Willow's Story - Are You Experienced

youtu.be/XxHS9lTUN4Y (Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced)


	The narrow robot stood in a block with a menagerie of other domestic machines, as many like her as were new, unfamiliar, *not Sterling*. A tired-eyed bureaucrat paraded past the assorted nandroids and maidbots, handing over assignments and where and when to report for the flight out of country and overseas. A smattering of grunts followed with him to direct the simpler machines to their places.
	“Willow, Whitney,” the man called. The nandroid hopped up, smiling and taking her paper in hand. She was still unused to having a surname attached to her, the clericality of it all a bit much at times. She figured she’d be a serial number like in the factory, but evidently the Army was slow on the uptake.
	“Thank you, sir,” she beamed. The man half-nodded before continuing down the line. Poring over the curt dispatch she couldn’t help but smile, the idea of leaving to serve the country overwhelming her sense, cheeks glaring red. Departing for an off corner of the post she showed her papers to them, a brief processing her last slip of memory.
	“Just gotta do some diagnostics there,” the engineer started, checking his paper, “Willow. Make sure you're in shape. And then you’ll wake up in sunny Vietnam!”
	“Wow, I’m excited!”
	“I bet you are,” he smiled, lifting each of her arms in turn. “Yep, all good! Just a bit more.” Fiddling in her backplate he hummed in approval, tuning her mechanics subtly. The robot peeped in turn at the disturbance. With a handful more adjustments she was ready to go.
	“All done?”
	“All done. Now I’m gonna shut you off, and by the time you wake up you’ll be across the ocean!” The young man’s sunny demeanor did a lot to soothe the robot, a click of a button sending her into a gentle, swallowing slumber. She dreamt of her kids back home and the myriad memories flashing in her head of them, broken by a grim reminder of the somber farewells she left them with. That and the most recent blip of her destination across the Pacific, the robot dreamily playing with the pronunciation in her head. Daw Naan, Dah Nong, Da Nang. She figured someone would explain it to her on her arrival, some equally-sunny welcoming party pulling her into the country’s tropical embrace with a smile.


	“So they packed you in a box and shipped you out?”
	“Yep. From Texas back to the West Coast,” she paused, retracing her exact route. “And I think it was to Alaska, Japan, then Da Nang. Still wasn’t awake for any of that, though.”
	“Must’ve been strange waking up in the middle of nowhere, in the jungle.”
	“Well, not really. It was new, and that eagerness overpowered the strangeness I think. For a bit.”


	The slim helicopter whipped over the dense canopy, a singular wooden crate sitting at the feet of the other handful of men, air-bound towards an isolated patch of dirt that’d be home for the coming months. Throwing up clouds of crumbled soil the helicopter set down, its passengers disembarking and carrying the cargo off to be processed, again. Hustling the crate to the small complex of command tents with the attached paperwork the handful of new grunts left to amble around the compound, ears bombarded with the painful thwop of scurrying overhead helicopters and the dusty winds they produced.
	“What’ve we got Arthur,” a grim man asked. He stepped away from the radio, leaving one of the dispatchers to man the handset.
	“Shipment from Texas for the dustoff crews. AS assignment, nandroid.”
	“They put a nandroid here, I thought AS was noncombat?”
	“Not for them, sir, they’re fit for this.”
	“I’d like to see that be true for once. Crack her open I guess, get her over to Reyes.”
	“Right away, sir.” Hefting the box up on a dolley he wheeled through the camp, the droning clap of helicopter blades timing his steps. Popping the flap on another tent he rolled the box in.
	“Reyes, we got a bot now.”
	“Sterling, Atlas, Sirius…,” the other trailed off, fussing with a radio backpack.
	“Uhhh,” he checked the sticker, stopping. “Sterling looks like.”
	“Good, easier to charge.”
	“I’ll leave her in your hands, sir.”
	“Yep,” he stopped, still fiddling with the radio. The private sniffed, waiting. “Oh, uh, dismissed.” Marching off the man was left with the standing crate, teetering on its bottom. Hopping past it he grabbed a prybar, laying the box down to set to work. Wedging the lid off he was met by a trim nandroid in a set of overlarge fatigues, deep green marred by specks of sawdust where they dotted her chest and stuck in her hair. Hefting her up in his arms he noticed the regulation foot-mods, a wise choice for the country. A patch on her shoulder and a pin on her chest was the rest, evidently ‘Willow’ was bound for the medevac helicopters. With the click of a button she sat up, eyes blink and arms stretching in programmed response, in her box.
	“Hello,” she peeped. “I assume I’m in Da Nang, Vietnam?” She pulled herself out of the box, shavings holding for the ride as she stepped out.
	“Uhh, hello. I’m Specialist Reyes, I work on the robots in camp.” The robot snapped a curt salute to the man, throwing him back. “Well, uh, I guess I should make sure you’re set to go.”
	“Oh, well, I was taken care of in Texas,” she explained, listing off her posting proudly and throwing in some snippets of her training.
	“So you were, huh. Normally that’s my job over here. Weird… Anyways! Turn around please.”
	“Yes, sir!” Whirling about the man flipped her backplate off, the nandroid chirping in surprise. “Everything alright, sir?”
	“Yeah, yeah, just a second.” The nandroid giggled at his working, wires shoved aside and reconnected where they were needed, a jolt running up her spine. “All done,” he sighed, clipping her dorsal plate back into place, the robot suddenly a few pounds heavier.
	“Everything alright?”
	“Yep, peachy. Out here you can’t plug in so that radio battery will hold you for a while enough. Couple of days I think, we get enough to keep you running,” he grunted, rising from the ground and dusting his hands off. “Hopefully.”
	“Huh?”
	“Well, off you go, across camp are the medevacs. That’s where you’ll be.”
	“O-Okay,” the nandroid stuttered, hopping out of the tent on her own. There was a buzzing in her core, an otherworldly giddiness as she took in the steaming world around her. It was gracefully quiet for a second, the robot soaking in the foreign land surrounding her. Marching gleefully over to the smile drained from her face, the deepening awareness of the squalor of the country, the sickeningly fertile stench that hung in the air, the shavings still holding to her too much to process. Home was gone, a million miles removed and an ocean away on top of that. With a deep breath she continued her marching, resolute not to let the Willows down. Tromping over towards the resting helipads, more square patches of air-blasted earth than anything else, she scanned for her destination. Pausing, confused, she realized she’d never been outright told who she’d be with. She was just a replacement, no direction.
	“Hey, Robot!” A voice shouted to her from one of the huts near the perimeter. “You’re with us!” Twisting her head she spied a trio of men sitting around near one of the rudimentary shelters, youngest among them waving eagerly. Hopping up and scrambling over to them she greeted the three with a sharp salute.
	“Howdy,” the one drawled. “You Jacobson’s replacement?”
	“Sir, I believe so, sir.” He sighed.
	“‘Course it had to be us,” he muttered. “Awright, welp. I’m Captain Dawes, pilot.”
	“Second Lieutenant Meyers, copilot.”
	“Specialist Vasquez, crew chief.” The tired triplette stared back at her, the robot peeping in surprise.
	“Ope,” she paused to clear her throat, ready to produce her well-practiced lines. “Specialist Whitney Willow, *flight medic*.”
	“Alright, Willow it is,” the pilot sniffed. He scratched at his short, brown hair, not sure how best to approach this. “I’ll put it simply, they teach you how to do your job? Give you any proper experience?”
	“Yes, sir! My training on-post was extensive, and very educational! I can assure you I’m ready for duty, wholeheartedly. So, er, what will that be? When?” His eyes narrowed at her, mouth weaseling for words.
	“Whenever,” the crew chief piped up. He sniffed at a cigarette, curls of smoke caught in his dense black moustache. “There’ll be an alarm and we’ll get the call to go. Could be anytime.”
	“We’ve enough time to get you situated though,” the third laughed. His gentle blue eyes warmed the nandroid, sandy-blonde hair like her own fluttering in the odd current from a distant, landing helo. “Today hasn’t been busy, not much activity of our own or from Charlie.” That moniker was familiar to her, Mister Willow having picked it up from TV broadcasters who in turn pulled it from the soldiers they stalked and prodded at. He, Charlie, was the enemy, unseen and cunning. He’d be the one causing trouble for her and these three men, she knew, and she’d do her darnedest to stop him.
	“I think I’m situated enough, yes.”
	“You’ve been to the quartermaster,” Dawes interrupted.
	“O-Oh. No, sir.”
	“Awright, er… Meyers, you’ve got her.”
	“Right away, cap.” The young man hopped up from his place, guiding the robot by the shoulder after him. Pointing out the major attractions on post he walked her to be outfitted with the random accoutrements she hadn’t been offered initially. Webbing, a flak jacket, the all-important flight helmet and more. Arms full of new belongings to join the meager bag of her personal effects, Whitney hauled her stuff to her new home.
	“So where will I be… ‘sleeping’, I suppose?”
	“This is it,” he grinned. “Hooch sweet hooch.”
	“H-Hooch?” That was an unfamiliar word. It was vulgar, dirty. No way she’d be sleeping here, she figured.
	“You gettin’ squeamish on us robot,” the captain hollered, laughing. “I know it ain’t like your fancy owner’s *mansion* but this is it. Just be glad we didn’t get called today, gives you some time to adjust.”
	“Adjust,” she reminded herself, nodding firmly. “Time to adjust.” Just like visiting Louisiana this would be *weird*, but nothing she couldn’t handle. A year was a far cry from a week’s stay in the deep south, but she could handle it. She’d be home in no time, she knew, already eagerly pinning up the odd photo to the ramshackle walls of her bunk. And tomorrow, she smiled, she’d be doing the work she was sent to do, helping people like she’d been trained.