Engineering Marvel

This is a… new development. Despite the many journeys amongst my many selves, this is a strange form even for the people that I’ve seen up to this point. How does one tell oneself that they are not… mechanical in any way? Because I’ve found myself strapped against a table and staring up at a trio of mechanical versions of people. Well, mostly mechanical. There are places where they’re clearly made of metals of some sort – they each seem to be of a different one – and others where it’s obviously flesh. And there’s a few places where the two materials seem to blend together to shift between different areas. For instance, one of them looks to be made of copper, his ear shining dully until it hits the temple and jaw where it blends into skin.

“What is this?”

The one that looks to be an iron composite of some sort leans over, grinning widely underneath a metal plate nose – a well-made one no less. Between the three of them, he seems almost like the leader, but the other shiny one, whose metal is oddly polished and one I can’t name, is sitting back watching it all like a sort of supervisor. The copper person is bouncing back and forth like a puppy pulling gears and parts out of everything and smacking them in a machine over my head.

“Well, we’re just wondering what goes on in the head of this places…” He frowns lightly, almost thoughtful. “Master? Controller? God? Whatever it is you are,” he sighs, happily leaning back and strolling around the table they have me strapped to.

“And… why would you want to know that?”

“Because we want to know why we’re metal.”

For a moment, I blink at the third bot person as he stares boredly at me. “I could tell you that without you opening up my head.”

Loud clangs echo in my ear, sending a headache through to my temple as I clench my teeth in pain. Glancing over, the copper man gapes at me, metal teeth gleaming and a speaker in the back of his throat. So they don’t actually have to move their mouths to speak, then? Maybe that’s just him, though. But they all sound rather mechanical, digital in a way when they speak. It’s more likely, since my mind is complicated and like heavy amounts of details put into all the things in my imagination, that they have either a sort of vocal chord data set or the actual vocal chords in them somewhere. If it’s the data, then it’s probably stored in their brain, which would send signals into some sort of nerve translator that would feed into a processor, then be translated into words to be spoken that would play out in a specific pitch or tone related to the emotional output of the brain’s thoughts. Opening their mouth might give a signal that a thought is meant to be spoken, in such a case. Interesting…

“You know why we’re metal?” the copper one squeaks, popping up at my side. “You really know?”

“Well, I’d hope so, if this is my own head.”

“Oh yeah. One of the people we tried to grab said something about being in a head.” Amazingly moving to my side, the bored one looks down at me with a very vague expression of thought. “So you’re more like a controller than a master or god. You create everything here?”

With as much of a shrug as on can give when strapped down, I blink up at him in a similarly bored manner. “Sort of. As far as my meditation teacher taught me, this is more of a subconscious to me than the actual mind. And everyone in it is me in one form or another.”

“But you’re a girl,” the ‘leader’ squeals, leaning back and looking at himself. “I’m not a girl! I’m a guy!”

“Don’t you know that both males and females have some traces of each gender? That’s why people become transgender or cross-dress.” Which actually makes loads of sense if one thought about homosexuality in such a sense. “You’re a guy because you embody one of my more masculine tendencies in my subconscious. And since the majority of the people I speak to in my head are male, I must predominantly identify with a more masculine figure. In other words, I feel more boyish than girlish because I’m more influenced by ideas and thoughts that would normally be considered male tendencies.”

“Is that why we’re boys?” the copper one hums, setting his head into his hands as he leans his elbows on the table. “I thought it was because we were built that way.”

Built that way? “If you were built to be male, then that means you would have more male tendency than if you were built female,” I muse to myself. “But since you were built, that also means that, if your influences become female, you could just as easily become a female yourself. It would just be a matter of switching parts… My mind must be very complex to have come up with that one. It’s starting to do very strange things without my permission as well.”

“Obviously,” the bored one huffs, turning away. “I’m going on a walk.”

“Be careful of water!” the copper one calls out. “We don’t want to rust.”

“I wonder,” the one of iron composite hums quietly. “I wonder.”

This is a very strange occurrence in my head. Really, when did my mind suddenly decide that I was some sort of mechanical person? Although, I have been thinking about mechanical engineering as a career. But that was decided to be purely a hobby last week, or so I had figured since mechanical engineering is pretty much inventing or building machines and that is not exactly my kind of fun. No one even trusts me with a lighter, forget the welding torch.