Thames eyes shot open as he sensed a hand moving towards his face.
Confused, he tried to bring his arm up to intercept it then to his horror, realized he was unable to move his hand.
Or any part of his body for that matter.
As Panic was about to set in, a soothing voice washed over him.
"Oh, you're awake" The voice sounded cheerful and annoyed at the same time.
"Thought it would take you longer, seeing how banged up your armor was"
Thames exhaled slowly, still apprehensive about the whole situation.
Last he remembered, he was about to be eaten by the bug queen when a salvo of explosions had saved him.
Then he used every ounce of his energy to kill the overgrown centipede.
Had he passed out??.
"Who are you and Where am I?" He asked, his voice sounding more hoarse than he thought. "Why can't I move my body and-"
"Relax, how am I supposed to answer you if you're going to rapid fire questions like this?" It replied, clearly annoyed with him.
The voice finally moved into his view and Thames was surprised.
Floating above him was a compact machine, hovering with unnatural stillness, it's shape was sleek and symmetrical.
Soft Blue LEDs pulsated along it's body, steady and rhythmic.
It's thin arms hanging alongside it.
"I'm your Digital Reconnaissance and Overwatch Network Extension, or DRONE for short"
The Drone focused it's light on him, waiting for Thames to digest his answer.
Meanwhile Thames was lost in thought contemplating the drone's response.
"What's your opinion on waffles?" He asked.
"Huh?, What are those and what do they have to do with anything.", The Drone replied in it's robotic voice, managing to sound annoyed.
'Okay, this weird machine is either a sentient AI or one of those scientists creatures, because a normal AI would have just responded with actual details on waffles'.
Thames had reached this conclusion because he already had a lot of experience with sentient AI's back home.
A bunch of AIs gained sentience about 200 years ago and even had the capacity to awaken. They started to demand rights to be recognized as one of the main races next to the likes of Humans and Mermaids and the other races.
Safe to say that it didn't really go smoothly with people angry at the fact that they lost what was up till that moments their servants.
But with multiple peaceful negotiations and threats of war, they were able to compromise.
Stopping himself from reminiscing about home, Thames focused back on the Drone.
"So you're for spying on me?" He asked, not really caring for the answer.
"More like observing, you are one of the few successful WARFORGE prototypes the HIVE has created, it would be valuable data to understand how you work".
"Okay hold up, First of all, there were hundreds of people In those tubes with me, how am I one of the few successful?." He asked, barely holding down the revulsion the memory invoked in him.
"Second, what's a Warforge and the Hive?."
"Ah yes, the others who were with you, Well, if you must know, you are the only one who retained his reason since the last 3 squad creations.
The others are just mindless husks that do whatever we tell them to". The Drone replied, it's blue LEDs shifting into a more Green hue.
"The WarForge are soldiers we create so they can destroy the Rot and why are you asking about the HIVE?.
You should already know that?.
Seems your memory was corrupted during the process"
"Yeah, Sure" Thames replied, relieved that the Drone has made up a convenient reason as to how he didn't know what the Hive was.
That was going to make enquiring about the situation he was in much easier.
"So you're saying I'm the only sentient Warforge or whatever you called it?, and I'm supposed to combat the Rot?, whatever that is."
"One of them yes" It pointed out. "But at this specific time, you're the only one. It's very resource consuming to actually figure out a way preserve the Ego's of the countless test subjects while we're editing their muscle and brain memories to make them better fighters, We just figured out why not study the brains of those that actually retain sentience then replicate that".
Thames furrowed his brows at that statement, "So you're waiting for me to die?."
"Oops, kinda underestimated you there, thought you wouldn't figure that out.
But yes we are, only sentient beings can fight the Rot competently, but you're just one person, highly dangerous yes, but still far lower than the numbers we require, It's even the reason why I saved you from the Nightstalker Queen, she would have mangled you completely and we can't have that".
Thames resisted the urge to slice the Drone in half and shoot it in the head, the way it talked to him like he was bacteria under a microscope made him sick.
But he couldn't.
He still had questions to ask and he still couldn't move any part of his Body.
Also fighting it would just be a futile endeavor because the amount of weapons it has unleashed on the Queen was staggering.
He noticed it kept mentioning the Rot but was skirting around actually explaining what it was. Undoubtedly, it didn't want to talk about it.
"Okay cool", he replied after chasing away all filing away all the relevant information in his head. "So all you need me to do is kill monsters until I die?".
"Correct" The machine hummed, it LEDs shifting to a Neon Green colour.
Thames was great at colour theory but he couldn't understand what it was shifting colors for.
"So why can't I move?" Thames asked.
"Oh my bad, your armor is on rest mode to try and fix it's system after the heavy damage it had been through, it'll turn back on anytime now and—."
WHIRRR
The Armor lights flickered as it turned on, allowing Thames to actually move.
"See, told you it wouldn't take long".