First | https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1265366621/ Prev | https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1266958906/ Next | Nah Author's note ||| IM SO SORRY TO LEAVE YOU ON A CLIFFHANGER FOR THIS ONE!!!! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!!! The Mind, however, was crouched in a dark room, the essay spiraling a little out of control as the information seemed to blur. He was losing focus. He cursed silently, the modulator glitching his voice beyond recognition. The words didn’t make sense. “hyper-tonic”, “harmonious”, harmony. Harmony, harmony, harmony. That word was weird. Harmony. Whole. He swallowed a lump in his throat, or at least something that caused slight discomfort in his speakers. His hands moved faster than his brain, now running on autopilot. There was an entire spiel on frequencies and how they may be able to calm the human brain. Human brain. He held the backspace button. How could a man made entirely of gears and metal explain something such as emotion? The Mind computed this for a moment, his fingers still going on autopilot. Nothing seemed right. Nothing ever seemed right. The lights were too bright, his systems were loud and annoying in his ears. It almost felt like it wasn’t even him. His fingers still ran a marathon on the keyboard, going into rants he didn’t even know were possible. Control X. He wanted control. Just a bit of control over his hands that were already retyping the same sentence repeatedly. The words “harmony” “unity” “major” “minor” “Whole”. He typed whole with a capital W. His processor glitched, the word everywhere in his sight for a few seconds before returning to that single lonely word. “Using V-I after the bulk of your chord progression can make the piece feel Whole again.” He repeated the phrase verbally. His oil pump stopped for a moment before pumping oil a bit faster through him. He could feel the slick substance rush through his veins. It felt foreign. His hands were malfunctioning, he saw the soft vibration in the fingers as they continued typing all to no avail, logistics and everything in his brain was being typed, the words forming into one string of data to interpret horribly by the emotionless computer. Why write an essay on emotions when you yourself cannot feel emotions? Why stop here? His hands continued malfunctioning, 100 words per minute became 130, then 150. Before The Mind knew it, his oil pump was racing out of his metal-plated chest, looking at the slur of words he strung together, statistics that he had taken from unauthorized websites, information from papers he had never even known existed, the word “Whole”, “Whole”, “WHOLE”. Whole. He couldn’t stop here. He continued typing and retyping, unknown sources eliminated from his memory. The word “Whole” kept popping up in his writing. He eliminated the word from his diction choice. He then opted for “connected”. That seemed to help. It seemed to help. “Help.” He whispered amidst the sound of machinery operating a task that should be impossible, amidst the blinding brightness from the laptop, amidst the swirling vision and malfunctioning hands.
He was going to be sick. He felt the thunder in his head, the gears turning in his internal, the hinges of his mechanical hands as he continued typing. Mechanical hands. He winced at his hands for a moment. Mechanical. Not real. He wasn’t real. No. Not ever. He paused, realizing his breath was quick and shallow. That was odd. He figured since that he was strictly mechanical, he didn’t need extra oxygen intake, especially when it didn’t even help and seemed illogical. His cameras seemed to fog up, which again, was odd since there weren’t any ways they could have become fogged up. His cheeks were cold, the coolant dripped off his cheek and into his lap; the feeling was almost foreign. He felt the oil pump through his veins, rushing to his brain. The sounds from the laptop and inside the automaton were too much, the blinding light from the blinking cursor writing the essay was too, even the feeling of his oil pumping, the antifreeze leaking from his eyes, the gears turning inside of him was too much. This was too much, way, way, WAY too much. He’s just a robot, he can’t have feelings, he can’t have feelings!! He shouldn’t feel anything, he’s logical, very, very logical, yet everything is screaming at him constantly, like the time The Heart yelled at him, like REALLY yelled at him before he shot— stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop, stop, stop, stop, STOP. Oxygen levels 54%, dropping fast, his stomach churned, vision darkening. The Mind’s hands froze. The laptop was now slammed shut, set to the side. He couldn’t feel, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear over everything that was happening at once. He tasted the oil in his mouth, felt the oil pump in his veins, a stern reminder that he was never real, just built to carry on tasks. He put his hands to his ears, definitely involuntarily, because it wasn’t logical, this wasn’t logical. He was overreacting, of course he was, it was painful, but not that painful. He wasn’t too much in pain, but it felt like a lot. It felt like his head was about to combust into flames. The coolant was pumping faster throughout his body to calm the ever-increasing heat in his face. He put his knees to his chest. Oxygen levels 23%. He couldn’t breathe. Not anymore, not now, please. He gasped, nothing important coming into synthetic lungs, he tried again, and again, still nothing. He couldn’t breathe. He shoved his face into his knees, shutting his eyes tight. To think, The Mind of all people, couldn’t keep his life together for the life of him. He couldn’t call for help, his throat was closed, he wanted to, but he was frozen. He wanted to. He needed to. Three short beeps from the automaton. Then another three longer beeps. Three more short beeps. SOS. He continued the pattern, the pace accelerating and turning into a crescendo. The distress signal filled his senses, still unable to breathe, still gripping his ears to drown out the sound, his eyes still tightly shut. The sound of his own mechanics, the realization that he wasn’t real, that he was never real stinging his processors. SOS. SOS. SOS. The Morse code repeated in his ears, each repeat sending a sharp pain down his spine. He was practically pleading for any sort of help, just a moment of clarity, but everything was slipping. Oxygen levels 15%, oil pump rate rising to 3.43 gallons per minute; coolant was rushing to his head so fast it was leaking out of his eyes.
