V M Execute

[V]

"What's the verdict on our new acquisition, miss Llang?" The voice of the enigmatic man that all of his subordinates and co-workers knew only as 'the Captain' spoke up suddenly, making the silver-eyed techie practically jump out of her skin. How did he manage to do that? Just get in wherever he wanted to be without so much as a peep? She hadn't even heard the doors open, and the damn things weren't exactly quiet anymore!

"Uh..." She quickly tried to regain her composure. "Well, it's...it's something else, sir. Never quite seen anything like it."

"How so?" the Captain slowly plodded up beside her, one hand resting on his hip and the other heavily bandaged limb hanging down at his side. "What's so special about it?"

"Well, it's..." Llang pursed her lips. "...how to put it. Kind of like...anachronistic and dichotomous, I guess. Some parts of it are clearly extremely advanced. There's some regeneration and weapon-creation systems that would be useful to replicate even nowadays. Fully human-like artificial intelligence and personality. And the overall specs of the thing's chassis and body at large..." She shook her head, turning to look up at the looming, ever so slightly terrifying figure of the leader of their entire operation. "It wouldn't be too hard to make something more advanced with the tech and resources we have today, but this is supposed to be just one of a whole bunch with nearly identical specifications, churned out like assembly line products."

"Interesting." The Captain nodded ever so slightly, barely a shifting of a few inches. "What of the oddities you mentioned?"

"Ah, right." Llang swiped aside the contents of her holo screen, pulling up the rough draft she'd managed to piece together of blueprints for their latest find. "Some of it just doesn't make sense. Like I said, fully human-like and developed AI, but..." She swiped and pulled up a second screen gesturing at the dizzying array of lines and strings of code that flashed by. "...still limited by something like a couple of the old, traditional laws of robotics rooted in its core programming. They can be overridden in dire emergencies or with command of higher-ups, but...why even have 'em at all, then?"

"Bizarre, indeed," the Captain murmured, his eyes slowly roving over the displayed information. "What's this?" He lifted his bandaged arm to point out a section of the blueprints highlighted in red.

"Oh, that..." Llang frowned. "I'm still trying to figure that part out. It can't be right. It would be a rookie mistake." She swiped the mess of code aside to enlarge the blueprints. "It's part of the cooling and maintenance system. Except...this thing is way under spec compared to everything else. It might be able to keep one of these things at a safe operating temperature under normal conditions, if they didn't do anything strenuous or put in much work beyond basic 'normal person on the street' kinda activity. But even then it'd only barely be enough for that. Plus it burns through oil and coolant faster than anything I've ever seen."

The Captain arched an eyebrow as his own lips slowly curved into a frown. "That sounds...wrong, somehow. I would suspect that as an initial trial, perhaps for a prototype. Not for what is ostensibly a finished product meant for mass production."

"I know!" Llang's frustration was evident, as was her confusion. "If this was a one-off example to show proof of concept, maybe. Or if it was a first run, before they'd ironed out the problems... But from the data I can scrounge up while this thing's offline, that isn't the case. It almost seems like they repurposed old parts and bits they had from other model lines that were lower spec than this one, just to save a buck."

"This complicates matters a bit," the Captain muttered. "With such obvious flaws like that..."

"Yeah. It's not gonna be worth anywhere near as much as we thought. Except to some uppity collector snob who wants a pre-End display piece." Llang sighed, pinching her nose. "....by the way, Captain. How's lilac doing?"

"Ricard?" The Captain's expression softened. "He's regained consciousness, at least. He was quite perturbed when he first woke up...he had to be restrained and sedated to calm him down. What did you say happened to him, again?"

"I don't really know...I wasn't down there with them when they went to retrieve this thing." Llang shook her head. "From what Ivan and 024 said, though, it was like he just freaked out. We were talking about how he didn't feel right about something down there, and how we should be careful with this thing. They were starting to head back out and bring it back topside for us, when he just...." She trailed off, shrugging helplessly. "To hear Ivan tell it, he was climbing over the edge and he just started screaming. Something about "she's alive, god dammit". He went for his knives, and lost balance."

"Lucky for him he hadn't disconnected his cable from the ceiling of that elevator shaft," the Captain murmured. "A broken ankle and a concussion is a small price to pay compared to how he would've ended up otherwise."

"Yeah...lucky is one word for it." Llang grimaced. "Glad he's okay, though."

"I am curious about one thing, though," the Captain murmured. "According to reports we have...Ricard said "she's alive". What do you suppose he was referring to?"

"Honestly, Captain? I couldn't tell you. Ivan and 024 couldn't even tell what he was looking at when he said it, and the only other thing with 'em was our zonked out friend, here." She gestured at the strange robot recovered from the underground ruins. "Up until then, all of us had been calling..." She trailed off, squinting at some notes she'd made. "....Serial Designation V-X00100000, according to documentation. Yeah, up until then all of us had been calling V here an 'it'. So whatever lilac saw down there that made him flip his lid beats me."

"Hmm." The Captain shifted his gaze to stare at the deactivated robot.

It was strapped down securely onto a table normally reserved for operating. A data cable ran into a port somewhere on its neck, out of his view. And as Llang had promised, there was not one but two EMP disablers bolted to either side of its head, casting the visor-like screen where its eyes should be into a glitching distorted mess of static. In its current state, it was hard to imagine it being a threat to anyone, or being able to trigger such panic in someone like Ricard. The man wasn't known for his courage, exactly...but he had never been known to so explosively fly off the handle like that, either.

"The design is quite human-like, isn't it?" the Captain murmured at length. "Very readily and obviously not actually human, of course. But otherwise..."

"Yeah. Ivan and 024 kept cracking jokes about it looking like an early-gen sexbot." Llang chuckled at that. "Even kinda dresses like one. I guess if you were gonna call V here something other than 'it', the best thing would be 'she' just based on appearances. Still...why'd he just flip like that?"

"I don't know, miss Llang," the Captain murmured. "Sometimes, some people simply...pick up on some things more keenly than others. Perhaps we've all missed something he managed to detect, in a way even he doesn't quite know. The man's survival instincts and ability to detect danger is astronomical."

"....well, whatever it is, or was, I'm just glad he's okay. I'll finish digging up whatever I can while we have our friend here right where we want her." Llang looked up. "What should we do then, though?"

"Activate it, when you feel you know all you can," the Captain said shortly, and pointedly ignored Llang's sputtering confusion at the command. "You've already said you won't be able to get everything while it's offline. And we need to know everything we can about it, if only to know who best to approach about...taking it off our hands." He lowered his gaze to Llang. "Do make sure to keep it properly restrained, though. We can't have any...incidents, you understand."

"Yeah...understood, sir." Llang sighed wearily, putting her face in her hands. "I want to go on record as saying I think this is a really bad idea, though."

"Duly noted, miss Llang." The Captain slowly turned on his heel and started to slowly pace off. "I'll be looking forward to your report."

 

[V]

"Ugh...." Janning groaned quietly, resting one hand over his eyes. "Give it to me straight, doc...how's things lookin' for me?"

"Well, to tell ya the truth, buddy...." Chester Lane, the resident doctor they had on staff murmured, idly flipped through some papers on a clipboard in a manner that suggested it was almost entirely for show. "....I've seen worse. Don't get me wrong, now. You definitely won't be walkin' anywhere on your own for a good little bit, but we can get you some crutches or something. You'll live."

"And the knock to my noggin?" the discombobulated thief grumbled, lifting his hand up to squint at his associate. "No permanent damage I hope."

"Miracles of modern science, lav." The doc chuckled. "We got you all sorted and taken care of, don't worry." Tossing the clipboard aside, he leaned back in his seat nonchalantly. "Mind yourself for the next couple days. You might feel out of sorts; dizzy, off-balance, tired, sluggish, confused. Might be hard to concentrate or remember stuff. But scans all point to a quick recovery with the treatment we got you into. Should be right as rain on the upstairs front within a week."

"Luckily, we have our lovely little Pey-Pey to keep an eye on you while you hobble along your road to recovery." Chester flashed an easy, lazy smile as he draped one arm over the back of his chair, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his coat with the other. "And I know you two get along so well. She never misses a chance to see you."

"C'moooon, Doc, don't do me like this when I'm out of commission!" Janning slapped an arm over his eyes with a drawn-out, exhausted groan. "You know she's jealous I 'stole her color scheme' or whatever it is she's always on about."

"I think it's cute, personally." The doctor chuckled lightly around the fresh smoke in his teeth, stashing the pack back in his pocket. "The way you get all riled up trying to deal with her... It's like the both of you regress twenty years."

"Yeah, yeah...real cute, doc," Janning muttered. "You do remember what happened last time we had a merry little get together?"

"Mmm. Yes." Chester paused a moment, struggling with his lighter. "Some sort of argument or other about who had the 'right' to wear their hair as long as yours both were at the time, I think?"

"You forgot the flamethrower."

"Well, to be fair, she did start growing hers out first."

"It was a flamethrower, doc!"

"Oh, please. You barely suffered any major burns."

"FLAME. THROWER."

Chester grinned around his freshly lit death stick once he finally got his lighter to cooperate. "Come now, Ricard. It isn't as if you didn't need a haircut, anyway. You just aren't cut out for hair that long. Remember how often you kept getting it caught in all the doors around here?" He gestured pointedly with the index finger of his lighter-bearing hand. "If you ask me, I think she did you a favor."

"Tell that to my burn scars." Janning slowly heaved himself up into a sitting position, grasping at the railing of the bed he was in to keep himself upright as the world briefly spun like a carousel around him.

Chester's jovial jokery died instantly as he shot up from his seat, rushing over to the bedside in an instant and clasping a hand on his friend's shoulder to help keep him steady. "Easy there, now. Shouldn't be making sudden movements like that just yet, if you can avoid it."

"Ain't so bad, except for how the world decided to turn into a blender for a second..." Janning mumbled, pinching at the bridge of his nose. ".....so, be real with me. You gonna be leavin' it up to little ol' Violet to look after me while I get back ship-shape again?"

"Only your day to day monitoring, to make sure you don't suddenly get any worse due to something we missed." Chester straightened up and took a step back. "I know you two don't see eye to eye, but....you know she actually does care about everyone here, you included. Even that flamethrower incident you like to bring up, she was never really out to do real damage. We all know you line your clothes with as much fire retardant and suppressant lining as you can get away with, Ricard. Why do you think she chose something so obviously dangerous?"

"I know, I know. If she was actually after my head, she could've gone for any one of the other forty-seven deadly objects laying around at the time." Janning slowly turned his head to stare with heavy, tired eyes at the doctor. "Doesn't mean it wasn't still a major brown pants moment."

Chester burst out laughing at that, flopping back into his seat. "I guess I can't argue with you on that one! It would be a very, very foolish man to not be scared if he was suddenly in the middle of a fireball!" He reached up to pluck the cig from his mouth, leaning precariously over to tap the ash into a nearby trashcan. "Though in your case, you might want to be thankful. You ended up in the medical ward over that one, and remember what happened to your old team the day after?"

"Can't say as I do, to be honest." Janning shrugged listlessly. "All I heard was they never reported back after they headed out for a new potential site check."

"Yes, well...." Chester cleared his throat. "Let's just leave it at you being lucky you weren't with them, then. It would be a very different world for all of us if you'd also gone missing without a trace, don't you think?"

"Don't tell me you're really tryin' to say she saved my life by setting me on fire, here." The thief rubbed at his temples. "Because that's what it sounds like you're tryin' to insinuate with all this. And even if that somehow were the case, it isn't exactly what you'd call a benevolent or well-intentioned act if she didn't know what was coming ahead of time."

Chester coughed slightly, hurriedly turning away and taking a long, slow drag from his smoke. ".....I've been observing her since that little incident. There are some very noticeable similarities to some of her peculiarities to your own little...gift, Ricard."

"My...gift?" One of Janning's eyebrows curled upward, his eye squinting slightly. "If this is some elaborate, drawn-out "you're special" speech, doc, you can save it..."

"Well...in a sense, I suppose it is. I'm talking about your, frankly, uncanny ability to survive and evade danger, Ricard." Chester tilted his head back, blowing a stream of smoke into the air. "It's inexplicable, well beyond even the kind of survival instinct or danger sense of soldiers who've survived deployment into active warzones. It's well past merely bordering on the supernatural."

"C'mon, now, Doc...." Janning waved a hand dismissively. "You and I both know the kind of shit we all get up to around here. I'm nothin' special compared to everyone else. Even if I do have some kinda weird super survival instinct or whatever, you really gonna tell me it's out of the ordinary compared to, like...Gauges?"

"Comparing anyone here, except maybe the Captain, to that imbecile is a complete fallacy." Chester shook his head. "All I'm trying to say, Ricard, is that little Pey-Pey...that is, miss Sharp, has the same kind of uncanny instinct. She almost seems to know things ahead of time. She's made bizarre requests and suggestions to re-organize or order extra supplies, even on things we were seemingly sufficiently stocked on...and then a group returns from an expedition seriously injured, needing an excess of the very things she suggested we stock up on."

The doctor spun back around on one heel, pointing at Janning with the smoldering end of his nearly-spent ciggy. "Once or twice would be a coincidence we could write off. Three or four, maybe even five times, would be uncanny but something we could chalk up to just dumb luck or nurse's intuition." He frowned. "....she's done it thirty-seven times in just the past two years, Ricard."

"Sweet Arbiter..." Janning blinked, slowly, as if trying to process that. "Oughta take her out to the casino or something, with luck like that."

"Call it luck it you want to, Ricard." Chester turned to ash his cigarette, grinding it out in the ashtray. "I'm going to call it like I see it: the exact same kind of inexplicable awareness of danger and potential risks, complications, and hazards in the future as you seem to exhibit. Yours is a bit keenly specific, focused on keeping you alive...hers is more outwardly tuned, to the potential perils of others. Fitting, for an aspiring doctor, don't you think?"

"I'm a poor mundane man myself, with none of these fancy powers everyone seems to have these days," the doctor went on, with a pained smile. "But I've heard of this kind of thing before. Especially this kind of latent, unrefined state you both seem to be in, but..." He rubbed a hand through his hair, a frown creasing his features. "....well, it's hard to really find much that's concrete about it, without having firsthand experience."

"I can imagine." Janning sighed, shaking his head. "Let's not get too derailed, here, though. You're really tryin' to loop this all back around to sayin' that Violet really set me on fire on purpose, to get me holed up in the medical ward for a while?"

"I can't discount the possibility." Chester shrugged, his expression uneasy. "It would've been very easy for her to do much worse, if she actually intended harm...but her acting that violently in general, especially over such a relatively trivial argument, was quite out of character."

"I don't know how much of this I actually buy, doc." Janning grimaced. "On the one hand...it'd sure put my mind at ease, knowin' that my soon to be nurse isn't liable to just suddenly have her violence switch flipped out of the blue and strangle me to death in my sleep or something. On the other hand...I really dunno if I like what you're insinuating here about us bein' on the same kinda uncanny danger predicting wavelength, or whatever."

"Well, it's not my intention to unnerve or distress you right now, Ricard." Chester sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Just keep in mind that, in spite of your somewhat, er...rocky history, she does have your best interests at heart, and try to get some rest."