Roboman

"Ah!" I said as I stretched out my legs, arms, and back. It was another wonderful day, another day that I was alive. Nothing could bring me down from the gratefulness I felt at having another chance at life, although I did wish that I didn't have to keep the secrets of my younger years from my wife. If she knew what I had done, or what I had been, she would have left me. However, as it is true in most cases, secrets are hard to keep.
Back in 2011, I was a robot. A rescue robot if you want to get very technical about it. I was sent to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in an effort to help clean things up after the potential meltdown and Tsunami that hit. The others that were sent only made it so far into the destruction, but I was able to go further into it. After a while, I got stuck in the mud that is when the radioactive material got all over me, as did the DNA from a victim. The mixture of the two, along with the heat from the Nuclear Plant caused me to begin to transform into a man.

After a lengthy wait, rescue workers came to save me. None of them knew how I had come to be at that place, and I hadn't figured out how to speak. Most of them thought that I was dead, seeing as they couldn't find a heartbeat. Rather than waste their precious energy, they left me there to rot.

Until the day that Dr. Don came. It was as if he had created the whole thing, he taught me how to communicate with the world by using my newly formed vocal forms. We spent a lot of time together, bonding and getting ready for the big reveal. He wanted everyone to know what had happened and how he helped me to become a fully formed person. But something changed on the way to us telling everything.

Dr. Don decided that he wanted to keep me under wraps. "People wouldn't understand, they would taunt you for being different. It's best if we say nothing and keep it that way. I wouldn't want your feeling to be hurt by their hatred."
Who was I to argue with him? He knew best, and that was all there was to it. I wasn't about to challenge someone so wise, someone who had saved me from a hellstorm of insults and murderous people. Dr. Don told me that these were bad things that I wouldn't want to be hurled at me. He had been right so far.

After I was dressed, I left the house without saying goodbye to my wife. It wasn't unusual for me to do this, she and I barely had any interaction with one another outside of talking about finances. Even that was very limited to me handing over my paycheck to her, she took it from me eagerly. There was never any discussion about why I worked late hours or anything of the sort.

"Welcome Dan, are you excited for today?" He knew as well as I did that I had no feelings, however I knew what the customary answer was. However he didn't make me say it, rather he smiled wistfully at me and patted me on the shoulder. "Today is the day when we start training the others to behave like you do. Soon there will be a whole army of robot human crossbreeds."

The excitement glistened in his eyes. For as long as I could remember, he had been talking about an Army of my species. My well of knowledge told me that an army was usually organized for fighting, but Dr. Don said that's not what he meant by calling us an Army. He said that he only used the expression because he had created a lot of us. One of the things that he had done was to find out the exact mix of nuclear material and human DNA that had created me. Then he recreated that mix, along with a very temperature on several other robots. "My dear boy, today is the day that everything we have ever wanted happens. Our corporation will be the envy of all of the others, but there's more. Soon we will be dominating the world in ways that no one ever expects of us."

"No longer will you have to hide who you are, Daniel. There will be no one more beloved than you, except maybe me. But have no fear, we will be in this together and we will reap the rewards together. Once everything happens that I need to, even the police forces will be very afraid of you. Of us."

His tone was very confusing, and his words made the puzzle even more complicated. His grey hair was standing on ends, and his voice sounded almost maniacal. By the very definition he was coming across as a mad scientist. Yet I knew that he wasn't because he had taken such good care of me. "I know how I must sound to you but it doesn't matter. Not at all my dear boy because I have worked long and hard for this day and all of my hard work is now coming to fruition. With only a little suggestion I am going to plunge the world into another World War and with my army of unbeatable soldiers, I will take down all of the empires and create one of my own."

Did Dr. Don know what he was saying? This was not the same man that had guided me through all of the years. The last World War had caused so much damage that it had taken almost 50 years to recover from it. "Have no fear dear boy. You won't go into actual battle unless it becomes necessary. You will reap the rewards of being first."