Your words fail you. A deep primordial instinct overwhelms the rational part of your brain. A mixture of hormones, opioids and other naturally generated chemicals floods through your bloodstream. There is only one thing on your mind. One thing that matters more than anything else.

waow cool robot vvverrryyy cool.

You immediately force that part of your brain back into statis. You're a professional. You're taking this job seriously, even if you don't want to do it, because it's your obligation to do so.
But.
Cool robot.

"Say, mind if you answer a few questions for me?"
"NO. ISSUE HERE." The automaton struggles to speak through its bitcrushed, poorly-maintained voicebox. "CARRYING AUTOMATION #821 IS. A FRIEND."
"Automation? Not automaton?" "IS THAT DESIGNATION WRONG?" "Not important. Okay, first off, #821? There's 821 of you?"

"YES. TO OFFER A MORE. DETAILED NAME, I AM SUPERNATURAL ARTIFACT CARRYING AUTOMATION #821. SACA FOR SHORT. I USE." A small wisp of smoke leaks out of one of the doll-like joints in SACA's shoulder. "A [DATA EXPUNGED - RANK TOO LOW] MODEL LLM TO. UNDERSTAND ORDERS AND TO. RESPOND LIKE A HUMAN."

"So, does that mean you're the latest one?"
"YES. HOWEVER, ABNORMALITY REGULATION COALATION HAS MADE. MANY OTHER ROBOTS LIKE ME TO. DO OTHER SPECIFIC TASKS. THERE IS MORE THAN 821 ROBOTS OF MY. 'INTELLIGENCE' IN THIS FACILITY."
"Right. If you had to roughball how many robots there are with similar capabilities to you, how many would there be?"
"ROUGHLY. THREE THOUSAND. MOST OTHER AUTOMATION. PERSONNEL ARE NOT. MEANT TO TALK."

Alright, so they apparently have enough of a budget to make robots powered with AI before it got slashed. You're still wondering why and how that budget got slashed to begin with since this job seems REALLY important to fund.
Oh well. You can ask about that later.

"So." You point to the vantablack stone cube it was carrying. "Do you have any idea what's in that?"
SACA snaps its head at an unnatural angle to look at the cube in question. "I AM NOT AUTHORIZED TO KNOW. I WAS TOLD TO CARRY. SO I DO."
"Yeah, that tracks."
"I KNOW ONE THING - HEARD FROM 'EXTRACTION TASK FORCE' ROXXIE. IT WAS A CENTIPEDE THAT COULD TALK. A CENTIPEDE THAT WANTED TO SELL THINGS TO YOU, FOR A PROFIT. THAT IS ALL I KNOW."

Interesting. At least that confirms there are some anomalies that are sapient and/or have the capability for speech besides the mysterious MAN. You suppose you couldn't have expected any more detail from that kind of question. There's only one more on your mind before you shoot your shot.

"Sorry if this is offensive to, uh, robots or something?" You're winging this. You're not even sure if it has the capacity to be angry. "Are you up to 'factory standard'? As they say? I think?"

SACA blankly stares at you with its singular, unblinking red eye. "I CARRY. I AM FUNCTIONING."
"I guess that's true but do you feel like your ability to carry isn't, uh, up to par?" SACA continues to blankly stare at you.