A Snapshot Before The World Ends

After some extensive searching, Rl-004 was able to find some fitting clothes in an adjacent closet. They were filled with coats, jackets, hats, all manner of clothing that one could think of.

Some of these must have been the original clothes of the scientists out in the lobby.

She hesitated, looking back at the frozen scientist in the lobby.

It's fine, they're frozen anyway.

She picked out a black t-shirt and a nice pair of jeans. After some deliberation on whether she should pick up a black or red long-sleeved jacket, she decided on the red one, thinking that it would look better on her.

After her brief shopping for clothes ended, she returned to the broken window where the floating robot was still waiting for her. Its eye was blue this time. 

It seems that the color of that bot's eye indicates some kind of emotion he wants to display. Blue seems to be his usual.

"Ah, that is better. It may be the middle of spring, but time is frozen after all."

"All right, cut to the chase. You told me I'm supposed to save the world? Why me?"

The robot's edges rotated, "You were chosen to do so. Although, it is not just you. Four others were given the ability to Time-tread, all in the hopes to save us from certain doom." The robot enthusiastically inflects on the last two words.

"Time-tread?" She tilts her head.

The robot's eye turned yellow, "Is it not obvious? You're able to move freely without any issue, unlike our diffident friends over there."

RL-004 looked around at the frozen men and women in the lounge. Of course, the bot was right, her body seemed unperturbed by time's heavy grip on literally everything else around her that even gravity had ceased to function.

She paused, "...Are they conscious?"

"Who knows? Perhaps? Perhaps not."

Shaking off her unease, she began to think aloud, "I was in that pod, perhaps the syringe stuck inside me back then was what gave me that... Time-tread ability."

"At any rate, it is best if we leave this place. I hope you have not grown jaded of stairs already."

The bot proceeded to move toward the stairway, before it could get far, RL-004 took hold of it in her hand.

"H-hold there's still so much I need to know. Do you expect me to trust you when you've barely explained anything to me?"

Its eyes transitioned into red, "Okay, okay. Hands of the silver lady! This coat is premium grade, you hear! PREMIUM?"

She complied, releasing her grasp, letting the machine move its body freely once more. She found a new place for her hands on her hips.

"First of all. Who are you?"

If it could. The robot would've been frowning. Instead, its eye remained red. "I believed I already told you. I am a Orbital Warden, a type of Auxiliary Device tasked to help you–"

RL-004 interrupted the robot by loudly clicking her teeth together, "You expect me to understand any of that jargon? It's lost on me. What I want is a name that I can call you, unless you want me to just call you 'Bot' from now on. After that, then you can drop the whole story of what you are."

The robot paused, taken aback by RL-004's sudden harsh response.

"The designation given to me by my creator was OW-283e7Ny8R."

"OW-283e7Ny8R, huh. I'll call you Owen then, given the first four letters of your designation and your voice sounds somewhat masculine."

Owen started to lightly bounce up and down. Considering the name. "Owen? It actually has a bit of synthesis that I find satisfactory. Very well, I will be referred to as 'Owen'".

It was an intriguing little bot to RL-004. It said it was an artificial intelligence but acted in a way that seemed to exhibit high amounts of emotion. She summed up Owen's overly expressive tone to be either an emulation of someone else assigned by his creator, or that this AI has the capacity for emotional understanding to a certain degree.

I was also given a designation. At least that's what Owen claimed. Doomsday Unit RL-004.

Though she somewhat knew she would be called that name, it also felt a little jarring. Like that wasn't her actual name and she could sense it.

Could it be… that I'm also an artificial intelligence?

She brushed her fingers across her skin. It felt natural. It could have been grafted on her like some kind of doll. If that was the case, instead of organs being housed within her, there could be a concoction of a robotic exoskeleton and a metal plating within her body. 

The thought of being a robot was frightening, but not so much as the notion that she could be wearing a dead woman's skin. Disgusting and Terrifying.

RL-004 tabled her growing anxieties and was finally convinced to follow Owen out of the building. They took the stairs for another twenty or so flights before making it to the main lobby.

RL-004 asked Owen numerous other questions about her situation. Many of them, unfortunately, he was unable to answer effectively. He said it was not because he was hiding something, but because he simply did not have the information to properly answer her. After a couple of questions with no answer, she turned back to a question Owen did know.

"You said you were an Auxiliary Device. What does that mean?"

Owen's eye lights up yellow, "It means I am a device created for the sole purpose of serving a Doomsday Unit. Constructs like me are a special case, seeing as I can converse with you. But there are copious amounts of these Auxiliary Devices stashed away in storage units and labs in this city. I suggest you look for some, they are a necessity for you."

"How do I find them?"

"I do not have access to that information. I think you just sense them. Was it not the same for me? Were you not drawn towards me because you could espy my presence with your senses?

Rl-004 fell silent and raised her eyebrows.

Owen's eye went pink, "That's not what I mean! It should be an ability that you have!"

She scratched her chin, "Thinking back, I did sense something when I awoke, it was on the lower floors. But I was so stunned by the rush of all my other senses that it kind of got lost in the noise.

Owen's corners start to twirl, "See! You can do the very same with all Auxiliary Devices, not just me."

RL004 continued to follow Owen through the lobby washed with neon lights. There were frozen people and machines here too. It was interesting, they looked a lot calmer than the people in the upper floor. Whatever calamity that had befallen the people higher up has yet to reach these people below.

To RL-004, that was comforting. At least if time were to begin again and if they are conscious of the state they are in now, they will never know that their lives will end in one second and will die a death with a calm expression on their faces...

...Still not ideal though.

Finally, the two made it outside of the building. A light hue of orange flushed over them, bathing them in a soft heat and brushing the building in a more effervescent light. Off to the left side of the street. Down what could've been fifty blocks was the top half of the sun peeking over the horizon that could be seen in the pocket of the open street. 

It was familiar to RL-004. Almost... natural, unlike everything else she had witnessed so far. She believed she had felt this warmth many times before... in some kind of past she used to have.

She put a hand on her chest.

What is this feeling?

Her fleeting emotions of positivity dissipated when she looked up. It was the chunk of the building that she saw separated up in the lab. Falling debris that broke off before the bigger one did was stuck in the middle of the air. 

Most of the buildings around her were in the same likeness. Tops of buildings, like a knife to butter, slid down part way off the foundations. Some of the rubble had made it all the way to the street and the dust of the initial impact floated around in stillness.

Some of the debris was in the direct line of a woman on the sidewalk. Her arms moved above her head as if her flesh could challenge the power of falling rock and steel. Her eyes forever plastered on the object that would ultimately end her.

A sad existence.

Others were not as lucky to at the very least be frozen before death. Some were trapped under metal beams and boulders. Their bodies crushed under the sheer weight. Blood spilled out, leaving red stains in their wake.

You can still see the pain in their faces.

Telephone poles were partly off centered. Cars on the street were stuck in place. The smoke of the exhaust spewed out and lights from the screens in the car were emitting light. It was a self-driving car, but she noticed a family filling the passenger and back seats. Despite the fact it was frozen, it was easy to understand how fast the vehicle was moving given the burn marks on the road.

The only way you could describe the scene she was staring at was as if someone took a picture of the beginning of the apocalypse. Stuck perpetually in a state of impending doom.

She noticed how weird the sky looked. Most of the once full sea of blue were blotted by a field of black. It seemed to be pixelating the sky, erasing it from existence where only pockets of it remained, especially around the sun. 

It made the lighting confusing, the sun shone through, but the darkness overhead casted an ugly shadow on the land. It almost looked like the two were fighting on whether the world should be midday or midnight and for the most part, RL-004 couldn't tell who was winning.

"The sky looks like it's dying." RL-004 said, stretching her neck back as she looked up.

Owen's eye went yellow. "It is called The Falling Sky, the catalyst for the end of all. The people who created me. And the people who put you to slumber, they halted time one second before the darkness fell onto not only the sky but on all things living or otherwise."

"So, the reason why everyone is stuck in place is because of the people that assumedly experimented on me?"

Owen's eye turned green, "Correct, it was the only option to save the world."

"These people, do you know who they were?" She raised both her hands up to her side, "How do they expect us 'Doomsday Units' to 'Save the world' so to speak?"

"That information is not in my database. When I was created, I was given only two tasks. Aid Doomsday Unit RL-004 and to tell her to make it to the City Command Center in the middle of the city. I would like to take you there now."

"What? Now? What makes you think I want to go there? Or that I would follow you? I only wanted questions, many of which you failed to answer!"

Owen's eye turned blue, "Doomsday Unit RL-004. I strongly advise you to follow me to the City Command Center. There is nothing for you to lose. Frankly, you are like a babe freshly born into this world. You do not even understand who you are. Other Doomsday Units are most likely going to the City Command Center now, you can meet up with them. And you know... you might find something about your past there."

If she was being completely honest, she didn't yet fully trust Owen. The way he came off despite being a robot felt as though he knew more than what he said. He was hiding something from her, that was certain. Despite his objections to that being "he speaks only with veracity". But what he said was right. This world is an enigma to her. Everything makes little sense, and she probably won't figure it out on her own.

Best to go with him.

"Fine, I'll come with."

Green appeared on Owen's eye, twisting in excitement, "I knew you would see reason, Doomsday Unit RL-004."

RL-004 frowned, "Just don't call me that long ass name. Call me… RL for now until I figure out what my real name is."

"Whatever you say." Owen says, somewhat confused with her demand.

The two traveled down the street into the heart of the city. A city ruined by time.