He opened his eyes.
It was dark. That he knew. The window to his left hosted the moon and the stars, and he could make out the quiet hoot of a faraway owl amidst the soft chirping of crickets. The man understood it was night, and that he was lying on a bed. He also understood that the room was dark, too dark to see. And yet, he could.
He saw the room in a pale green, noise around the edges of his vision. He could see the corners of the room and the objects which occupied them. The bedside table, the cupboards and chairs. There was writing on a small piece of paper tacked on the cupboard opposite the room, minute English writing in a neat cursive.
"Genji… Shimada," the man whispered to himself, reading the note, "if you can read this, flick the switch resting on the table beside the bed."
The man looked to his right where sure enough, rested a plain white switch. He decided not to tamper with it. Instead, he got up from the bed. A strange whirling filled his ears and he was confused to find that he couldn't exactly feel getting up. His body felt numbed over. The sensation felt foreign, wrong. It was far too easy getting up from the bed, and it was also disconcerting how easy it was to reach the door of the room. He reached for the doorknob.
Several white, metallic protrusions moved towards it too, he saw. In his shock, he pulled his hand back, staring at the alien things.
The alien things followed his motions until he realized that it continued into a larger, central metallic pillar, into a pivoting joint, which traveled up into panels.
He came upon the revelation that he was staring at his arm. With great curiosity stemmed from a sense of confusion, he brought his hands forward and watched them. The metal things closed up when he clenched his fists, and opened up when he relaxed. He brought them directly onto his face until they blocked his vision, then made a soft clunk when they made contact.
His face. What did it look like? He looked around for a mirror that wasn't there before remembering his earlier objective of leaving the room. Thinking about his situation, he opened the door and entered into a dimly lit corridor.
His room was one at the end of it with several other closed doors flanking him. He felt no desire to discover what was behind those doors and instead resolved to follow the hallway to see where it would take him. The narrow corridor eventually opened up into a larger space, with one glass section which exposed the terrain of the land and beyond. A moment was all he took to access his surroundings of the rocky shore and the waters which kissed it before he continued on his way to find… … …to find what?
The man stopped in his tracks. What was he looking for? He woke up in a strange room to a strange note, to find that he existed on a bed meant for… for… who? Racking his memory, the man struggled to recall what he was doing before he found himself on the bed in the dead of the night, in a metallic body which felt odd and unnatural.
Try as he might, he just couldn't remember. His head hurt from the attempt. Left with nothing else to do or accomplish, he resumed his trudge in a state of resigned calm. What felt like half an hour past wandering the facility and pressing his ear against doors with light pouring underneath, listening to the sound of soft snores and animated conversations that held no meaning to him until he came upon one which did. He was just about to abandon it and go on his way when he heard mention of a familiar name.
"…Genji, of the Shimada clan! Would you believe it? To think that he would just drop out of the sky like this, especially now with our current conflict with them, I mean, we can get all we—"
"I understand your enthusiasm, Winston," a soft feminine voice replied, a sharp contrast to the gruffness of the first one, "but the answer is still no. I'm already at the end of my rope doing an operation I didn't and in fact, still don't fully subscribe to. Right now, that man is my patient. And I will care for him. You can evaluate him as a weapon after." She spat the last sentence with such venom that even the eavesdropper felt slightly uneasy.
A heavy silence past before the first voice spoke in more guarded tones, "I didn't like the idea of this either. He should be free to make him own decisions and we should have consulted him when he woke up."
"Yes." The man pressed his ear harder into the wall. The voice sounded quieter, more tired. "That's what we should have done."
"But…"
"Demands from Morrison and the directors," the two finished in unison.
Another silence.
"I'm sorry," the woman started, "I shouldn't have taken it out on you. It's just that… it's very frustrating."
"Say no more, Angela. I know how you feel. You should get some rest. How long since you've last slept?"
Angela yawned. "Eighty-two hours." Footsteps. Getting louder. "I'll check on him again, then I'll turn in. Thank you, Win—Aaah!"
The door opened and the man was suddenly flooded with light. On the ground before him, on her back, lay a slender blonde woman in a white T-shirt and sweatpants, her hair tied up in a bun that's already starting to fray.
"Excellent," she murmured, "I have begun to hallucinate."
The man found his voice and spoke, "why have you been awake for so long?" His eyes moved onto Winston, where they stood staring at each other for a good five seconds. "Monkey."
"Scientist," the ape replied rapidly.
"Monkey is talking," observed the man.
Angela, still on the ground, watched this exchange and remarked in disbelief, "I'm not hallucinating." She slowly pushed herself to her feet, and tired eyes became full of concern. "What are you doing out of bed? Didn't you see the note?"
"I do not know a Genji. But I will let him know to flick the switch if I find him." He paused. "Are you looking for him? Do you need my help?"
Concerned eyes turned confused, then widened in understanding. She slowly placed a palm onto his faceplate where his cheek would be. "Do you…" She hesitated. "What's your name?"
"I am…" He raised a hand, scratching the back of his helmet. "I do not know. Do you know who I am?"
Angela and Winston winced at the sound of screeching metal. The two exchanged a look. At Winston's shrug, Angela turned to the man and said after giving herself a moment, "Well… you see." She paused, looking to his right hand. "What is that you are holding?"
He raised the hand in question and examined the object within. "I believe this is Genji's doorknob." He raised his eyes to the two. "I apologize. I just realized this myself."
The man stood in the doorway, watching the inscrutable expressions of the ape and the woman. "You have eye bags, Angela," the man observed, "perhaps you should get some rest."