Work Text:
Robert turned off his desktop, leaning back in his chair. For a few moments his mind was empty, staring at his reflection on the black screen.
He looked… well, bad was saying it lightly. His hair was thin, he had aged, bags under his eyes that rivaled those of even their most devoted coders.
Sighing, Robert shook his head, grabbing his bag and packing up his things. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, it nearly ripped, the straps barely hanging on. He should get a new backpack. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money for one, quite the contrary, he had more money than he knew what to do with, the problem was that the manufacturer who had made his backpack had gone out of business a decade ago. The backpack he had now was perfect, just the right size so it could fit all his things but not flow over, comfortable to wear, the familiarity in how it sat on his shoulders soothing. He still remembered when he had gotten it, finding it at a garage sale that he originally came to in search of the last missing VHS tapes of Space Fleet, barely 19 years old and those VHS tapes had been the finishing piece for his collection of the entire show on VHS, DVD and blu-ray. Instead, he’d left with this backpack, no VHS’ in sight.
He didn’t want a new backpack.
Sometimes, most of the time if he was honest, he spent 10 minutes after work just staring at his shelf of Space Fleet memorabilia, cleaning it up slightly so it looked just right.
Now that he thought about it, it was all the time. Every day after work. Today was no exception.
Only that today he was interrupted by his office door suddenly flying open, Walton storming in.
“Bob, you’re still here, great! I need your help. Now.” Internally, Robert flinched, cringing at that stupid nickname Walton had given him all those years ago. He hated being called Bob. That wasn’t his name. His name was Robert, not Bob, not Rob, not anything else, just Robert. How he wanted to scream at Walton for it.
Instead, he gave an unsure, awkward smile, and nodded. “Of course, Mr. Walton.”
The few steps over into Waltons office were pure agony. Robert didn’t want to help. He wanted to go home, order food and play his Space Fleet mod. It was how he always spent his evenings, and now his whole time management was thrown off.
His skin prickled, like ants crawling underneath it.
“Here, do whatever it is that you do and fix it.” Waltons voice was commanding, he wasn’t kindly asking, he was telling Robert what to do, wildly gesturing towards Waltons laptop.
“Your-... laptop?” Roberts' voice meanwhile was quiet, unsure, awkward. When was it not.
“Yes, my laptop, Bob! Go on! And make this fast, I have dinner plans in half an hour.”
Robert didn’t deserve to be treated like this. Not by Walton, not by anyone.
Anger seethed in him, so deep he barely felt the flame himself, but it was there and it was here to stay.
Yet, he sat down, taking Waltons laptop, which was currently blue screened.
Roberts' face scrunched up slightly. What had that tech idiot done now?
“Uhm-... did you-.. did you install any new software or something?” Robert asked, just a hint of accusation in his voice, about the most he could muster up.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Just fix it!” Walton shot back.
Alright then, if Walton wouldn’t give him an answer, he’d have to check off all the possible boxes.
This was going to take ages. If he knew what Walton had done before it blue screened, it would be much easier and faster.
He shut the laptop down, restarting it in safe mode and started looking around. Uninstalling any new data downloaded in the last three hours, rolling back various drivers, scanning for malware, which there was surprisingly none of, scanning for any damaged files, checking the harddrive and RAM, and finally rebooting the system.
Well, at least it didn’t immediately blue screen again.
“Here, should be fixed.” Closing the laptop, he handed it over to Walton, who was already packed up and ready to leave for his dinner.
“About fucking time.” His so-called ‘friend’ muttered, nearly ripping the laptop from Robert's hands and dashing out the door. No ‘great job’, no ‘thank you’, no nothing.
For a moment, Robert just sat there, staring at Waltons disappearing figure through the glass walls of the office.
He hated him. He hated James Walton so much.
Something else came into focus, something on Waltons desk right next to Robert.
An empty smoothie cup.
He stared at it for a long while.
Now here was an idea.
Quickly, Robert sprung to action. Luckily, they had reusable tea bags laying around the office kitchen. Not the best, but it would do for now.
He grabbed the smoothie cup, cutting off the part of the rim where he suspected Walton had drunk from, and put it into the tea bag, stuffing it into his pocket.
Finally arriving at his apartment, he rushed in, letting his bag drop next to his desk and placing the tea bag on it.
He rushed over to his bed, pulling a box from underneath it. He had always known at some point that DNA cloner Walton had given him would come in handy.
Everything happened practically on autopilot. Connecting the cloner to his PC, writing up a program to run the thing and insert those clones directly into his Space Fleet mod.
Oh god this was going to be fantastic.
Once it was all finished, he took the rim of the smoothie cup from the tea bag, using a Q-tip to get what was hopefully Waltons DNA off of it and inserted it into the cloner, hitting enter and watching as the program ran and did it’s thing, a progress bar popping up reading ‘Assimilation: 0%’.
Right. Now it was a matter of waiting. He wondered how long this would take.
When they had cloned Robert 9 years ago to work on Infinity, he had to let his computer run all night and the next day. He remembered how angry his parents were about the electricity bill that month.
His parents had been angry with him a lot over his life.
No, not the time to think about that.
Pulling up his phone, he got up from his desk, ordering a pizza as he walked into his kitchen, realizing the large space was quite the mess. Dishes piled up, opened cans everywhere, empty take out containers. He should clean up.
Not today.
With his pizza ordered, he opened his fridge, pulling a box of chocolate milk from it, along with a can of white Monster.
Now that he couldn’t play his mod, for a moment he was at a loss of what to do.
Oh well, he’ll just watch Space Fleet.