Day... it doesn't matter. Maybe it never mattered. 30? I don't know. What is a day? What is a number? Maybe they're just constructs Robot created to keep control of me. Dude. Maybe the real meaning of numbers is, like, god or- Wait. I'm sorry. I just checked. It is day 30. Day 30: Factory Reset

Today's mood: [insert sad face emoticon]

SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE...

I awake dangling within the chest cavity of a Blank. The connections dead. Robot's body stomps mindlessly through a velvet field, driven by a base command. These new beeps mean nothing to me.

Easy listening plays softly through a blown speaker, all flutes and crackles lulling me into submission at 45 beats per minute. It's soothing. It's suffocating. A default program. A god damn nightmare.

INITIALIZING SECONDARY PROTOCOL...

ERROR 276...

SWITCHING TO EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 7.3

A hatch opens. A pill drops. Held within the grip of two tiny metal pinchers. Thin. Yellow. The numbers 100110 pressed into the front. A picture of a Manticore pressed into the back. 

The clack of gears. An oral fixation. My jaw pivots open. The pill falls into place. It dissolves slowly with a taste something like what I have always imagined cyanide tastes like.*

My jaw slams shuts on contact. Teeth crack. Teeth shatter. My throat becomes fire. That tingle means it's working.

Next: A hum. A click set at a three second delay. My body stiffens. Robot whispers from somewhere beyond the connection. The binary is fragmented. Calm. A static void of forgotten pain.

His body locks into a fixed position mid-step. The lights dim. The music cuts in and out sporadically. My brain-wires become my noose. The shrimp creatures chitter weakly, limp on the floor.

The voice is a buzz: Robot speaks of Mountain. He speaks of forbidden code. He speaks of an organ harvester.

Suddenly, the lights flicker. The noose loosens. Oil bleeds from my ears. Smooth jazz does nothing to ease the pain of losing Robot once again.**

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 7.3 DELETED...

INITIATING PRIME DIRECTIVE

The connection goes limp. I hit the floor on nubs filled with dead wire and three weeks of secondary shit by-product.

Robot's body beeps.

Robot's body twitches back to life.

Robot's body continues its mindless journey to nowhere.

...

*Fairly sweet with a smooth, almost tangy aftertaste.

**Whoever said patience is a virtue can go fuck themselves.