored lens of sorts.
He also found the bright gaze of the prototype somewhat unnerving, although not to the same extent as Alchana did.
"At present your primary function is to learn and develop as a productive addition to the empire." Alchana stated her voice uncharacteristically soft. One might have mistaken the softness for some vague display of kindness, but anyone with any experience would know otherwise. She was still quite wary of her own creation, the softness only a result of this strange source of fear.
A-003 looked up at the being that spoke, quintesson, his processor supplied. The edges of his vision filled momentarily with definitions, reasoning's ingrained within his very being.
He was the creation; they were the masters, the creators. His place was to obey and to serve the Empire. Though the prototype didn't know much of such things; all he knew was that he was to follow the commands of his creators, Master Creator Alchana and Creator Tiron.
A-003 shuttered his optics and nodded while this new feeling spread through his consciousness. The prototype mulled this idea over in his head before replying with an overly enthusiastic nod. "Affirmative Master Creator Alchana."
Tiron wondered what the point was of letting 'it' believe it had a say in the matter. The prototype was built to start the upheaval of the Judges, not make friends and indulge in curiosity. Despite these strange echoes of awareness, it was still just a machine and no different from any other drone.
He trusted that Alchana would remember that. And if she didn't, then it was his duty to remind her.
He looked over to Alchana where she had her back turned to him having moved away from the prototype to type something into her console. Tiron was sure that there was more of a reason to what she had told A-003. She almost always had deeper plans behind her sometimes obtuse actions. It was just a matter of waiting to see what would happen.
In the meantime he would have to figure out what to do with the prototype. If it was indeed as sentient as he believed it was then he would need to keep it occupied. He approached Alchana from behind.
"How do you intend to proceed, Duani?" He asked, knowing that she would have her own suspicions as well.
Alchana paused and her tentacles stiffened over the console, "We will observe."
"And then what?" Tiron pushed.
"We have programmed him to obey, when the time comes, I have no doubt that we will succeed in our goals." She answered readily, catching the attention of the prototype. Tiron found the feeling to be disturbing, having the prototype staring at them so intently.
He blinked suddenly as a thought occurred to him, "You plan on building more, don't you?" It wasn't a question; it was a statement of fact.
Alchana turned to face him directly for the first time during the conversation, "I plan on integrating them into the empire itself." Her faces abruptly changed to a yellow color scheme as she went on, her voice growing bolder. "They will serve as interactive servants. We will be able to gather information from right out of under their noses and never be suspected. Then, when the time is right, we will strike and there will be too many of us, of them, to resist."
Tiron allowed a dark smirk to grow on his face as her excitement grew. It was a faultless plan, simple and effective; just the way he liked it. Alchana really had thought this through and it surprised him somewhat, the simplicity of her plan. Many of her ideas were often rushed and complicated, full of unnecessary precautions to prevent suspicion.
"There are others of this unit?" A-003 unfamiliar metallic voice spoke up in the silence. The prototype scrunched up its faceplates as if looking for the right word, showing an amount of dexterity in the smooth metal plates Tiron hadn't thought possible.
"Brothers?" A-003 asked, his deeper voice smoothing itself out into a mild baritone. He found that he liked the sound of his vocals. They were much more pleasing than that of the two quintessons; their voices seemed to be perpetually layered with sinister undertones and deeper meanings promised within.
Alchana hovered backwards and her lips pulled into a disturbing grin, her third and most ambitious face still dominant, "Not yet, not yet... But there will be. There will be many more where you came from, Unit A-003."
There was a cold promise in her words, a sheer determination and an undeniable undertone. Tiron had always known that Alchana was more fixed on the idea of overpowering the Judges than some of the other quints he knew, however, he now had a sinking suspicion that her vehemence towards them ran deeper than simple discontent.
But he also had his own reasons for joining, far more powerful than most quints who were part of the insurrection.
A-003 pulled back slightly at her voice, he decided that he didn't like the way it sounded. It promised bad things, he could almost feel it somehow. He pushed the feeling away and focused more on what she had actually said and not on the strange feelings about what she meant. The prototype could not understand the alien feelings that thrummed within his core, no more than he could disobey a command from his masters.
It went against all his programming, everything that he thought he knew.
There were going to be more like him! The thought thrilled him unlike anything he had felt in the small time he had existed so far. A-003 wondered if perhaps he could aid in their creation. He was fascinated with the little details in the gears and joints of his own frame and hoped that perhaps he might be able to learn more about how they worked. The idea gave him a goal to work towards for whenever he began his function to learn.
Alchana moved across the lab, disappearing behind a corner into the darkened areas beyond. Tiron moved forward, seamlessly continuing his work without a further word necessary between him and his colleague.
"Command: Hold still." His creator said neutrally, picking up the same scanner he had used on the prototype before.
A-003's body stiffened automatically and he found himself unable to move even a micron. He strained against his programming for a brief moment before resigning himself to the lack of movement. It was as if all connections to his motor functions had been severed by a simple command. In this particular case he realized, they had.
"Query: What are you doing?" He asked cautiously when Tiron began waving a strange device around his face once again. It beeped ominously as he lowered his tentacle to his chassis.
"I am scanning your energy conversion chamber." He stated without even bothering to look at him before plugging the device into a console. A-003 opened his mouth to ask 'why' but was interrupted by the single faced quintesson.
"Command: Remain silent."
A-003 felt his face plates scrunch up in confusion when he couldn't speak. He had a feeling that he was not exactly welcomed by the engineer. Why couldn't he ask questions if his primary function was to learn?
At least he could move again now that the new command was in place. He chose to stay as still as possible though so that the quintesson wouldn't immobilize him again. Not being able to speak was more favorable to being locked into one place with no way to even twitch. That didn't mean he liked the silence though.
Instead he settled down with a grumpy frown and went back to investigating his digits. He curled and uncurled them, noting the complexity of the thin wiring in-between the joints as he moved them. It brought another question to his mind, how was he here? How was he… him? A-003 almost expected an answer to appear in his processor like he had experienced before, but the programming only told him that he was created. Surely it could not be so simple.
He vented a large gust of air that whistled slightly as it was expelled from his intakes earning him a razor-sharp glare from the single faced quint. A-003 went silent once more, wondering why he was being ignored.
A curious thought came to him and A-003 experimentally vented, this time with an exaggerated huff. This time Tiron stopped what he was doing to glower at him darkly. A-003's head cocked slightly as he observed this near instantaneous reaction. Interesting.
Suddenly there was an audio piercing clang of metal hitting metal and proceeding to bounce. Then silence. A-003 shook his helm to clear his processor of the metallic ring that echoed through it. What was that?
"Tiron, come get your runt out of my lab!"
The accompanying shout echoed around the walls of the lab and the single faced quintesson quickly levitated around the corner, a concerned look on his face.
A-003 vented softly once more and tried to listen to what was going on outside of his vision. His own silence unnerved him. The idea came to his processor that he might just sit there forever, forgotten in plain sight. He shuddered and the thin metal plates covering his chassis shrunk down into his frame. For some reason the thought terrified him to no end, the thought of being alone.
A-003 shifted slightly, feeling the jerky movements of his knee joints as they swayed off the edge of the berth. Taking a chance he slowly slid off the table and carefully placed his weight onto his pedes for the first time. He shuttered his optics at the slight creaking sound the brand new joints made and cautiously straightened his spinal struts, but his grip remained tight on the berth.
He had hoped that he might go and investigate the sounds coming from around the corner. He wasn't sure how his creators would react to such actions, but his curiosity compelled him to move forward.
Besides, no one was paying him any attention at the moment.
The next thing he knew, something or someone ran into his chassis, sending his already unsteady pedes out of underneath him.
Hey look! And A-003 has finally made his appearance! Whoo! And poor Hemir, what has he gotten himself into now?
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