Work Text:
As he surveyed the club, Oblio casually took out his phone and shot a text to his friend.
There are fewer robots in this club than I had come to expect as normal. Had you noticed?
He stared contemplatively at his phone before locking the screen and tucking it into his jacket pocket. His eyes were drawn across the dance floor to the shadowed figures in the DJ booth. All seemed well. The music was flowing. The DJ was mixing one hit into another. No one seemed to notice that neither the DJ nor his assistant ever needed to take a break or even grab a bottle of water. Oblio nodded knowingly to the figures in the booth. One pupil glinted red in acknowledgement as the nod was returned.
Oblio made his way up to the lounge. As he entered, he observed a couch and chair nestled into the corner ahead of him, with a round table between them. On the wall to his right was a fireplace with a roaring fire. On the same wall were four stained glass windows, paned in amber glass. Those had been his idea and he was proud when his father agreed it was a good one. He delighted in the ambiance it lent the space. Tucked away in the northeast corner just beyond the couch was a small bar with four stools. The bartender tidied the bottles on the shelves behind him. The bar had bright neon lights outlining the shelves and backsplash. To his left was the DJ booth and the dance floor – it was smaller than the main floor downstairs, but it had panels inset that lit up. Those had been expensive, but worth the cost, in his opinion.
The rest of the floor was dark hardwood laid in thick slats along the length of the room. Between the dance floor and the bar was a small stage with lighting around the base. There were railings separating the stage and the dance floor from the outward-slanting LED wall panels on the walls behind them. They were carefully crafted to appear to be normal walls until they lit up in a vibrant array of colors. The ceiling was in an industrial style with some tiles high above, and exposed pipes and wires where some panels were strategically missing. It added to the vibe they had been trying to set for this space.
The walls were dark grey brickwork. They held three monitors, each on a different wall, to display anything they were programmed to. There were neon lights and LEDs adorning the walls at shoulder height that would light up or pulse with the music. His father had also added propaganda-style posters with instructions on what to do if you were receiving unwanted attention or harassment from fellow patrons. Graphic-wise they showed only Dr. Tan’s silhouette on a gradient background, and his round-framed glasses, seemingly staring at you from every poster.
Oblio took a moment to take in how well this space had turned out. It was equal parts intimate and exciting. He hoped many patrons would have fond memories of this place in the days to come.
Emilia would be performing here later, but for now the lounge was empty except for the bartender (another new guy… they seemed to change every time he came up here) and the two DJs at the small booth near the dance floor. He stood for several minutes listening to their chatter – it was the same three dozen sentences or so on a loop. He frowned. An error in programming, surely. He would have to bring it up to his father. He walked over to the booth to see if there was anything he could do to immediately rectify the oversight, without the very human bartender noticing.
He unlocked the waist-high door at the back of the raised booth designed to keep patrons from accidentally, or purposefully, tampering with the equipment. He opened the door, looking down, and was dismayed to see that neither figure had legs. He supposed it was an ingenious, space-saving design… as long as no one noticed. The booth was elevated enough that someone both intensely curious and quite tall would need to get close enough to peer over the lip the booth to observe the anomaly. On the other hand, one wouldn’t have to be all that observant to realize that both the DJs up here and the ones on the main dance floor looked identical.
He shook his head and sighed, leaving the lounge to go to the wardrobe area. The whole operation had the potential to get very sloppy very quickly if anything were to break down unexpectedly. He would have to make sure the engineering team was on top of any daily maintenance, as well as removal of any equipment that was malfunctioning or not being utilized at any point in time; for instance, when the space was being rented out for events.
He stepped into the wardrobe and stopped to look at himself in the full-length mirror stored there. He looked tired. Fortunately, half of his face was covered by a shock of dark blue hair. He briefly tossed his head to clear it from his eyes and leaned closer. He was going to need a trim soon. He made a mental note to book an appointment when he got home. Having his hair cut by a living, breathing person was one of the few things he would not compromise on. There was nothing like the feeling of precisely manicured nails gently stroking his scalp as he got a shampoo. He shivered slightly at the thought.
He took a moment to stretch his arms, arching his back as he extended them to either side of him, his fingers bent almost like talons. He relaxed once more and grabbed his motorcycle helmet from where it was perched on the neck of an old dress form in the corner of the room. He had also strung his necklace around the neck of the form. He removed it and slipped it on over his head. It was an old crow feather with a few beads on a leather cord. It was significant and precious, and he tucked it away inside his jacket.
He left the building and walked the short distance to where he had parked his motorcycle. It too was precious. Sleek, glossy, expensive, in black and cobalt, it was his most treasured possession. He mounted it and reveled briefly in the smooth purr of the engine before riding to his father’s estate in the countryside.
Because of the advanced tech that Dr. Tan had installed in the security system of the estate, as well as the enhancement that Oblio had added to his bike, the gates slowly swung open as he approached them. He slowed as he drove through them, and up the long driveway to the detached garage several dozen yards from the main house.
He unlocked and opened the front door. A man more wizened than his father stood on the other side of it, prepared to attend to whatever need a guest or resident might have. Oblio dropped his keys into a carved jade bowl atop a rosewood credenza with elaborately carved panels next to the front door. He unzipped his motorcycle jacket and slid it carefully off his shoulders. As he held it out to the butler, he briefly studied the design on the back – a stylized “M” carefully detailed to resemble a bird’s claw. The attendant took the jacket from him.
“Please be careful with that,” he muttered.
“Of course, sir.” The butler replied. He turned to deliver the garment safely to a nearby closet. His smooth, unhurried gait as he left the foyer belied his apparent age.
Without his jacket, Oblio was left in a My Chemical Romance tee and black skinny jeans. He toyed briefly with one of the beads on his necklace before slipping off his shoes and placing them next to the credenza. He hurried further into the house, to the room he used as an office when visiting his father’s estate. Before exiting the foyer into the main hall of the home, he turned left and went down a short hallway. The room at the end was the one he was looking for.
He opened the door on his safe space – well the safest space for him currently in the estate. The walls were papered in a pale-on-pale geometric pattern, almost invisible to the eye unless you knew what to look for or turned your head just right. Light streamed in through the window on the far side of the room, but Oblio flipped the light switch on anyway to lend more light to the space. It would be dark soon.
The floor was covered in a plush cream carpet. He bent over to collect the slippers he kept just inside this room and slipped them on his feet. He indulged himself with a soft smile at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining one wall of the room. As he made his way into the space, he let his fingers play lightly over the spines of some of the books. Nietzsche. Hemmingway. Kant. Byron. Marx. Neruda. Rilke. His fingers paused on that last, and he began to slip it off the shelf before shaking his head, remembering what he had come here for. Work, not indulgence.
He traversed the carpet to the plush leather office chair set behind a sturdy oak desk that should have been far too large for a normal home office, but somehow fit the space perfectly. He sank into the chair with a soft moan, letting himself fully relax for the first time that day. He spent no few minutes on breathing exercises to help him mentally prepare for whatever the evening might bring.
He had just opened his eyes and was powering on his computer when a gentle, rhythmic knock came at the doorframe. He looked up to see ELIOT standing there.
“Hello, Oblio,” ELIOT greeted him. “How was your day? Were you out doing guy things? Like us guys are always doing?”
Oblio motioned for ELIOT to come into the room. “Yes, I was, actually. How did you guess?”
“Well, you know us guys. Ha. Ha. Always out doing things, you know?”
Oblio smiled indulgently. “How was your day, my friend?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. I wanted to play catch, but there weren’t any other real boys like me around to play with. So I threw the ball into the air really high and then tried to catch it myself. It was fun. You should’ve been there.”
“That does sound like fun. Did you practice your dancing at all?”
“Yes, I did! I’m getting really good you know. I even made a video of myself dancing to one of my favorite songs. I was going to upload it to the internet, but Doctor Tan said I’m not allowed to upload videos of myself, so I watched it exactly 10 times and then deleted it.”
“Good, good. Father knows what’s best for you. Would you mind going to the kitchen for me and finding out when dinner will be? I find myself famished.”
“Sure thing, Oblio. I will find out and then come right back and tell you. Don’t have too much fun without me! Ha. Ha.”
ELIOT’s mouth broke into a sideways “D” shape as he whirred, whirled, and exited the room. Oblio turned his attention back to his computer.
His phone buzzed and beeped as his friend finally replied to his earlier text: But not zero robots?
Oblio’s face was blank as he typed his reply. No, never zero robots.