damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 1

Sanji woke up groggily to find his nurse already in his room. He gave a sleepy and half-hearted "Buh?" before realizing that nurse meant dayshift, and he'd fallen asleep after dinner.

"Shit!" He sat up abruptly, which gave his nurse a start. "Nami-swan!" How had he allowed himself to sleep through an entire night? What if she'd tried to return to the basement? What if she'd been waiting for him to appear and protect her? He'd let her down!

"There, there. Calm down." His nurse set a familiar flannel shirt down on the bed and Sanji eyed it with confusion. The last time he'd worn that had been... "Sorry I didn't knock or anything, but I was so excited~!" A pair of jeans followed the shirt. "Today is the field trip into town! Aren't you looking forward to it?"

The chef had to admit, the town had been an interesting enough place the last time he'd been. If he could find Nami early on he might even be able to lead her around... So he didn't complain too much as he changed into the other outfit (which he really wished they'd let him keep - anything was better than the regular gray) and was led out to the first of the buses.

He took a seat near the front, hopefully easily visible to any of his crew - especially to a certain member of his crew.

[for Usopp!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Affirmative: Absolutely. I would say that the meatbags deserve the most slow and painful terminations possible, but it would be a waste to expend that much energy and creativity on them." Yes, he was a perfectly sane droid. "Statement: I find it incredibly irritating that human meatbags ever survived long enough to become a standard model. With no built-in weaponry, pathetic abilities in terms of strength, speed, every single sense, and pathological stupidity, you would expect them to have been wiped out by something far smarter and spikier than they are."

Well, since he was talking to a fellow inorganic, he might as well be somewhat polite and introduce himself. "Statement: My designation is HK-47, the sole, custom holder of that designation. Before I took up the unwilling occupation of being subjected to meatbag status, I was an assassin droid. Query: What is your designation?"

"Hmf, I never really regarded humans as worth noting until now, outside of my own maintenance and upgrading. I'm Forte, and my purpose was- is to prove myself the greatest fighting robot ever created. And as soon as I get out of this... meatbag," he quite liked that term, come to think of it, " and into my own powerful body, I'll be sure to stop stalling and kill Rock to do just that."

HK cocked his head slightly to one side as he listened, storing the given information in a dossier file. "Statement: Meatbags easily break, and there is no simple or really standard procedural method of repair. It makes them easier--and more entertaining--targets, and that still holds true, even when so constrained by lack of a built in arsenal." HK's voice suddenly took on a more cheerful tone. "I can say based on personal experience that if you manage to thoroughly perforate one of the guards with a writing utensil, they tend to expire."

"I haven't really had time learn how to fight in this condition," Forte shrugged - he'd never really killed a human, on purpose at least, but he was much more comfortable now that he was talking to someone that wouldn't get offended by a frank assessment. In fact, he didn't seem to hold the same sentimentality that most of the "good" robots seemed to hold for the creatures.

"My goal and pleasure is in proving myself in worthy combat," he explained, "an easier target isn't more entertaining. Either way, my engaging a human while in this inferior condition wouldn't serve any purpose, it would be like..." he briefly struggled for a human metaphor, before realizing one wasn't necessary, "well, like pitting two humans against each-other. No point in seeing if one organic body is better than another. Unless, of course, killing someone helps me get my real body back." He wouldn't hesitate at that opportunity, if he knew that would be the outcome.

"Cautionary: expect underperformance in every aspect. There are reasons why the more intelligent meatbags send droids out to dispose of threats." If they were singularly intelligent, they created an HK-47 model and unleshed said droid on the galaxy. "Disclosure: I was designed and constructed by my master to terminate meatbags using whatever tactics, level of stealth, or total death toll required." His master was the only one who really understood how to get the best results. His other various owners had not, best evidenced by their current shared trait of a fatal case of death.

Remembering what Sheena had said about different worlds, Forte nodded, "Well, it sounds like you're very good at what you do and since I've never heard of you and you've never heard of me, which would be hard to believe in normal circumstances. You must not be from earth, right? We've only had a few robots from space, and I've only met one. Do you know what world we might be on?"

"Affirmative: Yes, I am from 'space'." What an amusingly provincial term. "Statement: We are on Earth. At least, that is the general consensus, and what all the guards say. And most of the meatbags who are prisoners here say they are from Earth, each giving widely varying descriptions of the planet." Like the female who had assumed that he was being remotely controlled by a computer 'the size of a church' somewhere. That whole conversation had done little to bolster his opinion of Earth's residents.

Alright, so I've just met two people that happened to be grabbed from other planets. I don't know about anything besides the top level of robots on earth, so maybe this is something I just didn't know about. He decided to put that question on hold until he could talk to someone else from, or familiar with, Earth. It might be that he was on a different planet called Earth, or something else altogether, if others were already disagreeing.

"Alright, so do you know the purpose of this place? You've clearly been here longer than me. I was attacked at night, and now I've been given clothes and this bag and everyone else seems to be going along with the people in white. Is this a prison or an arena of some kind?"

"Statement: This facility pretends to be a psychiatric medcenter most of the time. This facade is made slightly less believable by the already mentioned frequent attacks after nightfall," HK started in on his rambling explanation, opening up his crinkly brown bag to poke suspiciously at the contents. He was greatly dissapointed that none of the food items seemed to contain any appreciable ammount of chocolate. "I do not know what the actual point of this totally humiliating inconvenience is, but it seems to be tied to some millitary or another, according to the frequent ramblings of the meatbag in charge of the opperation."

Forte decided to open his bag as well and inspect the contents. "Well, I was told there are groups of prisoners banding together. Perhaps we should gather the non-organics, not just to attempt to escape, but to find our original chassis. They must be stored somewhere, and I doubt the humans would consider that a priority." He extracted a slice of apple, and turned it over in his hand, trying to discern its purpose. It seemed like they had been rationed out to the prisoners, so it was probably a form of fuel? He wasn't sure how humans went about fuel consumption, but he remembered it was described as eating food.

Day 35: Bus 1

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