IT ALL STARTED IN THE LAB...
The Intern had no idea what to expect on his first day as an unsalaried intern at Ethical Robotics and Experimentation, Inc. As the largest manufacturer of automation technology in the Pennsylvania region, the company's sheer profitability was matched only by its secluded research facility for which our hero had applied weeks before at the request of his graduate advisor, Dr. Mentor. As the green-haired, thick-rimmed-glasses-wearing hipster exited his car and stared at the imposing facade of his new workplace, he was filled with both excitement and apprehension.
His arrival at the reception desk of the building was greeted by a familiar sight, none other than Dr. Mentor in the flesh; and in the flesh would certainly be the appropriate phrase to use, given that the wisened scientist was, at the time, a brain suspended in a vat of liquid. At the beginning of their relationship, The Intern had some difficulty adjusting to his mentor's unusual appearance, but as time passed, the initial tension began to melt away. How Dr. Mentor ended up in a vat, and how he was able to communicate from said vat, was an unanswered question.
The training exercises all new interns had to complete came as more of a shock when The Intern arrived at the virtual reality training lab. Apparently, the sensitive nature of the company's latest research required special hands-on education, provided by a mysterious, gray-haired woman on an LCD screen. In particular, The Intern was asked to thoroughly practice the usage of a miniature remote control used to direct the movement of robots in a localized area. In these training "simulations", a number of particularly deadly obstacles seemed a little too real.
After what seemed like just an hour had passed, The Intern emerged from the training simulator to find a building in total chaos. Acid spills. Robots running wild. Pools of lava. Liquid nitrogen. Tentacles. Fire. Tentacles on fire. What had transpired in the short time from when he arrived at the building to when he completed his training exercises? Nobody seemed to know, not even the scientists who ran about frantically trying to prevent further damage to their precious research. Dr. Mentor was the only calm one of the lot. Not that he could be anything but calm, given his general incapability for physical movement. Nonetheless, The Intern, remote control still in hand, sought him out.
"Ah, Intern... I knew you would be the right one for this job when I recommended you," a disembodied voice echoed throughout the foyer. "You hold in your hands the only prototype of a device that can control the robots and bring our precious creations to safety... at least, those that haven't gone completely haywire. As you do this, you must also find the root of this disaster. There are three primary and three secondary laboratories in this facility, and you will find your answers in one of them. Now go!"
The Intern looked at the clunky box in his hand, then at the floating brain and the chaos around him. He knew what he had to do. And he was going to do it.