Chapter 2

Several hours later, a tired and sore One Forty Two woke up in the recovery room of the purple Infirmary, a small healthcare facility reserved especially for him, capable of doing anything, from treating a cold to amputations. He was laying in bed, his high tech prostetic legs removed, leaving him with only a two inch stump below his knees. He was wearing a white hopsital, and hd been washed clean of all the sweat and grime he had accumulated while fighting.

The room was white with gray tile floors. There was a bed in one corner, and oppissite of that a tall cabinet filled with extra blankets, sheets and pillows. There were two doors, one for the bathroom and one to the hallway. There was a chair and a nightstand next to the bed, but no machine checking One Forty Two's heart beat or vitals.

In the chair, acting as the "Heartbeat Machine" was a circular ball, similar to the ones that tripped him repeadetly in the testing chamber, but with more compartments and pieces on the outer shell. It was a military grade Medical Assistant, 15th edition. It was slightly outdated slightly outdated and covered in in scratches and dents from dropping itself on the ground and rolling around. It was asleep, camera lenses slid closed, tools in their compartments, legs stuck into place on its shell.

But as One Forty Two's eyes open, the robot jumped into action. Its lens slid open to reveal a large purple camera, and eight legs rose out of the shell and popped into place. It stood up and looked at its patient with its body tiled towards him, express curiousity.

"One Forty Two?" The robotic voice was sympathetic.

"Alistair?" One Forty Two was in a daze, the world was blurry, his head was pounding. The only thing that stuck, the only thing he recognized, was the voice of his only friend.

"Would you like some medication?" Alistair asked as he turned around to see the bottle of pain pills he stashed with him while he waited for One Forty Two to awaken.

"Yes please," the 18 year old whined in a small, weak voice. He tried to sit up, but found that his muscles were to tired and all the will power in the world wasn't going to force the to move anymore. He fell back into his pillow, and the two inch fall onto the soft cusion sent a new wave of pain through his already throbbing skull. He closed his eyes and winced until the extra pain faded away. When he opened his eyes he saw Alistair climbing onto the bed with two utensils coming out of a compartment on his belly. One was a spoon with something blue in it, and the other was a four fingered hand with a small cup of water in it.

The robot walked up to One Forty Two's chestwith half of its legs lightly stabbing the right side of his body as the robot waked on him, and the other half doing the same to the thin piece of bed on the other side of One Forty Two. He stopped for a moment, and reached down to hit a button on the side of the bed. The upper part the bed rose and brought One Forty Two's body to an obtuese incline. He breathed deeply as he struggled with the pain of having to support his own upper body, even with the bed supporting him.

Alistair shoved the spoon with two blue pills into One Forty Two's mouth and held the cup up to his lips for him to swallow. When that was over, Alistair sat in his lap and stared up at him solemnly.

"I am sure you are wondering why you are here."

"Did one of them get me?" He said the words like a child asking his parent if he was in trouble.

"No, you passed out."

"Is that worse?"

Alistair tilted his head over and looked in the same direction, his way of rolling his eyes in amusement. "You were fighting for five hours."

"Is that good?"

"They only thought you would make it to three. The visitors were very impressed."

One Forty Two let out a sigh of relief.

"But I knew you woud do good today. Today is not the problem."

One Forty Two looked down at the robot with interest, ignoring the pain in his neck to get a better view. "What's the problem?"

"Hmmm," Alistair said as he tilted his head to the side and looked away from One Forty Two. "The problem is ...tomorrow? Two days from now?" The robot looked back at him shyly. "They kept changing the time."

"What is the problem?" One Forty Two repeated with a hint of frustration in his voice.

"Well..." Alistair tilted his head away again, but he was quickly swatted back by One Forty Two's mechanical arm.

"Classified?" asked One Forty Two frustratedly.

"Your project is competing with the Robtics Department," Alistair said as he tilted the other way, toward One Forty Two's weaker hand.

"And?" One Forty Two pushed tilted his head to the side and strained to look Alistair in the eye.

"You are," Alistair said slowly as he looked up at the cieling. One Forty Two followed him, and he continued talking as his eye made a circle around his body. "Fighting their project." His camera eye was now looking down at the blanket covering One Forty Two's stomach. One Forty Two was still looking at him. It wasn't as hard to do so now that the pain meds hadkicked in, but his neck was still tired and fought with him, making his head jitter as he looked down sternly at his friend.

"What is their project?"

"A robot." Alistair looked back up at One Forty Two confidently. He was sure that this answer would be enough.

One Forty Two sighed and let his head fall back into his pillow, and Alistair's expression drooped.

"Classified?" One Forty Two asked again.

"What do you expect, if I tell you then you will be able to prepare."

"Exactly" One Forty Two exclaimed in an exasperated voice. He didn't moved his head anymore, and shouted at the wall infront of him instead of Alistair. "Why can't I prepare?"

"You don't get to prepare in the real world, One Forty Two."

"Really..." One Forty Two said with a laugh. "Can't wait to get out there then."

"If you do good, you will go out there."

One Forty Two's eyes flickered downward, looking as far down at Alistair as he could. "I thought you said you didn't know."

"I..." Alistair looked sheepishly to the side as he tried to come up with an answer. "I don't know what the mission is, but I know you will go out side."

"Huh." One Forty Two looked back at the wall and wondered what it was like outside the lab.

"Well, I have to go." Alistair got up and began walking to the edge of the bed. "You have to rest, you have a robot to fight tomorrow, or in two days." Alistair jumped off the bed and his metal feet landed with a loud clink on the tile floor. "No, diagnostics in two days, fight in three! I rembered, Jerry asked Boss to push it back a day, show the visitors the mechanics of your arm and legs tomorrow instead." Alistair walked up to the door, and gave off a light beep. The opened with it picked up his signal and he walked out with his spider like feet tapping on the ground.

One Forty Two stood in a testng chamber he had never been in before, a larger one with blue accents and no visible observation room. He immediatly felt a sense of aloneness as he walked through one of the two doors and into the gigantic room.

He was dressed in a tight, breathable, purple shirt, that covered he right arm dorn to the wrist and stopped at his left shoulder to show off his mechanical arm. His pants were plain white, loose and very light, and he wasn't wearing any shoes, like normal. He didn't need any, his boot like prostetic legs, made out o the same material as his arm, worked just fine with out them.

He walked out into the room and every foot step made a clang sound of metal on tile that echoed through the room. An alarm went off, a low, long, factory like beep, and he stopped mid step, only letting his foot land in front of the other before pausing.

Am i... not supposed to move yet?

He had been thrown into the chamber with no preparation and no warning. The only instructions he was given were "Do good, kid."

Another alarm, this time the same beep from before was repeated at steady one second intervals. One Forty Two stepped back as he watched a section of the white wall across from him slide open slowly with the beep. Besides the alarm, there was no fan fair as the door ascended, no flashing lights or plumes of smoke. The door abruptly stopped, leaving a black hole in the white wall. One Forty Two, now pushed back into the place he was in when he first walked into the room, stared into the door with light curiosity. He wonderec only about what was in store from him, but knew he would find out sooner or later, and did not let it upset his mostly clear mind.

A light tapping sound came from the doorway, until a robot stepped out into the light and stopped. The alarm stopped, and One Forty Two and the robot stood in silence.

The robot was unlike anything One Forty Two had ever seen before, It was made out of a material he didn't recognize, not by looking at it with his naked eye or scanning it with his robotic one. It was made out of crystal like, diamond shaped pieces, two long ones for each of its arms and legs, with the pieces at the end cut in half for flat hands and feet, three short ones for its abdomen, getting smaller as they went up, and one wide and short one for its head. The pieces touched only at the pointed tips of the diamond pieces, and were connected by an odd string like material with a blue glow.

So this is the project they were so worked up about.

He eyed the robots joints, barely touching and flimsily connected with that odd string.

“Huh,” One Forty Two breathed with intense curiosity. He wasn’t stupid enough to assume that the robot’s limbs would simply fall apart if pulled or pushed a little, but he noted everything he saw about the robot. Each piece was made of two parts that connected with a seem in the middle at the widest part of the hexoganal crystals. Other than that, the surface o the machine was a blank, light gray. It had no camera eye or any visible weapons.

Here goes nothing.

One Forty Two lifted up his mechanical arm and charged a shot of madeup1. Electricity in his robotic arm was drawn into the electricity holding gel, and he held his hand up for as long as he wanted to charge it. He began to feel the lowering energy in his arm, a sign that the amount of electricty in the gel was large. He aimed at the the robot, who had not moved the entire time.

With a small pop, the gel blasted out of his wrist and landed with a splat on the robots head. The gel transferred the electricity from itself to the robot, electricuting it. The robot stood still as the electric current raced around its body and eventually found its way to the ground.

The robot held up its own arm and got ready for a shot of its own. In front of the flat surface of the robot’s “hand”, energy, taken from the surrounding matter in the air, collected in the form of a bright blue ball. The robot collect the energy and fired it in a short stream of white hot particles in an instant. One Forty Two quickly turned to the side on one foot, just in time for the stream of energy fly past his face.

The robot ran at him before he could turn back around to face it. When he did, he jumped to the side, letting the robot fall slightly forward where One Forty Two was supposed to be. The robot turned quickly and continued running toward the fleeing boy.

One Forty Two thought while he ran. The robot jumped at him and he ducked down to dodge, letting the bot hop over him and land on its hands. One Forty Two looked up quickly enough to see the robot flip back on its feet and look at him again. He stood up and turned around to face the robot who was simply standing and staring at him. The two halfs of the robots head opened and inside of it was a white glow. The glow got brighter and brighter, until One Forty Two thought it was a good time to duck. The two halfs of the robot’s head jumped away from each other and a blast of white energy spun out of the robots head in all directions. There was a black line around the entire room at the height of the robots head.

One Forty Twostood back up, and by the time he was back on his feet the robot was already running at him again. He stood and waited for it t get to him. It tried to punch him in the face but One Forty Two tilted his body back and threw his arms out, allowing him grab on to the attack arm. The robot pulled its arm back and dragged One Forty Two with it. With its other arm it tried to hit him again, but One Forty Two put his mechanical arm in front of face. As the two objects hit each others, an awful screeching sound like metal on a chalkboard rang through the testing chamber. Sparks flew as the robots arm ground into One Forty Two’s in an attempt to get to the rest of his body. Frustrated, the robot whacked One Forty Two’s arm from the bottom, sending it flying upwards, and went straight for his abdomen. One Forty Two’s quickly jumped back in front of the robot’s, though it was closer to his body than he would have liked.

One Forty Two’s eyes searched the robot, looking for any sort of weakness. The camera eye looked in places he couldn’t see in his right eyes peripheral vision. It zoomed in on the robots foot and calculated the angle it was at relative to the ground. It was an odd angle, making the foot unbalanced. The information was relayed to One Forty Two instantly, with the numbers appearing in his vision and his training telling him what to do. He pulled himself down quikly and slid his foot into the robots, kicking it out of balance. The robot attempted to hit him as he slid and his arm moved out of the way, but it fell to the side before it could.

Acting as quickly as he could, One Forty Two grabbed the robot’s foot with his right hand and got out his dagger on his left. He thrust the dagger into the joint between the two piece of the leg, and as soon as the metal dagger hit the white “strings” at the joint, a wave of energy pulsed through his body. The was like a strng pounding pressure wave that ran up his arm and hit the rest of his body with a thump. The robot swung its foot back away from One Forty Two, then back at him, breaking his nose as it made contact with his face.

One Forty Two looked around, still stunned by both the punch of energy and the kick in the face. The robot was getting up, and he needed to do so to. He stood up shakily, his legs unwilling to carry the body that had suddenly become to heavy. Before he could get his barrings straight, the robot kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying back several feet. He landed on his side and held his stomach. When he looked up, the robot was there again, this time holding up ts arm, getting ready to blasting him wth a stream of energy.

Inside an observatory room, eight Chief Assistants the fight from several rooms away on a big TV screen showing many angles at once. Seven of the eight Assistants each hailed from one of Verva’s seven sections, and each reported to that sections Electorate of Defense. The Eighth reported to the Major Electorate of defense, the federal efense politician. They were there to survey the options for the Operation, and collect information to decide which option was the best.

Watching with the Chief Assistants were Rick Jones, Head of the Human Engineering Department, and Adam Baine, Head of th Robotic Engineering and Weaponry Department.

“I honestly thought he’d last much longer,” Baines said through the chatter of the Assistants and the scratching tapping of their fingers on holographic touch screens. “I mean, I’ve worked with him, I know what he can do. Could’ve ran, could’ve dodged more. Could’nt’ve won though.” He said the last few words with smirk on his face and tilted his head towards his colleague, Jones.

“Subject One Four Two is still cheaper,” Jones said, already beginning to defend himself against the inevitable defeat One Forty Two would face. “Even if he loses this battle, we’ll still have him. He can attempt his mission, then if he fails you can build your billion dollar robot army.”

Th Assistants ignored the bickering men, knowing they would hear all the arguments they would need to in the days after the fight. They had no business paying attention to the conversations of two ex-friends.

“But why waste money one a project that might succeed, just to spend more money on my project, when we can cut your project out and save all that money. Go straight to the winning project!”

“The cost of my project is miniscule compared to yours. Even if it does fail it’s still worth the risk. Just think about it, spend just a couple thousand dollars on mine for the chance to save, what, how many billions of dollars was it again? And that’s just to manafacture the robots, how many billions more to deploy them? To actually complete the mission?”

“A couple thousand dollars? I’m sure your department has spent much more over the past fifity years.”

“It has, and all of that will be wasted if we don’t at least try!”

Before Baine could point out how childish of Jones it was to scream in the middle of the observation room, the sound of the robot firing its energy beam, and the surprised gasps of the Chief Assistants turned their attention to the TV screens they were supposed to be watching.

One Forty Two lay on the ground, looking up at the energy beam collecting in front of his face. The robot wasn’t allowed to kill him, so it aimed the beam two inches way from his forhead, the minimum distane it head to fire at this kill zone on One Forty Two’s body. One Forty Two’s eyes frantically scanned the robot, once again searching for any weaknesses he could find. He found nothing he could use at the moment and waited until the robot was almost ready to fire. He estimated the size of the energy ball and compared it to the last blast the robot shot at him. When it got almost to the size it was at before, he rolled over onto his other side and got to his feet.

The robot fired as soon as One Forty Two dodged and by the time it looked up to find him again he was already running as fast as he could.

One Forty Two’s limping wasn’t very fast, and the robot jumped on him and took him to the ground. They wrestled, with the robot trying to punch him in the face repeatedly and he just barely dodging every hit. He slammed his head into the floor to dodge and even defend with his natural hand, which was broken when the robot crushed it with its own fist. One Forty Two gritted his teeth and grabbd onto the robots arms with both hands. The robot pushed down on him and he pushed back, more with his arm than his broken hand on the right side. They sat in some what of a stalemate, with the robot still pushing One Forty Two’s hand down and One Forty Two only able to slow his hands descent to the floor. One Forty Two slid his left arm from under the robots and let his right get pinned to the ground. He let out a small yelp as the broken bones were crushed even further, but he was quickly distracted from his pain.

The robot pinnd its knee into One Forty Two’s abdomen and used the other to brace itself on the floor. One Forty Two was stuck, and the the two halves of the robot’s head split again, showing the bright glow of energy right in One Forty Two’s face.

“Hey, won’ t that kill him?” Jones shouted from back inside the observation room. He frantically pointed and shouted, trying to use anything he could to discredit his rival. “That’s against protocol!”

Baine chuckled to himself, then looked up at the agents. “ “ROBOTS NAME” will charge its energy blast to full power. If the human subject can’t get out by then, he loses and no harm done to him. That’s the protocol.”

Jones glared at him, and began working out his argument for why One Forty Two should still be accepted.

One Forty Two began looking or a way out, any weakness he could find. He took out his dagger and shoved it into the slit in the robot’s head. The bright glow disappeared and the robot closed the two sections of its head as far as he could. One Forty Two kept shiving his dagger further into the robots head and wiggled it around to cut as many wires as he could.

Then an electric shock ran through One Forty Two’s body. He tried to pull his dagger from the robots head, but it wouldn’t let go. The robot moved his arm from One Forty Two’s hand to his abdomen and created another electric shock.

“That’s going to kill him.” The voice was Alistair’s, and it was a monotone voice of frozen fear. “That’s going to kill him! That’s against protocol, stop it!” The robot reverted to frantic screaming and turned to face Jones.

“What is this?” Jones shouted. He stood out of his seat and looked down at Baine who was just as shocked as he was. “This attack wasn’t in any of the briefings, what is your bot doing?”

“I don’t know” Baine stuttered. “We never gave t and electric attack, the energy attacks use to much-”

“Baine.” The voice belong to the Chief Assistant of the Electorate of the Defense. The man the assistant reported to was Head Commander of the entire Vervian army and the highest boss one could report to. “Call your robot off. Now.”

Baine searched frantically for his command module. He found it in one of his pockets and spoke into the micro phone. “ROBOT NAME. Shut down.”

In the testong chamber, One Forty Two continued to be electrocuted. He had given up on trying to escape, and was just trying to wiggle his arm and disconnect more wires, hoping that one of them would shut the robot off.

“ROBOT NAME . Shut down!”

“Shut the damn thing off,” Alistair screamed as loud as he speakers would let him. He stood close to one of the screens, watching anxiously. “He would be dead!” Alistair screamed angrily as he turned around to face Baine. “He would be dead if he was a normal human and he will die if you don’t stop this.”

“ROBOT NAME. Shut down. Stop. OFF. TURN OFF.” Baine shouted frantically into the module. “Why is this happening?” He looked over at the his own assistants in he room, who were both holding laptops and talking on the phone, frantically trying to find that answer before he ever asked the question.

One Forty Two was completey stunned by the electric shock. He was unable to move and he and the robot were lock together.

“Shut down!” Baine ordered one last time before the robot finally did it.

The robot fell down onto One Forty Two and both soldiers laid on the ground, unconscious or shut off.

“Does he still have a pulse, Alistair?” Jones asked quietly.

“I- his. I’m not getting any readings from his medical chip, it must be fried.”

“Get out there and check on him,” he said before pointing to his assistants “You two, get the medical team out there, now. Tell them it was electricity, tell’em this is extreme.”

Alistair and the assistants walked out the door, leaing only Jones, Baine, and the Chief Assistant to the Electorates.

“Baine,” The Eighth Assistant asked, “What did we tell you last time you made a robot with a mind of it’s own? That little medical bot from earlier. What did we tell you when you created that one?”

Baine looked at the Assistant from behind. His cold voice coupled with his refusal to look at him sent a shock of fear through Baine’s body.

“This robot doesn’t have a mind of it’s own it-”

“It just broke protocol, and ignored commands, to protect itself. Just like the last one”

“The last one didn’t protect itself.”

“Still,” said the Eighth Assistant, finally turning around to face the man he was talking to, “he broke protocol to do what he wanted. What is our policy on ‘thinking robots’? What has always been the policy?”

Baine swallowed hard, knowing what he was going to be asked to do.

“Destroy it, destoy it’s programming, Erase it completely and start again. I can guarantee that those will be your orders as soon as the report is filled.”

Baine sat dumb founded, looking up at a face he couldn’t argue with. He nodded slowly, no matter how painful it was to do so.

On the TV screens, Alistair was in the testing chamber with One Forty Two. A series of medical tools were unfolding from his chasis, and he sat a soft pad on One Forty Two’s forehead.

“He’s alive!” Alistair said with relief in his voice. “He’s alive.” The last sentence came out like soft whisper as he turned to look back at One Forty Two.

Every one in the room looked up at the screens. The Assistants chattered amongst each other, before one by one the shook Jones’ and Baine’s hands and walked out the door.

Jones looked down at Baine, who was coverd in sweat and shaking rom the experience. “Well, old friend,” Jones said with a smile. “Have fun with your new job at ‘Jay and Sons Robot Emporium’. I have a mission to complete.”

And he left the room, leaving his old enemy to decide what he would do now that his career was over.