Warden

floor, she wasn’t able to get a grip. Her teeth merely skimmed the surface.
She tried to face the wall head on, but her nose got in the way. It was no use: the human design of her face simply wasn’t equipped to bite into straight surfaces like these.
She slumped, hitting her head on the hard floor once again. Pain flared at the back of her skull, but this time it coincided with a wave of dizziness.
An alert flashed on her HUD.
Warning. Rear cranial cavity close to collapse. Shell integrity at five percent. Consciousness failure imminent.
Darkness filled her vision.
Voices.
She opened her eyes to find herself yet lying in the metallic container. There was a man looking down upon her from the edge. Long dreadlocks tumbled past his weathered, shaved cheeks. A thin visor rested beneath his brows, just above his eyes, which the dark band didn’t cover. He wore a black and gray uniform.
Movement drew her gaze to the small, spherical drone that hovered above her; it rotated longitudinally, as if scanning.
“She’s awake,” came a deep male baritone.
The voice was sourced from the opposite side of the container, directly across from the man. She glanced that way to find herself staring into a face composed entirely of polycarbonate: a black oval with a gray visor stretched across where the eyes would be, and a metallic grill resided in place of a mouth. Two antennae on top of the head imparted an insectile impression.
“The drone indicates her brain is only functioning at sixty percent of maximum cognitive efficiency,” the robot stated. “She’s got damage to her pulmonary and cardiovascular substitutes, which is only exacerbated by her head injury. Fluid is building up next to her brain.”
“Transfer her to the gurney,” the man said.
“You really want to do this?” the robot asked.
“I do,” the man replied. “We’re not leaving her here to die.”
“And the mark on her forehead?” the robot pressed.
The man shrugged.
The robot remained motionless for several moments, and then it reached down and wrapped two cold, steel hands around her torso. It lifted.
Warning. Consciousness failure imminent.
Blackness filled her vision once more.
When she opened her eyes, this time it was to find herself lying on a floating platform of sorts. Around her, the ruined buildings bent and curved toward the sky like talons.
The robot and the man walked alongside her, making their way across the rubble in escort, their feet crunching on the fragments of debris that fanned across the roadway: shattered concrete, broken glass, twisted rebar.
She noticed belongings strewn amongst the ruins at random intervals: a dresser with hole-riddled clothes overflowing from its drawers; a shattered pair of augmented reality glasses; a couch with its filling gutted by birds and mice. Shattered hopes, gutted dreams.
She also spotted the occasional robot parts protruding from the rubble. The man sometimes paused to examine a crushed cranium or a severed arm, but he usually tossed them aside and moved on. At one point, however, he did pocket what looked like a small knee servomotor.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
Before either of her escorts could answer, the usual warning filled her vision.
Consciousness failure imminent.
She awakened to four bright, white lights. Their glare filled her vision and forced her to squint. She attempted to move, but still had no arms and legs, at least as far as she could tell. Looking down, she realized her torso was strapped to some sort of table. She indeed had no arms and legs, but the torso appeared to have been partially repaired: a discolored piece of metal now filled the gaping hole in the right side. She still had no abdomen or hips, however.
She wiggled her upper body, struggling for a moment against the strap that held her down, but then the lights dimmed, and the robot and man pair stepped into view.
“What do you want with me?” she asked. “Please. Just let me go.”
“We only want to help,” the man replied. “We’ve reinforced your rear cranial cavity and stabilized your cardiopulmonary system.”
She stared into his eyes. They seemed kind, trustworthy. She wanted to believe him.
“Why?” she asked. “I can’t give you anything in return.”
“I couldn’t leave you to die back there,” the man told her. “It wouldn’t be right. That said, you’ll have to work for us when we’re finished your repairs.”
She shifted her gaze between the man and the robot. “And who are you, exactly?”
“I’m Will,” the man said. He jerked a thumb toward the robot. “And this is Horatio. The drone behind me is Gizmo.”
Her eyes darted to the small sphere that hovered behind Will before returning to his face.
“We’re salvagers,” Will continued. “Nomads: we gather what we can from the ruins of our once great cities and sell the parts for money. And you are?”
“I am…” she hesitated. “I— I don’t really know.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Will pressed.
She furrowed her brow, thinking. Finally: “The last thing I remember is waking up in that pod…”
Will nodded. “Our scans pointed to possible selective amnesia, typical of a mind wipe. They erased your memories and personality—all the knowledge of who you were—but left everything else intact: your ability to talk, swallow, walk, and otherwise carry on your daily life. You can still form and retain new memories, as far as we can tell, so that’s a good thing.”
“Who would want to wipe my mind?” she asked.
Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“With a mark like that,” Horatio said, nodding at her forehead, “it’s not hard to imagine she’s made a few enemies over the years.”
“Shh,” Will said. “No need to speak of that.”
She frowned, curious about this so-called mark, but a more pressing matter was on her mind: “Will these memories of mine come back?”
“I don’t know,” Will admitted. “It’s possible.”
He tilted his head toward the small drone, Gizmo, as if the hovering robot was communicating with him. Then he glanced at Horatio. “Gizmo thinks she could be lying. What do you think?”
Horatio glanced at the drone before returning his attention