Torex's Story

"Ratta tatata tatata!" came a hoarse voice over the speaker, causing everyone in the old department store to sit up from their sleeping positions. It was another one of those Loonies. Insane people broke into the store's "Employee's Only" department so often, their voices over the speaker systems were not much of a surprise anymore. "I killlll youuuuuu in your sssssleeeeeep!" the voice continued, sounding more drunk and idiotic than an insane man. Fear suddenly hit Charlie like a wave hit's a surfer on a wipe-out. Had the man over the speaker been infected and went around and touched them in their sleep? Charlie gnawed on his lip and searched his suit for any signs of having been moved in his sleep. He looked fine, so he just prayed that his looks were not deceiving.

Silence came from the speakers and everything appeared to go back to normal. Everyone who had been taking refuge in the store went back to sleep, but Charlie was fully awake now. He pulled back the sleeve of his suit to reveal a watch, with a large crack down the face of the clock. Besides a cracked screen, it still worked. The time was about 5:30 A.M. It was early, but after the lunatic on the speaker, he didn't really feel in the mood to drift back into sleep. Sleep was vulnerable and he tried to be awake as long as he could.

Standing up, he quietly found his way out the broken sliding doors into the cold of the morning. The sky was beginning to lighten a bit from the dark of night, and angry looking clouds were rolling in. It looked as if Mother Nature was about to reign down on them in full fury. Outside of the store, far off in the parking lot, was the gas station that looked as if it had been torn apart by a hurricane. It was surprising all the damage panic could do.

Charlie continued walking, his destination a shoe store across the street. His shoes were broken, the soles hanging on by threads, acting more like flip flops than sneakers. When in an apocalypse, you need good shoes. When he reached the road, which used to be extremely busy because it came right off a highway, he hopped onto the chipped pavement and began walking across, the shoe store in sight. But, suddenly, a honking noise came from his right and he turned to see some idiots driving a bus, charging right at him. He screamed and leaped out of the way, only a few seconds shy from getting smashed. He came down on the pavement hard, scratching up his arms, tearing a hole in his suit.

"Where the heck did you get a bus?!" he shouted angrily after them, unheard by the drivers. He stood up and hurried to the parking lot of the shoe store. He didn't see anyone in the store, so he approached with a little less caution. He opened the door, a horrible stench hitting him. Then he noticed dead bodies lying everywhere. Yep, this was not going to be fun.



Torex walked through the streets, wearing a grey hoodie and jeans with a pair of sneakers. He looked like any other young human guy, although he wasn't. He was a humanoid robot, created as a soldier. But he was broken, now just a broken toy of the government's.

The Dome was the same temperature it had been the day before, and the day before, and so on. 70 degrees Fahrenheit, a comfortable temperature. It was sunny, the fake sky had beautiful white, puffy clouds adorning the bright blue. It was a perfectly constructed, artificial day. Humans seemed happy, riding their bikes down streets, flying cars whizzing around the city. Women walked out of hair and nail salons, immediately finding people to show. Men headed to sports games. It was amazing that they had already formed sports teams in such little time since the Dome had been created.

Torex was not like these people. He was hiding in the dome, for he was supposed to be destroyed. Luckily, for him, he had been created to look human. He was real looking, human looking, and if he covered up where his skin panels had been torn off, he would look like any twenty year old guy, despite the fact he was younger than that. He could blend in, so no one would report a rouge robot. It wasn't like the government would put out a notice that he was missing. People would panic- and this was something the government didn't want.

A man bumped into Torex, bringing him back to reality. "So sorry," he apologized to the man, who had a really strange looking haircut and a very long nose. It was the human's fault, but Torex was programmed to be polite. He wasn't about to say "Watch where you're going!", which happened to be the man's exact response. Silly Humans...

"Shut the heck up!"

It seemed to echo through the square, even alerting the ex-military machine. A silence fell over the town, but noise quickly restarted, voices drowning out the ruckus. People didn't seem alarmed, but Torex was confused. Who was that? he pondered. His data chip, implanted in his head, responded.

"Citizen 09285, October Sinnet," it said in a robotic voice in his head. "A bit of a shut in, if our information is correct. Age fifteen."

"Was she being attacked?" he thought.

"Not to my knowledge," his data chip said, as if it was actually a live being. But Torex pondered it. If she was indeed a shut in, he calculated her chances of reporting him to the authorities were smaller than any extrovert. Torex could ask her if there was a RPDC, Robot Preservation and Defense Center, an organization against the destruction of broken robots, anywhere around. He would use his own GPS to find it's location, but it was broken, along with his tracking device and skin panels. Torex was unaware that the RPDC had died out when the Touch hit, and there was no operatives in the Dome. All were dead.

He began to squeeze his way through the crowd of people, trying to avoid bumping into anyone. Towards the center of the square he saw a girl. A label appeared under her, thanks to his very helpful data chip, reading "October Sinnet". He approached, what he would say and how to say it with the least amount of desperation in it already perfectly calculated and planned out in his mind. Once he reached her, he cleared his throat, something he didn't need to do, but something to make him seem human.

"Pardon, but would you have any idea where the RPDC is?" he asked, sounding completely emotionless. It was a quite robotic skill of his, but he hoped it would work.

[OOC: The italics mean it's spoken in a robotic voice, something I'll do in Torex's posts.]

Before the girl had a chance to answer, all the lights suddenly snapped off in The Dome, leaving everyone in the dark. The roar that had once been busy streets went silent. Everyone was confused. Luckily, back up generators kicked on, street lamps giving the dark a small bit of illumination.

"What's going on?" people cried. Sobs echoed through the streets. Everyone knew something horrible was happening. Torex looked around. He knew this wasn't supposed to happen.

"Do not panic," a woman's voice over a loudspeaker system that was wired into The Dome said. "Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic." She repeated it over and over on some kind of endless loop. What was this?

Suddenly a bang came from above everyone. The Dome had to be broken, because they could see a person on top of it, banging on the glass with their fist. They had many attacks before, but why was this one doing so much damage? A scream came as his answer, from far away in The Dome but his robotic hearing senses could make it out.

"They're getting in!"

The "Do not panic" loop stopped. People began to wonder if it was over. They began to exhale again, feeling safe.

"Panic. Panic. Panic." The loop restarted, but differently, sending people screaming and running. The people on the outside were getting IN.

Torex looked down at the girl once again. "So, do you know where the Robot Preservation and Defense Center is?" he asked once again, hardly sounding panicked. He was a robot. It felt like the apocalypse, but he wasn't in danger of dying. He wasn't afraid for himself in the least bit.

The girl didn't answer, confirming his fears that there probably wasn't one around. Torex quickly pulled his hood to cover his head. The lights were still out and the "Panic!" alarm still ringing loud and clear, repeating itself over and over again. The people were following it's instruction, running around like the world was ending. Insane people from the outside ran around in the mix too, chasing people down to touch them, if not kill them. It was a mess. Torex couldn't help but be afraid, a feeling he was not programmed to have. It was quite strange.

Distracting him from the horrible chaos abounding, he noticed two girls that he had never seen before running into an old clothing shop. Torex didn't even need to ask before his data chip responded.

"They are from the outside," it said.

'But they aren't running around trying to touch people,' Torex thought.

"Who is to say everyone who broke in is completely insane?"

Torex nodded. People on the outside didn't really like him- they were the ones who broke him, anyway- but he thought he'd check it out anyway. So the robotic man walked toward the shop and opened the door, seeing one of the girls looking through clothes and the other looks exhausted. He appeared completely human, on first look, so when walking in he probably looked like some robber or gunman, his face hiding under a hood.

"Oh- er, hello," he said as if he had just noticed them, a completely human response. He was getting a lot better at blending in.

"Yeah,"
Responded William, who was till laying on the floor. Suddenly, someone came in.
"Oh- er, hello,"
He said, as if he didn't know they were there.
"Ello."
William sighed, standing up. She grabbed a pair of dark blue jeans, a stretchy teal tang top, a denim jacket, and a pair of gray sneakers.

Viola forze for a second.
"Uhhh.., Hello!" She replied. This guy wasn't entirely normal, she could already tell, but she knew that if he hadn't attacked them yet, then they'd probably be alright.
Viola picked up her satchel, just in case. She looked at clothes with William and gave her a look, hoping she shared her mistrust.
"I'm Viola," She said, holding out her hand.
"And you are?"

William glanced at the man who had walked in. She nodded her head in his direction, and announced,
"I'm William. Call me William, Will, Willie, or Jordan."
She returned Viola's glance, sharing her look of mistrust.

The girls both seemed weary of his presence, probably just as weary as the human part of him was of them. They introduced themselves, stating that their names were William and Viola. The girl, Viola, stuck her hand out for him to shake. She held her right hand, which was his only good one. He smiled and shook.

"Just call me Torex," he said, blankly. He still hadn't answered the questions that they probably harbored in their mind, like if he was going to hurt them. But he had questions of his own he wished to ask. "You seem to be from the outside, but you aren't attacking anyone inside The Dome. Why?" he asked, their human reasoning lost on him.



POP

The buggy came to a stop, jolting Charlie, who wasn't wearing a seat belt, forward, but not hard enough for him to go anywhere. He tried pushing the gas again, but nothing happened. "Bull..." he trailed off as he hopped out of the car, seeing his fears. The tire had blown and he had no idea if there were any spares in the buggy. He ran his hand through his thick brown hair. What was he going to do now?

Charlie went around to the back and searched through it, but he only found military weapons, like guns and knives. He smiled as he picked up a small pistol. It was a bit heavier than Charlie imagined, but he could also tell it was loaded, so he didn't complain. He decided that no one else needed these weapons, so he pulled out the shampoo from his bag, which was bound to have some sort of oil in it somewhere, and walked around the buggy, rationing it out as best as he could, yet attempting to drench the car. Once he only had a bit left, he walked to the back and poured it out over the guns. Did he have a lighter?

After searching through his bag and the buggy, the answer was no. He groaned, frustrated. Why did things always have to be so hard? He wandered over to the side of the road, where a hole in the pavement allowed grass to grow, he pulled the dry grass out and walked back over to to the buggy. After sitting that down, he found a tree down the road, off to the side, and broke off a branch. He used his Exact-O-Knife to cut a v shaped notch into the stick and began spinning. It took a while, but eventually the stuck sparked, catching the grass on fire. He used the stick to carry the nest of grass over the buggy and, after taking a few more guns to stuff into his pack, threw it onto the guns, lighting the whole buggy on fire. Obviously Chuckie had more survival skills than Charlie...

Viola took a step back. She knew that it was obvious that they were from the outside. There was no use trying to fool him.
"Because we want to be alive! We're not insane, and we need shelter, and The dome is the best place to go. Who are you anyway? You seem..." Viola thought for a second. "Like you don't belong here,"

William couldn't help but agree. Torex didn't seem to fit in, in her opinion at least.
"She's right."

"Because we want to be alive! We're not insane, and we need shelter, and The dome is the best place to go. Who are you anyway? You seem.... Like you don't belong here."

The other girl nodded. "She's right."

Torex sighed. When had these things become about him? He was onto them and they were onto him. It was secret spilling him, he guessed. Torex tried not to take offense to the you don't look like you belong here part. Any other robot wouldn't, but Torex wanted nothing more than just to blend in with the crowd... to be human...

"I'm not built to fit in, I am built to fight and serve," he said in a very matter-of-fact voice. "My full name is Torex Mark 32, a robot based on complete obedience and ultra human fighting skills and courage. I passed all of their tests and was enlisted into a secret branch of the military. I am afraid I cannot get the Touch and when I was being escorted into the dome, I was attacked and I am afraid I'm broken. I was scheduled for demolition, but I ran away- a rouge robot is most definitely illegal, but the odds you will report me are .2% at their highest, for you are in hiding too." Torex folded his arms, his left arm not wanting to cooperate well, hung lower than the other. He was content with his speech.

"How about a deal? We won't rat you out, if you don't rat us out. We got a deal, mate?"
William raised her eyebrow, and held her hand out to shake. If he shook, that meant he agreed. Or at least, that's what William saw it as.

"Because it's safe in here. Or at least, was...I wouldn't mind giving my family a piece of my mind either..."
William scuffed.
While she spoke, she took a step away from the broken glass.
"Viola, you don't mind if I find them...Do you?"
She asked, aware of the fact they may be touched. If they were, she was going to run as fast as she could...

"I don't mind. It's one of the big reasons you came here. You might as well," Viola waved her off.
"Just remember to run away from the crazies, if they're infected they'll touch you for sure," Viola smiled as William jumped through the broken window.
Viola sighed.
She wished that her family was alive. She remembered the symptoms, which were the worst. If it was bad enough, their flesh would turn a blackish-yellowish color. They would cough, then cough up blood. Their eyes turned completely red, sometimes if their fever got high enough, they would go insane. She didn't want that to happen to anyone else, and hoped that most of the people would be alright.

Viola sighed as she watched William weave through the crazy touched people. Viola noticed some boxes on the floor. She looked at them then shrugged. She opened one of them up.

The box was filled with paint. She dug through the box, but she just found more paint, mainly for children, but there was some meant for artists. She thought for a second and smiled. She rolled up her sleeve and poured some water onto the paint. "Perfect," She muttered.

Viola smiled as she carefully painted on her wrist and arm. She made the rotting flesh effect first with a mixture of yellow and black paint. She used some red as a scab in the middle, and added some fake bruises for good measure. She added little grey spots all over herself. She looked at some of the clothes on the rack and picked out a pair of jeans and a plain-t-shirt. She made a rip across the stomach for the t-shirt and added some red onto it to simulate blood. It looked pretty real. She ripped the jeans too, and added some fake grass stains. She went into the old bathroom and changed. With her shoes, she took one off and cut the toes off so her feet poked through. She messed up her hair. She walked out.
"Perfect!" Viola grinned and ran out of the bathroom. She looked like she had been infected, that way no one would touch her. Viola smiled and jumped through the glass.
"Are you coming, or are you just going to stay there?"

Torex watched as Viola began lathering herself in paint and makeup. He was unsure of what she was doing until he realized she was making herself look pretty banged up. Of course people with the touch didn't show signs of being infected until death, but he was sure no one would touch her for good measure. She vanished into a bathroom and Torex took the liberty of his alone time to lift up his sweatshirt enough to see the wires, which were sparking as they seemed to begin to shut down. The skin panels had protected them and without all of his parts, well, Torex figured it wouldn't be very good. He really didn't want to be a pile of nuts and bolts.

After pulling his hoodie back down, he made sure his hood was pulled up over his smooth, bald head. He sighed. If he only looked twenty, why hadn't they gone to the liberty of building him with some hair? He curiously walked to the broken window and looked out. He wondered about the girl he had run into earlier, October, and he hoped she hadn't been infected. For some reason, he pitied her. Viola and William were proof that not all humans wished for the destruction of robots, but he could never be too careful for there were plenty who did.

Torex heard the click of the bathroom door opening and he moved away from the glass. Viola turned the corner and he was pretty impressed. She had succeeded into making herself look like some sort of crazed, homeless person. If Torex had been human, he would be sure to stay away from her. He wondered if he should do the same thing to himself, but he didn't think paint and skin panels would mix well together, so he restrained. He wasn't worried about getting the touch, for he knew he couldn't, but he wasn't to keen on getting any more robotic parts broken. He was sure that next time they'd be more important than GPS chips and skin panels.

"Are you coming, or are you just going to stay there?" Viola asked, awakening him from his thought. She had jumped through the glass while he was out. He nodded, but using the door to exit instead, the little bell ringing as he left. He felt like he had been in the store for ages, because the Dome looked so different. People were trying to get up, but the Dome was quite big. He wondered how William and Viola had done it in the first place. The lights were still out, the only real illumination in the Dome being back of generators, like street lamps. People were going crazy, dead bodies lying on the streets. Torex winced, but turned his attention to Viola.

"Where exactly are we going, again?" he asked, trying to blend in as he walked alongside Viola.

"Well, first we're going to find William, then were probably going to hightail it out of here. I know a place where we can go, after all, everyone's going to be in the dome and will forget about the outside for awhile," Viola started.
"Then, we will probably just try to find something for, this wretched disease. How we're going to do it doesn't matter. You'll see when we get to where were going,"

"Madeline, you have to cooperate with us!" THe voice from the other side of the glass yelled. "Why should I? I'm just another freak and no body cares what I think, or if I don't want to be part of this anymore! I'm being treated like a Guinea pig!" Maddie turned her back to the glass and huffed. She heard a small door open and close. IT was the syringe again that she had to poke into herself and take a blood sample. Her face turned sour. She turned around and scowled. "OH no, I'm not doing that just so you can study then ask for more! I'm done with this!" Maddie took a few steps back, then charged into the glass wall. A crack appeared.

"Code 13! Code 13! Everyone evacuate!" One of the doctors screamed. THey all ran out of the lab. Maddie snorted and rammed the wall once again, fully breaking it. She went to where her belongings had be stashed. She looked curiously as her old walkie-talkie crackled to life. She held it to her ear. "Hello?" She asked/ "Maddie! It's me, Viola. I'm going to need some assistance," "Fine with me," Maddie muttered. "Just come to the front of 758 Long Street. Maddie out,"

Viola ran towards the direction that William had gone in, but then a loud thumping noise could be heard. She looked to see another crack appear in the dome. More people poured in. Some were firing off guns at random. Viola ducked behind a crate as a hail of bullets came down. One landed in her ankle. Viola winced. She grabbed Torex's arm. "Forget it! LEt's go!" She ran with a slight limp out of the dome and searched around before she found a car with the keys in it. She was tall enough to look over the dashboard now, so she got in the driver's seat. Torex got in and Viola stepped on the gas. They drove in utter silence for about an hour before Viola pulled up to a tall, white lab. She got out.

"Word of advice. Don't touch anything," Viola walked up to a keypad and punched in eight numbers. A voice crackled from a speaker. "Come in," Viola opened the door. The two were greeted by a young woman. "Maddie!" Viola smiled. "Viola, there you are! I would hug you, but well, y'know," She trailed off. "How's your arm doing?" Maddie rolled up her left sleeve to reveal her arm was riddled with black and yellow dots of decay. "Terrible," She motioned for them to follow her.