MSTU 4020: The Machine Continues...

 Calibration

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..."  -- Blade Runner

    Kuno inspected around when he woke up from total darkness◼️. The room, or in this case, a perfect twenty-times-twenty cube was filled with an overly-exaggerated brightness coming from below. There was not a single lightbulb nor was the floor transparent. The roof was made of the kind of blackness which swallowed the lights. As Kuno’s eyes were getting adjusted to the insane brightness, he tried to make more sense of the surroundings. He found himself standing and wearing a plain white shirt with a pair of shorts and slippers. Two metallic chairs🪑 were facing each other inside the room, and one of them was right next to him. The floor dimmed, and Kuno gained awareness of the stuff lying on the floor. Jigsaw puzzles 🧩were leaning against a gigantic teddy bear in one of the corners. Right next to Kuno’s foot, were a bunch of jumbled chess pieces♖ with a missing king. All of the objects seemed to be familiar but Kuno couldn’t make sense of the underlying nostalgia.

“Go ahead, ask the question.” 
Kuno looked up and saw a man sitting in a chair that was empty moments ago. The man spoke in a deep note and his voice did not fit his appearance, a bony face most likely in his twenties with a smile doing the work of bathwater in its perfect temperature, just comfortable enough to let Kuno’s guard down. 
“Why don’t you take a seat. And…perhaps this voice is a bit unnerving🗣. Let’s try this one.” His voice grew brighter as it reached the end of his sentence.
Kuno was alerted but worked his way down to the chair. He never dared to take his eyes off the man sitting in front of him. 
“Good work Kuno. My name is Ash. Now, my job here is to make sure you understand the whole picture🖼,” The man leaned forward as he spoke.
“The picture? Where am I?” Kuno’s voice was shaking.
“Calm down. Let’s start with the last thing you remembered.” Ash has a pen and notepad in his hands. Kuno couldn’t recall if they were there in the first place. 
“Nothing. When I woke up, I was standing right here in this…” Kuno checked his surroundings again and realized the room has no door🚪, “I’m not sure what to make of this room.”
“You said we are in a room right now. Can you describe it?” Ash asked as he wrote some notes down.
“Twenty by twenty. Bright floor with a bunch of weird toys. And, ” Kuno knit his brows, “I can’t find a door.”
“Great. Are you sure about the measurements?” 

“What kind of question is that? Of course, it’s…” Kuno couldn’t explain how he knew it.
“It’s natural huh? Because the numbers just pop up in your mind when you first checked this room?” Ash stopped the note and wore his smile again. 
None of the questions calmed Kuno down. First was this weird room without a door. How did they even get here if there is no entry? And this Ash guy appeared from nowhere and asked a bunch of nonsense. Kuno started to feel the sweat on his forehead. He raised his arm and tried to wipe it off but his forehead was clean without any trace of wetness. 
“Hey, relax. It’s okay. You can answer that later. Try this now,” Ash raised his index finger ☝🏻 and drew a circle in the air. “Feeling better?”
“I guess so, ” Kuno felt the fear and nervousness were washed away along with the tightness in his body like the feelings were never there. “Where are we exactly?”
“Consider this place as a workshop for your calibration before I can sign you off and put you into work. Tell me, how’s the brightness🔅 now?”
Kuno’s eyes glazed over as the room continued to dim. The teddy bear shrank to the normal size and the chess pieces were arranged in order on the chessboard. And he started to see fragments of memories flashing before him. He was on a roller coaster, carrying the teddy bear in his hands. Then the frame quickly switched to him sitting in front of a chessboard with another guy on the other side.

“If you began to see the sporadic pieces as the brightness goes down. Don’t worry, they’ll go away, ” Ash put down his notepad. “Let’ keep going, how…”
“What about me? ” Kuno interrupted Ash.
“Your name is Kuno.”
“I know. I mean…what am I?” Kuno dropped his head 👤 and stared at his hands. 
“Interesting! So far you are the fastest. ” Ash’s words showed excitement for the first time since they began talking. “You are the newest prototype designed to monitor section thirteen. Currently, there are…”
“More than a hundred thousand sections.” Kuno nodded.
“Fabulous. Your memory chip is working now. Keep going Kuno, anything else?” Ash started to take more notes📝.
Kuno could not recall any more fragments. Instead, this time, he heard piercing screams deep down from his mind. Then he felt a rush of heat grabbing and climbing up his arm. He rolled up his sleeves, and found no burn marks, just like what happened to the sweat that was supposed to be there.
“The machine⚙️ stopped.” Kuno said.

“Yes” 
“Then what do you need me for?”

        “You kept calling it a machine like it's always a dead piece,” Ashe continued, “You know, unlike the organic system, we don't need a physical body.”
Kuno thought for a second and asked, “So I’m not…human anymore?”
“Finally, I’ve been waiting for you to ask this. Yes and no. A part of you is, but we have to modify the rest to fit the system”
Kuno felt queasy. He started to look for a trash bin🗑 to puke. However, like his previous feelings, there was nothing in his stomach for him to puke. Ash stared at his struggle and drew another circle in the air. 
“Sorry I wasn’t trying to give you nausea. See? This is why we need this calibration session so that I know the exact dosage you will need in the future. Don’t worry, we are done here. Your nausea was supposed to be the last checkpoint in our conversation.”
“What about the dosage💊 you mentioned?”
“Oh. You'll have to use them to stay sane. So that you won't crumble like the last one.”
“So we are not in the real world right now.”
“I’m glad you figured that out. We are in your conscious mind. I didn’t want you to run around like a madman out there before the calibration was done. Now, you ready to go?”
Ash and Kuno both stood up slowly and then the chairs were gone.
“What about this room? The…toys?” Kuno’s landed on the jigsaw puzzles and the teddy bear again. 
Ash grabbed the teddy bear 🧸 up, and smiled, “Your mind knew the things only you would know.”