Machine shell | A.L.T.A.R

Name: Emma

Current file Designation: 001U-14

Classification: Green Class

Containment Difficulty: 0/10

Status: Contained at A.L.T.A.R. Site 14

Emma was once an ordinary young woman with a simple, comfortable life. She worked as a barista while attending college as an art major, balancing long shifts behind an espresso machine with late nights painting in her apartment or working on class assignments. Painting was never just homework for her. It was how she relaxed, processed emotions, and expressed herself. Friends knew her as someone thoughtful and creative, someone who would spend half an hour deciding exactly how to mix a shade of blue because she believed every color had a feeling attached to it. Her future was uncertain in the normal way that most college students experience, but it was a future she looked forward to. She had friends she cared about, family waiting for her at home, classmates she laughed with, and coworkers who made exhausting shifts bearable. It was an ordinary life, and one she never imagined could disappear in a single night.

While walking home after work one evening, Emma vanished without a trace. Missing person reports were filed, searches were organized, and eventually the investigation grew cold. No one ever found evidence explaining what happened to her. Unknown to everyone searching, she had been abducted by a brilliant but deeply disturbed scientist operating from an underground laboratory hidden beneath an isolated house deep within the woods. Possessing technology decades beyond what anyone should reasonably have access to, the man had devoted himself to grotesque experimentation. Emma was never viewed as a person after her capture. From the moment she awoke restrained in his laboratory, he addressed her only as 04, refusing to acknowledge her actual name. She eventually learned the meaning behind the number. She was not his first victim. She was simply the fourth.

Months passed in captivity. Most days blended together into cycles of anesthesia, surgery, examinations, and recovery. Whenever Emma resisted, she was restrained or sedated. Sometimes the scientist placed her under before beginning another procedure. Other times he simply ignored her screaming as he continued cutting, replacing, and studying portions of her body with detached fascination. Every procedure served one purpose: preserving her brain while eliminating nearly everything else. He recorded every response with clinical precision, speaking into recorders while Emma begged him to stop. None of her pleas ever changed his mind.

Eventually, after countless operations, his life’s work was complete. He constructed a synthetic body modeled after Emma’s original appearance. It was never intended to be comfortable or humane. He merely wanted his experiment to resemble the person it once had been. During the final surgery, Emma was placed under anesthesia one last time while her living brain was transferred into the completed robotic shell. Her original human body, now stripped of its purpose, was discarded.

When Emma awoke, everything was wrong.

There was no pain. There was no warmth. No heartbeat. No breathing. No hunger. No scent. No feeling.

She looked down expecting bandages or injuries and instead found an artificial body resembling her own. Pale synthetic skin concealed machinery beneath its surface, giving the illusion of flesh while possessing none of its qualities. Every part of her body had become mechanical, including her eyes, which no longer required blinking or moisture. She eventually began blinking manually anyway, forcing herself to imitate habits she no longer needed. It became one of many routines she clung to simply because it reminded her she had once been human.

Printed across her upper shoulder in red was the identifier 04.

Seeing it answered the question she had dreaded asking.

She had never been Emma to him.

Only another numbered experiment.

Although her appearance remains strikingly human, Emma’s body is entirely artificial. She stands at approximately 5’5” and weighs considerably more than an ordinary woman due to the dense alloys hidden beneath her synthetic exterior. Her long black hair is artificial fiber designed to imitate real hair, while her red eyes are sophisticated optical cameras capable of functioning in low light and recording visual information. Every visible section resembling skin is synthetic material engineered to flex and move naturally. Her hands contain advanced tactile sensors, allowing her to perceive texture, pressure, and shape when directly touching objects. Outside those sensors, however, she experiences virtually no sensation. She cannot feel temperature, pain, itchiness, or physical comfort. A blanket feels no different than bare concrete unless she consciously holds it in her hands.

Her body contains three external interface ports designed by her creator. The most noticeable is a rectangular data port located on her outer thigh. It allows technicians to access internal logs, recorded diagnostics, software updates, and operational data accumulated by her systems. A triangular charging port rests on her hip, providing power directly to her internal batteries. Emma can function for several days without charging, though prolonged inactivity eventually forces her to reconnect herself to an external power source. The final interface is a circular systems monitor beneath her left arm beside her chest. Connecting equipment there provides continuous diagnostic information, including processor stability, neural interface condition, limb integrity, power distribution, and numerous other mechanical functions serving as the robotic equivalent of vital signs.

Emma remained imprisoned long after the procedures ended. Chained inside the underground bunker, cables remained connected to all three interface ports almost constantly while her creator monitored his achievement. Escape was impossible.

Her rescue came entirely by chance.

During a routine infrastructure survey, A.L.T.A.R. Site 14 detected an isolated residence consuming an impossible amount of electricity. The energy usage rivaled several neighboring homes combined despite the property appearing abandoned. An investigation uncovered the concealed laboratory beneath the house. Inside, agents discovered Emma restrained against a wall, connected by cables to every interface port while surrounded by experimental equipment.

The scientist surrendered only after capture and was transported under maximum security for interrogation. His knowledge proved valuable enough that A.L.T.A.R. preserved him for questioning despite the severity of his crimes. Emma, meanwhile, was transported to Site 14 for emergency evaluation.

Doctors quickly reached a heartbreaking conclusion.

Had she been discovered weeks earlier, reversing the procedure might have remained possible.

Months had passed.

Her original body had decomposed beyond recovery.

There was nothing left to return to.

Emma was officially designated anomaly 001U-14 and assigned Green Class status with a containment difficulty rating of zero. She poses no threat, has never attempted escape, and willingly complies with examinations. Green classification, however, reflects only her lack of danger. It says nothing about her emotional state.

Today, Emma lives alone within a modest containment unit designed more like a sparse apartment than a prison cell for the sake of her mental stability. Her charging cable remains permanently available whenever she requires it. Researchers periodically connect to her monitoring and data ports to ensure her systems remain stable, documenting any abnormalities that appear over time. Outside those scheduled examinations, she spends nearly every day sitting alone.

Conversation rarely lasts long. Emma answers politely but briefly, hoping interactions end as quickly as possible. She dislikes discussing her past and becomes visibly uncomfortable whenever anyone refers to her as 04. Staff members are instructed never to use the designation in her presence. To Emma, her name is the final piece of herself that survived. Her memories and her name are all she truly owns anymore.

Psychological evaluations consistently note severe depression, emotional withdrawal, and prolonged trauma. She often closes her eyes for hours despite having no biological need for sleep. She describes it as “pretending.” If she cannot actually sleep anymore, she can at least imitate resting. Researchers have repeatedly offered her books, games, movies, music, and even art supplies after discovering her background as an art student. She has never refused outright, but she has never asked for any of them either. Somewhere inside her remains the woman who loved painting, yet she cannot bring herself to pick up a brush. Whether from grief, guilt, or simple exhaustion, that part of Emma remains buried beneath layers of loss.

She does not fear people. She simply no longer expects anything from them.

Emma is one of the quiet tragedies documented by A.L.T.A.R. She is not a monster, nor a machine pretending to be human. She is a human mind forced to exist inside a body that can never truly belong to her. Every day she wakes exactly as she was the day before, unchanged, unable to heal in the ways ordinary people can. The scientists caring for her hope that time may eventually help her reclaim pieces of the life she lost. Emma herself is less certain. All she asks is that people remember she has a name.

It is Emma. Not 04. That name belongs to the man who stole everything from her.

If she does run out of charge in her body and isn’t plugged in it’s a very bad thing, she’d shut down, if standing her body would go limp and fall, her eyes are mechanical so they would shut down too, but her brain is still human, she’d be able to think to herself and that’s it, it’s hell for her to only be a brain trapped in darkness with no other senses.

Emma is 5’5 tall and 287 pounds, she doesn’t look that heavy but her robotic body is made of dense alloys and other things.

The only human part of Emma left is her brain, everything else is robotic.