Her systems pulsed. Energy began to thrum as her power core burned brighter. Consciousness returned as though waking from a deep sleep.
Zooey's vision flickered into being, information pooling into her rapidly awakening mind. She released a few bleeps as she checked her systems, just as she'd been taught to do by Tails.
"Zo? You okay in there?"
She recognised the voice that vibrated her audio receptors. Redtail. Zachary. Fox. Male. Primary designation; father.
She didn't respond, her brain still sluggish upon waking. Outside, her sensors detected life signs as her father seemingly listened for further activity, before his footsteps could be heard padding away toward the kitchen.
Zooey's head swivelled on her flexible neck, optics taking in her surroundings. She was sat, in the corner of a small room. The walls were magenta, the floor carpeted maroon. Around were various tables and shelves covered with knick-knacks, books, make-up, fur-care products... her room. The bed lay across from her, these days unused.
Beside her chair lay a portable energy generator, spools of cables coiled around it. The cables were currently unconnected to anything. But their purpose was painfully well known to Zooey.
She logged the time; Zero-eight-hundred hours, one minute, five seconds. Time to get up. There was work to do.
Zooey checked her feet, body whirring mechanically as she leaned forward, gripping the arms of her chair with both steel hands. The long cables extending from her head swung over her now unarmoured shoulders as she heaved herself into a standing position, power core humming as her systems came fully online. Slanted vents along the sides of her back opened and hissed, oxygen-recycling systems flexing.
Carefully, the cyborg put one foot forward, the rubber-padded boot of her left foot settling into the carpet with a muffled thud. The other foot followed suit. She steadily made her way to her bedroom door, wrapping her right hand around the knob, careful not to exert too much pressure, and opened the door. Readjusting to her heftier body, she moved with mechanical fluidity down the hall, heading to join her father in the kitchen with steady footfalls.
The older fox's ears perked as they registered the soft whirr of mechanics and the steady thump of metal feet that signified the arrival of his daughter. She entered the kitchen, planting her feet before the table and regarding him silently from her black visor with glowing blue circles.
"Hi, sweetie..." the man said, causing her head to cock with a whirr, "you feeling okay?"
Zooey considered, data banks working with her brain to process how to answer the query.
"Mechanical systems operating adequately. Organic components stable." the cyborg replied, smooth synthesized voice speaking matter-of-factly. "Power at... sixty-seven percent capacity. Recharge recommended."
"Okay..." her father set his coffee mug down and left his chair, padding over the kitchen in his brown boots to his daughter. "But that's not what I meant..."
Zooey reconsidered, understanding that she didn't usually communicate so artificially. Her brain was still waking up it seemed, leaving the computer parts of her mind to take charge.
"S... sorry, dad..." the cyborg tried again, this time switching to her regular vocabulary, "It's just... hard sometimes..."
"I know honey, I know..." the fox reached out and did his best to hug the tall, mechanical form of his roboticized daughter, trying to ignore how cold the metal was beneath his touch, "But you're doing so well! You're moving so much better, you're sleeping more, you're back working in the store..." Zach then wore a more stern expression as his eyes met the glowing lights inside the black visor that had replaced his daughter's face. "But... you didn't tell me you were so low on energy..."
"I don't like being opened up..." Zooey replied, "Or... being plugged into things..."
"I know sweetie," her father said, turning and heading for the fridge, "But you need to tell me these things so we can take care of you! Tails can't be available all the time with his... restrictions..."
Zooey didn't respond, remaining stood in place as her optics tracked her father across the kitchen. The older fox retrieved one of several glass tubes from the refrigerator, filled with milky fluid, and turned back to his daughter.
"Speaking of taking care of yourself... you hungry?"
Zooey's optics landed on the glass tube. The synthesized nutritional supplement, developed by Tails himself, was vital to keep her still organic brain alive. But consuming it...
She shook her head, cables swinging. "No. I want to wait until Tails gets here. Then I only have to open up once today."
Zach nodded sadly, but did his best to remain cheerful. "Okay, sweetie. Whatever you need..." The fox set the glass tube down onto the table beside his half eaten breakfast, and began to head for the kitchen door. "Anyway, I'm gonna get ready to open the store... call me if you need anything, okay princess?"
His only response was a nod of her steel head, the featureless mask of her face unreadable.
"Okay..." the father gave her another quick hug, before leaving the kitchen to perform his morning routines.
Zooey, left alone in the kitchen, simply stared at the discarded tube of nutritional supplement as it lay next to a plate of leftover bacon and eggs. Her 'nose' sensor could detect the scent of the food... but she had no mouthparts. No oesophagus. No stomach. No appetite. She tried to remember what the simple pleasure of consuming food was like. She couldn't. It didn't compute.
Tails had offered to construct an artificial digestive system, based on his own, and remodelled facial features for the roboticized vixen... along with other modifications that might replicate her organic appearance. She had flatly denied. Such procedures would be extremely invasive, and she didn't want to be taken apart and reassembled any more than she already had.
She had, however, requested her bulky shoulder pauldrons removed. Without the armoured pads, her broad frame had been significantly reduced. Some of her armour had been stripped, lowering her increased body weight and leaving her less bulky, reducing her frame to somewhat more normal Mobian standards.
The biggest modification however, had been the replacement of her right arm. After her internment in Robotnik's machine, the entire forelimb had been replaced with a chunky, high powered blaster. She couldn't bear having the weapon be a part of her, and had immediately requested it removed. Tails had complied, building a replacement limb. The arm was unpainted, a shining chrome. More skeletal, reconstructed from one of the synthetic fox's spares.
It didn't feel like hers. But it was better than the blaster. She refused to be a weapon.
"Zooey?"
Zooey turned at the mention of her name, ears swivelling like satellite dishes, as her father reentered the room. Washed and dressed, wearing his work overalls and spectacles, he wore a concerned expression as he regarded his daughter.
She checked the time, to find she had been standing in place, staring at the leftover food, for fourteen minutes thirty-seven seconds. She hadn't noticed the passage of time, instead lowering into a state of reduced power consumption.
She turned, mechanical body facing the same direction as her head.
"Sorry dad... I was daydreaming..."
"Honey, are you sure you want to work today? I can run the store myself if you need the rest..."
"No, it's fine..." Zooey's father stepped aside as she approached the kitchen door, "I need to keep active. I can't just sit around and do nothing..."
"Okay, I understand..." Zachary's bespectacled eyes followed his daughter's steel form as she fluidly left the room, heading toward the stairs. "Be careful, okay?"
The father removed his spectacles as his daughter left his sight, the hum of her power core fading as she carefully descended the stairs. He rubbed his eyes before tears could start to form. He wondered if she knew just how many times she seemed to phase out of reality like that.
Damn Robotnik for turning his daughter into a machine.
"So..." Sonic, happily trotting along the pavement pointed at a city service bot as it bleeped at his companion, "What did that one say?"
Tails, his synthetic adopted brother, wore a tired expression and let out a resigned sigh. "Same as the last one, Sonic..." the fox replied, clutching a toolkit, "Acknowledging Civilian Unit One-Seven-Zero-One. Acknowledged. Happy?"
"Hey, no offense little buddy!" Sonic replied, "I just think it's neat that you can talk to these things!"
"Oh yeah, 'cos the conversation is so thrilling..." the synthetic fox said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, "Dude, they barely have an intelligence, and no sense of self-awareness... you think I want to chat with them?"
"It's just cool, dude!" Sonic replied, before pointing to another service bot. "Ooh! Say something to that one!"
Tails gave him an appalled expression, before rolling his eyes and releasing a string of bleeps, clicks, and whistles. The garbage unit paused in its duties, regarding the android curiously, before responding in kind.
"So what did it say?" Sonic said excitedly, Tails eyeing him unenthusiastically.
"Oh, it said... 'Acknowledging Civilian Unit One-Seven-Zero-One. Acknowledged.' Thrilling back and forth stuff, Sonic."
Sonic sighed in defeat, as the garbage bot clanked away. "Sorry little buddy... I just wanted to take more of an interest in your abilities, you know?"
"Well... if you wanna learn more, maybe pay attention next time I'm walking you through my maintenance and repair cycles?"
"Fine! But that stuff's complicated, It's hard to concentrate on all that engineering mumbo-jumbo!"
Tails shook his head incredulously as they rounded the corner and approached a familiar convenience store, outside of which sat a large delivery truck.
"The thought of being incapacitated, with only you around to repair me, is quite frankly terrifying Sonic..."
"Are you managing there, miss Zooey?"
Zooey, a large crate easily clutched in her arms, turned and responded to the elderly delivery driver with a bleep of affirmation. She kicked herself internally for slipping into the machine speech that was now part of her vocabulary, and muddled through her brain as she processed her regular speech patterns.
"I'm fine, mister Gerson..." she this time replied with her synthesized voice, "I'm just happy to be useful."
"Well, it's very good to see you back on your feet!" The elderly turtle replied, as Zooey turned and slung a huge sack of potatoes over her shoulder like it weighed nothing. Zooey, unable to respond with any expression, altered the circular blue lights that represented her eyes into arches - 'happy eyes', a small trick she'd learned to compensate for smiling.
She finished stocking the deliveries and returned to Gerson to sign for the supplies. Her hands, clunky and awkward now they were composed of steel, just about managed to grip the pen as she scrawled her signature into the papers.
"Thank you, Miss!" the turtle smiled, turning to head back to his truck, "Have a good one!"
"I'll try, mister Gerson..." the cyborg replied, clutching her receipt. The turtle slammed the door to his truck shut and fired the engine, Zooey stepping back as the vehicle rumbled out of the yard.
"Acknowledging Roboticized Enforcement Unit Zero-Zero-One... acknowledged."
Zooey turned with as much of a start as she could manage in her unfamiliar body, optics locking onto and scanning a street-sweeping bot as it passed by, briefly pausing to log the new machine in its vicinity.
She ignored it. It had 'spoken' to her in the machine-speak she was capable of understanding now. She didn't like the thought... the fact… that she was just another machine to be logged into the systems of the city's service robots.
But that's what she was. She supposed it was what she deserved.
She made to return to the store, before her sensors picked up familiar life signatures approaching her.
"Hey there, sister!"
Zooey turned, declining to use her 'happy eyes' as Sonic and Tails entered her field of view. Not that she didn't appreciate their company. She just wasn't very happy with herself right now.
"Hi, Sonic..." she replied, making sure she was speaking with her usual voice. Her optics then focused on the hedgehog's companion, briefly scanning the synthetic fox.
Civilian Unit One-Seven-Zero-One. Personal Service Robot of Ogilive Maurice Hedgehog.
"Hi, Tails..." she said instead.
Sonic looked on as the two 'foxes' awkwardly stood facing one another, optics not meeting the others'. He cleared his throat, causing both to switch their attention to him.
"So..." he said, wearing his lopsided grin as he flashed a thumbs-up at the roboticized vixen. "Looking good there, sis! You feeling any better?"
Sonic, though cheesy, was capable of charming the pants off of anybody. Zooey's eyes flickered into arches at the compliment, her brief melancholy evaporating for the moment.
"I'm okay thank you, Sonic..." The cyborg began fiddling with her steel claws, "As best as I can, at least..." her optics fixed on the tool kit clutched in Tails' hand. "I suppose it's time for... that?""
Tails glanced to his toolkit, then sheepishly nodded. "Yeah... you need a few minutes before we begin?"
Zooey shook her head. "No. Let's just get it over with."
"So, you haven't been charging..." Tails, safety goggles lowered, busied himself with fitting cables into Zooey's open rear interface. The cables ran to the portable generator in her room while she sat on a reversed chair, reluctantly allowing the smaller fox to perform his work.
"I don't like being opened up..." Zooey replied. She also didn't like charging herself up like a cell phone.
"Have you eaten today?" Tails continued, now connecting his data pad into an input.
"No... I wanted to get everything done in one session..."
"That's okay..." Tails, always prepared, retrieved a glass tube of Zooey's nutritional supplement. He unclasped a 'fuel cap' in Zooey's back, inserting the pointed nozzle of the glass tube in and allowing the fluid to enter her systems.
Zooey's brain, the only organic material left of her, was kept alive with many life support systems integrated into her reconstructed body. One of these was a simple digestive system, that relied on the specially manufactured nutritional supplements that 'fed' the brain, accessible through her open back panel. She was incapable of feeding herself, or even fitting her own charging cable. The restrictions seemed to be intentional; further restricting her independence, having been converted to be a weapon. She wouldn't be able to operate for long outside of a dedicated supply base.
"So... how's things?" Tails said, now tapping at his data pad as he ran diagnostics on Zooey's systems, "Anything I should know?"
"No... everything still feels the same..." Zooey replied, "But I'm moving around better... dad's been great, he helps me a lot."
"Uh huh..." Tails responded, absorbed in the information on his data pad.
"Well..." Zooey admitted, causing Tails' ears to perk. "I keep... slipping..."
"Slipping, huh?" Tails responded, lowering his pad for a moment, "You wanna talk about it?"
"Well..." Zooey, with more control over her synthesized voice now, sounded as apprehensive as she could manage. "I keep losing time... standing around, just... waiting for someone to tell me what to do..." She turned her head slightly, causing the cables that had replaced her hair to shift over her now unarmoured shoulder. "Last week I... got confused, when I was cleaning the store, and I wound up just... standing there, for hours, until my dad came home... people saw me, they didn't know what to do... he had to order me to go to my room just to get me out of there..."
Tails reached forward and shifted her cables away from her exposed rear maintenance interface. "Sorry, that sounds like it sucked..."
Unbeknownst to Zooey, the synthetic had already been made aware of her 'slips'. He had seen the security footage of Zooey blanking out in the middle of a shift while her dad was out for business, requesting directives as customers cautiously approached her. She'd had several such episodes, each time the computer parts of her brain taking control and waiting for orders.
He understood. He'd been through it himself.
"People... people are scared of me, Tails..." Zooey continued, the volume of her synthesized voice lowering, "And some people aren't very... kind..."
Tails paused in his work. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"You shouldn't be sorry..." came her reply. He thought she was going to continue, but it seemed she had no more to say.
They sat in silence for a while, Tails checking her diagnostics and rate of battery charge. It was nearly ten minutes before he decided to check on her again.
"Hey, you okay there Zo?"
"Affirmative." the cyborg answered flatly, before releasing an annoyed bleep. "I mean, yes. I'm fine."
"Another slip?" the synthetic required, logging the event down in his own memory banks, "You went quiet there for a little while."
"I was just thinking..." she paused, the only sound in the room the low thrum of her power core. "Tails? How are things going with reclaiming your citizenship?"
"Oh..." Tails chuckled humourlessly, "That... well, I have another inspection due soon... I have to prove to some Robotics Department bigwigs that I'm 'intelligent, self-aware, and alive' before I can be considered a person again."
"You seem pretty much all of those things to me..."
"Yeah, well... I guess that's what you get for being a hyper-advanced killer robot built by a megalomaniac to spy on people..."
Zooey shifted in her seat, almost turning to face him. "What does that mean?"
Tails bit his lip, seeming very reluctant to continue their current conversation. "Never mind... my programming's been a little wonky lately. I'm still not used to being full robot. Guess I never will be."
Zooey didn't respond, her brain accessing the last few moments she'd lived as an organic. She saw an evil pair of blue eyes in her mind's eye, accompanied by the sneering voice of Doctor Robotnik.
What do I want? Why, I'm simply welcoming you into the family! As I understand it you're rather close to... my son!
She considered asking Tails right then and there. But ultimately, the cyborg decided she'd had enough of soul-bearing discussions for the day. If either of them still had a soul.
Eventually, Tails finished his work and removed all of the cables from her back. Fully charged, fed, and systems diagnostics complete, Zooey heaved herself from the reversed chair and turned to face the smaller synthetic.
"That's everything... as far as I can tell, your systems are in perfect working order!" The orange-furred fox drooped his ears and shrank apologetically. "S... sorry... I guess I shouldn't say it that way..."
"It's okay, Tails..." Zooey flashed her happy eyes at him, displaying gratitude, "I'm lucky I have you to help me like this... I wouldn't want to be left in the hands of the Robotics Department or anything..."
"No," Tails chuckled, rubbing the back of his head, "You wouldn't... they're kinda butts..."
The two foxes, one completely artificial in nature and the other converted from organic material, stood awkwardly apart from one another, just as they had the night of their date.
"Welp, gotta go!" Tails hurriedly packed his equipment away and snapped his case shut, not willing the situation to become any weirder, "Got work to do, got modifications to make on... well, myself..." The fox began to back out of Zooey's room, while the cyborg watched him wordlessly with blue optics, "So... bye!"
Tails dashed from the room before Zooey could say anything. She didn't respond, simply remaining planted in front of her chair.
She should have been quicker, but was still clumsy in her systems. She should have apologised. Instead, she found herself standing idly for another six minutes twenty-three seconds after Tails left, just thinking.
She scolded herself internally. She had to pay more attention to the time. She did not want to be a mere machine, standing around waiting for directives. Waiting for orders, like she'd been converted for.
She checked her systems, finding herself to be in perfect condition, and marched from her room. Her mechanical limbs whirred and her feet thumped into the floor as the roboticized vixen went off in search of work to do. She needed to stay active.
Zooey couldn't hum. Her vocal synthesising units were capable of literally saying the word 'hum', but she was incapable of producing the sound. Outside of a rapid succession of 'H's, like an old video game character's vocal sound effects.
It was a shame. She'd always enjoyed humming to herself while going about her duties. Another ability she'd previously taken for granted, robbed of her now in her transformation into a machine.
To compensate, she had learned to adapt her machine-speak. Emitting a series of bleeps, whistles, and clicks arranged into melodies. Another method she had developed to express herself, just like her 'happy eyes'.
She no longer had vocal chords, or eyes, or any of her expressive facial features. She had to work with what she did have.
So it was that she 'sang' to herself as she stacked the shelves of her father's store, doing her best to treat the day like any other day. The steady hum of her own power core and whirr of her mechanics were the only other sounds in the store. Until her sensors picked up life signs approaching her, and her stiff metallic ears swivelled at the sound of a small voice.
"Hi, Zooey!"
The cyborg ceased stacking newspapers and turned to find a small rabbit girl beaming up at her, clutching a packet of sweets.
"Oh, hello Sprout!" Zooey 'smiled', eyes arching, at the sight of the small girl.
"What was that sound you were making? Were you singing?"
Zooey remained still for a moment, processing "I suppose so, yes."
"Can you do it again?" the girl hopped excitedly, "It was so pretty!"
Zooey wasn't entirely thrilled with the prospect of becoming a jukebox, but acquiesced to the bunny girl's request. Other kids had been scared of her, but Sprout had been genuinely fascinated with the cyborg. So Zooey continued her singing as she made her way to the counter, Sprout skipping along as she followed to pay for her sweets.
"That's so cool!" the girl said, while Zooey punched the product information into the checkout.
"Thank you," Zooey replied. Sprout had been kind to her, so Zooey felt somewhat touched by the compliment. Just because she was a machine, didn't mean she couldn't still be creative.
Zooey finished serving her small customer, Sprout looking up at her adoringly.
"Zooey?" the girl squeaked, "What's it like being a robot?"
Zooey froze at the 'r' word. Processing the unwelcome inquiry.
Cold. But hot. Hollow, but solid. Can't feel pain. Can't feel anything.
She'd just a child. She doesn't understand.
"I feel just the same," Zooey lied, ironically thankful her face couldn't betray her true emotions to the girl.
"I saw a really cool robot once!" The girl hopped on her feet, leaning her arms and face on the counter as she beamed up at her friend, "He was, like, really awesome looking! But you're cooler!"
Now Zooey had stopped paying attention. She was vaguely aware that the girl continued chattering, but the constant repetition of 'robot' was making her retreat into her own mind, unwilling to participate in the conversation.
Robot. A cool robot. Is that what I am now? A toy?
Better than being a weapon, I suppose.
"Zooey?"
Again, she found that she'd been staring into nothing. This time for five minutes thirty seconds. Her sensors detected more life signs, Sprout's and her father's among them. She raised her visor, optics focusing in on her dad's face as he leaned close and took her shoulder. Over the counter, Sprout looked up at her with concern, while other customers gaped curiously from nearby.
"Dad?"
"Mister Zach?" the rabbit girl whimpered, clutching her bag of sweets, "Is Zooey okay?"
"I..." Zooey's father did his best to smile at the young girl, "I think Zooey's tired, Sprout. Why don't you go home and have your sweets?"
"Will she be okay?"
"She'll be fine, sweetie. Now run along!"
Sprout grinned and said goodbye, and Zach turned back to his daughter as the rabbit left the store.
"Come on, baby... talk to me!"
Zooey did her best to process a response, emitting a confused bleep in her dazed state.
"Okay, come on..." Zach took her by a hand, one arm supporting her shoulder, and began to guide her away from the counter. "We're gonna take you in back for a sit down, okay?"
"No... no, dad..." Zooey regained her speech and resisted, becoming still in the aisle. "I can do this..."
He moved around her front, his worried face filling her visor. "Zooey, I'm worried about you... are you sure you're ready to throw yourself back into work like this? You've... gone through a lot, and I don't want you to hurt yourself!"
Zooey processed, before shaking her head. "I have to, dad. I need to stay busy. If I'm going to be a machine... I might as well be useful."
"Baby... you don't need to do this..."
"I want to, dad." Zooey turned and began to head back into the store, intent on finding something to do. "Otherwise, I might as well shut down and be nothing."
Zach watched his daughter walk away with the hiss of suspension and the thump of armoured boots, feeling like the worst father in the world.
Zooey continued her duties, now sweeping the floor with an old broom. It was mindless work, but kept her busy. After all, a tool without a function was useless.
She paused and cocked her head, unable to frown as her broom came across an unmoveable stain. She scrubbed at it with the brush. It didn't budge. She scrubbed harder, becoming annoyed... before she asserted too much pressure onto the broom, and the handle broke in two.
The cyborg released a crackle of static in alarm, straining to maintain her balance. She managed to prevent herself tumbling to the floor, and miserably straightened up with both halves of the brush in her hands.
Huh. Some cleaning unit.
There was the harsh shatter of glass on marble, Zooey's mind already processing the potential causes of the disturbance as she swung around, sensors detecting life signs directly behind her. Her hair-cables swung as her head spun, and her optical units focused on a startled goat woman, glaring at her in shock while a shattered bottle of red wine pooled around her feet.
Zooey felt a spike of fear inside her systems. She recognised this woman. And she apparently wasn't a fan of cyborgs.
She forced herself to remember to use the correct vocabulary this time. "Um... are you okay ma'am?"
The woman stared at her, stepping away from the wine that seeped across the floor. "Disgusting..." the woman murmured, looking the cyborg over, "Absolutely disgusting that they still let you wander around unsupervised... especially around children!"
Zooey flinched inwardly at the woman's tone. She knew she wasn't alone in these hostile feelings toward her, but she was the most vocal. And now the goat woman had Zooey alone, it seemed she was intent on giving her a piece of her mind.
"I just work here..." Zooey replied, timidly lowering the volume of her vocal synthesizer "I'm not dangerous..."
"Don't give me that! You might have other people fooled, but not me!" Zooey registered that this lady might not quite be all there, her eyes constricting as she checked her surroundings as though searching for spies. "I know what you really are!" The woman hissed, leaning closer and glaring into Zooey's visor, "You're a Badnik! And I bet you're just waiting for your chance to cause havoc as soon as all our backs are turned!"
"Bad... nik?"
"What's going on here?"
Zooey couldn't help but phase out at the woman's accusation. Badnik. The designation, an otherwise ridiculous word, of Robotnik's army of robot soldiers.
"I'm... not a Badnik…" she murmured quietly, synthesizer volume low and unnoticed as her father approached and the woman began to berate him instead.
"Did you just call my daughter a Badnik?"
"That's what she is! And you let her just walk around doing whatever she wants?!"
"I'm not a Badnik…"
"That's my daughter, and you will not call her that!"
"I bet she's still under Eggman's control, spying on us all, just waiting to-"
"I. AM NOT. A BADNIK."
SMASH.
Tears. Sorrow. The ability to cry. Other things Zooey had lost in her conversion into a machine.
She was incapable of outwardly expressing the pain she felt, instead staring blankly at the walls of her room while she replayed the incident in her head. Her brain, now largely a computer, was capable of replaying her memories as a cyborg with perfect clarity.
"I. AM NOT. A BADNIK."
In the recorded memory, Zooey released a screech of enraged static as she turned and slammed a steel fist through a stack of red wine, beating the shelves of alcohol into shattered glass and spilled drink. She remembered screams of terror, the startled cries of her father, as her vision flickered with information, her combat display returning as she turned back to face the woman who had enraged her.
Then, wine dripping from her armoured body like blood, she planted her feet as her targeting crosshair fixed over the goat woman's face, her father defensively setting himself between her and his own daughter as Zooey planted her feet, and raised her right arm as though it were still a powerful energy weapon.
"Combat systems reengaged." Zooey said calmly, her left hand coming around to steady the 'blaster' of her right forearm, "Awaiting directives."
There had a been a terrible silence, the only sound the thrumming of Zooey's power core as her body entered combat mode. Her father had carefully raised himself to his feet, shooing the terrified goat woman to safety, and slowly approached the battle ready cyborg with hands raised.
"Zooey?" the fox whispered, as soothingly as he could, "Stay calm, baby..."
Zooey's head cocked slightly, registering the fox. Her systems recognised him as her immediate superior.
"Repeat. Awaiting directives, father."
"Okay..." her dad breathed, reaching his daughter and slowly beginning to lower her raised arm, "Okay... go to your room, and wait for me there..." He said, Zooey registering the order immediately.
"Affirmative. Will comply."
With that, the cyborg turned and marched away, dripping with dark red fluid and leaving a shattered mess behind her.
Zooey shut off the memory. She'd relived it enough.
It had now been twenty-seven minutes fifteen seconds since the incident. It had taken her several of those minutes to break from her sudden combat temperament and return to her rational mind, and now all she could do was sit on her bed, staring through the wall, unable to outwardly express any of the emotion she felt. Anything outside of a sad bleep was beyond her capability.
A mechanical ear swivelled as her sensors detected her father's life signs entering range, making his way down the hallway to her room. Her audio receptors logged the cautious tapping of knuckles upon wood.
"Zooey? Baby, can I come in?"
She didn't respond. She didn't know which of her muddled vocabularies she would reply in. It made no difference anyway, as her father slowly opened the door with a creak, his bespectacled face poking through the crack in the doorway.
"Honey?"
Zooey's only response was a quick flicker of her optics, glancing toward her father before returning to stare through the wall. He took her lack of resistance as a sign he could enter, and cautiously made his way over to her bed.
He's scared of me, she thought, registering his elevated heart beat and tensed fur, among other bodily reactions she could detect, He's terrified of me...
Regardless, the man sat down beside his daughter, the bed creaking beneath their shared weight, and took her hand in his. She didn't feel the contact so much as register it with her bodily sensors, but she didn't dare try to pull away in case her increased strength hurt him.
If she had been capable, she would have broken down in tears. Instead, all she could do was slump and release a morbid down-spiralled whine.
"Come here, honey..."
Her father leaned over and hugged her tight, while she remained still. Zooey could feel his body sobbing lightly, but she couldn't respond in kind.
"I'm a monster.." she said, volume low and flat. Her father leaned away from her, hands clasping her shoulders, and shook her lightly.
"You are not a monster!" He said, doing his best to disguise the quiver in his voice, "What happened to you Zo, it isn't your fault! And this... today? We can get through it, baby!"
"I'm dangerous..." Zooey replied, staring down at the wine-stained yellow gauntlets of her hands, "if mom could see me now... she'd hate me..."
"Don't EVER say that!" Zachary shook his daughter a little harder, glaring into her visor wit tears in his eyes, "Your mother would love you, no matter what you are! No matter what that... bastard has done to you! She'd love you with all her heart, just like I do!"
Zooey remained silent, attempting to process the potential consequences of her 'meltdown'. There was no way she was going to escape unpunished, not with the GUN monitoring her the way they were.
"What's going to happen to me?" she said, turning her head with a quiet whirr of mechanics and fixing her father with glowing optics.
He squeezed her hand in both of his. "We're going to take care of you, and keep you safe. That's what's going to happen to you, princess. I promise."
Zooey finally allowed some form of outward expression on her part, leaning her head into his shoulder, just as she had done as a child. He did his best to stroke his hand through the thick cables that had replaced her hair, and scowled to himself as he pondered the inevitable visit by the GUN Department of Robotics.
Just try and take my daughter from me... just you try...