~ Sanctuary ~

Chapter 5

Pain.
Pain is all I feel.
As time progressed, the pain went away. Like a heartbeat slowing down on a heart monitor. Because even though I couldn't see anything, and my vision was dark, the pain still ruptured through my body.
But the ache in my heart didn't go away. That was the thing that stayed persistent. Madelyn. She's out there, not protected and probably getting experimented on. This sucks. We could've fought so much better. And we could've protected her.
I felt a couple rubs on my arm, as pain from my lower half made me struggle to move. The rubs on my arm encouraged me to try and move, but I knew my body wasn't going to be the first thing to move.
I opened my eyes softly, and light came into view, with everything blurred. The vision before me seemed familiar, like when I was thrown out of the factory after being made. Vision blurred at first, not being able to see anything clearly. My ears winced a little, ringing in my ears, but eventually I could hear things around me. It was slow and eventual for when I could hear and see things properly, but it got there.
"You're awake," a cheery voice said. I blinked to make my vision a bit clearer and focus on who was talking to me. I looked up slightly and to my left, I was met with this little girl, with short pink hair and bangs, with a bright blue and hot pink striped polo, and a maid skirt and apron. She had a little nurse hat with a cross adorning her head, with a dark eyed mask with rosy cheeks, but no mouth.
"How did you speak," I groaned and stuttered, trying to find my speaking voice again. I felt my hand want to move to my head to clutch it, but no such movement came.
"It's in my programming, and I can still speak from a voice box within me instead of just having a mouth to speak from," she automated. Her voice was very straightforward and statutory. Like she truly was a robot. She gave no reaction, hence the blank eyes, and walked off, dragging a cart with her. I looked to my other side and there they were, my team staring down at me.
"How you holdin' up, lil missy?" Flynn asked, kneeling down to me and stroking my shoulder.
"Eh, it could be better but that's everyone," I groaned. "What happened?"
"The Doctor took care of all of us, including you, you were the only one who passed out but you suffered a nasty blow from Chloe, I don't even know how you stayed conscious for as long as you did just to talk to us," Blake remarked, a friendly smirk slightly showing up on his mug.
"It was because of the adrenaline rushing through her system, nothing extremely special or alarming. All of you had adrenaline, but her adrenaline mixed with the complexity of her wounds, can cause her to pass out based on blood loss and the body trying to make up for it through adrenaline," I heard the Doctor's voice ring through the halls. I glanced toward where his voice came from, and he walked in easily, holding a couple vials of agony.
"I'll look over the fact that you took way more vials than you should've, Felix, simply because you are the only customers who directly ask me about things and communicate with me," the Doctor said sarcastically, but he rolled his eyes in the process. He glared with a small smirk on his face at Felix, and Felix just nodded his head. "You suffered quite a bit of injuries, miss, you all did, but Charlie here suffered quite a bit," he remarked as he knelt next to me on the opposite side of my team.
"Well, am I gonna be alright Doc?" I said, trying to force a cheerful attitude, but my body was pretty stiff based on everything.
"Well, for starters, you are going to have to get used to your new shoes," he said. I questioned what he meant and glanced down at my body which was lying flat on the ground, and I noticed. I thought it was just going to be a new pair of shoes, literally, but I shouldn't be that naive.
My calves were gone. My feet, my calves, and my knees, were gone. And what replaced them was a metal version of them, instead of them being made out of human parts.
"What the fuck happened," I nearly screamed before Flynn put a hand on my shoulder, and I started breathing normally. It was gradual, but my breathing slowed. Mostly because I wanted to know what actually happened, and there was only one person, maybe two, who could tell me.
"When Chloe hit you, the reason you felt such strong lower body pain was because she completely ruptured your knees, causing your forelegs and feet to go limp, even though they were still attached here and there with pieces of body tissue and muscles, and most bones were broken, so I had to do some reworking," Morgan started.
"Can someone help me sit up, goddamn," I groaned, as Flynn's hand came to my neck and creeped down to my back as I slowly sat up, giving me something to lean against as I gradually sat upright. Blake sat behind me, sitting up straight as I laid against him, looking at my new set of legs.
"After some analyzation, alignment, and evaluation, followed by execution, I replaced the bone structure entirely in your legs, kept the regular pelvis you had to begin with, and structured a couple wires within to mimic body tissue, and made some mechanisms in there that act like muscles, so you can walk, run, jump, kick, hit, or do anything. They're more powerful than the legs you had but they'll take some time to get used to, because they are much stronger than what you're used to," he detailed.
I looked closer at the structure of my legs, and tried to understand the new feeling in my legs since I haven't gotten to use them yet, and he was right. The knees were a bit of a dirty yellow, with chicken claws slash talons for what used to be my toes.
"But of course, with that said, the rest of it is all protective armor around that sensitive wiring, everything's connected perfectly, and you'll be walking around in no time I'm sure," the Doctor finished, waving his hands out in front of him since he spoke with his hands and arms sometimes.
His work was impeccable. Breathtaking, even.
"It's as if you've done this before," I chuckle. There was silence, and I looked to the Doctor, who was nodding slowly. Then I heard some shuffling from behind him.
"Yep he did, on me to be exact," I heard Cassidy's voice carry. A smile slowly crept on my face when I heard her, and I tried to crane my head to find her from behind Morgan. The Doctor stepped out of the way and the whole team of the Scavengers stood there, not a single scratch or wound on their body. "Sorry we didn't come to your aid. We noticed the Experiments were coming, we could sense them from afar, learning from our mistakes, and we knew we'd still lose the fight and lose a couple lives if we came and helped, we're sorry," Cassidy sighed.
I felt a bit of sourness come from my chest, knowing they practically hung us out to dry, but if she was confident we'd lose even with their help, maybe it was better that they weren't there at all.
She walked over to me calmly, her face melancholy seemingly, and offered a hand, and I swung my arm around and took her hand, and she pulled me to my feet. I had the biggest grin on my face, I couldn't hide my pride in seeing her, I was so happy to see her. But I couldn't help the little bit of leftover rage within me, and reeled back before nailing her right in the jaw. I still had a grin on my face, and I wasn't sorry about giving her a good left hook. She stumbled back and Gunner caught her, before bringing her to her feet again promptly after.
"I deserved that," she grunted, as a smile appeared on her face, but only a small one.
"Hell yea you did," I chuckled, before jabbing her in the shoulder playfully. She chuckled back as I looked down at my feet and started stomping them, jumping with them, and dancing a slight bit. I'll admit, they were pretty damn strong. Stronger than I've felt in awhile. Because of nerve endings, I could feel the mechanics of the muscles within the inner workings, and still, it was impressive.
"Morgan had to do some work on me obviously, when they took my legs to make into yours, before you lost them obviously," Cassidy started. I looked at her legs, and they looked well constructed, although more dirtier since they were older than the current ones I sported. Hers were pristine, besides the fact of them being a bit more physically dirty, and well-cut, of course hers were more human-like, but I'm sure she hides some of the robotic pieces of it underneath the clothes that covered her thighs all the way down to her shins.
"But no, he did a fantastic job on yours, you'll be up and running naturally in no time," Cassidy said, and I could tell a smile was on her face too based on the tone of her voice alone. I looked up to her again and held my arms open. Her reaction was a small bit of recoil, but she walked one to two steps forward, and hugged me promptly.
"We'll get her back," she whispered. I felt a sob from within me and breathed in heavily, noticing the cry start to emerge from my chest, and pulled away. "Don't let them see you like this, Charlie," she whispered softly to me. I breathed in harshly from my nose, before walking a couple steps around the room, getting used to my new kicks.
"Well, what else did I suffer, Doc? Or can I call you Morgan?" I asked the Doctor, facing him.
"Call me whatever you'd like, darling," he said simply. I nodded, and continued to look as I awaited his information. "All of you fought well, because I had to watch from my office nearby, and I also had some above eyes from around the area as well, but because of the loss of your legs and the rips in your back, I tried to stitch up your back as much as I could, and I obviously used some salvage parts to make your new legs," he started. I nodded and then looked to my team, then back to him.
"What about them?" I referenced.
"Well, Seth and Griffin are ancient pieces of tech, so they suffered more and I had to pull from my special archive of remnant vials to make sure they were running properly. But as far as build goes, I just had to replace a couple of muscle imitators on Seth, and with Griffin I just had a couple speech processing issues. I did a mental diagnostics check on all of you, you and Blake and Flynn seemed to be in perfect order mentally, and Felix as well. Griffin was the only one with a couple flags, which I promptly fixed," he continued.
I looked past my team and noticed Seth and Griffin standing there, listening to the Doctor intently.
"Flynn had a couple deep cuts on his neck, some could've been lethal but he got lucky," the Doctor continued. "And Blake and Felix didn't suffer much. Just a couple scratches, nothing too serious, and certainly nothing that needed dire stitches or anything extreme," the Doctor finished.
"We also told him about your whole plan, y'know, to take the Con Man down and everything," Seth growled from the background. He seemed grumbly about talking about it, but it may be because of him not succeeding that goal with his brother like he wish they could've.
"What did you hear?" I asked the Doctor, turning to him after listening to Seth. He sat there, seemingly thinking about his next response.
"You're a very ambitious woman, Charlie. You really are. You're programmed with a natural ability of screeching as a weapon, and you're built for battle. Specifically for it in fact, almost as if the Con Man specifically programmed you to be in the next war if there was one to come," he specified. This took me a minute to process.
The Con Man was already expecting another war incoming? Is that why he built all these cyborgs, and even though they don't have a war mentality, maybe he thought they'd still fight like an army, if not, better because they weren't raised in an army mentality. It checks out.
Griffin had told me about the war prior to this, obviously. And everything he went through was tragic. But because the Con Man lost so many men except for Seth and Griffin themselves, he let them go and start to live lives.
Maybe, in that moment, he realized that if there's another war incoming, that he could prepare for it better, and if he didn't recruit an entire army, the fighting would be more well executed, and it'd go smoother. Less lives being lost. Just maybe.
"But we don't know for sure whether that's what he was planning, but you sure are built for it," the Doctor reiterated. That knocked me out of a line of thinking, and I paid more attention again. "Nonetheless, even if you think you could execute something so ambitious, especially like Cassidy and her crew, you're dead wrong," he said doubtfully.
My heart dropped slightly, and it just kept dropping as realization set in. He was right. I had a plan, but not a well executed or well-executable plan in the first place. Cassidy went through the same thing, and could've lost some of her members of her team, but she got lucky in that department. And that's what I suffered. I didn't only lose a team member, but I lost function of some of my limbs, and it upset me royally.
"What do you know about the Experiments?" Morgan questioned me. I looked at him and tilted my head, considering some sort of answer.
"I know that they were made by the Con Man obviously, and they are nowhere near like a human," I relayed. "But that's about it for what I know, sir," I finished.
The Doctor walked over to his many computer screens, and typed some things in before digital images came up and projected in the room, giving blueprints of each of the creatures. "I took these from your pals the Toymakers, they don't have a good firewall in their system of storing blueprints or anything of the sort," he chuckled to himself. This caused some of my team and the Scavengers to chuckle lightly too. At least they can find humor in teasing the enemies they have in this world, and exploit them for information we need to get our hands on.
"But because they have access to all of the Con Man's blueprint files, it's easy for me to hack, look at blueprints for people who need repairs, make the repairs, and even inspect other cyborgs that don't roam our streets, just like these monsters," he detailed. "It also gives me less storage in my own computers and technological storage units, so I can just pull from theirs to view it. Of course I'll make physical copies and put them in a file cabinet or two just so I don't randomly lose them, but I always keep each new updated version of a cyborg on file physically, in case I'm paid or asked to repair them."
As he spoke, the details, information, functions, and pieces of tech showed themselves within the model of each experiment's blueprints. They were detailed with each name of each part involved with the cyborg's blueprints. They were astounding. There were the blueprints of each of our copies, then Fredbear, then Mackenzie, and I looked around with curiosity, in search of the Puppet's blueprints.
"Where are the Puppet's blueprints, do you know?" I asked, sitting down on the ground to look at all the blueprints above, and sitting my head on my hand.
"I couldn't find that one, that blueprint seems to be kept away in a separate file, not able to be touched unless it's the Con Man himself," he shrugged, and seemed to be puzzled about it just as I was. "He doesn't seem to be lending it out to anyone, I don't blame him on that front though," Morgan continued.
"So, what does this mean exactly," I questioned. Morgan walks around gandering at the blueprints floating midair, seeming to study them. His thoughts seemed to be swirling, and I'm not surprised. He's not only a doctor, but in some form, a mechanic and engineer. When it comes to these things, you, for one, have to read the details for each part in order to construct them properly. Two, you have to understand natural human anatomy, as well as cyborg anatomy. They're similar, but not direct copies of each other. So to see him work with only his mind, and not even having anything hands on to make it easier was fascinating.
"We can use these to look at the weaknesses of each of these creatures, and defeat and plot a fight using that. And I have a couple recommendations if you all go to the factory and go against all of them," he started. "In all honesty, I've taken quite a few hours to study each individual part of these blueprints in order to reconstruct other parts for cyborgs that roam our streets today," he continued.
"Like me?" I said sarcastically. That made him chuckle as he continued pacing, thinking. I sat more comfortably in order to listen to him, holding my chin and looking at Morgan as he strolled around the room.
"With Chloe, her weakness seems to be her spine. One pretty good rock to her spine, and it'd make her crumble, and I think we need a tag team to execute something like this," he said, using his hands to speak. I nodded and looked to Cassidy, who nodded to me as well. So the plan for Chloe was to have me and Cassidy tag team. Piece of cake.
"Billy, Ford, and Fred all seem to have their weakness at the back of their head where the chemicals are inserted to keep the creature alive," he reiterated, pointing to each of their blueprints on where those chemical vials stuck out like sore thumbs. Easy to spot, and easy to slice, just harder to get to when it came to physical fighting. "Like I said, tag teams for each of these are suggested," he continued. Blake looked at Banner, Flynn to Fraser, and Felix to Finn. All three of them looked among one another and nodded, understanding their task just like Cassidy and I understood ours.
"Now, Floyd's the more complicated one out of the group, besides the Puppet and Mackenzie of course," Morgan elaborated. "Floyd is a very complex and well-thought out build. He really took some consideration of weak points in his builds when he made Floyd, so I think Floyd will be a challenge. But, I think I've figured out his weak point after seeing him fight with you all," he continued.
"Well he obviously almost overtook me and Seth, that's gotta count for something when it comes to strength and coordination," Griffin complained. Morgan shot them a deadly annoyed look before they continued leaning against the wall, staying silent and listening. I'd never personally seen Griffin complain about anything, but I guess once you've gotten past having enough patience for things like this, you don't really have a consideration of what you say anymore.
"His weakness is very hard to locate, pinpoint, and strike easily. It's easy to strike something if you have a large room for error, but in order to shut down Fredbear or render him immobile, you have a very small margin of error on your hands, because it's all the way down within the head. And you can't get to it from the outside," he explained. I could see the uncomfortable shuffle of Seth and Griffin as they processed what Morgan had just relayed.
"So you're saying we go inside him and attack him from the inside?" Seth gawked.
"Yeah something like that," Morgan agreed, with a bit of sarcasm lacing his tone. "You can also immobilize him better if you cut his legs off, they seem to be a pretty weak and flimsy spot too even though he's built like a tank, you'd think he'd have better support beams if you know what I'm sayin'," Morgan added. He seemed to have a bit of a smirk saying that, like he found it humorous. All things considered, it is pretty funny. Just chopping someone's legs off to immobilize them, it sounds cruel. But in this circumstance, it's funny. But that's dark humor for ya folks.
"Will we have to worry about the other two?" Cassidy asked from over my shoulder. Morgan turned to the blueprints and inspected Mackenzie.
"If he's deployed Mackenzie, then you'll worry about both of them. There's a reason they probably took Madelyn and it wasn't by far the best reason they could've taken her for," Morgan said. I looked between him and Cassidy, and I could've sworn, I felt and saw a little bit of worry within Cassidy for Madelyn. But it doesn't matter.
"What would they need Madelyn for?" I asked, a little bit more worried than I'd like to admit showing from within me, as I let my gaze trail from Cassidy to Morgan.
"For parts," Cassidy said sadly. A stingy needle felt like it was driving through my heart, and I felt the hair stand straight on my neck, and I hopped up and started walking around again.
"Well, that's if we storm the factory first, but what if we took advantage of one of the outside sources?" I say, pacing around and then finally facing toward Cassidy.
"What do you mean by outside sources?" she asked.
"Layne," I said. The whole room went silent, and from what I could tell, they agreed with trying to execute this kind of plan before making a very detailed and more big-dreaming one.
"So, where could we find Layne, do you think?" Flynn asked. Everyone pondered for a short bit, and I was stumped too, and then Seth stepped forward.
"They normally patrol the saloons and pubs nearby, they constantly like to scope things out and maybe snatch a cyborg or two. It would be difficult to lure Layne somewhere though, because if we do, the Con Man will know our spot of operation," he offered. So Layne was practically unreachable, and hard to capture in the first place even if we tried to reach them. This made us rethink our plan.
We couldn't tag team Layne, because he's the connection from the outside to the inside. It wouldn't be smart to pry something out of him, because he is the Con Man, just from a distance and in a more physical form.
"What about his bodyguards?" Banner asked. Blake was standing next to him, and he nodded in agreement. And the name of the bodyguards piqued my interest, and the cogs in my brain started turning.
"I mean, that could work, how can we tag team them though? They have mutts by their side and are armed with weapons twenty four seven, it seems," Felix shrugs.
"The dogs are not the issue, the issue is taking out the bodyguards themselves, they're the bigger problem," Flynn elaborated. "If the dogs aren't entirely like cyborgs, except for their respiratory system so they can breathe in this world easier, then that means we can just lure them away with treats with sleeping drugs in 'em or something," Flynn continued. The whole room seemed to silently agree with this plan, with no nods or vocal chime-ins.
"Do you have any chloroform?" Seth turned to the Doctor, pointing to him. The Doctor turned around to his shelf of supplies, pulled out a drawer from within the shelf, and pulled out a couple pads of chloroform. The Doc handed over the stack of cloth, and Seth turned to me. "You take care of the bear, I got the fox, and Flynn, you'll come with us to take care of the dogs. Where do you wanna hold this interrogation, and how will we get them back without Layne noticing they were gone?" Seth proposed, before he questioned his suspicions.
"And how do we not get them to spill the beans to Layne?" Cassidy added.
That took me a minute to think, but realized, we have a pretty dang good mechanic. And that was Felix, in fact. Not only did we have Morgan, the best doctor in our town, but we had Felix who is good friends with him, and he learned a lot from Morgan, making Felix the second best mechanic. Like I said, he was the brains of the group, might as well put it to good use and not let it rot.
"Felix, when we get back and are finished with their interrogation, you do your programming thing and take the information and memory out of their brains of being interrogated, got it?" I asked. Felix silently nodded and sat down, unpacking some of the things he had stashed away in Flynn's bag. We also had Morgan, the doctor, to assist him.
"If Felix gets lost somewhere, do you know the process of memory wipes?" I questioned Morgan.
"Yes, I had to study it for a bit, it's risky, but if we can pinpoint the exact memory, while they're unconscious especially, it should be a piece of cake. I have steady hands, but I think your friend here that visits me with your all's payments has steadier hands than I," Morgan complemented. Felix nodded to him in thanks before getting back to unpacking some things, and I looked at Seth.
"Alright, then let's do this," I said, beckoning Flynn and Seth to follow me out the door. Flynn and Seth followed swiftly, and we quickly walked out the door leading to the stairs.
The office had a basement, thankfully, which you could access from a door that's somewhat hidden within the office, that had about four flights of stairs. Not a ton to walk up and down, because they were half flights in height, but still, a bit of a brisk walk upstairs. The doorway into the basement was obviously propped open, because all of us were in there with Morgan, but there's a code to get access into the basement room.
As soon as we got to the top of the stairs, we went through the maze of the office, and made our way onto the dirty streets, and it was a good opportunity for me to use my new kicks.
"These are so cool!" I said excitedly. I wanted my attention to be elsewhere on the walk, so I wasn't stressed the whole time, and getting to use my new feet was a good temporary distraction.
"Remember the mission, chicky," Flynn said. I could tell there was a smirk underneath that mask, but I wasn't going to tease him about it.
Even though I'm older than Flynn, he's always been like my brother. And Madelyn, my sister. Flynn has always looked after me when I needed it, and I did the same for him. Felix and Blake were like family, but more like cousins or family friends, not direct blood or brethren. But I'm glad I have Flynn and Madelyn as siblings, because they truly feel like it. I feel the need to always protect Madelyn, and Flynn has my back at all times.
It's good to know there's some people in this world who don't wanna gut you and use you for parts. It's a fresh line of thought sometimes. But I guess it's good that Flynn was trying to keep me on task.
We walked around for a while, until we came upon a pub, and I spotted a flash of golden yellow and purple with white. Layne.
I stuck my hands out to my sides, which Seth and Flynn were on either side of me. They stopped promptly, and I walked sideways to the side of the building. They followed in my footsteps, trying to keep as quiet as possible, and as close to me as they could, as we posted up outside the pub. We peeked our head around and saw Layne speaking to the two bodyguards, before walking in without them.
"Okay, the two bodyguards are alone, what's the plan?" I asked. Without a word, Flynn started walking out from behind the wall we were posted behind. "No, no what are you doing," I whisper yelled after him. But he just kept walking. No going back now. Flynn, make this count. You better know what the fuck you're doing.
Flynn walked up to them and knelt down to their dogs level. The bodyguards seemed to study him, like they'd never seen him before. That means they didn't see or meet him at the Toymakers office. Good. They continued to study him as he held out an open palm with two treats in it. The dogs walked up to Flynn, who was easily only seven to eight feet away from the bodyguards. The bodyguards seemed to be more curious about their surroundings and didn't see Flynn as a threat, so they let the leashes go, and looked around past Flynn.
Flynn looked up at them slightly, more menacingly and like he had a plan, and then got up after giving the dogs treats, and walked a little ways away from us. As expected, the dogs followed him. Huh, dog whisperer.
The bodyguards didn't seem to notice that Flynn led the dogs away, and when they looked back down, expecting their dogs to be there, they started to look around in a somewhat frantic manner. They seemed calm, but internally frantic about their dogs not being there like they were moments ago. They started walking, and the fox beckoned the bear to follow as they walked in our direction. I turned away from the edge of the wall me and Seth were hiding behind, and ducked behind it, keeping my spot as Seth did so as well. I looked across from where I was standing and saw Flynn from around a corner, gently laying the dogs down on the ground. The anesthesia slash chloroform did its job.
I could hear the dirty and crunchy footsteps as me and Seth didn't move or make any single sound. As the footsteps neared ever closer, they stopped. I held my breath, as the footsteps continued past our corner slower than before, and walked past blindly, not looking behind the corner to see us. Flynn took the two dogs bodies and ducked behind the corner I could see as they rounded ours, and Seth took it upon himself to take down the bear first.
He silently walked up behind the bear, making sure to put his heels before the balls of his feet, and put his arms in an armlock, before taking said arm and looping it around his head, aiming for his mouth, and putting the cloth to the bear's mask. The bear started struggling, but quickly started to slip into unconsciousness. Nice. Now time for the fox.
The fox kept walking, not looking back to check on his brother, and I could tell from the way he acted, he was the younger one. More nimble, but not as wise. I walked up, trying to synchronize my steps with his, and grabbed the piece of chloroform cloth out of my pocket. The fox then stopped, and so did I. He reached for his sword, in preparation to fight, but then there was a click of a stick nearby. He perked, and right as he did, I knew this was the time to strike.
I leapt forward and closed my arm around his neck, taking him down from the back. He fell back and all his weight was pushed onto my chest, slamming me into the ground as I latched my hand over his mouth. It knocked a bit of air out of my chest suddenly, winding me slightly, but I kept my hold. The chokehold I had on him was a bit loose, so once I knew the chloroform was in place, I tightened my arm's grip around the fox's neck.
He struggled, more than the bear did as he fought to stay awake, but slowly but surely, his weight became heavier and heavier as he started to slip. And after about a minute or two, his full weight gave way and pushed against me.
Both down, let's go. Once I determined that he was unconscious, I let my death hold go, and lay back, practically slamming my back against the ground in relief.
"You good princess?" I heard Seth say with a smirk.
"Yep, just peachy," I said with a smile, my eyes still closed so I didn't have to look at him while I said it.
"Was that the first time you took someone down with chloroform?" he asked accusingly.
"I know, my form was off, you don't gotta say," I sarcastically said, as I opened my eyes and I pushed the fox's weight off of me.
"Nah, it's all good. If that was your first time, that wasn't bad at all," he said. I heard footsteps from in front of me and I looked up to see who it was. It was Flynn with each dog strung over his shoulders.
"You're quite the dog whisperer yourself, dude," I congratulated him. I reached up above me, taking Seth's hand and he yanked me upright. "So who's carrying who," I asked him. Seth leaned down and picked up the fox, and I went over to the bear's body. I bent over and slung his lifeless body over my shoulders, and stood back up and adjusted myself, before walking over to Seth and Flynn again.
"Let's just pray Layne's in there for a good hour or two, maybe the whole day," Flynn said.
"Usually anyone who goes into a pub stays there for the whole day, I think the Con Man just wanted to make deals, or take some time to relax and observe the world of the cyborgs he created, he'll be there awhile," Seth nodded and relayed. We began our walk back to Morgan's office, and even though I felt the weight of the bear on my shoulders, I didn't feel like I was lifting that heavy of a load, even though I'm sure he has about fifty pounds, maybe a hundred on me.
"This doesn't feel like a lot of weight at all," I said out loud.
"Morgan probably replaced your muscular system while he was fixing your legs, so your upper body strength wasn't undermined by your leg's strength," he suggested. "That way everything was properly balanced and distributed, and nothing was out of whack." I nodded at this possibility, because he had the blueprints probably for every single cyborg except for Layne and the Puppet.
"I mean, yeah, probably," I agreed.
It felt good to have a different, stronger system within me. I don't get a lot of nice things, not a lot of people do unless they're invented with them. So the fact that I could get an upgrade simply because I had a pretty nasty injury is a win for me. At least in my book it is. I mean, yeah, I lost my former legs but, I got new ones and a new muscular system. You win some, you lose some.
I started to get curious, and with the bear on my shoulders, I started jumping up and down as I walked. It was fun, I felt like a kid playing in the mud on a rainy day or something, even though I didn't know what it was actually like. I mean I'd guess that's what it was like, mud splashing on my new feet, and splashing all around me. Probably hitting Seth in the process as I jumped.
Who was I before I was invented? Just a pile of scrap? Or did I have a natural human brain with memories before the Con Man used the brain itself to make me, and erased my memories from my life before? And why do I know information about humans?
These questions plagued me quite often, like who I was in a past life. Whether that past life was better or not. And the thoughts come up without warning. I tried bringing it up to Felix and Blake a little while ago, but in all honesty, they just looked at me like I was crazy. I don't blame them, I probably have a few screws loose somewhere in there. But at least I'm more aware than I should be, it helps in battle to be acutely aware of your surroundings and thoughts. Maybe those few screws that were loose caused me to lose my legs, who knows.
Seems like the Con Man had enough decency to program a bunch of information into people's brains, and it seems like for everyone, how the human body is constructed is in everyone's memories. How women have periods, men don't, and what the hormones are really for. How reproduction of humans is conducted, so many other anatomical things, even though cyborgs that are constructed as women don't experience periods. Stuff I kinda wish I didn't know, but I guess it's protocol to know. Because of the possibility of going out into the human world, you'd have to know those things to have a social life with regular humans. Because god knows that the Con Man is not made of mechanical parts. So he must've had a social life with humans at one point.
If he was, he'd be walking around these streets in the flesh. But what is he using? A mechanical cyborg made of true metal and artificial intelligence that he can project his mind, voice, and personality into when he wants to roam the streets, but not risk his actual health. Because he's a human.
And he gives some cyborgs reproductive systems. Not all of them. That's why I'm so protective over Madelyn and why she can't go into pubs to get drinks alone. One of the boys always has to be with her. I was fortunate to not have one.
I say that because I know for a fact Seth and Griffin have one. I don't fully trust them with her yet, which is what scares me. But now, she's in the hands of the Con Man, and god knows what he might do to her, if he doesn't think twice about it.
"...think this whole interrogation thing will go?" Flynn's voice rang in my ear. I didn't hear the first part, it just sounded like garble.
Flynn's question snapped me out of my trail of thought, which made me realize we were still walking toward the office and were nowhere near it.
"What was the question again?" I asked. "Sorry, I was in a whole different world there for a minute."
"Just how do you think this interrogation will go," he repeated.
It took me a minute to generate an answer, but I got there. "I mean, as long as Felix and Morgan are ready for the memory wipe, and we have questions prepared and don't stall, we should be fine," I shrugged. And right as I said that, the office came into view. "Okay, Flynn, you head inside quicker, set down the dogs, and then we'll come in with the bodyguards," I relayed. Flynn nodded and briskly walked ahead of us, disappearing into the office.
"Are you sure this is going to go well?" I asked Seth hesitantly. He silently nodded as we continued walking, and made our way into the office. We went through the equipment room and into a smaller room in the back, which had the doorway propped open all the way that led to the stairway. Fraser was there holding the door open, as me and Seth walked past him.
Fraser shut the door behind him as he followed us downstairs, and when we hit the bottom of the stairs, we saw Flynn tending to the dogs as they were in comfortable dog beds. Morgan must've had past pets to where he stored a couple dog beds in his storage. I wouldn't put it past him. A sweet guy's gotta have a pet at some point. Fraser joined him, as me and Seth walked into the main room of the basement. Cassidy, Banner, and Finn were sitting together, while Gunner was on another side of the room talking to Griffin, and Morgan had his little helpers, JJ and BB beside him.
"We got 'em," I announced. Their discussions quieted down, and Cassidy rose up quickly to help me with the bear's body, while Seth had Banner and Blake help with the fox.
"Holy crap, what does this dude eat? Where are his muscles because I can feel the weight of them," Banner groaned loudly as they slowly sat his body on a wooden chair set up across from another one, where the chairs were facing each other. Me and Cassidy sat the bear's body down in the other empty chair, and then backed away quickly.
Felix and Finn tended to the bodies immediately, wrapping the body's hands around the back of the chair and securing them with zip ties. Afterward, they aligned each of their legs with the chair legs, and secured those with zip ties as well. They backed away after they were secured, and their heads hung down their chests. They seemed so peaceful, but we knew they'd wake up at any minute.
"Back away from them for now, let them wake up on their own," Morgan said from a distance. I did as he asked, making my way over to the computer screens he was monitoring, while my gaze was still fixed on the bear I'd been carrying, watching him intently.
"Did you ever get your hands on their blueprints?" I asked him, finally tearing my gaze away, and leaning over the desk he was posted at.
"Oddly enough, it doesn't even seem like he had any files on them, almost as if they weren't artificially created, at least not entirely. They're cyborgs by the way they act, but not by the way they were built," he explained. That made me raise my eyebrows in extreme interest.
I turned to the two bodyguards, their bodies still remaining lifeless. I looked at their bodies individually, and their build had proper muscles, proper builds of a human. And besides the masked heads, with the obvious help of the respiratory system in the mask that helps us all, including them to breathe properly, their body was completely human.
Their hands which we could plainly see, their legs with the pants they were had thighs that gave way from the fabric, resembling flesh in the thighs and skin. Their necks were also visible, and there were obvious veins in the neck. They're human, almost entirely human. And then a thought hit me.
"What if their blueprints aren't their bodies, but what keeps them alive?" I asked. This inquiry made Morgan slowly perk up in realization and start typing furiously on his keyboard into his computer. He kept typing until he got to a place where he could pull up the files he seemed to be searching for.
"Good idea," he muttered, as he opened up a file that displayed a heart and brain that were made of complete metal and tech. It wasn't properly labeled with a name besides it just describing what the parts entailed. So there was no name of any cyborg that had the system, it was just the name of the system itself as a file name. What?
I heard a heaving breath from behind me, which tore me from the focus I had on the system Morgan had just pulled up. I whipped my head to face the noise, and it was the fox. He was stirring, not awake just yet, followed shortly by the bear. I turned back to look at the blueprints one more time before I rubbed my hands together and walked toward them slowly.
Let the show begin.