The Doctor

Space Station Antioch, Orbiting Uninhibited planet

"We have made rather interesting discoveries in our latest batch" Said a man wearing a transparent lab coat with a black uniform underneath. He walked a group of what looked like first year students to a room he called, "The Incubator, here we breed and raise our subjects"

"How long does it take to breed and raise a test subject?" Asked one of the younger students.

"We take around a month at most, two is the farthest acceptable time period for the subject to achieve self-awareness. Once they begin to do most basic interactions we commence the induction process" The man approached the door and it opened revealing a room filled with at least five hundred small metallic tubes, ordered in several lines, connected to their network sentient computer that analyzed every single input from the test subjects. "Right now we are running only half of our tubes due to a lack of subjects but we await to have the rest by the end of our planetary cycle"

"Professor" Another young man, blond haired, rose a hand which was immediately lowered as the man placed his on the man. "I mean, Doctor Helger"

"Never forget. I am a Doctor not a Professor, I don't follow nor would I ever follow any of the academic methods or procedures, to follow through with the established paradigm is to eventually die a fool, we must push boundaries, never mind the academy and the government funding this project, ignore their lackeys, the hunt-hounds and the political trash that dare step into our station, they are only a mean to reach the true objective” The young man remained silent for a second wondering if he should say anything at all. "Their little minds lack the power to understand what the true power of becoming a God means, for them it is only an economical gain or a tactical superiority, it sickens me” The Doctor clenched his fists as he looked to the ceiling and began breathing in a controlled pattern. “I am sorry about that, could you repeat the question again?” Seeing no answer from the student the Doctor berated him immediately “Come on I don't bite, I may be angry most of the time but ignore that, it is part of being me. What was it that you wanted to know?"

"Well, I wanted to know about the current batch of subjects, has at anytime any of the subjects become fully aware of what is going around him?"

"As in?"

"Have they awakened?"

"A very Interesting question you just brought up. To this point we haven't had a subject that has achieved such thing but we are also speaking about subjects that have never been--" The station suddenly quaked as if it had been hit by something. "Hercules, report"

"Hercules on-line. The source of the impact is located in the thruster A, it is unknown at this point what hit us, nothing was reported on sub-space scanners" Reported an almost Human voice but still revealed the taint of a mechanical being. "At this point no security or emergency deployment is necessary as per current damage assessment, the Chief of Security and the Chief of Engineering have both been informed of this incident to investigate further"

"Good Hercules. Thanks for the report, keep me informed of the development"

"Hercules off-line"

"That is our advanced defense system, also a prototype from the early days of the station, he has been assigned to protect us ever since we released it to the station and now has reached a point where it also runs the experiments of this station, at this rate it will not be necessary to have human interaction with Hercules when our first batch is released into a protected environment"

"Hercules on-line. Doctor Helger I will advice you to--" The signal crackled and went out for a second. "Please proceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." Slowly the voice began to get deeper and to fade away to the point where it died.

"Hercules, Hercules?" The Doctor walked past by the students and when trying to enter the room where the super computer was located the door wouldn't open. "Damn. Well I think our tour for today just ended and I just hope security has--"

Lights went off on the station together with the life support system, everything slowly stopped around them and with it panic slowly grew with it, panic turned into horror when the emergency systems did not go off-line and the group found itself floating in a cold hallway, struggling to breath. From both ends of the hallways horrible squeals could be heard, metal being ripped apart and something breaking down, machines and glass. to ensue when the backup system was not coming on-line and when horrible squeals could be heard from both ends of the hallway.

"Everyone remain calm" The Doctor, holding from a side bar next a window looking at the planet, awaited for security or engineering to do something about the situation, it worried him that he had seen no answer yet and was fearful that they would not survive whatever was coming at them, specially with the squealing becoming louder and no gunshots around them. "Damn..."

Suddenly one of the doors on the hallway opened and a massive figure appeared on the frame, it was someone from security as the Doctor recognized the mechanical sounds of a power armor, when it walked into their sight it became apparent that the situation was worse than he had thought, the armor had been terribly damaged with cables coming out of the left side of the torax, the left shoulder and upper arm missing, the top part of the helmet ripped apart by something that looked like a claw and a clank and buzz coming from both legs. The eyes on the armor pulsed with a bloody red and analyzed the surrounding area until they found the Doctor.

"Doctor Helger" The voice, a mechanical dead voice, came from the armor, the Doctor was not sure who the person was, he had doubts he was part of the security team to begin with. "You are coming with me"

"Who are you?” Asked the Doctor with a low tone of voice

“Salvation” The mechanical voice echoed as the squealing and destruction approached them ever faster. “There is little time left for you to come with me”

What if I don't!" The man pointed his rifle at the group of students. "No, wait, stop it, what do you think you are doing?"

"Leaving a bait for those things, they are not a priority or of anyones interest” Red and yellow lights lit up on the hallway and slowly life support systems picked back up, the Doctor took a deep breath and looked again at the power armor. “Doctor, you have little time to choose and if I can't take you willingly I will do it by force”

“Fine, fine, don't hurt them” Light violently returned to the hallway and with it came a moment of blindness.

“We must prepare”

"Prepare for what?" The readjustment to light took longer than what the Doctor had expected, as he slowly picked up his vision he saw in horror at the body armor, the damages he had seen with the poor lightning was nothing compared to the reality of the power armor, scrap metal was the correct word for it, furthermore no one was inside the suit, the suspicions of the Doctor were slowly being confirmed, the impact had probably been a drop pod full of automated suits that were looking for him. From the open door came more of the suits and service robots that had probably been reprogrammed as they now held weaponry. The body armor extended the left arm toward the open door. "Please, proceed"

“Don't do anything stupid” The Doctor said while facing the machine and walking to the door, the message had been intended for the students but they did not listen, instead the students tried to push through and run, the Doctor was in shock as the machines rapidly worked their way through the feeble attempts of the students to go through them and soon there were only pieces of them laying around, flesh and bone ripped apart, sinew and organs littering the ground, the machines had no heart and seek only the best way to resolve an issue and by their calculations this would avoid them any additional quarrel with whatever was coming to them for long enough for them to get out.

"You retarded mongoloids, this will not go unpunished, Earth will respond to this violation--" The powered armor pushed the Doctor through the open door and quickly through the hallway until they reached a door with a the emblem of a cog and a triskelion. "The Empire of the Machines, really?"

"Doctor Helger you are of interest to the Empire of the Machine, this is why we have come this far to include you in our current set of plans" The mechanical voice rang through the hallway and as soon as he had finished the door with the emblem opened, inside a cryogenic tube open and waiting.

"Are you aware of the repercussions this will have, you are mad, they will hunt you to the end of the universe if necessary!" The powered armor pulled the Doctor into the room and threw him into the cryogenic tube. “Fools!”

"Humanity could not even begin to understand the power we hold. The Empire of the Machines cannot be stopped by your armed forces or space fleet, we have begun to transcend such idiocies" Robots ran through the hallway at full speed into the room, some stood back firing at an unknown danger rushing towards them. “Deploy”

The machines moved inside the ship and the door closed and pressurized, there was an explosion and the room had been expelled from the station, it continued to be pushed out of reach of the station until it gravitated towards something not visible through normal sight. The Machines had placed the Doctor in cryogenic stasis at that point and connected themselves to the internal battery of the room to wait for their time to wake up.

It would be centuries before they reached their destination.