Chapter Text
Cassiopeia slowly woke up from her deep slumber as the artificial sun shined through the window of her space pod. Her alarm that usually stands on her desk lay on the floor, as always. It's a miracle that it still worked after all of Cass' abuse on it.
She looked towards her almost broken alarm on the carpet to check the time. She flipped over the small device.
10:23 am.
Was it that late already? It felt like she had only slept for mere minutes!
She quickly stood up and got ready for today. She changed into her comfortable clothes, (Who needed those formal ones anyway?) and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and to comb her brown hair.
"Good morning!" An overly-cheerful robotic voice spoke up, revealing itself to be in the bathroom entrance, hooked up to the rails on the ceiling that are scattered around every part of the space pod.
"How can I assist, Cassio--" The robot couldn't even finish its sentence before the bathroom door shut on it.
"Whaith fsor mwe thou hawe my mornging coffwee, robwot. (Wait for me to have my morning coffee, robot.)" Cassie said with her mouth full with toothpaste. She never really was a morning person.
Once finished, she opened the door and immediately got greeted with the cheerful robot again.
"Cassiopeia, I suggest you do not ignore m--" Another unsuccessful attempt from the robot as Cass just put her hand up, signaling for it to shut up.
Once her coffee was finished, she looked at the robot again with a normal expression, motioning it to start talking.
"So, today is one of your big days, Cassiopeia! You should prepare yourself for the arrival of the robots, they will come at 10:45 am."
"In 1 minute?! What are you even talking about?? What do you mean this is my big day?? COULDN'T YOU HAVE WOKEN ME UP ANY SOONER??" Cassie panicked at full volume, to which her neighbor knocked on the wall of the double space pod to make her shut up. This happened regularly.
An ear-deafening buzzer was heard through the entire house.
People had nicer doorbells in the past, Cassie always repeated in herself.
"They have already arrived!" The robot says to her.
"Good luck!" Was the last thing it said before Cassiopeia went to the front door of the space pod.
When opening the door to the outside, to space, she got greeted with two familiar robots. She recognized them from her job. Those were robots that she often had to design multiple things for a company because they didn't like most of the designs that she made. It's called "Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation," but Cass always just called it "ODD."
ODD was the only actual business that has remained since humanity began exploring space and had put habitats onto all kinds of different planets. ODD was the one in control around here.
The robots stood on the porch of the dual space pod. In this street, all of the pods are lined up and put next to each other. The pods are usually all compressed together, making place for two people in a singular pod, with it being closed off of the other person. She was lucky to have one of the bottom pods. She never really liked to use those float bikes to go somewhere. She once fell off of one when she was younger. Once again, the people in the past had it so easy..
Cassiopeia looks over to the grass, the sun, the trees.. But they're all not real. Most of them are holograms or artificially made by the Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation.
"Greetings, Ms. Astra." The right ODD bot said, its screen displayed the exact words it says.
"We sincerely thank you for signing to be a volunteer of Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation. It is to both your and our advantage, an advantage for our people! We..." The robot kept on talking in its monotone voice.
"Hey, wait - I never signed up for this! I never wanted to work for ODD! I already have a job!" Cass tried to interrupt the robot, but to no success. The left ODD bot also started to speak.
"Helping humanity with participating in the Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation's work already provides a lot of assets to us to continue helping the human race, all because of your minimal support."
"Rookies of the Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation are all gathered in the building that is dedicated to the workers of the project," It talked before a car arrived, floating above the violet coloured ground that this planet has.
"Step into the car to the building." The left robot demanded while the right one displayed an arrow pointing towards the car.
Cassiopeia stepped back towards her pod, having an awkward smile plastered onto her face.
"No thanks, I'll just.." She slowly stepped back until she heard the front door close on her. Her indoor robot must have closed it on her.
"Dammit.." She muttered to herself.
"Okay, so where exactly are you taking me? At least tell me if it's on the same planet.." Cassiopeia asked, seated in the back seat of the car that was traveling at light speed.
"Don't worry, Ms. Astra! Because of our technology, we'll be there in approximately," There was a loading screen on the robots display.
"3 seconds." It finally answered.
A tall building stood in front of Cassiopeia.
"Please enter into the building. You will be helped further by our employees."
The car drove away, leaving the still confused Cassiopeia awaiting her new supposed "job."
A tall building loomed over Cassiopeia.
"Please enter the building, Ms. Astra. Our employees will help you further once they check your identity." The ODD bot that was driving the floating car said before the car drove away, leaving a still confused Cassiopeia behind.
The inside wasn't furnished. The only thing there stood was a scanning machine and some sort of identification machine with a camera.
Where were the other people? Surely, there would have been other people who had actually signed up as volunteers to work here..
"Step forward, Cassiopeia Astra." A robotic voice echoed throughout the spacious room. Cassiopeia flinched from the sudden loudness but ultimately decided to obey whoever was behind this.
The machine scanned her hand and her face, finishing the identification off with a newly printed work ID.
"Welcome, Cassiopeia, to the Omniversal and Digital Dominion corporation's recourses program. Thank you for signing up for this new job." After the voice ended its preprogrammed voicelines, a metal door slided open in front of Cassie, who was inspecting the ID that the identification robot gave her.
"Please enter room 264." The robotic voice spoke up for the last time.
Cassiopeia realised that she was way too deep in this to turn back now. There's no way she could run out of the building because of the robot at the entrance.
She walked down the long hallway with rooms on each side.
On the left side were the even numbers:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ...
On the right side were the oneven numbers:
1, 3, 5, 7, 9, ...
Cassiopeia sighed. She hated to walk at long periods of time..
After approximately 15 minutes of walking and searching around the place, she finally arrived at room 264. All of the doors were made of metal and didn't have any gap to look through.
What was laying behind the metal door? Another robot? A spaceship? Maybe something so wicked that she doesn't even know how to describe it?
She gently opened the door..