Factory Reset

Chapter Nine: Aiding and Abetting, Perchance?

"What's a-" Axel took a look at the table from the side, lip-reading the word, "Protogen?"

Mason shrugged, now fear gone from his expression and demeanor entirely, but focused on the name, "So, your name is B-64? Do you have any other name or is that some kind of nickname?"

B-64 shook his head, his fuzzy ears zipping through the air rather funnily. Marissa still looked fearful, unlike many if the lioness' and lions he had encountered working for The Foundation.

Axel glanced at his shoulders, noticing the odd Protogenic words that were firmly planted onto his shoulder blades. They contained his initials and date of manufacturing, along with his allegiance and serial number.

"So, what's the deal with the blood?" Mason asked, firmly standing next to him like some long-lost friend or family member. For some reason, both felt comfortable around each other.

B-64 paused for a moment, thinking of how to describe it, but he couldn't. The blood, he wasn't sure where the blood came from. Did it come from slipping on something, from escaping The Foundation, roadkill? He, despite being programmed to remember things up to his birth, did not remember.

"Dont know" He simply put on the table, not bothering with the apostrophe. Marissa looked at the words and clenched her fists, working up the courage to get closer, "What do you mean you don't know? Did something happen or...?"

B-64 quickly scribbled on the table again, even making a small slash mark as a kind of exclamation point or a style, "escaped!" was what he wrote.

Marissa quickly grew worried. She'd seen a show similar to this, or at least she thinks. She's only ever seen the cover art, but that's besides the point. Government experiment perhaps. That would explain the name having 'proto' in it. Prototype. 

"Did you escape from the government or something? Experiment?" Marissa asked, appearing beside Mason, who promptly jumped a couple inches off the ground. He didn't expect her to be there.

B-64 brought up two claws and started to poke the air, making it seem like he was telling her that it was the latter option, experiment. Or more precisely, experiments on him rather than him being one, though he thought she meant the former.

"Ahh shit!" She proclaimed loudly, throwing her clenched fist down with a fury.

Axel looked at her worryingly, "What's wrong?"

Marissa frowned, her fist creating an indent in the table, "He's an experiment. A government experiment. What does that make us? We helped it, we brought it into our homes. What would the government do to us if they found out we helped out one of their experiments hide from them!"

B-64 quickly realized what she was implying, and quickly scratched in his exclamation, "No, experimented on." he took his time on it though, wanting to spell the word right instead of fast, and by the time he was done, Marissa was in near hysterics.

"Look at what he just wrote! He wasn't an experiment, he was experimented on."

Marissa looked at him coldly, though her voice still cracked, "Does that make us any less guilty about hiding a government secret, in front of the freakin' government!?" She lashed out, nearly pulling out her hair.

Once she calmed down enough as to where she would look out of place in a mental asylum, she looked at B-64 more closely. B-64 could clearly see that she was still frightened, but she couldn't help but feel a little adventurous.

"So. What are we going to do?" She asked, pulling up a chair and placing herself on it. She put her hand against her forehead, sighing, "I mean, we all were just going to be spending a few nights here, and we can't hide him forever, the people looking for him aren't going to stop just because he escaped."

Mason pulled up a chair as well, sitting right up against B-64. B-64, for his part, sat down as well, though on his knees and placing his arms on the table that he had scratched up. Not that he thought back, since his restart and running out of Boson Energy, he couldn't remember much of anything besides very little about his escape, and someone named Nathan that was important. But he couldn't remember, and decided to not dwell on it.

"Hide him?" Axel produced, pacing in front of them, "I mean, he isn't like some mech or organic-metal dog or something, so he'd be pretty easy to hide, especially considering where we are and how nobody else comes here, or even knows that it's here."

"But this would be the first place anyone would check. Secluded, dark, and very far away from any houses. If anything, he is better off hiding in a city." Mason said, gripping the arms of the chair in such a manner that they might break if he was stronger.

Marissa piped up, "Wait, we're considering hiding him? Isn't that like some form of treason?"

Axel muttered something, then turned to them, "Only if it was helping someone hide from committing a crime or something from what I've read. Escaping somewhere where you were experimented on and you had no consent shouldn't be a crime, no?"

Marissa pursed her lips, glancing at B-64, who flashed a friendly smile. She quickly looked away, "Well, I say we just stay up tonight and just think things through. We can sleep even, taking turns as night guard or something."

"You've been playing way too many games to think that we'd need a night guard."

"So sue me."

"Fine!" Marissa chanted, nearly slamming her fist into the table but managing not too, "Let's stay up and get to know the robot better, whoop-de-doo! Why don't we call someone that would handle this better than us, hmm?"

"Because they'd turn him in and put him back to wherever he escaped from. I don't know about you, but I'd not take kindly to that." Mason told her. B-64 felt something flutter inside him, something like affection to the rabbit besides him. They were really thinking about him, something he hadn't experienced in... Well, he wasn't sure anymore, but it felt new. It felt nice.

Marissa turned to him, and gulped, "Ok. Let's do it then."

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Okay, I'll be honest here, I had no clue on how to start this chapter from the previous, but... Just, how'd I do?

Oh, and yeah, this was incredibly hard to do, and I'm impressed that I even got over fifteen thousand words, but whatever. I hoped you enjoy it!

~ Candle