By David C. Daoust
Still, stagnate, heat blasted air, stifling— dark, with a cacophony of industrial noise that seemed to vibrate the very hull of the repurposed Crucible of Halfhul. ‘Who would want to come down here?’ Colin Vice thought, once again, as he stewed in his predicament. The hard metal floor– made up of plates formed with grooves, bumps, and nogs, all to provide traction- looked far more comfortable than his current position. Colin considered what he’d give to just lie down there on the floor before him, fall asleep.
That damn snake-bot-thing, once it got a hold of him– had yet to let go.
Colin was trapped in what was little more than a broom closet… hanging from his arms. He could not truly understand what his ‘father’ had commanded of the thing. Apparently, the giant contraption had better hearing than he. ‘Lock him up,’ would be his best guess. The damn thing had slithered them in on that long serpentine tail, coiled itself tight enough to close the door behind them, as soon as it had positioned itself in what was clearly a makeshift cell, the massive machine had gone still as a statue.
Colin had never seen such a construct. He did, however, recognize the color; he saw it before on that faraway capital ship. Each of the long lines of constructed constructs he had discovered within the Crucible’s factories, matched the color of that Commissar’s robes. Not to mention the hue of all those Red Soldiers’ armor, which he’d witnessed throughout the Onion, in fact. Whatever was going on, was being perpetrated by the Communist Red Faction. Colin had to guess they were building an army, for heaven only knows what, and they were using the Organization’s HQ to manage it. Right under the noses of the entire Solar System.
Colin Vice was not a normal man. Thanks to an incident in his youth, his entire body had undergone certain genetic upgrades. All of which were aimed at making him, not only strong enough to recover from the life-threatening incident, but also strong enough to survive living with the prosthetic heart that had been implanted to save his life… Struggle as he may, the genetically upgraded man was not strong enough to break free of the robot’s vice-like grip. Defiantly, he settled to just hold himself up, strong and proud.
After the first few hours of hanging, feet dangling in the air– his arms started to get sore and his whole body started to protest. With every minute that passed, he slumped a little further down. The lower he got- the more he struggled to breath. There was no telling how long they would leave him there. The bot that held him was clearly powered down, or just dormant…
All but defeated, Colin mused it may be just sitting there– as tormented as he.
“Hey,” Colin wheezed back at it. Then, mustering what strength he could, he pulled himself up a bit, craned around best he could, “You there?” Colin gave it a moment to respond. The whole thing was dark- like looking at a lifeless statue.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. You tin-faced…”
Suddenly the snake-bot-thing seemed to snap to life.
Colin, unable to hold himself up, especially as the machine started to shift about, slipped back down, even lower than he was hanging before- unable to finish his taunt. As his chin sank into his chest, he visibly struggled for air.
“Oh- oh my!” the construct said in reaction to his captive’s torment. It lowered him down to the ground at last.
Colin was able to stand on his own, breathed much easier, though it still held his arms tight.
“I’m afraid I did not think this through,” the strangely human voice piped out from behind its plated face.
“No?” Colin asked vehemently, struggling just as much with some sort of insult to throw at the strangely human sounding inhuman monster, as he was to regain his composure and breath. Instead he just asked, dripping with sarcasm, “You mean this is not standard treatment?”
“Oh my, no,” the voice explained, “I simply did not want to have to tell the Commandant that we did not have any ‘shackles’ to restrain you with.” It paused a moment and cocked its head before adding, “Really, why would anyone have ‘shackles’, just lying around, to begin with?” the robot seemed to muse aloud. “I figured, you know, I’ll just hold you here while I made other arrangements…”
Colin sighed at the mention of ‘other arrangements’; he could only hope his captor had put more thought into what came next. “How exactly was that supposed to work?” Colin asked.
“What was to work?” it asked as it pushed him towards the door; it crouched low to allow him to walk on his own two feet, despite his arms still being restrained. One of its four arms, reaching to tap the door open, which slid open with a mechanical woosh.
“How are you making other arrangements— if you’re just standing around a broom closet with me?” Colin asked, incredulously.
“Is that what that room was?” it asked as they continued on their way.
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