The wait was long and excruciating.
But finally, thursday came.
La fourchette d'argent closed for the day, as all the cooks went to the hospital.
Well, all the human cooks. For obvious reasons, Bock wasn't seen among them.
The receptionist grumbled angrily when they all asked to see Henri.
"You're far too numerous! That's a hospital, not a circus!"
But Pierre managed to convince the receptionist to let them all go.
"All right for this time. But next times, don't come all together at once. So, Henri Sorel... Room 314, follow the panels."
They all went to said room.
And before Henri could even say "Hello", began a strange routine.
Jacques left the door ajar, and positioned himself in a way that allowed him to keep an eye on the hallway.
Pierre took out from his bag some light clothes and put them on a chair.
And everyone took out from their pockets small wads of blue ooze.
The wads converged on the clothes, got inside, merged...
And in a few instants, Bock was sitting on the chair.
"I should have guessed you'd find a way to come," smiled Henri.
"Like hell I wouldn't come," smiled back Bock.
The old cook's smile turned in a shocked expression.
"...So it wasn't my wound making me hallucinate. You can talk now?"
"Yeah. That, and..."
Bock hesitated a bit.
"Join the giant gods club?" deadpanned Henri.
"You know?"
"The TV shows nothing but that."
The blob awkwardly chuckled.
"Bock, how did you do that? What happened?"
"Well, he says he remembers his past too, maybe he should begin with that," commented Sylvain. "We wanna know too."
Once again, Henri was shocked.
"You remember?!"
"Everything."
"So... What are you, exactly?"
Everyone in the room got closer, not wanting to miss a word.
"...A military project. Codename SANS. Special Amorphous Nanotech Soldier. Yep, I'm pretty much a mass of gooey nanomachines. The idea was to create an amorphous being that would be programmed to receive and complete a mission."
"What kind of mission?"
"You saw how I got here. I could also have slithered through the vents, stuck to the ceilings, slid under the door..."
"The ultimate stealth and infiltration unit," realized Henri.
"Exactly. And all that goes with it. The perfect spy, or even the perfect assassin."
To demonstrate, he shifted his left hand in a sharp scythe form.
"I can't tell you the details of my creation, programming, all that, I'm not a nerd. What I can tell you is that I was just a machine, a program, nothing more. Three months ago, I was sent in a sort of test run, the very first. I was supposed to follow a soldier, without him spotting me, and he knew I was following him. Eventually, he went at dinner at La fourchette d'argent. I followed him inside. To stay unnoticed, I went in the kitchens and stuck in the shadows, under the stoves."
"And then?"
"Then, I don't know how or why, but someone spilled some coq au vin sauce."
"It was me," confessed Jacques. "I moved the saucepan too abruptly. But what's the connection?"
"The connection is that it went under the stove and on me. I could taste, analyze and identify poisons, materials, things like that, but a complex cooking recipe like that, that was too much for my programming. I glitched up and barely managed to hide in a vent before... fainting, for lack of a better term."
The cooks exchanged surprised looks.
"When I rebooted... Everything was corrupted. I couldn't access my databanks, recall my orders, nothing. All I had was the sensation of the sauce's taste, and a directive, or desire, to update my databanks to identify and understand that new sensation. So I stayed hidden in the restaurant, looking at you cooking when you were open, and reading recipe books and trying myself when you were closed. For three months, I kept doing that, and the more I did it, the more I developed... something. Now, in hindsight, I realize that I was starting to develop a true sapience and conscience, a real soul, instead of a program. But back then, all I knew was that I liked the sensation of taste, I enjoyed eating, I enjoyed cooking, and I wanted to continue. Nothing more. And then Henri found me, and took me under his wing, trained me. Having someone interacting with me, a mentor, a model, hell I'll say it: a father figure, completed the process and allowed me to fully become sapient, to become a real living being instead of a mere machine."
A silence came, as everyone looked at the blob.
"So, thank you, Henri."
Henri just smiled, moved, tears in his eyes.
"Well, we now know your past, but we still don't know how you remembered it, managed to talk, or pulled that not-so-little stunt."
The lame pun still caused some laughter.
"When that son of a bitch shot you... It was such a brutal shock for me, it sort of triggered a semi-reboot, undoing the data corruption and restoring my databanks and my memory. It also restored my capacity to speak, I did learn to thanks to you, but it depended on my databanks, and corrupted like they were... As for my crazy growth spurt... Honestly, I have no idea. I only wanted to hurt him, terrify him, and... And it just went naturally to me, like that. Even though I was not conceived with that in mind. Of that I'm sure."
Another silence came.
"So what now? I highly doubt the army will have considered you MIA, especially now that you "reappeared"."
"Yeah, they must be searching high and low for me. I'll have to go to them and try and convince them that I'm now sapient, and not interested in staying with them, and the sooner the better."
"Wait until I'm out of the hospital, at least. I'll be coming with you," decided Henri.
"We'll be coming with you," corrected Pierre.
"I'm not sure it's a good idea..."
"You're one of us, Bock. No way we'll let you face that alone."
It was now Bock's turn to have tears in his eyes.
"Thanks, guys. I..."
"Shit!" suddenly hissed Jacques, who was glancing by the door. "Red alert!"
Immediately, with an impressive speed that showed they trained for this, Bock separated back in many small wads that all the cooks slid in their pockets, while Pierre shoved the clothes in his bag and sat on the chair, and Jacques got away from the door and took a nonchalant pose.
A few seconds later, the receptionist entered the room.
"Visit's over."
"Already?!" protested Henri. "They've been here for barely five minutes!"
"Five minutes that make half-an-hour. That's too much for a first visit, especially with more people than authorized. Next time, come back less numerous, and you'll be able to stay longer."
The goodbyes were said, and Henri found himself alone again in his room.
With a sigh, he let his head fall on his pillow. The wait until tomorrow's visit was going to be long...

Art by  buckdasystem
Bock and Henri © me