He just sat there, on his special chair. He looked around contentedly and had a smug smile on his face. He was very happy.
There were a lot of people around him. All of them wore a special suit, a sort of glistening, metallic suit. They all looked very important and "classified" in their attire. They were carrying around a lot of electronic equipment. Wires, transistors, chips, motherboards, the works. He looked down suddenly at his hand and noticed some wires jutting out from his wrist. They were small wires, the sort that bring the telephone connection to your homes. He looked at them with some curiosity, but was not altogether alarmed at their presence. "Nice!", he thought to himself. "I'm wired!", he joked to himself and chuckled at his seemingly intelligent joke. The truth was not far from what he had just stated.
A woman came to him, carrying a large bundle of cables with her. She came over to him and connected one end of cables to his neck. Mind you, "connected" them to his neck.
Now, behind his chair was a wall of metallic fluid. It seemed to continuously flow downwards. It was a circular wall of fluid and seemed confined to that perfect circle. And it had this appearance of a flow. Around this fluid was a lot of machinery, a huge mechanical being of some sort. Lots of wires and metal and pipes and gears and pistons and machinery basically! You get me, don't you? Just this big mechanical behemoth.
The woman thrust the other end of the cables into the fluid wall. They seemed to float for sometime, before being pulled in and made taut. One could hear a sound of some sort of connection on the other end, a loud click. All the workers stopped in their tracks and looked towards him. He looked back at them and waved at them, smiling all the time. It was at this time that he realised that he had wired attached to his arms too. A lot of thick wires. "Hmmm... Cute!", he said to himself, then turned to the workers and said aloud to them, "I've got a lot of wires attached to me!" They looked back at him with incredulity and carried on with their work. "Awesome!", he replied cheerily to their cold demeanour. He looked around him now, for the first time realising that there were wires coming out from almost every patch of skin on his body. He made an expression of being impressed and continued to smile. Then another woman came over to him, carrying a clipboard. She also carried some sort of sensor, which she thrust into his right eye. He complied without any fuss and continued to smile. Her elbow scraped his chest and he chuckled. "She likes me!", he thought to himself. He was still beaming brightly when she was done noting the results of her eye scan. She took a deep breath and asked him stand up. He enquired with actions, "Stand up? Me? Ok!" He was cheerful as ever. He stood up.
Creaks. Newly attached titanium joints were creaking as they moved for the first time. He was oblivious to these noises. "Please move forward" requested the woman. "Sure!", he replied. He took his first step.
A loud metallic thunk on the metallic grilled floor as metal foot met metal floor. He continued to walk. As he walked, the myriad of wires attached to him and flowing into the fluid wall started to unravel behind him. They started coming out from the fluid; long, continuous wires. He walked and the wires continued to follow him, still taut. Everyone was recording his progress in different contexts. He was oblivious to all the activity around him. He simply walked. Then suddenly, he could walk no more. The wires wouldn't allow him. They had stopped unraveling. He didn't understand what had happened. He wore a bemused smile as tried to move forward. And then, he had a vision.
Not "a" vision actually, it was his vision which had changed all of a sudden. It first acquired a greenish tint. Figures started appearing in his sight. A lot of numbers seemed to be juggling in a mess which he could not make out. Then, some coherence. The top left showed a battery symbol, with a full charge. The top right showed him that his current primary weapon was single fire semi-automatic pistol. The bottom left told him that he had at the present 5 flashbang grenades at his disposal. The bottom right told him that his body chasis was currently at a 100% with no physical damage. The center of his vision had a cross-hair. He lifted his right hand. He focussed on the top right of his vision and a drop-down menu appeared. Simultaneously, a compartment above his wrist opened and out popped a barrel. The drop-down menu had just two options at present. Single-fire and automatic fire. He selected automatic fire, because it was the other option and it seemed fun. The barrel rotated and a second, slightly different type of barrel came in its place. One of the workers pushed a button and a target appeared in front of our man. He aimed his hand at the target and let out a burst of automatic fire. Deafening sound resonated in the chamber. The target was riddled with bullet holes at all places. His top-right vision now told him he had 38 bullets left from a clip of 50 bullets. He looked at that portion of his screen again and felt like putting away the gun. The barrel shut itself back into its compartment. He looked around, all stunned and dreamy.
Then suddenly, he shuddered. The wires seemed to give him jolts of electricity. He sat down on his knees as the shuddering became unbearable. "Please make it stop!", he whined for the first time in pain, as he grabbed the leg of the nearest worker. The shuddering continued. And just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
The wires on his body went limp. One by one, they disconnected from his body and were dragged into the fluid behind him. His eyes closed for a while. When he opened them, his vision was once again full of the information that he had been fed a while ago. Text started appearing in front of his eyes.
WELCOME TO HEADS UP DISPLAY SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SYSTEMS. THIS SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO ASSIST YOU ON THE BATTLEFIELD AND PROVIDE WEAPONS SUPPORT AND STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION WITH ONLINE SYSTEMS.
More text followed, but it all seemed too technical for him. He only realised that it was all just to help him. Then, for the first time, a friendly woman stepped up to him, as all his displays were finished and he was in a stand-by mode, ready for action.
She said these helpful, re-assuring words, "Welcome, Hud!"
To be continued...
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