“Good morning Cooper.” A round man with big bright eyes and large goggles stares at me, pointing a bright apparatus in my face. “How do you feel?” I look around. Tools and various metal pieces clutter the shiny chrome tables on each side of this small room. “Try to move your limbs.” I shake my fingers, I spin my arm, I flex my feet. For the first few minutes of my existence, it feels as if I can only move in slow motion.
“I…am…good.”
“Good, good. You can speak. Do you know who you are?”
“I…am…Cooper.”
“Yes, you are Cooper. And what is your purpose?”
“I…help…you.”
“Help with what?”
“Clean…ing.”
“Can you stand?” I put my hands at my sides and hold onto the side of the wooden table. Before I touch the floor, the man stops me.
“Ah, wait wait.” He reaches behind me and I feel a giant plug get pulled out of my upper back. “Okay, now you may stand.” My feet hit the ground with a loud clang. The tiniest bit of dust puffs up in a cloud around my toes. “Feel free to walk a little. Explore. But then I’ll need your help organizing, as you can see.” There’s not much to explore. Everything around me seems within my reach. But the man grunts and huddles away into another corner towards the back of the room, tinkering with some wires peeking out the back of a metal head facing away from him. I take a step, then another, and another without direction. This leads me to a door with only a small circular window at the top. Immediately I feel a pair of eyes on me, and look towards a small shed across the green field. A little girl peeks out from under her window, staring at me with warm brown eyes. She points to her left, but my field of view is obscured by the rest of the door. I reach to turn the silver knob, when suddenly a hand pulls me back.
“Not yet Cooper. I have to see how much more calibration is needed.” The man leads me back to the table where I woke, where he has placed an assortment of objects next to one another on the table. He points to the smallest one, a metal pin with a pointed end. “What is this?” I am unable to respond. So he moves on to the next, a tiny cylindrical object not much bigger than the last, with a plus and minus on either end. “How about this?” I don’t answer, but my view drifts to the metal head mounted on its stand. “Pay attention Cooper.” A quiet creak sounds out and vibrates through my neck as I turn my head back to face the battery.
“Battery.” Battery. That’s what it is.
“Good. So it seems I forgot to program with you with the other items. Maybe you just need a bit more time. Do you want to try this again?” He picks up the previous item and holds it in front of my face. I have no reference in my mind. “Okay. Last question then.” He furrows his brows and puts them back down. “What is my name?” Suddenly my head starts racing and information floods my mind.
“Gil Nathaniel Adriano. Forty-seven. Address is 1045 31ST ST WASHINGTON DC 20007-6022 USA. Phone number is 202-”
“Okay. Okay. You don’t have to read the whole thing.” Gil Nathaniel Adriano stares and sighs. He shakes his head and mutters something I can’t understand. My vision goes dark.