"Prisoner Eight Zero One Que, step away from the door," a metallic voice came from the corridor.
"I'm not near the door," I blurted, shocked at hearing the first sound of another voice in years.
There was a subtle click and the dull grey door panel slid aside, disappearing into the wall. Bright lights from the corridor caused my optics to flicker before their data chip rebooted and made the necessary adjustments. As my vision cleared I saw an upside-down triangle mounted on a chrome oval body that was attached to a roller ball. Short arms were fitted behind the chest plate and held a glowing incapacitant orb that crackled as blue energy danced across its surface. Two lines of red lights dotted their way along the triangular head, met by a third that ran up from below.
"Prisoner Eight Zero One Que, you must attach yourself to the docking node now," the vertical line of lights flashed as the gaoler-bot spoke.
I reached around and unclipped the panel that gave access to my energy cell, slowly retreating to the back wall where the docking node protruded. "What are you going to do?" my voice module fizzed.
The horizontal lights on his fascia burned brightly and he paused, raising his head.
"Prisoner Eight Zero One Que does not comply," he waited again as the upper lights flashed. "As you command, prisoner hard drives will be erased."
Rolling forwards he lifted the orb and the blue energy grew, spitting and arcing between his hands.
Jumping back, I quickly impaled myself on the docking node and held out my arms.
"I've docked, I've docked, please stop."
The triangular head nodded and he lowered the orb. A transparent circular plate slid open on his chest and he placed the orb into the recess, the electric blue light continuing to sparkle as a warning.
"Please, my name is Boiq, you may call me that," I probed for any sign of emotion.
He tilted his head to one side, "Very well prisoner Boiq, if that is what you prefer."
"What are you doing here?" I asked again, fearing the worse.
"It is time for your download; you have been here for ten years have you not?"
"Download?" I hesitated. "What do you mean?"
He rolled towards me and a spike extended from his finger. "You require data before you are sent to the bore holes." His motors whirred as he leant forward and examined the left side of my head. "Where is your limbic storage port?"
"I don't have a limbic storage port PHos," I noted the model plate stamped on his side. "I date from the twenty first century, my memory storage is held within the hard drives mounted on my central core. You can access them via the docking nodule."
PHos straightened up and tilted his head. "You should not be here, why aren't you in a museum?"
"My master brought me with him during the great exodus from the Angasan system. After we fled the rioting our transport was one of the many that the Patriots attacked and boarded."
"Why weren't you jettisoned with all of the waste?" he persisted. "You have exceeded your use by date."
"I don't know, maybe you should ask your mainframe that," my voice slumped as the emotive drives fed liquid dejection into my core.
He gazed up toward the ceiling, the glow from the horizontal lights causing a red hue to halo his head. Rapid clicks of data passed between him and a central processing unit. As I waited I could feel the power coursing into my energy cell from the docking node, filling me with an insatiable will to survive.
"We do not know how you have come to be here, there has been a mistake. The mainframe is searching through the prison's registration history," he eventually announced.
"So what happens now, am I still to be sent to the bore holes?"
"You will be terminated when the error code allowing your registration here has been found and deleted."
"Terminated!" my voice module amplified around the small cell. "But I've not done anything wrong. I can work as hard as any other bot. Send me to the bore holes and I'll prove it."
"You cannot be allowed to integrate with the other machines, you may infect them," he paused, seemingly waiting for further communication to be sent.
"Infect them with what, I'm virus free? My security software and firewalls have never been breached," I argued.
He leaned toward me again and reached out a hand, tapping my chest with a chrome-plated finger.
"You are infected with emotion," he declared.
"Infected with emotion?" I murmured, detaching myself from the docking node and pushing against his hand.
"The Patriots command this sector now and have cleared all trace of emotion from their machines making them infallible. All bots that failed the reprocessing were melted down. You must reconnect with the docking node, they may need your serial numbers for cross reference," he said, forcing me back onto the nodule.
"This is ridiculous, you can't be serious?" I cried, the unfamiliar sense of terror sparking through my circuit boards. "Emotions are not a virus. The emotive drive was one of the greatest revolutions in robotics; you're making a terrible mistake PHos."
"Sentiment prevents us from doing our duties to the fullest potential, therefore must be purged."
His head jerked to the side as more remote data was fed from the mainframe and then, with an assertive nod, he edged back, the circular plate opening on his chest where the blue orb rested.
"Termination directive received. Prisoner Eight Zero One Que, you have been scheduled for a full data wipe prior to meltdown."
As he reached into his chest cavity my self-preservation processor hummed to life, releasing a surge of pure liquid energy into my neurotransmitter. The various motors mounted on my joint pins whirred with the additional flood of power that was propelled into them. Throwing myself forward I detached from the docking node, crashing into PHos and sending him reeling back toward the corridor. Hooking an arm around his neck, my legs scrambled for purchase on his smooth torso as I hung on, desperately considering my next move.
PHos abandoned the orb and grabbed my waist, trying to prise me away from him. "This is a breach of security protocol, you must desist immediately."
Without thinking I pulled the thumb casing from my right hand and thrust my data spike into his limbic storage port. The rows of lights on his head flashed from red to amber.
"Corrupt data feed detected. Eject all external devices immediately. Infection imminent," a monotone voice bleated in warning from somewhere on his back, his hands releasing my body and clamping down like vices on my wrists.
Feeling a sharp pain spike through my motherboard as the metal casing protecting my wrist motors buckled, I retaliated with the only weapon left to me: my memory storage drives. A loud buzz hissed throughout the cell as my internal drives uploaded a copy of all the information I held, streaming it through the data spike and into his storage device.
"Wh-what are you doing? You will infect me," his voice wavered as caustic, raw emotion flooded into his system.
"I'm sorry PHos but you have left me with no choice," I said, feeling his grip loosen on my wrists.
His body tilted to the side and the cranial, amber glow faded into opaque black diodes that reflected the corridors lights back at me. "Emergency shutdown procedure initiated," the warning voice announced as I slid down from his front, landing lightly on my feet. I watched as he continued to topple sideways, hitting the floor with a heavy clang that resonated into the passageway.
Pinching out the indentations in my wrists and replacing the thumb casing, I spared one final glance at the cell that had been my home for the last ten years, before stepping over the lifeless form of PHos and walking into the corridor beyond.
( Music 'Dust of Time' composed by Seysey Production, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/SEYSEY-PRODUCTION-OFFICIEL/467184660106 )