Chapter Text
Your last memory was something to behold.
The face of your mentor, smiling weakly as he tells you that “it won’t be long. You just need to be safe. You’ll be safe in here.” before a wash of cool air ran over your body the moment the capsule was closed. The loss of oxygen was immediate, resulting in the effect of being in a hospital, in tubes. Comfortable, and terrifying .
A dream you were not allowed to wake up from until he could wake you up.
The earth had taken a turn for the worst, as memory served. Though you nor the scientist had no hand in their creation, Bio-engineered in Neco Corp, of which you had no personal affiliation, made to handle trash deposits in the lower levels of City 99.
They mutated, as most creatures do, and evolved to consume more than waste.
They consumed metal.
They consumed meat as any carnivore would, they consumed anything in their path, and left behind a slime-like substance that you ever so wanted to nab a sample of.
That sample, in your thought, would be a way to study just how they managed to evolve. What had happened in their engineering to cause evolution without interference by any other creature?
Your theory? Famine .
Famine was one of many factors in other species that served a purpose for evolution, and adaptation. An error made on the part of engineers. To splice a gene pool with no requirement for sustenance. To create a creature that needed food just as any other/
Of course, it would lead to a secondary apocalypse aside from the radioactive nightmare waiting behind guarded steel and stone.
Your theory was someone screwed up. Someone screwed up and allowed the species to breed, for the zurks to become a self-sustaining, mildly sentient species.
And though you pleaded , begged to go out into the danger to collect samples, to study what happened and how to fix it , you were denied time and time again. Kept enclosed in a shared home with your mentor, told again and again the cryostasis was a last-ditch effort to survive. That there was a minimal amount of pods made.
And before he closed the door, he informed you he would find another way around. That he would put himself in a companion if he needed to.
Your theory was that he succeeded . Your hope was that he succeeded.
A theory, a hope that would go to waste for nearly four centuries, standing stable, alone within a frosty future.
A never-ending, frosty future.
Or, at the very least, it was intended to be never-ending.
All it took was a little thump. A small kick of paws against a button to the top of the chamber to unlock it. To pull you out of a frozen coma, with vital signs low enough to mimic hibernation similar to that of bears.
A scientific anomaly that you adored .
Or you did.
Until waking up . Falling forward out from an open door in time for something to clatter off a shelf. Something little, knocking you in the head, and a hiss.
It took a moment for you to pick up your head, trying to remember how to get your muscles moving once again. They had atrophied, surely. There was nothing to keep muscle density while in a cryo-sleep.
It was lucky that the damn thing kept you alive.
That was the one mistake you nor your mentor had the time to figure out before the worst had happened.
When your head lifted, you were face to face with a little orange tabby cat, standing high on its haunches, staring at you with narrowed eyes.
Confused, the most you could manage was a small groan, shifting your hands about to lift yourself up into a sitting position, pulling a loud, startling hiss from the little tabby, who you stare at, tired, confused, pulling yourself out of a daze
“How did you get in here, little one?” your mumble, raising a hand up to rub at your throat. Your voice comes out in unfinished crackles, though you’d done your best. A bone-dry, frozen throat made it harder, surely.
With a new focus on the item that had thumped you in the head, you murmur “was that you?” to the cat, who, as cats do, does not respond, instead sitting down to lick their paws and drag them over their face.
“Alright then” your murmur, picking up the little robotic part in your hands. A little b 12 model. Originally made to be a surveillance drone. Property and produced in mass from Neco-corp.
You forgot that your mentor kept it.
Taking a moment, you take in the dim little room you and the cat sat in. Beside your chamber sits a deactivated companion on a chair, missing its head.
“That was definitely you” you murmur, dragging a hand down the side of your neck.
With some effort and a curious meow from the cat, you slowly brought yourself to your feet, holding onto the limp companion until you took a stumbling step forwards.
You could feel it in your knees. The slow, locking feeling made you think your legs were going to buckle underneath you. So you took it carefully, keeping a hand laid against a wall, or a desk as you walked into the blue room. The lab.
Followed by the little tabby carrying the drone in the maw. And silently, they hopped up onto a counter laid with keyboards with a nasty click, and dropped the little drone onto a plate that flicks to life.
"You hooked it all backup?" You murmur, shuffling your way to the keyboards "I remember unplugging this bit" the cat just watches you with wide eyes as you talk to yourself.
Oh, whatever.
The cat hops off of the keyboards, and following them to the floor is the little drone, although it fizzles to life, antenna moving as though alive, optics in and out of focus. Tiny little thing, but those cameras were something to admire .
The little cat bats a paw carefully at the drone, who starts speaking through a little speaker. You don't remember there being mics in those things. Then again…you’d been in the ice for a while.
“It worked. I’m free, thank you. I couldn’t Believe the cameras. A cat, in the Dead City. I'm… I can’t remember my name. It seems my memory is corrupted ” you watch the little drone, curious.
Sentient Ai. You didn’t think you’d live to see the day. Technically, you suppose, you hadn’t? Had you?
“I’ve been trapped in the electronic network for so long” A sentient computer program?
“I know I worked for a scientist who lived here” you blink, staring down at the little drone. How odd. You don’t remember there being another assistant. “For now, you could call me B-12. That’s what it says on my exterior.”
The drone moves about the room with a whirr, going to grab a set of keys on a corkboard before you could grab them for the little thing. You’re…not sure how it grabbed them, but it did.
Apparently, it seems as though there are many things you don’t remember.
Such as digitalizing a set of keys. That didn’t make all that much sense to you, either.
It seems as though the little drone acknowledges your presence, turning about with a little motor-powered whirr “and…a human? You all were wiped out, how are you here?”
“Pod” you stare back at the little drone, who gives an awfully animated blink before you continue, “you said they were all..wiped out? How? Was it the zurks?”
“You know about the zurks?”
“Yes, of course, I do.” you frown “they’d just started when-” you blink, watching the little drone slowly float lower and lower while you talk “are you alright, little thing?”
“I believe this…body does not hold much power. Not enough to hold my data, at least.”
“They were designed for surveillance, not for cognitive thought” you answer slowly, holding out a hand slowly to catch the little drone when the blue light behind it clicked off. It tumbled into your hand, and the cat follows you with a few meows as you walk about, albeit slowly, staggering
“Is there something I could do for you?”
“There is a pack meant for quadrupeds like our friend here, it contains a charger for this little body”
“Got it….you are aware cats hate any article of clothing, yes?”
“ Cat? ”
“Got it” you sigh, setting the little drone down on the desk while you struggle to sit back on the floor, trying to coax the tabby, who stares at you like you were pointing a weapon at them.
It was a fight with the cat, really. A fight that landed you with a few nasty, bloody battle marks all over the backs of your hands from trying to clip it on across their belly and neck. They had especially hated getting the clip across their stomach. Yowling and yelling and flailing out of your arms. Batting at you, furious.
With the worst of it over with, you were back up on your feet, watching the cat flop over onto their side as you chuckle
“As I said, they hate it”
“Is it uncomfortable, friend?” the cat gives a rumbling yowl in return, and you sigh as the drone states “it’s okay, you’ll get used to it.”
The door to the flat was opened with ease, and you followed the cat and B-12 out with ease, before staring wordlessly at a little zipline with a bucket attached to it. It seemed almost perfect for a little cat to fit into.
“That elevator, in the distance. I’m…pretty sure that’s important. I know we need to go up.”
“Operations are run at the very top” you point out a dimly lit set of panels, crouching “a whole control panel up there, if memory serves”
“You’ve been there before?”
“Once. When this city was first constructed” you smile vaguely. You can’t remember more about the panels. You’re sure there’s more, but…any thought of it leaves you without a trace to be left. It seems being in a fog for 400 years would have left you a little…dazed.
There was a small meow, and with a pause, the robot translates to you “our friend wants to know if you are coming”
“Of course, I just need to…find a way around”
“There is no way around”
“B-12. A bucket isn’t going to be able to hold me.”
“Not in a bucket.” the little animated blink and they continue, buzzing in front of your face “ holding the bucket”
“Excuse me?”
“I understand that does not sound safe. But I could see,in the network. It’s automated. It’s strong. It will be able to carry you across” and as the little drone goes back into the back, they state “Just ensure you keep your knees up”
And you follow the advice. No matter how nutty it sounded, you listened. The cat went, across, hopped out of the bucket, and when the bucket returned, you held onto it, and were carried across. You were mindful not to look down below you, but it was unavoidable at some rate. You looked down upon the seemingly endless mass of slimy rope, creating webs. The zurks had their very own web network, like spiders . You wanted to get a sample. You always wanted a sample.
Maybe someday.
Dropped against a rooftop, you collected yourself and followed after the cat and robot, now chittering about some postcard of the mural in front of you. Not how you remember the outside, but it was a nice thought. A sunny beach, it seemed.
It was hard, trying to follow a little cat across ledges.
You were, by no means flexible , and by no means agile as a cat, especially after cryostasis, but you did your absolute best to stay light on the tips of your toes and not spend much time on any one ledge, much like the little tabby, who goes padding off down a pipe and hopping down to another bucket.
B-12 makes a note “There are zurks here. Human, really, keep your feet up. We cannot lose you so soon”
‘It isn’t my plan to be consumed” it’s the one thing you were trying to avoid. But as you were carried across, the little bug-like creatures flung themselves at you and the little cat, who runs off ahead of you, leaving you to run on your own away from the little creatures.
A smaller one latches onto your leg, causing you a great deal of stinging pain, but because it was little , and as far as you knew, didn’t carry necrosis with their bites, you were in the clear. Shaking it off of your leg, you clamber up a garbage can after the cat, and hopped through a fence, landing off your feet with a solid thump and a cracking pain in your ankle.
That could be repaired.
Gaping wounds could not.
Ahead, basking in a warm yellow light was a companion, who was mopping. You walk ahead of the cat at a brisk pace, or as brisk as you could manage with an injured foot.
You’re not sure what the companion saw. Maybe just someone hauling towards them with something orange with a light on their back, but something about you and the cat spooked them. They stand, a hand to their head in panic, and once you were in a distance to open your mouth and try to talk to them, your hand was grabbed by force, and they ran , ran with a series of metallic thuds, with a speed you hadn’t realized they were capable of.
The companions you knew about never ran . They were helpers. They had no reason to run. Or panic, for that matter. They had vague emotions, an emulation. You weren’t sure what to make of this one. A glitch, perhaps?
They take you along nonetheless, running fast with the confused little tabby chasing after you. They drag you to a gate, shutting it closed behind them and continuing to run with you brought along with the ride
“Wait, but they’re- that’s my-” you couldn’t get a word in edgewise, not between breaths, not between a flurry of panic along with alarms ringing. You’re brought jogging along a street, trying to tell the companion that it was okay , the cat wasn’t dangerous.
You’re brought around a laundromat. You’re brought around a gathering of shrubbery, to a set of stairs that the companion trips and falls on, helped by another companion draped in a red shawl, wielding a stick. When they look to you, their monitor shows an exclamation point, followed by a series of mechanical noises you couldn’t understand. So instead, they point gruffly to the elevator, grabbing your arm with a tug as you try to fight them on the point
“The cat is not a danger! They’re fine! They’re just a little kitty!” and as if to make a point, they gesture at your leg. Scratched up, torn pants, complete with a little gaping hole filled with blood.
“They didn't do that!”
Your answer didn't matter, they closed the garage with a thud and with a swift movement moved you behind them, crouching to point their stick at the danger . You’d consider them a guardian of sorts, if you didn't know any better. Much like a soldier. As if they’d learned .
You’re amazed, in a sort.
But the danger here is laughable.
A little tabby cat sitting there, flicking an ear before they groomed their paws.
And when they approach, B-12 makes a mutter of “they have their own language, it seems”
That’s all it takes for another speech to reach you, the mechanical noises being translated automatically
“You’re not zurk. I do apologize, we are not familiar with your kind. You’re welcome to stay here, so long as you don’t eat anyone”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you” you sigh with a stare at the robot, who looks at you.
“You were injured by a zurk. I took the necessary precaution, as we all must in this time.” he states carefully, before turning back to the cat, who stares at him curiously “was there something you needed otherwise, little one?”
When handed a small postcard, the guardian gives a robotic hum “the outside? A ridiculous thought. The elevator here, it isn’t operational. Everyone knows it’s impossible to leave” that you can’t believe. How long had these evolving robots been stuck here?
The Guardian points to a house, lit up in neon orange lights, and as the cat starts padding off, he states “you’re a soft one, are you not?”
“Human” you correct
“ Human .” a blink “You’re our ancestor. How are you alive?”
“How are you?”
“Preservation and perseverance.”
“I just awoke from being preserved in ice.” it was the only one you could explain it simply.
Out of an icebath and into the slums, following the wills and needs of a cat.
Of all the things you thought research would lead you, this was the last place you could’ve assumed.