Kino

Lithuanian for 'cinema'



Without knowing why, the first thing she knew when she awoke was pain. It flared out from her neck and shuddered along her spine like electricity through a frayed wire, sparking and jolting and buzzing. The plating down her back rippled, flaring out in a spasm that she couldn’t control.

How did she get here? Where was ‘here’ anyways? She couldn’t really honestly be bothered to answer that question, not when there was that sickening pain still present. And besides, she could no longer see. In fact, she wasn’t sure her cranial unit was still present, much less intact. She couldn’t even manage to lift her claws to check; her body was not responding as it should’ve, jerking and shivering with each spark that traveled through her.

She was only capable of thought, and retaining memory, due to the chain of storage drives running down her back, along either side of her spine. As an android built to work in a warehouse, it was possible she’d be badly damaged. Spreading out many memory banks along her body gave her more resilience and use, as she could still function after repairs to her core memory system, located in her head. It came at a price, of course. Only essential memories made a permanent home of the system in her back. Most day-to-day, trivial bits of info had been stored in her head, and as such, she could feel her knowledge of what had happened at PROJECT slipping away, lost to the muddle of “go-here-lift-this-move-that” instructions that she had been programmed to keep at all costs.

She’s even forgot what vision was like. That had certainly not been something deemed ‘important.’ She could still see disembodied boxes floating across a black void, labels clear for her to read and categorize. That was supremely unhelpful. How were color-coded boxed supposed to help with her current predicament?

Said predicament was getting worse with each second that passed. As she took stock of herself, she realized that more and more of her senses were offline; it took a moment before she realized that all of her senses aside from touch were gone. What was she laying on, scrap metal? Her own damaged plating? Was that wetness rain, or her own coolant leaking out? She didn’t know which was a worse thought, since rain would damage her in this state and leaking coolant was always a bad sign. The knowledge of the state of herself caused fear to rise in her processor, creating a feedback loop that was only possible due to damage and exacerbated by the fact that she couldn’t quite cling to any of these new memories that she was creating.

What was that feeling? Oh right, liquid. A state of matter. Possibly from self. Run diagnostics: coolant system. slight damage reported, possibly leak. Probable source: missing cranial unit. Missing cranial unit also responsible for loss of 4 of 5 senses. Touch sensors still operational. There is a cool feeling against my claws. What was that feeling? Oh right, liquid. 

And so on. She knew, she could feel the oldest memories that had occurred only moments ago slowly trickling down the wires in her back and out the tip of her tail that was mercifully in one piece.

This went on for some time, although time was meaningless in the little pain and panic fueled void the robotic dragon found herself in. But to the outside world, time worked as usual. And the passage of time meant that it was very likely that the PROJECT reject would be found.

And found she was; it didn’t take long for a helpful face to show up. As a member of FL/GHT, Glimmer was committed to the healing of those PROJECT discarded. And this new one was… pretty bad off, it seemed. Her head was missing and her body twitched, panels along her side flapping rhythmically to no avail. The sight was horrible, and Glimmer did wonder if the poor creature was still alive or if the spasms were just caused by the residual energy.

She would never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try to heal the damaged android. They didn’t look like they weighed much, besides.

It was when something grabbed the android that she found she could still produce a beeping noise from somewhere deep in her chest. DANGER DANGER DANGER UNSAFE ACTION went her processor, but the noise that came out was “01000100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01010010 00100000 01000100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01010010 00100000 01000100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01010010” in two different pitches.

This startled both her and Glimmer. The snapper almost dropped her, but managed to not let the mangled android slip from her grasp. The robotic dragon didn’t know who this was, she couldn’t hear or see the other being, but… They were being careful with her. That she could feel. She still hurt, yes, but there was a slow and steady soothingness to the touches that she felt.

As she forgot the sensation of the metallic ground, the liquid under her claws, and the feedback loop she’d been earlier, a new loop began. Safe. Safe. I am safe.