Adrift.
A bit of a belated birthday gift for the wonderful @poca-staks. I really hope you like this one. It is my first attempt at an android Rumple and it was rather fun to do.
Synopsis: Belle wakes up from cryosleep to find something has gone horribly wrong.
Sounds of low mechanical humming was filling her ears… clacking of mechanical parts… a low near slithering sounds of wires.
Where am I?
Belle’s mind was heavy… she was confused…
What happened?
The last thing she was able to remember was going into cryosleep as they were entering empty space. Had they arrived?
It seemed like so little time had passed, but then again… it was not like one would notice time passing in cryosleep.
She felt something move above her… a large shade as she was not able to open her eyes just yet.
Another sort of soft humming were heard as she felt a heavy cold hand brush through her hair. She moved her hand ever so slightly, flexing her fingers.
What is… what is happening?
Slowly she felt the shade move closer and she felt cold silicone lips press upon her own as that cold metal hand were continuing to brush through her hair.
Her eyes opened wide as she stared into the face of something most certainly not human. It was human-like, but… it was most certainly not human.
It was leaning over her, a human shape, but barely as she could see the moving parts of machinery, several wires connecting this… this THING… to a strange contraption in the wall.
Slowly it moved away and she looked straight into a pair of glowing lantern like eyes.
A scream was shattered through the room and it took Belle a couple of seconds to realize it was she who was screaming.
The thing recoiled away from her, scattering over to a corner with heavy metal steps and claws scraping against the metal floor.
When she had stopped screaming, her throat aching as she looked around the room. It seemed to be a part of the ship, but several plates had been ripped out of the walls… wires were exposed… something bad had happened.
In desperation she was pulling at the tubes in her arms and chest, desperate to get away.
“NO!” the voice of the thing was terrifying, a electronic cackle, nothing like the calm monotone voice she had known to come from androids.
“You are going to hurt yourself!”
It tried to move closer, the sounds of its heavy weight were against the metallic floor was ringing through the room, doing nothing to calm her so it stopped, holding out its hands where she could see sharp blade like knives had been grafted to the ends like claws.
“I am not going to hurt you… not going to… not going to hurt you,” the machine desperately tried to tell her, forcing that crackling voice box to its limits of sounding human… but it was hardly convincing. It was still artificial… still having that pitch which no human could even attempt to mimic.
Belle was staring at it with utter fear… but… she found herself recognizing it…
It had been one of the androids in the shift. It had been working close to her dorm… she thought. What his original purpose was… she did not know. But she remember it having looked… human. At least with clothes.
The thing before her…
Well the face was the same… how she had recognized it, but the silicone which made up its face had gotten a golden green shine, an almost scaly texture.
Most of those soft parts which had made up the service androids had been ripped off, replaced with more harder metals some she recognized had been parts of the wall.
Its legs had been replaced, his now having claws, balancing on its toes… more animalistic and seemingly now far faster.
The skeleton of the android and the glowing parts could at times be seen through the protective plates.
The spine of the machine was exposed and several thick wires were connecting it to a device in the wall… what it’s purpose was… she did not know.
She could only describe what she saw that the android had weaponized itself. It continued to look at her.
“You… you have just woken up… you need rest… take it easy,” it again attempted to seem soothing, but did not come close.
“WHAT IS GOING ON?! WHAT WERE YOU DOING TO ME?!” Belle shouted towards the machine which backed away almost now crouching against the wall.
“Keeping you safe… keeping you safe,” it repeated.
“Keeping me safe from what?” Belle demanded.
“The ones that do not like us being here. We should not be here… they should never have sent us here. They don’t like it,” he spoke, his glowing eyes shifting back and forth nervously.
“What…? Who are they…?” Belle was nervous now, something had happened. The ship was cold, and the small swimsuit like clothing she was wearing was not doing anything to protect her against the cold.
The machine clacked its metal jaw softly as it was running through its programming for the answer, but then shook its head.
“No information in the database about ‘they’,” he then informed her. Belle’s eyes widened slightly. While being far the expert of robotics and animatronics she knew that their ‘database’ consisted of every digitalized piece of information ever recorded by humans. This was therefore something that they had never before had encountered.
“That is… ominous…” she whispered scared.
The machine clacked its large knife like claws, standing crouched as if to seem less dangerous to her. Slowly she started to wander around, her bare feet making only the slightest of sounds as she moved across the floor, trying her best to seem confident.
She knew the android was… watching her.
She did not know why it unnerved her. She had been living with androids and robots her whole life and never before had she felt that she was being… watched.
Before these humanoid machines looking in her direction… it had simply been like being before a camera… like she was being recorded… but not really like she was being watched.
There was no one to watch her after all. It was not as if they could see… not in the way that human could.
They could only record and use the visual information to get around… but not see.
But this machine… it could be no mistake… it was watching her.
Slowly she was moving towards the door and she could see it get agitated. It did not want her to leave, moving with heavy footsteps as its claws scraped against the metal floor.
She had to admit she was a bit frightened still.
She had not been in front of a machine which acted so… unpredictable.
“What are you going to do to me?” Belle asked nervously.
It blinked its lantern like eyes as it continued to move closer, the wires slithering across the floor.
“Keep you safe… going to keep you safe,” its cackling voicebox repeated. Belle had to back way ever so slightly. She swallowed nervously.
“Um… what does mean? What do you mean by keeping me safe?” she tried to stand her ground. The machine hesitated for a moment, Belle watching how the different mechanical exposed parts were moving while it was… thinking.
She could not explain it any other way.
It did not exactly answer her. It did not know. It never expected her to wake up, slowly it mentioned his hands towards the cryobed again.
“No!” she said firmly. “I am not going back to sleep!”
“But…” the machine’s voice box crackled.
“You cannot force me. You are an android are you not? Should you not do as I say?” she attempted to sound confident, but… she was uneasy.
The android clicked his jaw, cocking its head.
Belle looked at its face… noting the crocked nose and the silicone skin which seemed scaly. It had lost most of its… human-like looks, as most androids could pass as humans if you did not look all that closely.
It had also been able to… but… not anymore.
Yet it seemed more… human now than it had done before.
And that was terrifying.
Finally the machine nodded, bowing its head to the human.
“Yes… I serve humans… but you must be kept… safe,” it had to force its crackling voicebox to work. Belle nodded… she did not wish to hurt herself after all.
“Alright… sounds good. Um… let me think for a bit…” she were holding her head, desperately trying to think, even as she was starting to shiver due to the coldness. It did not made it easy to think, and she was also distracted by the constant sounds from the machine’s part moving.
“Take me to the bridge,” she then said. The machine instantly blinked its eyes and backed away.
“The bridge… the bridge is not a good place…” it cackled.
“Take me to the bridge,” she firmly said. “Or I will walk myself!”
The android fidgeted its knife like claws, before it nodded. Before Belle’s eyes the wires which connected the machine to the wall removed themselves and moved like snakes, slithering around each other, creating almost a tail.
“Follow me close… most of the androids… has had a… malfunction…” it crackled as it started to move, walking closer to her.
“A malfunction…?” Belle stammered. “What sort of… malfunction?”
The machine let out a strange sound… showing as he was thinking… again going through his database as it was searching for an answer.
“No information. But… their programming has… broken,” it then said.
“Their programming… has broken… what… what do you mean?” she asked nervously. It cocked its head, clicking its jaw.
“Too much happened… too much… we were never… our programming were not meant to take such into… account… so… it broke,” it explained.
Belle shivered. It sounded just like…
Madness…
As if… the androids had gone…insane…
“How… how do I know you… your programming… has not broken?” she took her arms around herself. A low electronic chuckle came from the machine’s fake lips, showing that its metal teeth had been filed into jagged fangs.
“It is functioning… I cannot find any fault… then again… if it was broken I would not be certain if I could tell,” it cocked its head, pondering the thought a bit.
“I guess… I guess that it a valid point…” she honestly did not know how much more of this insanity she could handle…
The machine clicked its jaw again as it mentioned her to follow.
Outside the room she had been sleeping in she could see that the ship was heavily damaged, nothing like the clean ship she remembered.
It looked like it had seen several battles and the electricity was gone, only the dim emergency lighting blinking slightly.
It was only by the eyes of the android she was able to make her way.
All around here she could hear movements, heavy metallic footsteps and eerie electrical cackling. She nearly let out a scream as she felt the thick wires of the android by her side wrap around her body.
“Careful… a human awake… well… I do not know what would happen. Do not know how they’d react,” it was trying to keep his cackling voicebox as low as possible. Belle was rather nervous, moving closer.
She still was not certain that she could trust the android… but… at least it seemed to be safer than the unknown. It did not seem intent on harming her… at least not intentionally.
Belle could swear as they walked several glowing artificial eyes were watching her. His wires were still tightly wrapped around her body, not in a way that hurt.
It actually gave her some sort of warmth as she was freezing, tracing her fingers across the wires ever so slightly, feeling them squirm ever so slightly.
They then arrived at the bridge the machine moved towards the keypad, the claws scraping slightly against it. The doors slid open and Belle let out a frightened sound.
Outside there was no black sky with stars… what she was seeing…
It was hard to explain… it was almost impossible to even find the words.
It was as if… if they were inside a world which was constantly… moving… breathing. Light pouring in the world was a sickly red…
And massive monstrosities like a twisted parody of life was swimming through the void… looking like they could make the most terrifying deep-sea creatures of earth’s ocean horrified.
“What…?” Belle stuttered, hugging herself closer to the android… it now not at all scary to her.
“There is no recording of them in the database,” its shrill voice was now a comfort to her. She nodded… she could not believe it would be.
“How… how is this possible?” she whimpered, looking into his artificial eyes and he blinked. It did not answer her.
It did not know.
“What are… what are we going to do? How do we get out?” Belle asked in a whimper. The android clacked its jaw.
“We… tried to get out… in the beginning… but… could not find it… there is no way out… not one we can find…”
The cackling of its voice showed that it was struggling with what it was seeing as well.
Though the next words chilled her beyond anything else.
“And they do not like us being here.”