Megabyte [WIP]

TONY

"Okay, calm down, I'll check it out."

I step forward into the storage room. Apparently, someone heard weird voices in here or something. I'm not buying it, though. Seriously, no one has been in this room in a while. It's labelled the "storage room" because that's where we dump all the random junk that our hoarder-for-a-boss thinks can still be used later.

At least, that's what I thought until I came across the humanoid robot thing lying on the ground.

"What the heck? Come check this out, Hawk. It's like a weird lizard person thing."

Hawk is my ironic nickname for my coworker, who is as cowardly as a mouse and has terrible vision.

"Really wish you'd stop calling me that, Tony- woah. It does look like a weird lizard person robot thing. What does it do?"

I scoff. "Why should I know?"

"Because you're smart and you've worked here for a long time."

"Fair enough." Whatever, I say. I take a closer look, hoping it doesn't jump up and attack me or something. I mean, surely there's a reason it's here in this trash can of a room. Must have been a defect or something. No clue why they would have kept it...

I poke the screen and it seems to flinch a little bit or something.

"Hey, Hawk... I think this thing is on."

"...what?"

"It moved a little bit. When I poked it."

"Why would you do that? What if it's angry now?"

I turn to argue with Hawk some more when another voice joins in from behind. It doesn't sound quite right. Slightly more monotone than a normal person's voice would be. Like... A robot.

"Okay, well now that you've caught me, I don't see any point in hiding it anymore. Just... Stay quiet... Uh, I'm not gonna hurt you or anything... And um, please don't tell anyone about me because I really don't feel like dying today."

Hawk immediately runs out of the room to go tell someone.

I'm smarter than to anger a deadly military android. Although... I see why they didn't want to keep it. Its speech patterns are really nonthreatening.

The door slams shut before Hawk can get outside. I turn around and see a person holding it shut. I hear her voice from all the way across the room, even though she seems to be trying to be quiet.

"Shhh! No, don't go! If you tell anyone, I'll get fired, and this poor innocent random robot will be killed, and neither of us want either of those to happen!"

The robot thing speaks up too.

"Yeah... I, uh, really wouldn't appreciate dying again, thanks. Not that it was for real last time, but nearly seven years of talking to myself in pure darkness with only my own mind for company and next to no memories was really terrible and I never want to do that again."

Seven years? No wonder it seems to be a older model. The new ones are much more... Terrifying. Also explains why it seems terrible at confident human interaction.

"You don't look like you really care. Usually when I tell people that fact, they get all sad and like, oh I'm so sorry for you, darn, I'm gonna help you leave. Guess not. Okay, uh... Well, we aren't gonna let you leave... Until you promise not to tell anyone. Okay? Um... If that's alright with you..."

It looks deep in thought for a moment.

"What's your name? The other guy's name is Hawk or something - which is, like, really cool. I heard that when you called for him. Heard his name. But, what's yours?"

Hm... Should I tell this thing my name? What if it, like, blackmails me or something? No, you can't really do that, nevermind. Not with first names anyway.

"My name is Tony."