After what seemed like an eternity of wandering through the hallways and peeking inside endless metal doors, Marion and Grumps stumbled upon another discreet, floor-to-ceiling metal door on a lone corner.

Grumps were poking the password panel beside the door while Marion took the chance to look around the dark hallway. The faint glow of the hybrid's torchlight is the only source of light in this dreary, cold place.

The stale smell of machine and oil wafted through Marion's nose and he let out an impromptu sneeze.

He flinched when the sound reverberated through the hallway loudly and glanced at the stony hybrid with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry. It's the air—"

"Regular recharge period requires thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes, twelve seconds, and counting has passed."

Marion grimaced and nodded as the door opened before them.

The message to rush faster with minimum noise was loud and clear for him since with every minute they risked the chance of getting exposed. Who knew when their limited thirty minutes were going to expire if it hadn't already?

Marion and Grumps walked inside the chamber.

It was going to be their last door on the floor. If they didn't find that Robera here, they would have to make another time-consuming trip to the elevator. And with the hope of not getting caught which had been Grump's main concern.

Marion couldn't bother anymore, though. He had no interest in saving his life anyway so even if they were caught, it wouldn't make much difference to him. But Marion was curious about their quest, especially about finding the mysterious Robera who seemed pretty important to Grumps. 

If they found her before Marion died, at least he could go to the afterlife with one last satisfactory quest under his mortal sleeves. That was all Marion cared about at this point.

Grumps had already strode inside and switched on the light from somewhere. 

The whole chamber flushed in a luminous white light, making Marion blink in the sudden brightness. 

He looked up and found the corner LEDs on the high ceiling as the source of the fluorescent light along with various thick, gray tubes. 

They were dangling from a round hole on the top—connected to a floor-to-ceiling, wide glass cylinder on the far right side of the room. 

The blue-tinted glass was foggy. But it wasn't empty. A vague, dark silhouette of something was floating in there. 

Marion frowned and limped toward the cylinder. He touched the smooth glass and flinched when two blue rays hit the side of his fingers. He raises his brown at Grumps.

Grumps didn't pay him any mind and continued shooting mysterious blue rays through those metal orbs. They had turned cobalt crystals now. 

His dead gaze moved up and down the glass for a while before he abruptly turned around and walked to a white table on the left side of the cylinder. 

"What are you doing? Aren't you gonna find that Robera?" Marion asked but got no response from the hybrid.

He was rather content with rummaging through the unknown knick-knacks on the table, seemingly looking for something.

Marion rolled his eyes and turned back to the foggy glass.

From this close, he could make out the shape of that dark silhouette. It looked very much human and quite slender.

Huh! Was that a human? In this God-forsaken Robox hell? Or was it another high-tech humanoid robox in the making?

Twisting his lips down, Marion raised his hand and glided his finger across the cool, greasy surface. 

A patch of condensed fog cleared from the glass, revealing swirling blue liquid and pale skin inside. A very naked, pale skin with more transparent cords attached to that feminine stomach than he could count. 

Enthralled and fascinated, Marion smudged the glass a little more—careful not to expose below or above the stomach area.

It was his first time seeing a female human flesh from this close. He had never seen his mother. His father had been keeping them safe in their sewerage home until one day he left his seven-year-old son to hunt for food and never came back. Ever since then whatever he knew about humans, he had read them in books—stolen from abandoned libraries, obviously. He had learned human anatomy and found the functionality of a female body interesting, especially the changes their body went through during pregnancy. 

But from the looks of it, this woman was not pregnant neither she resembled a brain-dead robox. Then why was her stomach corded?

I thought only brain-dead robox women needed cord support to sustain them through their pregnancy? Why was she even here, though?

"Uh… Grumps?" Marion tilted his head back to the side. "A question. Do robox usually spare women from their slaughter rampage?"

"No," Grumps said, fiddling with a syringe and a small black vial.

Hmm… Is she a test subject then? A guinea pig of some sort for roboxes? Could be. 

"But why did they need her? These robox hardly have innovative bones," I muttered under my breath, tapping my chin when Grumps brushed past me.

A syringe filled with olive-colored liquid was in his hand.

What was he doing? Wasn't he babbling about finding some Robera earlier? Now what? Wait—is this that woman? Robera?

Eyes bulged out, Marion stared at the patch of the pierced navel through the glass.

Grumps raised his arms and grabbed a swirly tube connected to the cylinder and injected the plastic skin. 

Marion looked at the glass just in time to see the blue liquid turn green and the female body twitch, making Marion's breath hitch.

Grumps went around the cylinder and poked buttons Marion didn't notice earlier as he had been busy watching the woman.

A sudden whoosh sound filled the room and Marion stepped back. His eyes were wide with wonder as the liquid slowly drained down the cylinder.

Grumps moved around fast and Marion followed him. Questions swarmed his curious mind. But he chose to watch Grumps instead as Grumps fetched a white towel from the lone basket on the corner.

He seemed to know the place much better than Marion expected. Almost as if he was familiar with this place like one with their homes. 

But then, Marion had found him in the dump underground of this place. Who would have dared to bring down such a massive monstrosity in his own home and bury him below?

Grumps walked toward the cylinder again. Marion turned his head to follow him with his eyes.

"Don't turn. Look Forward."

Marion frowned. "Why?"

"Privacy required."

Oh… But he's still staring.

Marion was about to point that out when he noticed the hybrid's glowing red balls were blank, indicating he had deactivated his vision.

Marion smirked and looked ahead at the white wall.

"Well, how will you see without your eyes then?"

"Automatic Sensor."

"And what's that?"

"Identifying objects without the need for visualization. Something most untrained humans lack."

Marion's lips curled down at the subtle insult. However, he stayed silent and looked around the almost empty medium-sized room. Only a small trash can and that basket of towels graced his vision.

The sound of a glass door opening behind him rang in his ears followed by the thump of towel dropping, clicks of machine arms moving, and the sloppy noise of body dragging.

Marion took a deep breath and focused on the burn of his stomach instead of hearing Grumps moving around an unconscious or possibly dead woman.

Why was she so important to Grumps, though? Were they related? Friends? A human and a hybrid. Such a friendship was not normal these days. Maybe it was once upon a time. But now, it was just a kill-or-be-killed kind of relationship between these two races. 

That was why it baffled Marion to see a powerful hybrid care for a delicate woman in this way. He could have easily crushed her under his metal boots within seconds.

A soft groggy moan rang in the room, bringing Marion out of his thought world.

She was alive.

Another groan and a gentle thump of flesh against the tiles.

"W-What happened?" a scratchy girly voice spoke, not all like a smooth woman's voice Marion had been expecting. 

It wasn't that he had much experience with women. He had been living alone on streets ever since he understood the world—with only stories of female humans accompanying him.

The roboxes in their state had wiped off most of the humans altogether. No women survivor was left, or they had possibly moved away if there was any.

"W-Where a-am I? Wh-What hap-happened to me!"

Marion turned around to find a scrawny young girl frantically scratching her throat. 

Water dripped down her golden, hip-length hair, dampening the white towel around her body as she stared down at her body in what looked like pure horror.

"It has been long. Ten years." Grumps's mechanical voice chimed in from her back.

She whipped her head back and gasped.

"K-Kirex!" she cried, wincing at her loud voice, "K-Kirex, what… How! I was only six last time I checked."

"Blood pressure rising. Heartbeat rate increasing. Vocal cord straining. You require immediate relaxation, Robera."

Ten years. Hmm... So, that makes her sixteen now. Damn! She's just a year younger than me.

And, I was right. This is the famous Robera Grumps had been babbling about all this time. 

But what happened to her?

"K-Kirex, p-please—"

Just then the metal door slid aside with a whoosh revealing a small, white, four-wheeled robot strolled inside. 

It had the body of a square box with smoothened edges and the head barely reached my hip. It had the two glowing blobs as eyes on the top with scrawny, wiry black arms with three bird fingers.

Marion raised his brows as the robot rushed past him and headed straight toward Robera. 

"Subject escaped the safety. Subject escaped the safety…" the robot drawled on like a broken record and stretched its hands to grab Robera's arms.

Robera yanked her hands away with a glare and moved to stand up.

"Subject resisted contact. Subject resisted contact…" It went to grab the wobbling Robera again Grumps or Kirex stepped forward.

"Statistic update on subject Robera, NNC60."

"NNC60?" Marion asked, looking at the little robot as it blinked its eyes red and black. 

"Nano Nursing Care version 60. An assistant robot specialist in medical care."

"Sounds like Nancy," Marion smirked, watching the blinking stop and the robot's eyes turned blue again.

"Physical sustainability. Affirmative. External defection. Negative. Internal defection. Mild vocal cord damage and temporary movement inability due to long-term physical inactivity." NNC60—or Nancy for Marion—informed.

Robera groaned and clicked her tongue at the robot's scrappy chipper voice. She looked at Kirex.

"W-Would you p-please…" She cleared her throat. "Tell me what's… what's going on? Why do I look like… This?"

She stared down at her body in sheer disgust.

Marion frowned. 

Just how long had she been stuck in that tube?

However, Marion didn't voice out his thoughts in fear of disrupting the tension that hovered around the chamber.

"Bring food for two, a lab coat, pants, a box of medicine, and lock the door before leaving." Kirex's deep mechanical voice rumbled toward Nancy.

Nancy's eyes blinked red and black. "Order received."

The little robot wheeled out of the chamber with the door sliding shut behind it.

A heavy silence pressed the air of the room, making Marion shift his balance from left to right.

"Well… That was interesting."

Two pairs of eyes snapped toward Marion and he squirmed under their attention.

"W-Who are you?" Robera asked, tilting her head to the side.

She must have noticed him for the first time in the chamber.

Marion cleared his throat and mumbled his name in a low voice.

"Sorry?"

He pressed his lips tight.

"Marion," he spoke louder this time.

"Oh. Nice to meet you. Now, Kirex," Robera turned to the stiff hybrid. "I believe you owe me some explanation."

Marion couldn't help but notice that Robera had stopped stuttering and spoke in a more formal language like those sophisticated ladies in old novels.

Kirex moved and dragged a white plastic chair from the table.

"Sit." His stone-cold gaze pinned Robera in place.

Marion half expected her to protest and demand an answer. But she lowered her head and sat down on the chair like an obedient puppy.

He looked between Kirex and Robera with keen interest, eager to know more about the strange dynamic of their relationship.

"What is your last memory before today?" Kirex asked, standing before her with a straighter spine.

He looked like a strict teacher ready to scold his student from Marion's angle.

Robera looked down with a frown. Her small fists curled tightly as her forehead creased.

"I… I remember a chamber. A dark chamber. A sparkle of some blue light on a podium. There was a vague jolt of electricity when I touched it and then…" Robera snapped her head up, tears swelling in her crystal blue eyes. "I don't know what happened next, Kirex."

Confusion and frustration swirled in those glossy pools.

"Why was your chamber unlocked?"

Robera gulped and blinked a couple of times before answering this time.

"A guard left that open for me," She glanced up to assess Kirex's somber face. "He brought food and a slip of paper. It was the password to that dark room. I'm sorry."

Robera hung her head low, her lips quivered.

"It's a little late for sorry, I think," Marion couldn't help but chime in.

"Yes," She silently wiped a stray trail of tear rolling down her cheek. "I shouldn't have left the chamber in the first place. There is a reason you used to lock me in. I know that now."

She looked up at Kirex with soft tenderness in her eyes.

Marion on the other hand, couldn't stop his eyes from bulging out.

Locked her in! Was it some Stockholm Syndrome case?

"Danger. The reason behind my actions." Kirex spoke, his voice seemed to grow heavier with each word.

"What kind of danger, Kirex? Tell me, please. Is this… Is that the reason behind all these changes?"

She moved her thin arms up and down her waist. A soft frown marring her features.

"Yes," Kirex replied, "And your origin."

Robera's head snapped up at those words, her frown deepened further. 

"My… origin?"

"Yes. You are known as a human Robera. But your DNA consists of mere fragments from human specimen. The majority of your DNA component is built from your hybrid origin."

What!

Human and… A hybrid?

Marion's head swirled with the news. 

But Robera's face paled at the revelation.

Such kind of interracial breeding between a robox and a human was a myth. Some experiments in the past— a few decades ago, exactly—had taken place, sure. But none of the female partners survived the full term of pregnancy. 

There had been either a brutal miscarriage or the death of the mother. A hybrid's sperm could never be compatible with a human womb—regardless of them being brain dead or alive. 

Then how?

"Your father was a hybrid and your mother was a human with a rare compatible DNA. Your birth revolutionized a scientific era that some interested parties wanted to exploit. On your six-month blessing ceremony, your parents' quarter went under attack. Your bulletproof, password-protected crib helped you survive whereas your parents and other invited guests were killed by one of the influential opponent group. Before they reached you we eliminated most of the threat as it was our duty to guard the premises that day. We found you and sheltered you from any potential threat afterward."

"And what happened that day in the dark room? Do you know something?"

"We had been checking the border perimeter that afternoon when we detected defection in the central building system. The programs on majority of the guard had been altered by an unknown third-party organization. They breached and infiltrated our security system and tampered with guard control. Hence you possibly noticed the guard carrying a questionable slip of paper and leaving doors unlocked."

"Did you not find me then?"

"No. We tried but couldn't find you. The building was under attack by the time we reached the perimeter. It was the same group responsible for your parent's death. When most of the threat was eliminated, the leader of their group shot me from the back resulting in my untimely shut-down. I had been powered on by Marion this late evening."

Oh man, it is a lot to take in.

Robera opened her mouth to speak when the door slid open and Nancy wheeled in.

A big silver tray with four lids on the top graced her little bird arms.

A soft, savory aroma teased my nostrils as delicious wasps of thin smoke curled out through two of those lids.

Oh, food! Sweet and sultry food. Here I come!