My Mind Is Plastic (Star-Lord Drone TF)
Out of all the creepy desolate planets that Peter Quill had wandered through, this one was the worst. There was an infinite universe with an endless number of planets, so why did he have to end up on the one that had the galaxyâs creepiest warehouse on it? The job was simple, so simple that Star Lord was alone when he landed his newly repaired ship, Milano, on the planetâs cracked rocky surface. Once upon a time, there was a company that spanned solar systems. The great Anitron sold robotics, the most advanced toys for the whole galaxy to enjoy. Yet after one accident some cycles ago, everything had seemingly been abandoned. By the time Peter arrived toward the great dark structure that was once the head factory of Anitron, he only had one thoughtâthey could take âseeminglyâ out the sentence.Â
When he stepped in, the only sound was the constant howl of wind, deep and guttural and making the company quarters more like a chasm. Peter had no idea what had happened to the place. Nobody did. But from the skeletons he could see strewn around debris of glass and concrete, he could tell it wasnât good. That was why Peter Quill did the most sane thing. He popped his headphones over his ears and pushed down on the Sony Walkman.Â
⏠I CANâT STOP THIS FEELING âŹ
⏠DEEP INSIDE OF ME âŹ
Peterâs smile was instant as he danced down the abandoned halls. He ignored the ash that was all over scorched ground and couldnât hear the creaks of the building as he descended further down. His mission? To scout the place and retrieve whatever scraps of useful technology was left behind for a rival corporation. He figured it would be a safer job than the bounty hunting contract that was offered instead. So Peter Quill continued to dance, gyrate and hip thrust his way throughout the headquarters turned mausoleum. He knew the elevators down to the basement level werenât working and so he crept down the stairs, hoping to find something good left behind in their laboratories. Or at least something interesting. Perhaps without the music he would have found the whirrs of cameras following his movements interesting. If he would have noticed them.
The underside of the building remained the cleanest. Though there was still debris from caved in ceilings and shattered glass of laboratory windows, it was a far cry from the hell on the surface. Enough so that on the fifth loop of Hooked on a Feeling, Peter pressed pause when he finally found a laboratory that was intact. Or at least it looked more intact compared to the others (which wasnât saying much with their collapsed doors and scorched lab tables).
For one it helped that the room was lit. Peter hummed to himself as he did a double take when he first rounded the corridor of the third sublevel and saw the weak blue light illuminating from the place. The fact the windows were intact was already surprising enough. But the place having power was downright intriguing. Peter glanced left, then right, then left again and then shot the electronic device beside the door. At once sparks flew and the sealed doors opened with a shriek of metal. Peter sniffed at the sudden sickeningly sweet smell that oozed out the lab.Â
âThought this was a toy place not a candy one,â Peter fanned the stale sweet air, though it did little to help.
Something else about the lab instantly let Peter know how different it was. It was huge. Unlike the others which were square boxes that Peter passed by in a few strides, this lab reached further beyond. Rows and rows of workbenches stood to hold nothing and be attended to by nobody. Peter crept forward, hands curling near his blasters like one of those Earth Westerns that he used to watch as he stepped in. His eyes narrowed when he saw what few things were on the workbenches, brightly painted animals.
At least at a first glance.
The closer Peter got to them, the more he could easily see the metallic sheen, the weak blue lights that flickered above reflecting off their skin. One of them was a fox with long metal fingers and no arm. Another was a rabbit that was missing its faceplate. Each of them seemed to have been toys, impressively large at around two to three tall that hadnât been finished. One of the mascots cracked to life.
âWelcome to Anitron, where the fun never endssssssssssssssssss-â Its head jerked back and forth like a gear had gotten stuck before its voice devolved into a low groan and it depowered. Peter froze, staring at the creepiness as the sound of something else captured his attention, the sound of bubbles.
âWhat the fuck is this place?â Quill murmured, creeping along to the sound as if it were a siren song. He knew it was trouble but that only made it more enticing as the lights were weaker in the next half of the lab, making him only see vague shapes. If it werenât for the gentle green glow of those shapes then Peter probably wouldnât have recognised what he was seeing. But then he saw the shimmering green and giant bubbles and realised what he was seeing, a row of tanks filled with floating bodies. âWhat the fu-â The laboratory finished for him by suddenly coming to life. The dead lights turned white and Peter aimed with both blasters at nothing in particular, the tanks, the benches, the door he had come through. But nobody was there and nothing moved, except that of a screen. A section of high wall folded backwards, flipping over to reveal a large flat screen that jutted out. It unclenched from the wall and then began to move closer toward Peter, becoming the next target of his blasters. Even more so when it came to life.Â
âAhâŚapologies but I have always had a flair for the dramatics,â a gravelly voice sounded out. Peter squinted at the screen, filled with the image of a man or something like a man, he couldnât tell. Their face was hidden behind a polished silver mask and their body was draped with a lab coat. Though Peter could see the pale skin of a neck, he swore that just out of frame there were dark grooves where flesh merged into metal. The man had hair, spiky and brown, less like it was styled that way and more ragged. âI have been following you Mr. Peter Jason Quill, I believe thatâs your name if records are updated. That or along with being a criminal youâre also a hacker who can alter records or practice identity theft. You arenât and you donât, do you?â Peter stood there, baffled and then lowered his blasters with a smile.Â
âKnew this job couldnât have been easy. Why canât any of the jobs I do be easy? Come on man,â complained Peter, appropriately acting like a child in a place where toys were built for them. Surprisingly, the man behind the mask let out a chuckle.
âFunny. They did not mention that on the records, but I always prefer meeting someone face to face as opposed to just relying on theirâŚCV,â said the stranger pointedly. Peter made a gesture toward the screen and then himself, confused. âWhat?âÂ
âI meanâŚdude, you call this face to face? Just because youâve seen my face and I see yourâŚnot-face, doesnât mean this counts,â scoffed Peter.
âOh but it does Peter. You see technology can do such wondersâŚâ The screen began to move suddenly, motioning as the man spoke. It was mounted on a rail Peter hadnât noticed before and whirred around him in a slow circle as the man spoke, gliding from one side of the room to the other. âI find that it can even be a replacement for the things people do. Maybe even for people someday. Donât you agree?â Peter took a moment, as if seriously thinking it over before giving a deadpan no. âA shame. From my sensors, you are in the Mascot Program. I apologise, I havenât finished my work to show you.â The screen turned, facing the direction of the tanks.Â
âUhâŚyour what? You did that?âÂ
âYes, I did. You see I was attempting to use some of the survivors from theâŚaccident here at Anitron for my experiment. But unfortunatelyâŚâ The screen turned back toward him. âIt seems I need a non-injured body to test on.âÂ
âUhâŚtest on? Test what?â âWhyâŚthis.âÂ
At once a spiral suddenly lit up the screen. Peter blinked. And then he couldnât blink anymore. He tried to look away, but there was a sudden pulsating pressure behind his eyes. The spiral seemed to grow larger and larger until it was the only thing he could see.Â
âW-Wha isâŚwhaâŚâ Peter tried to look away again but it was as if the more he tried, the harder it was to do and the harder it was to do the more he tried. His thoughts were becoming a vortex of circular logic that was making no sense, almost like the thoughts one would have in a dream. Peter tried to reach toward his trusty blasters but the more that he tried, the harder it was to do.
He thought about just closing his eyes, not bothering to look anywhere but each time he blinked, it was as if the spiral was burned into his retina, still playing. It looped constantly in his mind and it was suddenly just so easy to continue following the spiral, at the looping pattern that swirled and felt like a black hole that was sucking his mind into its centre to be crushed. The longer he stared at the spiral, the closer he felt his mind was to the event horizon.
âYou seeâŚa non-injured person can focus on something beyond their pain and I have worked so hard to do thisâŚto create the perfect subliminal to alter oneâs DNA once they come into contact with the gas. Did you like that by the way? I was worried you would have smelled it by now and turned back.â
The voice continued but it sounded as if it was echoing from everywhere, a sudden omnidirectional force that was seizing his mind.
âNo injuries and a weak mind combined with the gas you inhaled filled with nanomachines and it is a perfect combination. I would like to thank you Peter Jason QuillâŚâÂ
âT-ThankâŚthankâŚf-forâŚwhaâŚâ Peterâs voice faltered as drool was already starting to escape the corner of his mouth.Â
âWhy for being the first person to submit to the Mascot Program! Now repeat after meâŚâ There was no way Peter was going to repeat anything this fucker sai-
I AM HEAVY.
The words felt so strong as they appeared on the screen, a brief flash, just enough for his mind to cling onto and understand before disappearing for good. As soon as the stranger said it, Peter felt a wave of fatigue cause him to sink.
He gasped as it began with his feet, his boots felt as though they had just crashed into the floor as tile cracked beneath him. The muscles in his legs seized and tensed, caught in some kind of forever flex whilst his arms fell to the sides. His fingers werenât even able to try and grab at the blasters falteringly, instead barely twitching as both arms suddenly felt like they were made of lead.Â
âD-Dude what the fuck-âÂ
I AM METAL.
âNo c-come on waitâŚâ
Peterâs eyes widened, the only semblance of some control that he still had over his body as a coldness started to form over his skin. A rhythm began beneath his ribs, different from his heartbeat yet similar enough in cadence like it was replacing the organ. A sudden heat was searing through his chest and making him almost wince in pain, though pain quickly started to feel dulled down.
All touch and sensation did in his chest, all feeling receding except for two, sensitivity and with it, pleasure. Peter could feel the cold make his nipples harden before they sank further into his chest. His shoulders locked, the sound of whirring at the shoulder blades like they had been disintended from the arms and fitted into place.
Steam hissed suddenly from the skin as both shoulders locked into position.Â
The same sound travelled down Peterâs spine as it aligned upright, forcing him to stand taller. Peter knew it was impossible but he swore that he could feel the nanomachines coursing through him, like tiny insects that were worming their way through his hands and feet, up his limbs, toward his chest. He could feel them dancing around his bones, latching themselves onto his skeleton, forcing his body to thicken as it grew more boxy and heavy at the chest. Beneath the skin, heavy steel frameworks began to form and interlock against the skin (or rather what was now the much more shiny lifelike shell).Â
MY MIND IS PLASTIC.
âN-no way am I saying-â
Peterâs next words didnât matter. Thatâs what he told himself or rather the nanomachines or the spiral or something told him as he continued staring. There was another rhythm, the cadence of whatever replaced his heartbeat, ca-clunk, ca-clunk, ca-clunk, that continued on in a similar enough cadence. As it did, warmth started pooling through him, oozing through his head first as his eyes threatened to roll into the back of his head. But his eyes didnât move because Peter realised that his eyes no longer blinked. They had grown glassy and flat, fixed forever on the spiral which burrowed deeper and deeper into his mind. His hands felt like one appendage, the fingers thickening into rounded metallic digits that let the white light of the laboratory melt over them in a sheen. The same happened for his feet, trapped in the boots as Star Lord couldnât have even lifted them if he tried (and he did, constantly screaming at himself to just run, get out, call the mission a dud, laser a warning sign into the side of the planet and fly off). Unlike his hands, the digits merged together into one thick piece, only separated by some detailed painting of lines to indicate the different toes even existed. The arches flattened completely and any and all blemishes or scars were replaced by the smooth texture of plastic, the same that raced up Peterâs limbs.Â
But it was his mind that he could feel was corroding the most, even as his chest expanded outwards like his ribs were pushed from the inside out.Â
I AM A TOY.
âW-Wonât get away withhhhhhhhâŚâ Peterâs words slurred as his jaw grew heavier, his wide eyes desperately wanting to look around in instinctive panic. But instead they were fixed forward as a smile began to creep over Peterâs face. âNo no nuh nuhhhhhhhhâŚâ His chin separated from his body. It fell downward with a hollow plastic clack, hinging open like a piece of a toy. Two screws at the very back left it attached to the inner jaw whilst the chin dangled uselessly. âNuhhh huuullppp mmuhhhâŚâÂ
Peter garbled as the sickening cold infected the rest of his face. His eyes now no longer wanted to look around but roll into the back of his head as he felt all feelings recede from the skin except for pleasure. His cheeks rounded out slightly, almost rosy as Peter could imagine how smooth they looked with light reflecting off them. His nose receded in size slightly, flattening and hardening before he could feel the cartilage turn into mechanical pieces that let his nose be slotted onto his face. His flat eyes were allowed to blink once more, each blink clacking as his eyelids thickened into hardened plastic.
Peterâs auburn wavy hair hardened and no longer drifted in the wind, instead the hairs coalesced together, thickening and turning slightly brighter. As if he could imagine some marketing executive telling someone to make his hair almost ginger, to make his design unique, as if he wasnât a person. A voice told him because he wasnât a person. The spiral told him he wasn't a person. His mind told him he wasnât a person.Â
His brain was calcifying. Peter Quill stared helplessly from somewhere deep inside himself as the frantic electricity of his thoughts slowed and hardened. Instead all the electricity was something that was becoming like his thoughts, something to happen at a set amount of time, with a set amount of power, in a set way.
Otherwise, it was something controlled. Suddenly every wild desperate impulse that had once been in the brain of Star Lord had seemed to freeze in place. His neurons no longer sparked naturally. Instead they aligned and clicked and fired only in neat patterns, each thought moving along invisible tracks laid down by the Mascot Program.
He could feel it happening and it was perhaps the last human feeling he had before the intoxicating pleasure of his sensitive body took hold. All the while Star Lord could feel the soft folds of his brain stiffened inside his skull as it became flatter and denser and smoother and colder. All electric chaos of memory and instinct and fear was being replaced with something clean, programmed, simple and worst of all, corporately safe.
IÂ
AM
A
TOY
The spiral repeated emphasising each word with its own second long screentime. ToyâŚToyâŚTOYâŚTOYâŚTOYâŚTOYâŚTOYâŚThe word screamed inside Star Lord and suddenly started to make the gears inside his chest whir and the electric signals of his motherboard light up. The circuitry within him that was once his veins let the electric flow and send signals to the rest of his body like a real brain as Star Lord⢠reared up suddenly. His half lidded eyes sprung wide awake and commands slid into place where memories used to be.
SMILE.
SING.
WAVE.
ENTERTAIN.
I AM A TOY.
The spiral turned off and in an instant Star Lord almost did the same. Except somewhere deep inside, behind all the metal and gears and circuitry, there was still some faint pulse, some semblance of Peter. The ability to feel was something unable to be replicated and so with it, a small vestige of the real Peter Quill remained, to feel everything for his new animatronic self. Even if it meant he would be stuck not wanting to feel a thing because he looked-
âStar Lord activate.âÂ
At once Star Lord⢠reared up again, his lower jack opening up on hinges with a clack. It moved up and down as a voice box activated in the back of his mouth.
What the fuck have you done to me?! Star Lord⢠tried to say.
âIâM STAR LORD THE LEGENDARY OUTLAW!â Star Lord⢠said with a wide smile as his head glided from side to side. The man on screen chuckled.
âPerfect Peter, catchphrase 1!âÂ
Catchphrase?! I donât have a fucking-
âBLASTERS LOCKED AND LOADED.â The sound of his blasters letting out a high pitched whine when he activated them sounded out in the background as he spoke. His own voice came with damn sound effects, he thought. He sounded ridiculous, he sounded-
âCatchphrase 22!â
22?! Why the he hell would I have 22 catch-
âDID SOMEBODY SAY, SAVING THE UNIVERSE?â A low quality sound effect of his clipped laughter sounded out after he spoke. In fact all of what he was saying sounded like a bad recording of him, his voice crunchy with static and sounding as hollow as the mouth it came from.Â
âDance time!âÂ
Wait wait wait what the fuck does that mean?
âDANCE-OFF PROTOCOL!â Just then, the music of I Canât Stop This Feeling sounded out from the speaker in his open mouth as Star Lordâs fingers clasped together. He began to swivel from side to side, stopping midway through and adjusting his head as his body parts moved separately.
Both arms followed repeated motions, gliding through the air slowly as he realised he was doing a slow version of the robot dance whilst standing completely still.
Only his upper half moved whilst the song played, sounding as if it came from a faulty radio in the corner of some dark echoey room.Â
âStop. PerfectâŚAbsolutely perfect. Star Lord, register me as your master.âÂ
No Iâm notâŚnot going toâŚ
âYES MASTER! STAR LORD READY FOR YOUR COMMAND!âÂ
âNow come to my office, fifth level. We have a lot of work to do and if youâre as good as you areâŚwell, I think you just might change the galaxy, Peter Quill.â
âREADY FOR THE STARS WITH STAR LORD!â Star Lord⢠replied after registering one word, galaxy. He began to move, one foot after the other with automated ease, the sounds of springs following each heavy footfall. All Star Lord had to do was just simply walk over toward the right level and go be with his Master. That was all he could think about. It was all he needed to think about. He was now just Star Lordâ˘. And that was all he ever needed to be.
Soon a whole galaxy would agree with him too and if any heroes were to try and rescue him, they would find out just how good it would feel to be something like Star Lordâ˘.
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