[Stella] The Savage Beast: Ch. 1

Ever have one of those days where your mind just blanks out and entire lengths of time pass where you aren't aware of what's going on?  That must've been what happened to me today, because I surely had no other explanation of how I found myself on a cobblestone path, passing underneath the foliage of different kinds of trees.  But the day was warm and sunny with a few fluffy clouds in the sky, so I guess things could've been worse.  Around me, I could hear the sounds of children laughing and playing...I must've ended up in a city park.  But exactly why I was here continued to elude my mind; I didn't have any recollection of planning to go to a park today, but figured that if I was here, it had to be for a reason.  Hoping that I'd spot something to help jog my memory, I continued walking along the path, continuously panning the landscape with my eyes.  Nothing about the park seemed unusual.  But I wish I'd paid a little more attention to what was in front of me, because I came very near bumping into these two hedgehogs (one dark blue, one pink) who were walking at a leisurely pace in front of me.  Though I couldn't see their faces, I surmised they were a young couple, based on their holding hands and the pink one pushing what looked to be a baby stroller.  I opened my mouth to apologize for almost bumping into them, but ultimately decided it wasn't necessary, for they continued to walk as if I wasn't even there.

I wanted to move past them so I could get a good look at the rest of the park, but with them taking up most of the narrow path and people walking by in the other direction, I didn't want to cause a scene.  So I patiently waited until the path opened up to a circle that surrounded a graceful marble fountain.  They walked one direction while I walked the other, and I spent the next several minutes checking out the other paths that radiated from the fountain.  The whole time, I didn't see anybody I recognized.  So I returned to the fountain, sitting down on a wooden park bench that faced it, staring at the cascades of water and trying to figure out what was going on.  Beyond the fountain I could see that same hedgehog couple sitting on a bench as well, their blue and pink colors contrasting sharply against the greens and browns of the flora.  Something about them stood out in my mind, and I wanted to get closer to figure out why; perhaps they reminded me of someone I knew.  I rose and walked around the fountain to get just close enough to see their faces, and when I did, I was even more intrigued -- I didn't recognize the hedgehogs, but something about their features seemed vaguely familiar, and it was driving me crazy.  After standing there for a minute, deciding on whether I should approach them and ask, the blue hedgehog rose from the bench and walked off to a park bathroom nearby, leaving the pink one alone with the baby carriage.  Given their age, it was probably the couple's first child, and she'd probably get worried if a stranger approached and asked questions like the kind I was thinking of asking, so I again decided to do nothing.  A few seconds later, though, I saw this little red fox cub, no more than eight years old, approach the girl and say something to her.  I was too far away to decipher what they were saying, but the kid was pointing up at a tree and I could see a kite sticking out of it, so I presume he was asking for her assistance.  The hedgehog seemed hesitant about it at first, but ultimately acquiesced and stood up.  My jaw dropped to see her completely walk away from her baby carriage, even if it may have only been for a few seconds.  I couldn't just stand there and do nothing any longer; I quickly approached the carriage to keep the baby safe from intruders, and decided I'd take a look inside to confirm whether there actually was a baby in there.  But as I peeked my head underneath the canopy, I heard a voice yell out "That girl is trying to take that baby!"  I gasped and started to back away, but before I could turn around and justify my actions to my accuser, a black bag was quickly thrust over my head!

I screamed and shot up from my bed.  In the darkness I heard no sounds by the pounding of my heart and my heavy breathing.  I saw nothing but the soft red glow of the numbers on my bedside clock, which read 3:02 AM -- it was still the middle of the night.  That was one of the strangest dreams I've had in a long time, and for it to end so unexpectedly really set me on edge.  I reached forward to click on my small bedside lamp, and as the cool white glow filled the room, I looked around to confirm that there weren't any mysterious "bad guys" lurking in the shadows to kidnap me.  In fact, nothing was out of place, so I slowed my breathing and attempted to calm back down enough to fall asleep again.  But that nightmare left me in a sweat, and despite tossing and turning for a few minutes, I just couldn't get comfortable again.  I finally mumbled "Ah, to heck with it" and clicked on the light once more.  I removed my sleeping shirt and thin pajama pants and neatly draped them over my desk chair, then walked over to the opposite wall to switch on my ceiling fan to the highest setting, and lied back down again in my underwear, above the sheets.

I'd only intended to leave the fan on for long enough to cool down, but I guess I fell asleep, because by the time morning came, I was curled up in the fetal position and shivering.  I was awakened by a familiar baritone voice calling out "Stella, time to wake up."  I opened my eyes and sat up to find the silhouette of my father standing in the doorway.  He's always been a whole lot taller than me, with an overall rounded figure and disproportionately spindly legs.  His hair has been gone for as long as I can remember, with his thick, bushy mustache fading from brown to a salt-and-pepper gray as the years passed.  With a largely nonchalant tone, he muttered "I saw you shivering...you might want to get a hot shower so you don't catch a cold."  Then, suddenly remembering I was in my underwear, I yelped and pulled the satin gray bed sheet up to my chest, blushing.  He rolled his eyes and said "I gave you baths and changed your diaper as a baby...believe me, you don't have anything under there that I haven't already seen."  He was right, but if he was trying to reassure me, it wasn't working.  He left the room to give me a chance to get myself ready, and after getting a shower in my attached bathroom to wash away the sweat from the night before, I was thumbing through my drawers for some clean underwear and clothes to wear that day.  (I didn't have much choice to pick from, as all my outfits were different color variations on the same basic theme -- Dad was the one who supplied my clothes, and they looked much like his.)

But just as I was buttoning up my shirt, I saw something sticking off the top edge of the wardrobe, and pulled it down.  It turns out it was the photo album Dad and I had put together over the years, "to catalog me growing up so I'd always keep him in my heart."  It had been quite some time since I'd looked at it, based on the dust that had settled upon its cover.  I sat down on the corner of my bed and started flipping through the pages, as if to remind myself.  The first photo was of me at my first birthday, sitting in a high chair, clapping and giggling at the birthday cake with the big numeral "1" in its center, followed by a picture of me with more cake all over my face and hands than went in my mouth.  The opposite page chronicled what must've been me taking my first steps, as I saw myself in a pink onesie shakily walking out of the claws of one of Dad's signature robots, and towards his waiting arms.  I must've picked it up quickly, judging by the next photo that showed me a little bit older, running down a blue-green hallway with Dad chasing after me...and I was just having the grandest old time in my birthday suit.  I grinned with bemusement as I reflected on what my father had said to me earlier.  I then turned the page to see me, about four years old if I had to guess, busily coloring in a coloring book as Dad looked on, and on the opposite page was a crude drawing I had done with a silver gel pen on blueprint paper, and it looked a lot like me standing next to Dad, holding hands and smiling.  I continued flipping through the pages, watching myself continue to grow as I began my homeschooling, which included all the basic subjects as well as an introduction to robotics, which is how Dad says he made his millions and so it was naturally a subject he wanted me to know.  Then I came across a photo with a date inscribed in it, letting me know it was from when I was 10 years old, with Dad introducing me to some of the handheld weaponry, like laser pistols, he'd invented as a side business to his robots.  He even took me out to the on-campus warehouse where he put his robots through weapons training, and let me practice my aim on a bunch of stuffed animals.  I know for a fact I picked up quickly on that, because to this day I can still shoot the head off a plush fox from 50 feet away, blindfolded.  And I also remember that as I got older, Dad started giving me small responsibilities over his robots, and it's grown to the point that just two years ago, he made me his right-hand girl, ensuring that all the robots were properly maintained and always ready for action.

Suddenly, I heard a knock on my door and looked up to see Dad standing there.  "Stella, I've been waiting for you."  I sheepishly grinned and apologized, and put back the photo album before following him to the robot-repair wing of the campus.  Walking through the automatic double doors, I gasped to find six robots with varying degrees of damage, ranging from a few dents and scratches to barely holding together in one piece.  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, because I remembered tuning up these robots just yesterday at Dad's request, and now my eight hours of hard work had been flushed down the drain.  "What in the world happened to them?!"  Dad growled and said "The savages...the anthro savages carried out another attack on the city."  (I was well aware of these savages...they were these freaks of nature, animals who walked upright and could talk and think like humans, who came out of nowhere decades ago and started launching bands of attacks on human populations for reasons on which I could only speculate.)  I stomped my foot and pounded my fist in my hand, muttering "I wish I had a chance to meet some of these savages face to face...I'd blast them right in the head with a laser pistol, just like those plush targets you trained me to shoot."  Dad put a hand on my shoulder and said "I definitely understand your anger, Stella, but these anthros are too clever and too dangerous to fight face-to-face.  That's why I designed and built these robots, remember?  A robot can be repaired or even rebuilt, but if something were to happen to you, I don't know what I'd do."  I couldn't argue with him on that point, so I told him I'd start right away on the repair work, and so I grabbed my welder's mask and gloves, and lit up an acetylene torch to start cutting away the front body panels on the first robot.

Six grueling hours later, the robots were in as good of shape as I could manage.  Dad came back to survey my work, and was exceptionally pleased.  "I have trained you well, Stella...I knew you wouldn't let me down."  Then he asked me "Oh, there was something else...how goes your progress on that experimental robot design I asked you to work on?"  I walked over to the computer on the opposite wall and turned it on, and within a minute, I had a 3D wireframe model of the robot's head and torso on display.  After showing him some detailed views of the inner workings, he admitted that even he wouldn't have thought to come up with such a configuration, and he lauded me with praise once again.  "You're even more intelligent and clever than I'd hoped.  Ooh, this is just marvelous!  When can I expect to see the construction of a prototype?"  I gave him an estimated timetable to completion, and it seemed to satisfy him.  "Go ahead and take some time to relax, Stella...you've done a good day's work."

The campus where I call home is massive, and in my eighteen years I've probably seen every corner of it.  But in spite of its size, there are only a handful of areas that could remotely be called recreational, as Dad was always goal-oriented and never had much of a work-life balance.  My preferred place to hang out was the library, which was on the other side of the campus, not far from the room where Dad kept a "museum" of the different generations of robots he and I have designed over time.  The characteristic musty smell of old books was there to greet me as I entered, as always, and as I looked around at the dozens of bookshelves, I was in search of something I hadn't read in a while (for I'd read every single book in this library at least once).  A tall hardbound book with a bright red cover caught my eye, and I pulled it off to discover it was a book about travel.  I remembered it contained detailed descriptions of cities in faraway lands, all around the world, along with plenty of full-color photos.  I thumbed to a random page and refreshed my memory about a city in the Orient, which had grown rapidly over the past hundred years and now was a bustling metropolis with the kind of mechanical beauty that rivaled the robots I worked with on a daily basis.  Wanting to take my mind off robots, I flipped to another section and saw photos of dense, steamy jungles with almost every kind of plant and animal life imaginable.  The colors were simply jaw-dropping, and I found myself whispering out loud "I wish I could see these kinds of places myself someday."  But I didn't want to get my hopes up -- Dad told me that it wasn't safe to venture into the outside world, where the savages often hid in the woods waiting to prey upon innocent bystanders.  (Even the times I watched him leave the campus, it was always within the shield of a personal hovercraft with a robot guard entourage, or sometimes in a massive airship he liked to call the Egg Fort.)  I chose to close the book, return it to its spot on the shelf, and grabbed a physics textbook to read instead.  But I wasn't really interested in physics at that moment -- it was more to take my mind off the subject.  I decided after five minutes that it wasn't helping, so I put it back and left the library.  Onward I trekked to the campus gym, which I used a whole lot more than my father did.  I grabbed a small white towel and hopped on a treadmill for a brisk jog.  As with the physics textbook, it was really an attempt to clear my mind.  Fifteen minutes later, I'd had enough, and decided to return to my room for a shower to cool myself down.

Later that evening, I was sitting at a table across from Dad in the campus mess hall.  One of Dad's special servant robots had prepared and set before us an exquisite meal of sirloin steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  Ordinarily I'm a pretty big fan of steak, but today I didn't have much appetite, despite not having eaten much at all that day.  That travel textbook with tantalizing destinations was still weighing upon my mind, and it really bugged me.  Dad saw me picking idly at my mashed potatoes and asked me if something was wrong.  I looked up at his tired eyes that were wrinkled from age, sighed, and said "I wish I had something more in my life, Dad."  He put down his fork and wiped his mouth, and with a characteristic subtle expression of concern, asked "What more could you possibly want, Stella?  I've raised you as my own.  I've put a roof over your head, kept you safe from danger, given you clothes to wear, given you food -- which you're not even eating -- and I've given you a very important job to give you a sense of purpose and belonging."  I nodded in acknowledgement and replied "But I still feel like there's something missing.  The only people I ever see around here are you, me, and the robots.  The robots can't say or do anything unless we program them for it, and you're always off doing your own thing.  I wish I had somebody to talk to, maybe somebody my age.  I know this place is huge, but I really wish I could step outside sometime and experience all the things I've only read about in books.  Maybe you could take me along on one of your trips outside sometime?  I mean, you've got your robots for protection, right?"  Dad sighed and said "I understand how you feel, Stella, but it's a dangerous world out there, and if I can be honest, you're naive.  I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you get injured -- or worse -- just because you wanted to satisfy your curiosity.  Remember, everything I do is to keep you safe."  My frustration had finally hit a boiling point, and I shot to my feet and pounded the table with my fist.  "And almost everything I do is for you!  When was the last time you asked me what I wanted to do for the day?  You certainly never asked me if I wanted to devote my life to robotics!  What if I wanted to do something else with my life?  You certainly never gave me the chance!"  Dad's jaw dropped at such a raw display of emotion from me, and I surprised even myself.  I closed my eyes and uttered "I'm sorry" and sunk back down into my seat.  For the rest of the meal, neither of us said a word, but I did end up eating some of my food to appease him.

Night time finally came, and I was walking down the hallway to my room.  I put my fingerprint against the scanner to unlock the door, and as it slid open, I took a good look at the little piece of the place I could call my own.  But it certainly didn't feel like my own: the walls were made of gray steel plates that had a tinge of blue to them; my full-size bed, while comfortable, had sheets in various shades of gray; the small bedside lamp was a design of steel and glass; the dresser drawers and mirror frame were made of a dark cherry wood that looked almost black; and even the inside of my bathroom was plain with white tile floor, dark gray painted walls, and white shower curtain.  The only things in the room with any real color were my clothes, which I had no say in choosing.  There were no posters or other decorations on the walls or ceiling; there wasn't even a window for me to look outside whenever I was feeling depressed.  And right now, I could've really used a window to look out of.  I deliberately fell forward and flopped on my bed, still fully dressed.  I lied there, face down in my pillow, and I could feel the tears seeping from my eyes.  I began sniffling, and before long I was crying my eyes out.  My outburst before was a bit out-of-character for me, but I meant every word of it; I desperately wanted to make friends, explore the world, and actually do something with my life.  I don't even remember falling asleep.