Later on in the day, a trio of scientists tried leading Miku into a circular elevator made out of glass and held up by metal frames. They wanted to try showing her a surprise upstairs. Although, Miku was extremely hesitant. The glassy elevator reminded her of the glass case she had awoken from and spent the first few minutes of her life trapped in. She didn't want to feel that claustrophobic feeling ever again, at least not after that. The scientists understood why she was scared, and went in first to prove that it was safe for her. Miku, seeing how the container didn't show any harm to the scientists, figured it might be alright to step inside of it for a brief moment.
They showed her a panel of buttons on the inside of the elevator and told her to press the one with the number "11" on it. Miku, being the wondrous android she was, gladly volunteered to press the button to see what would happen. She pushed it down gently with the tip of her index finger and heard it making a clicking noise on the other side of the panel. Soon, the door of the tiny space closed, the button that she pressed lit up like a miniscule sun, and the ropes that held the elevator started to pull them up, up, up!
Miku was so scared at this sudden movement that she fell down against her back and crossed her shaky knees together. At first she was fearful, very fearful, in fact. She didn't even know what was up and what was down for a short second riding on the elevator! But that fearfulness that she had slowly vanished as she realized that is wasn't that dangerous. Granted, she still felt a bit iffy about the idea of a glass elevator, so she didn't exactly move off of her spot right away, but she enjoyed the ride up. MIku wondered whether it made her very happy or excited or eager? She just couldn't place her finger on how it made her feel on the inside, but it was something that felt really good! She felt content with the building she was living in, she supposed. It wasn't the worst place in the world for her to stay.
Then, suddenly, the elevator stopped suddenly with a sweet, short "ding!" and it opened its doors before the scientists and Miku. The scientists stepped their brown shoe-covered feet out of the glass and helped Miku up and out as well. They were in the intersection of three hallways, one coming in from the right, one coming from the left, and one from in front. The scientists led her down the front and she followed as close as she could to them.
They stomped down the hallway and one started pulling out a strange-looking card from the back pocket of his pants. Then they all stopped at the left wall of the hallway, at a white door with a glass window on it. The scientist who pulled out his card swiped it on some sort of control panel and the screen on that panel switched to one with green text which read, "Access granted. To confirm action, please take the scan test."
The scientist obeyed the instructions and faced his brown eye against a thin, plexiglass-like surface where a red laser skimmed across the surface of his eyeball. After hearing a ding, he stood up straight again and pressed his thumb against the same surface. After the laser was done crossing his thumb, the trio and Miku heard another ding, and the text on the screen changed again.
"Access granted," it read, and the door slid open.
As soon as the door had finished opening, Miku stood there like a statue, staring into the room with great wonder sparkling in her eyes. And then, as soon as she was finished gazing gleefully from the outside, she instantly launched herself into the room and was then preoccupied with wandering around it. She marveled at all the different little trinkets and gadgets that would move and twinkle as she poked at them and studied them with sparkly, googly eyes. The scientists chuckled at her want of knowledge. They found it funny how she wanted to know every little thing that was in her room before settling in there.
"Have fun in here," one of them told her and smiled.
Miku nodded and went back on her business, which was touching a glass case in the corner of her room that had a microphone in it. She left her grubby, oily fingerprints along the outside and fogged the glass up with her hot breath as she stared at the marvelous device.
The scientists grinned and pressed a button that closed the door. The button activated two hydraulic pistons on the left-hand side of the metallic door, pushing it closed with a hissss and a wisssh. When the door met with the wall, it was squished between two pieces of metal which locked it in place.
Miku, hearing that the door locked itself up, walked up to the glass in the door and waved goodbye to the scientists up against it. They waved back to her, turned around to the way they came from, and walked down the hallway to their laboratory, where they were called upon for a company announcement.
As they had disappeared down into the elevator, Miku started fiddling with the controls to the door to open it up and explore the whole facility. She wanted to see more-more-she just had to see more of it! She needed to know the place inside and out, she needed to know how they make their robots! She coveted knowledge because she couldn't stand being ignorant to every little thing. She just needed to know more about the place that made her!
After meddling around with some buttons and switches, she found out the combination to open up the door from the inside:
"Red button, green lever, blue button. Red button, green lever, blue button," she repeated in her mind over and over again.
The door hissed and weeshed open in front of her and she stepped out on the other side of the door frame into the sterile, white hallway. She looked quizzically around the hall that stretched both left and right and having forked at both ends. She wondered which part of the corridor to go down because there was so much she wanted to know. The question was now, which route here was she to go first?
"Hmm...maybe I should take the left side," she thought. "I already came from the right side...I'll explore that last!"
She crossed the hall, pressed her right hand against the wall, and followed it down the left side of the corridor. She turned a right at the left end of the hallway and continued on from there. It didn't seem like there were any more paths to take from here on out. There were only a few doors on the walls, two of them on the right wall led to some restrooms and the two on the other side were for the break rooms. It seemed the one on the very end was just for storage because through the glass, she could see a broom leaning on the wall inside and a janitor's coat hanging from the ceiling.
She turned around and went down the other way, to the route leftwards from the corridor she departed from. Her hand trailed across the white painted walls as she followed it to the end of that hall. Nothing much here, either. It was only a few offices and a drinking fountain.
She went back and walked over to the intersection of the three hallways, turning right into the corridor she originally departed from and walked down that way to the intersection on the other side. She peeked right-only a smoking zone with no other place to go-then she glanced left-to the double doors at the very end of that hall. She couldn't see anything through the windows of the double door, strangely enough. Only a sign signifying that it was a staircase leading down to a lower level of the building.
Being the curious girl that she was, she just had to take a look through the doors. She skipped down the hallway to the doors and swung them open with a gentle push. It seems her prediction was correct. When those doors had opened up, in the room revealed a spiralling staircase leading to a deeper part of the facility.
She took two careful steps on the first stair and closed the doors behind. Leaning in over the banister, she tried to get a good look down the middle to see where the stairs led to, but they seemed to be infinite.
"This isn't the way the scientists took me up here, though..." she thought to herself, "I'll just have to keep going and see if where the stairs take me, I guess."
She clutched her left hand on the banister for support and cautiously traversed down the flight of stairs. Step by step, she ventured nearer to the bottom of the staircase. As she traveled down the stairs, she heard something strange. Something...voices? ...Yelling now? She got scared as she trekked on, hearing the scary voices grow louder and louder.
"...wasn't part of the deal!"
"This is what you signed up for."
"I can't do this, sir, I have a family to think about! Please reconsider!"
"I'm sorry, Jannet, but it's too late to turn back now."
"Please sir, I just can't do it! My daughter won't get to see me! I-I can't-"
"Take her away, boys."
"No, please! Please, sir, don't do this! No! No!"
"Goodbye, Jannet."
Miku was scared that this "Jannet" person was screaming so horrifically. Why was she screaming in the first place? What were she and the man that Miku didn't know talking about down there? Miku's mind was too engulfed in the scene that just happened that she wasn't looking where she was looking and she tripped over her ankle down the stairs.
Miku didn't know what happened, it all started too quickly! Much too quickly! Her body tumbled down the rest of the stairs, bumping and thumping as she rolled along. She couldn't do anything about it, but it hurt. Somehow, it hurt very badly, terribly even. No, the pain felt like torture to her defenseless robotic shell. She couldn't bear it any longer, but she no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't stop the momentum that she had picked up.
She tried curling up into a ball, guarding her chest with her forearms and her abdomen with her knees, but then her back was left unguarded and scraped and bruised itself on the metal stairs. She just wanted it to end! She didn't know what else to do but to wait until it ended, but how long would that be? She was so scared that she started pondering if it would've been better if she would have just stayed put in her own room, like the scientists told her to.
All of a sudden, it came to a stop.
Her left side was left lying on the ground and her immobile arms and legs dropped to the floor. She breathed a heavy breath in shock and in sudden relief that her body had stopped tumbling down the stairs like a rag-doll. She laid there for a few minutes, contemplating what just happened, as her body was still quivering from the traumatizing experience. The most important thing now, though, is that no one heard her and that no one would come to investigate what happened at the stairs. For now, that was the only thing she was concerned about.
She placed her right palm on the chilly floor and kept it firmly planted there as she tried to put her other palm in the same position. The muscles in her forearms tried pushing the weight of her mechanical body up onto her knees and locked into a kneeling position. Then she placed her hands on top of her quivering knees, shifted all the weight of her body to her elbows, and thrusted herself upwards into the air. Her knees were starting to give out again and she fell onto the rail to the staircase for support, holding onto it as she tried gaining balance in her legs again.
She took a deep breath in, and then out, in an attempt to calm herself down and clear her mind from that dramatic fall.
When she got up on her feet, she instinctively walked over to the door to her right and pushed it open just a crack, big enough where she could see into the room next door. From there, she saw tall men in long, white lab coats. They had clipboards in their hands and pens in their ears as they were walking across the room to the staircase. It seemed like they were talking since they were facing each other and moving their lips in various movements. Miku closed the door back up and hid herself underneath a few steps on the spiral staircase. She was hoping she could hear what they were saying as they were coming through the door and up the stairs.
The pair of scientists shoved the door out of their way and approached the spiraling staircase. They stopped in front of it and continued their conversation in the room.
"Well, it sounds like a deal. Did ya talk to the boss about it?"
"Of course. He gave it the green light, so it looks like we're good to go from here on out."
"Terrific. Man, you should get a raise for such an idea!"
"Heh, I wish! I'm just happy it got approved."
"Say, speaking of creating singing robots and such, what do you think about that new android that lab 11 developed?"
"CV01?"
"Yes, they also call her Hatsune Miku."
"Ah, from the sounds of it, she seems pretty impressive. I'm surprised they got 'er done in less than 3 years."
"Yeah, pretty remarkable thing, if you ask me."
"Well, Jake, I gotta get going. I got this extra project I decided to manage and if I don't get this document done tomorrow, the boss is gonna get angry at me."
"Alright, then. See ya in the cubicle tomorrow, Ben."
"See you there. Take care!"
The scientists shook hands and one went up the staircase while the other went back through the door and to the exit.
MIku, who had finished her eavesdropping at this point, wondered what kind of a plan the man "Ben" had. She wondered hard, but she couldn't seem to connect the dots. Something didn't add up to her. She had to know more before she understood the situation. What did she not know yet? Miku, being as curious as ever, stood up from underneath the stairs and treaded over to the door to see what was on the other side.
She pushed the door to the side and, to her right, she was greeted by the bright whiteness of sparkling clean tiled floors and neatly arranged cubicles. To her left was a wall with a colourful blue wallpaper and thousands of cat posters with uplifting sayings and words like "believe!" and "you can do it!" Between all the cute, little cat posters was a metal door with a large caution symbol on it, and a sign beneath that which read,
"Please take caution when entering."
"Radioactive substances ahead."
"Authorized personnel only."
Miku wondered what this radioactive substance was. Miku also wondered what radioactive even meaned! Maybe, she thought, it was part of this plan that those two scientists were talking about earlier! It looked like it wasn't locked, it just looked pretty scary. She was hesitant at going into the door, not knowing whether or not it would be dangerous, but she swore she heard someone coming towards her. She heard footsteps walking in her direction. They got louder and louder, faster and faster, and it seemed like they were coming at full speed!
She didn't have enough time to think! Afraid of getting caught, she quickly grabbed a hold of the handle to the metallic door, dragged the heavy lump of metal open, and went inside and closed the door shut.
Author's note: I didn't have enough time to edit the story, so I apologize if you notice any irregular sentences or sentence fragments. If you spot anything, please let me know right away. I hope you all are enjoying the story so far. Thank you for reading. ~Nova