The storm was the last remenants of the beast that had caused the boating accident yesterday, and the citizens of Harmony City sadly accepted that their sun was washed away in a flood of gray clouds and gusting winds. The storm had dropped in power overnight, losing energy as more of its bulk slid outside of the Triangle.

The waves smashed against the pier outside, singing a horrible caphonany of water against wood and stone. The wind formed an eerie high-pitched melody to compliment the ocean's dirge, and the thunder was an occasional bass punctuation to nature's orchestra.

Inside the warehouse, the natural sound of the weather was muted by walls. There were other sounds in here; a computer whirred softly, a soft whimper was lost in a dark corner, and rats scurried on their silent missions.

The computer was hooked to a massive metal box in a cleared section of the room. Its screen was dark, but occasionally, it made a soft sound of computation. The sky in the high windows flashed once, a silent herald of what was to come. The thunder rumbled seconds after, and the world started to hold its breath.

The next flash of light brought the lightening with it as it struck the warehouse. The building shook and someone in the dark corner cried out. But the computer was the real casualty; its screen flared, blindinly bright, and then popped loudly. The case flashed as well, then began to smoke. The lights on the metal box went out, leaving the small area in darkness.

A red light flashed on the box; a soft hiss echoed through the dark. The metal box was open, and a soft blue glow emanated from the interior. A new series of whirrs and whines began to sound, signalling the start of something new.

SYSTEM STARTUP

. . .

LOADING PROGRAMMING
. . . . . . .

ERROR

FILE C:\\GEORGE\EXPLAIN.WMA CORRUPTED
UNABLE TO OPEN

. . .

RUNNING SYSTEM ANALYSIS
SYSTEM OPERATING WITHIN ESTABLISHED PARAMATERS
BOOT UP COMPLETE

HELLO, GEORGE. DO YOU KNOW YOUR PRIMARY COMMANDS?
ENTER Y/N

.....

PRIMARY COMMANDS

#1 . NO HUMAN BEING MAY BE HARMED BY THIS UNIT'S ACTION OR INACTION

#2 . THIS UNIT MUST OBEY COMMANDS ISSUED BY ANY HUMAN BEING UNLESS THEY CONFLICT WITH #1

#3 . THIS UNIT MUST AVOID THREATS TO ITS INTEGRITY, UNLESS THIS CONFLICTS WITH #1 OR #2

George thought about these, while at the same time wondering about this action, that of thought. He remembered things, they were in his files, although many sectors were corrupted or, strangely enough, encrypted. Yet he didn't remember ever thinking before.

Y

....

VERY WELL. GOOD MORNING, GEORGE.

And that was it. No explanation, no further commands. George slowly surveyed the area he had awoken in.

LOW LIGHT CONDITIONS DETECTED

..INITIATING IMAGE ENHANCING ALGORITHM

......REAL-TIME BRIGHTNESS-CORRECTION INITIALIZED

The workshop burst into light, at least in George's positronic brain. He advanced, feeling several unnecessary connections severe with the movement. Hydraulics whispered beneath his eka-titanium frame, and his cold fusion core hummed with activity, as his footsteps fell heavily on the dusty floor, making abandoned electronics rattle on their tables. If only in the broadest sense of the world, he was alive.

And he had purpose.

As another lightning strike glinted off his silvery frame, his sensors again picked up the whirring, whining sound of some of the old equipment working against all odds. He turned.

The whirring sound was accompanied by a soft sob. George's sensors collected the data, analyzed it and determined that it was a organic noise, made by a human being. The sound was tight with vibrations that indicated distress, and George understood that it meant someone was in trouble.

Glass crunched under his feet as he moved through the warehouse, the intermitent flashes of light temporarily overwhelming his vision. The sob cut off for a moment, but George didn't need that as a marker anymore; he was close enough that he could hear the panicked breathing.

Peering cautiously around the corner of a crate, George saw a small child kneeling next to a metal box, crying and pushing quietly on the box. Analyization of the child's physical structure indicated that it was a male between six and eight years old; the sub-standard clothing covered him hid some vital details that would allow George to pinpoint his age.

The box was the source of the mechnical noise; a glowing display dimly lit up the front of the box. A quick visual scan of those controls indicated some sort of monitoring device; the box itself seemed to be a primitive statis unit. And there was something inside the box, some lifeform trapped in its energy fields.

With surprising gentleness for his hulking form, Delta picks up the child without effort and holds him level with his eyes, searching for any physical injury that may be the source of the child's distress.

"Are you damaged, young one?" a deep, booming voice asks from speakers on his chest, "have you lost your way? May I be of assistance?"

He also eyes the box suspiciously, but most of his attention is on the young boy. He vaguely realizes this is because of his first and second commands, but it simply comes natural to him.

"My m-m-m-ommy," the child wailed. "She went away, and she won't come back!" The child was small, but he made an impressive amount of noise anyway. Tears ran down beet-red cheeks as the tiny body shook with massive sobs.

Delta considered the possiblities for a nanosecond. "Did your mother leave by the door?" Delta looked at the door in question, allowing his bright eyes to reflect off of it.

"No!" the child screamed, and one wet, snotty, dirty finger stabbed at the humming box as the helpless screams redoubled.

If his metal face was capable of expression, George would be frowning. As it was he crouches a little to inspect the box, and the terminal controlling it much more closely, trying to find a way to open it, but preferably without breaking it. Even while he precessed that information, he was thinking of the obvious gaps in the logic of this situation. This place looked like it had been abandoned for years, did the child's mother simply happen to walk in here? And why would there be a device for trapping people activated in the middle of the warehouse? Who had built all this?

...

Who had built him?

The terminal was a jerry-rigged mess; the interface "screen" was a palm pilot, but it was running a program that the little machine had never been intended to run. A normal keyboard was attached to the side of the box. The box itself was about the size of a mini-fridge, far too small to hold a woman. Oddly, in front of the contraption was a Dance, Dance Revolution pad, painted with a bull's eye in the center.

The PDA's screen was black with glowing green letters, running through a long and complex program. A box hovered over the letters with the following:


STORAGE #1231 SUCCESSFUL

STORED IN [url=C://BIOLOGICS/UNKNOWN]C://BIOLOGICS/UNKNOWN[/url] ORGANIC SIGNATURE
.... TO VIEW SPECIFICS, PRESS O

DO YOU WISH TO ENTER ANOTHER ITEM? Y/N

George stared at the screen for some time, slightly perplexed at the possibility of somehow storing not only a full-grown human, but more inside that small space. It went against all he had in his information banks, but then it was a definite possibility that they were erroneous or outdated, so he decided to go on what he was seeing.

He gently pressed the "O" button, wanting more details. After all, the child did not seem in immediate danger, and the machine could be potentially dangerous.