Base I-2719

Darkness, emptiness, silence. This was all that greeted 9901 every day to do his usual routine through base I-2719. His body was a skeleton reinforced with an unknown metal, a chest cavity with a beating, cyan heart, and tubes extending along with his bones. His eye sockets emitted a dim, blue flame that would move as if they were his pupils. He carried a rifle in his hands, pulsating with the same energy and ready to deliver a heavy load to anything out of the ordinary.

*Clank* *Clank* *Clank* *Clank*

His every step broke the silence that permeated the place, and the energy that swirled inside him made the shadows retreat. After a while, he halted his steps in front of a huge metal door. He rested his palm on its center and slowly opened his mouth.

"Unit 9901. Requesting access."

[Accesssss Gr-Gr-Granteeeed.]

A mechanical voice echoed in his mind before the door slid open. It was from the mainframe of the base, barely in a functioning state. 800 years after the last maintenance took a toll on it, and slowly wore it down like the rest of the base.

"No anomalies detected." 9901 spoke to himself, scanning the room in front of him.

The command center was littered with dust, rust, and sparks from the ceiling lamps that tried to turn on automatically. A huge monitor at the wall flickering in different lights, and a holographic keyboard under it were the only things still running. The skeleton approached the screen and wrote a password on the keyboard.

The screen flickered a few times before settling on the feed of 16 different security cameras. 8 of them were offline, and 3 of them had the message [ONLY AUDIO] from them. Thankfully, the remaining 5 showed what happened on the base.

The first one was to the exterior: A rocky plain with barely any light other from the distant stars. 9901 touched it and said: "Unit 9901, requesting status."

[Unit 7843. Reporting.] A voice came from the monitor as a skeleton similar to him walked in front of the camera. [No anomalies. No noteworthy incidents.]

"Understood, Unit 9901 out."

[Unit 7843. Out] The skeleton nodded and returned to the shadows once more.

The second camera was at the entrance of the Command center where he was, so he skipped over it. On the third one, a series of tubes extended from the ground to the ceiling. Several of them were broken, but one could see a pair of them in good condition. 9901 then repeated the same process: "Unit 9901, requesting status."

[Unit 0099. Reporting.] A skeleton with a missing leg limped towards the screen. It had a smaller build than the first one, and a white rag covered part of its chest. [Test tubes 1 to 31, 33 to 35, and 37 remain in a broken state. Requesting for repair personnel.]

"Repair personnel stopped working 800 years, 234 days, 2 hours and 3 minutes ago. Request denied."

[Understood.] The skeleton nodded. [Unit 0099 will continue carrying out the last set of instructions.]

"Understood, Unit 9901 out."

[Unit 0099 out]

The fourth camera panned the view from outside the main Laboratory, where 0099 was. There were no anomalies, so he moved on swiftly. Inside the last one, was another hallway that led to the hangar. A skeleton sat outside of it. However, the light from its chest flickered on and off.

"Unit 1279, are you still operating?" 9901 asked. A sense of danger went off inside him, accompanied by an uncomfortable sensation after seeing his comrade in such a state.

[Uniiiiit…] Sparks flew from the skeleton, and the light in its eyes dimmed even further.

"Unit 1279, do not talk more than necessary." 9901 interrupted, the sensation was getting stronger. "Repair personnel is unavailable."

[Uu-u-u-u-u-uuuuuuuuuuuuun-] The machine tried to talk once more, but its chest burst into cyan flames. It didn't scream in pain, or even reacted that much over it, yet the flames in its eyes expressed a lot of things in the second it was before disappearing into nothingness: Fear, pain, anger, resignation, sadness, and fear once more…

*Sigh* A small sigh came from 9901's mouth. Another one fell to the test of time that day, an irreplaceable component of the machine that was the base just disappeared into oblivion. With a small shake of his head, he turned off the security feeds and took a couple of steps back from the screen. The monitor flickered once more and returned to its previous state. With a heavy feeling in his chest, he left the command center and made his way back towards his recharging quarters.

It wasn't a big place, just a box made out of steel with 2 meters in length, width, and height. A cord dangled from the ceiling, and the lights inside stopped working centuries ago. 9901 went towards it and plugged it in the center of his chest, then sat down on the hard floor. The machine was slowly running out of power, so he and the remaining skeletons began to recharge only once every week, instead of every day.

Time flew by, and unfamiliar thoughts popped inside his head. It was not a new experience, but the frequency of such events began increasing in the last decade. Some were from scenery he never saw in his un-life, or about people not in the facility's database. At first, it was only images that came and went but soon became longer and longer, just like today.

He saw himself seating under a familiar tree with pastel pink flowers, the sun was slowly retreating behind the mountains over yonder. A breeze brushed past his face, and his heart was filled with a sense of warmth. He then spotted a boy running towards him with a bright expression.

"Teacher! I learned the five elements foundation technique!" The boy screamed, sitting in front of him without getting rid of his smile.

"Very well, $#%&*." 9901 said. He had a deep and soothing voice here, different from his usual monotone speech. "Show me what you got, then."

"mmh!" The boy nodded and scooted a little closed to him. 9901 put a hand on the boy's chest and whispered: "Begin."

With his eyes closed, the boy began revolving the energy inside him. It was like a river, covering his body and then returning to his stomach. With each passing cycle, the amount began to increase as he slowly began to take small amounts of energy from around him. After a while, he opened his eyes with a proud expression.

"You did well, $#%&*." 9901 said once more, patting the boy's head.

"Thanks, master!" The boy giggled and cupped his hands in front of him.

The scenery went blurry in an instant before melting away. 9901's consciousness returned to his body once more inside the dark, metal box. He touched his chest, feeling a sense of loss after experiencing warmth inside the hallucination, for lack of a better word to describe them.

[Chaaaaarging Co-co-compleeeeteee.]

The mainframe's voice rang once more inside his head, he took out the cord and remained sitting on the floor. Seconds slowly ticked by as he tried to experience the last recollection once more, longing for the feelings he had there. A sigh came shortly after, as the memory was there, but it didn't bring anything with it.

Out of pure curiosity, he began to try the "Five elements foundation" described by the boy named $#%&*. He lacked anything to do besides his task of patrolling and monitoring the active cameras, so it wasn't a bad idea. He crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and immersed himself once more in meditation.

9901 pictured a wisp of cyan fire inside his stomach, but the feeling wasn't quite the same as what $#%&* showed him. He then tried to do the same inside his chest and succeeded. Carefully, he moved this energy across his body, passing through his energy conducts and then returning to his chest. Each cycle brought him a small sense of warmth, it wasn't an illusory feeling like in the recollection, or literal fire from a malfunction, but a feeling of accomplishment and joy.

Time flew by, but for the first time, he didn't care about it. He didn't want to extricate himself from this feeling of satisfaction that he never experienced before. His reactor came to life with an amount of energy that was only present on the days that the master were alive, and his processor felt clearer than a mirror. Yet, it was destined to be short-lived. A new feeling came: one of fullness. He had to end his meditation as his body and CPU couldn't process more energy than that. With a sigh, he stood from the ground and looked at his hands.

"My name." He whispered. "My name is Zachary Marks."

Zachary felt like something inside him shattered when he was meditating. It didn't feel bad or good, but as soon as that happened a name popped up: his own name. He felt, knew, that he had a life before he served the master. However, such memories wouldn't come as easy as the first ones, they were behind a lock put by the same master that granted him un-life. He needed more power to break his chains free and reclaim his old self. His saving grace was that he had all the time he needed to perform such a task…or so he thought.