2083

Ash wiggled his fingers. He'd seen enough sci-fi to take a good guess as to purpose of the hand shaped indention in the wall even before P.T. started talking about it being a scanner and him having be scanned. Seemed like a lot of fuss over some clothes. It was slightly sloped, the place for the fingers disappearing from sight from above. It was formed for a left hand. P.T. hadn't exactly done anything to earn distrust, but that was his good hand, cybernetic replacement for the other or not, and he couldn't get rid of that last tinge of hesitation.

But he was also standing in the middle of a chilly hallway in nothing but his boxers, shotgun holster, and boots, so... fuck it. He pressed his hand against the scanner.

And something stuck him in the finger. Ash jerked his hand back, sticking the bleeding pointer in his mouth as he glared at P.T. The slim, black bar above the scanner flashed to life, the word PROCESSING scrolled across it. "You didn't say it was gonna stick me."

"You did not ask."

It beeped, drawing his attention back in time to see the text change: CONFIRMED. WELCOME ASHLEY JOANNA WILLIAMS.

"Uh, why does it know my name?" And why would someone program his full name in? Couldn't they have just left it as Ash Williams? Ashley J. Williams if they really had to go all out, but there was no good reason to go dragging his middle name into the mix.

The door slid open with a groan, and P.T. ignored his question as she walked past him.

Ash followed, his steps faltering as he got a look inside.

"What? This the guest section?" It look like one of those fancy-schmancy condos he'd seen in movies and magazines--decorated in shades tan rather than the blinding white outside it, with a sitting area and a fucking kitchen. And nothing that looked like it'd be too far out of place in the 1980s.

There was one door leading off from it, P.T. had already continued on.

Ash sighed. "Ya know, you could give me something instead of--Holy chainsaw!"

And that is was. It was on a fucking pedestal. It wasn't a Homelite XL. No, no, no. He got closer, the rest of the room vanishing as he focused on it. This baby was a MF-2000. Top of the line, brand new, they'd just gotten the first shipment in at S-Mart, supposed to go on the shelves Monday and-- He couldn't remember what the MF stood for, but considering but he'd be using it for, it might as well be 'MotherFuker-2000.' Then he noticed that the side actually said MF-5000, and he shook his head. Right.

Right.

It'd been modified for him. Which dimmed his excitement with a sick twisting in his gut. Slightly. He still wanted to try it out, rumor had it, the 2000 could slice through a plate of steel with a new blade, he wanted to know what a 5000 was capable of.

He finally looked at the rest of the bedroom, realizing it was a bedroom. The fourposter bed stood a few feet out from the far wall, the wall was... more weapons: shotguns, riles, pistols--was that a fucking flamethrower? Oh, he wanted that to try that out too--swords, knives, bo staffs... An armory crammed onto a flat twenty by ten surface.

P.T. stood near right wall. That one was lined with sliding panels, one open, and filled with clothes.

Blue shirts and tan pants.

What he'd been wearing at the cabin.

"P.T., what is this?"

"It was designed for you."

"Yeah, I got that part. Why?" Why was this here? How was it here? He wasn't even supposed to be here.

She blinked. "It was designed by the Knights of Sumeria in preparation for the end of days and your return to serve as the champion of Good against the Evil that would consume the Earth. It was expected that they would be here to welcome you upon your resurrection--"

"I'm sorry, my what?" Unless the meaning of that word had changed drastically in the last hundred years... "That makes it sound like I was dead." And came back. And that he was-- He didn't even want to go there. Nope. Not happening. Whoever these Knights were, they were delusional and that was that.

"The texts were unclear. All that was known is that you were in a wakeless sleep."

Well, he couldn't argue with that.

"The last known human Knight was killed by the Dark Ones in 2076. I was reprogramed before his death to serve as a guide and protector the to The Prophesied One upon his eventual resurrection."

"Why didn't they just wake me up?" How was he supposed to do anything when the world was already so far down the toilet it was stinking up the sewer?

"It was not in the prophesy."

"Fuck the prophesy! What good is a prophesy when everyone's already fucking dead?!"

"Not everyone is dead."

"Well, that's--" Ash stopped. That didn't make sense. He'd asked if there were other survivors. The world was dead. It was rare to even see an animal that wasn't completely tainted and controlled by Evil. (The less thought put to the horde of deadite rats the better.) "You lied to me."

"I did as my programing required."

"That doesn't make it not a lie." He wanted to hit something. All this time, and he hadn't been alone. He hadn't had to be alone. They could've found others, they could've... "Are they here?"

"No."

"Where are they?"

"I do not know."

"That's just great. Really." Ash closed his eyes, burying his hands into his hair. His fingers caught a knot and he tugged at it, thinking about how he needed to cut it because it was way too long and that was an easier and normal thing to be thinking about.

He wasn't used to the simmering anger that always seemed ready to go, just waiting under the surface ever since his possession. He could ignore it most of the time. He was using to getting brief burst of anger but they never lead to anything more serious than a yelling match with Dad or maybe throwing something in the safety of his room. He wasn't-- hadn't been much of a confrontational person, he definitely hadn't been a fighter. But all he wanted to do right now was go outside and find a deadite to take... to take this hatred out on. Maybe that was it. He'd never hated anything with his whole being before. But Evil, it had taken his sister, his girl, and two of his closest friends. It had taken his life away from him.

He wanted to destroy it.

 ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Ash ended up pulling a few weapons from the wall, swinging the swords' and going through fighting positions with the staffs, both burning off the energy that wanted a fight and testing the weight. He didn't find a single one that wasn't well balanced, that didn't fit perfectly to his grip.He didn't understand how he knew they were well balanced, the same way he didn't understand how he knew to fight with them back in the Middle Ages.

It was disturbing. He put them back.

P.T. had silently watched it all, but he was used to that. The feeling of her robotic eyes on him had stopped bothering him a while ago.

Staring back at her, he belatedly realized he was still in his underwear.

She been watching him do all that in his underwear. Fuck. Just because he knew she was an android didn't mean some parts of him didn't still see her as a hot as hell woman. And those parts were feeling the full brunt of the embarrassment.

Ash walked over the open closest and yanked out the first pair of pants his hand touched. And frowned. "I thought you said all this was prepared for me?"

"It was."

"...Where were they getting their information?" He held them up to his waist in bemusement.

"Historical records."

"Well, their 'historical records' weren't very historical." Pulling from closer, he started looking for a tag. "What size are these?"

"Forty-two."

He glanced up at her. "Do I look like I wear a forty-two?" God, he hoped they weren't all this size. He'd have to take up sewing and, whatchamacallit, clinch them? Something like that.

Her eyes ran up and down his body. "No."

"And yet..." He held the pants up.

"The historical records--"

"Are wrong. I have never worn anything this big and I never will."

P.T. fell silent and took the pants from him. She turned and put it away before moving down the row of clothing and presenting him with another, near identical, pair. "These are you current size. Source: S-Mart shopping receipts from 1982."

"That's creepy." Just how closely had these people been watching him?

And if they knew what gonna happen, why hadn't they warned him? Why didn't they stop him from going to that damned cabin in the first place? Or they could have taken the Book and destroyed it before anything got released.

He had too many questions, and he wasn't sure P.T. had all the answers.

Or had she'd tell him even if she did.