Chapter Text
Light, dark, an eternal grey delineating the two. You straddle the boundary, one side buffered by the blinding searing light, the other offering cool relief of nothingness.
Your limbs are heavy, your eyelids drooping…
You wish you could retreat to the shadows forever where it’s always silent and there’s nothing to do and no one to bother you or ever speak to you again.
Forever ever and ever and ever and.
But you have so, so much work left to do.
Step into the blistering light, o beast of perdition.
The Chief Executive Officer, one of the four horsemen that all toons fear. A towering menace, the paramount embodiment of control and authority, living hurricane of glass and teeth. Metal and hubris and prickly disdain, though for now in the night he is quiet.
A moment later, they wake, idling engine sputtering into high gear, torso and shoulders shifting in an approximation of a yawn. Squinting from the eyes in the back of their head, the CEO reads the neon numbers on the wall clock and promptly becomes very irritated at themself.
4:05 AM.
Far too early to start the day’s work, but not enough time to go back to sleep. This is the fourth day in a row that the CEO has woken up at an inappropriate time after a vivid dream cycle (yes, cogs indeed do dream, as maintenance programs run and clear up fragmented data and corrupted chunks in their drives). The lack of a proper second maintenance cycle has caused non-negligible harm to the CEO, but he still maintains his so-far flawless performance record of repelling toon invasions. (Better than his last version, which was beaten in a week.)
They stretch, their back creaking. He hadn’t swapped into a smaller shell for the night, resulting in him napping in his office, but it was not like proper sleep brought him much rest anyways.
The CEO wonders if the recent promotion a month ago is the cause of this.
After yet another CEO was defeated, demoted and sentenced to death on the streets Toontown Central, next in line was Big Cheese L50-158-2841-2. Their battered mind and memories took more noticeable effort to digest and assimilate into the CEO’s consciousness, but they had went quietly away in the end, becoming docile and gentle unlike the rest of the cheese gallery inside the CEO’s mind palace.
But this has only started very recently. What gives?
The cog boss eyes his desk in the dim light, a half-finished and extremely procrastinated-on stack of work sitting in the center. The responsible thing would be to haul themself down to Bossbot HQ’s maintenance and repairs and run some diagnostics. The easy thing would be to ignore this blatant problem and distract themself with the rest of this work until it is time for the morning banquet and the inevitable toon invasion.
And of course, the CEO does not feel responsible right now. The CEO rolls a bit closer to his desk and switches on the lamp only to be instantly blinded by the harsh light.
“Brap.”
He has to blink and squint and shake his head and wait for his oculars to adjust, and then he reaches for the pen and spreads out the sheets to get a better idea of what needs his executive approval and what can be safely disposed of.
Then they see it. Sitting on the desk, the words pierce like a bullet right through their steel heart.
SPECIAL MEMO: BOSSBOT DEPARTMENTAL PERFORMANCE.
An instinctive flash of panic causes the CEO to drop his pen before the rational part of his brain tells him to quit it and calm down. And read the memo. But do I have to? Yes. It’s your job. I hate my job. It’s not your choice.
TO THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
RECENTLY THE PERFORMANCE OF THE BOSSBOT DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN UNACCEPTABLE. YOUR DEPARTMENT IS REPORTING MORE BUSINESS LOSSES AND CASUALTIES THAN THE OTHER THREE DEPARTMENTS COMBINED IN THIS LAST QUARTER.
IMPROVE THE DEPARTMENT’S PERFORMANCE.
The threat is implicit. Do this, or you’ll be demoted and consequently, dead, and another, better version of you with one more life’s worth of experience will replace you. Because you’re a lazy useless waste of good metal pile of scrap who can’t do anything correctly.
DO NOT BE A DISAPPOINTMENT TO COG NATION.
THE CHAIRMAN.
The CEO groans and mutters to no one in particular. “I’m trying.”
The week has been eventful, to say the least.
The toons have practically set up a summer camp on HIS golf courses, their pitiful little tents on HIS lawn and their juvenile graffiti staining HIS walls.
It’s going to take ages to clean all of this up once the animals are evicted.
The CEO hasn’t gotten any sleep lately, no doubt in part because of the noise of the toons as they bark and meow and quack during the night. Now here’s another banquet ruined and another round of toons dispatched summarily. The CEO slowly advances on a toon and with a smack of the golf club sends her back to the playground. He got seltzer’d quite a bit, but luckily the toons didn’t get far this time and only left him sopping wet and deeply uncomfortable. No damage to his engine.
The CEO looks around, deeply troubled by the remains of the various destroyed cogs scattered about. The portraits on the walls stare down at him in resentment. He loves the banquets and it’s what he’s good at, but it’s all meaningless if he keeps getting caught off-guard like this, not realizing their cogs are being blown up right in front of their eyes. They can’t even see what’s happening right in front of them! What an idiot! Replace him! Demote the fool and get someone new to replace him. No, not another clone. I said, something NEW! This series is clearly a lost cause. Worthless pile of scrap.
“Sir!”
The CEO startles and backs up and nearly runs over a Flunky behind him. He spins around and practically snarls, eyes narrowing angrily.
“What is it?!” The Flunky steps back, and the CEO glares at them even harder in the hopes it will make them go away. They’re tempted to give the underling a clubbing.
“S-sir, the Vice President of Sales is here!”
“Why? What does that rusty bucket of- ” The CEO catches himself in time. “-wonderful person want?”
“To meet! She s-said it was urgent, sir!” Ugh. The CEO’s day can’t be any worse now. And the VP is here, wheeling into the room, looking absolutely thrilled as the properly fearful Flunky darts away.
“Now, bub, I’ve got a plan for the ages!”
“Do you not see that I am occupied?” The CEO gestures vaguely to the scattered cog parts around the banquet room and the puddles of seltzer water everywhere. And to his own soaked clothing.
“Yes, occupied being a lazy failure once again, but I’ve got the perfect solution to your little animal infestation up front!” The VP claps their hands together as if in prayer. “Y’see, one of the CJ’s gumshoes tracked down a rebel cog base nearby.”
“Rebels, near MY headquarters?!” The CEO is rather upset at this revelation, and even more upset that it’s coming from the VP out of all of the cogs.
“Correct, and I’m not surprised that you didn’t notice them sooner! The good news is that they are running low on fuel, and they’re waiting out the toon invasion to raid your supplies. But, with a little baiting, you could get them to attack early…”
“And have them and the toons fight each other.” The CEO had to admit this was underhanded, clever, and something only their oldest colleague could come up with. Ugh.
“You got it, bub! Now, I think you owe me a little favor…” The VP looks very devious if the CEO isn’t imagining things. Maybe just a trick of the lighting or maybe the CEO’s oculars are fritzing again.
“Really.”
“Next meeting, vote yes on the 124th Proposition.” That’s another budget increase for the Sellbots, if the CEO read the informational bulletin right. Not much of an increase, but the VP is ruthless with getting even the smallest benefits awarded to their department. It’s all for their lovely minions, they claim, but it’s obvious it is only for their own benefit.
“Fine, fine. Now, get out!” The CEO twirls his golf club around in a mock attempt at being intimidating, and aggressively approaches the VP, forcing them to back away and exit the room.
“Heeheehoohoo!” The CEO hates the VP’s high-pitched giggling as it echoes down the hall. Excessive laughter is generally not taken as a good sign by cogs, but there’s something about the VP’s that sends a chill down the CEO’s spinal cord.
…The cruel laughter just reminds them so much of their creator.