Delta

Chapter Eight: The Facility

"Why don't you tell me about yourself?" Adrian asked as we walked. "How did you end up falling off the catwalk? Actually, just start from the beginning. What's your name?" 

"Um, I'm Reagan." I said. "I woke up yesterday, at least I think I did." 

"Wait, you've only been awake for two days?" Adrian asked with disbelief. "And what do you mean you think?" 

"I'll get to that part." I said, following him around a corner. "So I had to go through the tests with my partner, Ella. We were doing pretty well until this other person or AI or whatever came out of nowhere. Ella just kind of fell through the floor and the voice was saying about how I was bad at testing and Ella would be useful but I wouldn't. Then she released this huge robot spider to 'dispose of me' and I thought it was pretty much over until I discovered that my shoes could suction to the glass. It's what saved my life." 

"Yeah, the boots can do that." Adrian said. 

"Anyways, then this other robot-thing came and grabbed me and then I blacked out. That's why I  don't know for sure how long I was out. The next thing I know, I wake up in this 'Disciplinary Containment Cube' and the same voice tells me that I have to be kept in there until she sorted some things out." 

I had come up to walk beside Adrian, and I saw him scrunch up his face. 

"Oh. She put you in the DCC." He said.

"You know about that?" I asked, looking over at him.

"Yeah." He said. "Anyways, continue your story."

"Um, so after that I managed to switch off a lever in the room I was in with my grappling hook." I explained. "Although now that I actually think about it, that almost seems like it was too easy."

"I agree." Adrian said. "I think she was just toying with you. There's no way she would just let you escape that easily." 

"You talk as if you know her." I said. "Who is she?"

"I don't know her personally." Adrian said. "But uh...you know what, I'll tell you later. Just continue." 

"Okay...so I got out of the room and found myself out here, but then I ran into a whole horde of those small robotic spiders. I tried to jump down onto one of the catwalks below, but one of them caught me with one of it's metal string-things that I didn't even know they had. It pulled me back up and that's when I got shot with the laser. I guess one of them hit the cord I was attached to, and I fell. And that's when I fell down onto the catwalk. Speaking of which, how did I not break my ankles from that fall? Or my legs?"

"Our boots have something in the soles that allow you to jump from higher places without hurting yourself." Adrian explained. "I don't know how it works, but you can fall from greater heights without hurting yourself. You're not invincible though. There's only a certain height that you can fall from before the boots don't work anymore." 

"Wow, that's cool." I said. 

"I think Delta was working on an improved version of the boots before they shut down." Adrian said. 

I nodded and we walked in silence for a few minutes. 

"What does your rod do?" I finally asked, pointing to the place where his rod was strapped to his side. It was about the length from the tips of my fingers to my elbow, and a steely grey.

"Oh yeah, that." Adrian said, pulling it out. "It produces electricity which I can use to electrocute things." He showed me a button at the bottom that had to be pressed. "The longer you press the button, the more electricity it will produce. Jason and I use these to shock the dangerous robots here, like the spiders you just mentioned. It's the only weapon that works against them. By sending volts of electricity through their bodies, it completely fries their circuitry and mechanics, and disables them. It's the best weapons to use against robots."