Work Text:
More work to do. Always more work to do.
Within his base in Disturbed Impact, there was always work. Operator had finally managed to categorize and log all of his scrap, but more awaited him. Blueprints to be fulfilled, blueprint ideas to be created, checks to be made, he never claimed he had nothing to do. He could always be doing something productive; or less productive, if you would insult his beautiful art, but don’t expect to keep your head or belongings. He’s done the same for less of a transgression.
Monitors were positioned in seemingly random positions around a central area. He had a lot to do. Some with blueprints, one on an empty document, one with his spreadsheet of scrap, one with his ASCII text (as if half of his documents didn't have doodles on them), two with control panels (one for the drones’ charging station and one for his small oil recycler [have to keep the drones moving smoothly]), and there'd be more if he had more monitors. Considering he had to find the right scrap and a good chunk of time to get just one put together, he was happy he had as many as he did.
There was a constant drone in the room between the computers breathing out their hot air and the oil recycler churning, not including his continuous typing. He was quite fast even after losing one arm, some likely couldn’t distinguish between key hits; keys that had to be made partially of stone. One resource that Disturbed Impact had in droves was stone. And dirt, but he couldn’t use that. He had to learn how to carve at stone to get all of the sizing right (and to put the actual letters on the keys, of course). And cleaning the stone? He abandoned the idea. It was easier to only use the inside and polish it himself than to try to scrub off the debris.
The droning seemed to get louder. Perhaps a surge of power came through the lines, pushing the devices to process faster. Perhaps Operator hit a sentence he’d typed before, hitting some muscle memory and typing it faster. It could be a number of brief phenomena.
But louder it still got. The technician checked the power input rate of his devices. Normal. Then what caused the volume raise? Turning around, he got his answer: CROSSHAIRS staring him in the face. “Ah, Cross!” The man exclaimed. “You startled me!” He waggled his finger. “Don’t you know sneaking up on people causes nothing but trouble? If I had my weapon, hoo boy, I could have decommissioned you right where you float!”
The drone seemed exasperated (a thing only Operator could’ve spotted) and flew a little closer to the man’s goggles. {Bweep bwoo}
Operator moved to respond, but just chuckled. “Alright, I was a bit absorbed. In any case, did you need something?”
{Beep bwip, boop boop bap}
“An intelligent? ..is it dead?”
{... bip bwoo}
“What do you-” He sighed. “Fine, I’ll check it out. Is anyone else near it?”
{Beep bop, bing bwooop}
“Oh CHIRP and DOC are there? Good on you, that’s smart!” His claw moved to absently pat the drone’s head, though hovered awkwardly upon recalling the active propeller in the space. “Look for some of the others, if stuff looks to be going south, step in. Well, figuratively.” With a plan in order, he grabbed his gun and took off with CROSSHAIRS out of the base.
Sure enough, after a bit, a humanoid could be spotted standing on the ruined bridge that circled the crater in the middle of the area. They looked confused, CHIRP and DOC just staring at them. They had a cool sword, though. Maybe he’d try to type it later.
CROSSHAIRS deposited the technician a few meters away from the group before leaving to fulfill its other objective. The other humanoid looked at him. “...hello?”
“Hello!” Operator greeted, jogging closer and leaning in, the multiple optics on his goggles analyzing the person stood before him. Fairly standard suit, not common UES deployment gear, customized maybe but not modified. Good functioning overall. The small front eyes of his goggles told him basic information like temperature, theorized species, heart rate if biological, computing power if mechanical, the like. The suit already hinted at a human inside, but the temperature reading and detected heart rate led the sensor eyes to predict a human. Operator hadn’t seen a human in a while. ..how did humans act again?
The other person took a step back, looking toward the claw arm. “I, uh... ..you got a name?”
“Right, right, name! Uh- Operator.” His claw passively twitched and spun in its socket. “And you?”
“Mercenary,” he obliged. “You’re.. a strange one. I suppose I don’t have much room to-”
“I like your sword.” The technician couldn’t help but mention it. Just look at it! It was a really nice sword! He had to type that after this interaction.
The assassin looked down at his blade. “Oh, yeah. I like it. It’s very good at its job.” He looked back up, eyes finding the claw once again. “Your.. claw. Is pretty cool, too.”
He liked his claw arm! A human liked his claw arm! “Well thank you! It’s quite an intricate machine, actually. I teamed up with some at-the-time coworkers to make it. Couldn’t do something like this one-handed, could I? I was actually born left-handed, funnily enough! Gained ambidextrousness, it’s easier to type that way, and then ended up losing my whole right arm in a freak event! It’s pretty funny, yeah? Like some higher being saying ‘no, I said you could only use your left hand, and you’re staying that way!’ Helped the depression go away a little.”
Mercenary... didn’t know how to react to that. “. . . get- better soon, I guess.” His eyes then found the squadron of drones approaching. “Seems like you’ve made some friends to keep you company.”
Operator turned to see the group as well. “Cross, you made it! We won’t need the army, but good work!” CROSSHAIRS flew down in exasperation. {Bwip bee- boop!} “Yes, yes, I know. I’ll get them some oil for compensation later.” {Boo beep} “I so will remember! Oh- go to Abyssal Depths for all I care.” He turned back around to his new friend. “So much sass, that one. CHIRP and DOC would never.”
“...yeah.” The assassin looked toward a nearby teleporter. “I’m just passing through. Had to loop to try and get these things to bring me to Wetland Aspect.”
“Oh, I can help! Not with- bringing to the right place, I haven’t quite figured out how those things work, but I can help you fight the boss! If- you- want help, that is. Or need it. You seem very competent.”
Mercenary just stared at the figure before him. Thin, awkward, eager to help. “..yeah, I could use it. C’mon.” And he started walking. The other man’s claw spun as he followed closely behind.
A glance over at DOC told the drone to get closer. “So, this is Mercenary, and for this encounter, you will focus on him. When a command comes, activate on him. Got it?” {Bwoop!} “Good.”
The pair (and the entire drone fleet) arrived at the teleporter. A look between the humans confirmed their readiness, and the assassin activated the process.
[WARNING] The ground’s temperature begins to rise...
Operator gasped in pure joy. “Food!”
“Wh- food??”
A pulse across the land launched, and dozens of Lemurians dug themselves out of the ground.
Mercenary looked to his accomplice. “Y-ya can’t seriously be eating those.”
“It’s called limited resources, friend. If you cook them right, they’re almost tolerable.” And with that, he commanded a drone to the ground, stepped off it, and launched into the air with its upward pulse.
The assassin took a moment to process. “...I didn’t think I’d find someone who needs more therapy than me. Oh, Seeker will get a kick outta this one.” And he dashed into combat, sword at the ready.
Mercenary then began cutting the various monsters apart, some in half, some into small cubes. His laser sword was practically built for slicing stuff like this, so it moved like butter through even the toughest flesh. It.. was distracting to see the technician gathering a Gasoline and an Ignition Tank out of two nearby chests, though. The guy could really use a normal meal.
Operator did help, though. He commanded various drones to attack, sending missiles, hunks of junk, fire, bullets, and general chaos across the battlefield. The other man would’ve worried about dodging if it didn’t come so naturally to him now.
Eventually, the horde cleared. Mercenary could already hear fire crackling, turning to see the technician roasting the severed arm of one of the fallen Lemurians. “Dude, just-” He sighed. “I’m meeting up with a friend. We have access to some real food. If you teleport with me, hopefully we’ll get to her.”
Operator turned away from his fire. “Real food? You still have rations?” He hesitated, but stood. “Yeah, I’d like that.” He looked around, spotting his main three, and the three drones knew to fly over. “Okay. I’m going with Mercenary here to get some food. CHIRP, you stay here with the others. DOC, CROSSHAIRS, you’re with me. Are we clear?” {Bweep} {Bing} {Bap} “Good.” And he turned back. “Alright, let’s go.”
The assassin huffed with a light smile before activating the charged teleporter, sending the group elsewhere.
When they reappeared, their footwear was instantly wet. Swampy, roots everywhere. “Finally,” Mercenary acknowledged. “Wetland Aspect. Now to find-”
“Rosebud!” A voice called out. Well, that solves that. A sphere with a ring of light descended nearby, poofing into a familiar figure.
Well, familiar for one person. For the other, a magical human in a strange outfit greeted him. Gold-colored chestplate, puffy pants, a black bodysuit similar to his own though. Either assigned and remade or completely custom. He liked it. “Operator,” he immediately offered. “..that’s- my name. Hi.”
The woman looked over at him. “Ah. Mercenary, did you make a friend?”
“I suppose, yeah.” The assassin awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “He was trying to eat a Lemurian, so I offered he come with us to get some actual food.”
“Oh, understood! Captain shouldn’t mi-”
“Captain?” Operator piped in. “..which one.”
The other two were confused with the sudden interruption and curiosity. “Uh, the one with the gun arm?” Mercenary answered. “On the Safe Travels. Captain let us-”
“You guys are UES?!” He took a few steps back, claw twitching more. “No. No no no, I am not ready for that yet.”
Seeker walked slowly forward, arms reached out in a soothing manner. “Hey, calm down. Whatever your history is, Captain is a good guy! He’ll understand whatever.”
The technician was clearly anxious, and CROSSHAIRS even grew wary of the situation. “...if Captain is a good guy, -then I’m not.” And before anyone could react, DOC lifted him in the air and flew him out of sight.
Mercenary moved to chase, but the monk stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let him go. He clearly has stuff he needs to sort through. We shouldn’t push him into something he doesn’t want to do. Besides, we have an assignment here.” So they let him go.
With a couple loops, Operator arrived back at Disturbed Impact. He hadn’t spoken since he ran off. Even when CHIRP moved to greet him, he just dismissed the drones and moved back to base.
When he got back, he plucked off all the items he’d accrued on his journey and deposited them into a large storage chest. Gasoline, Ignition Tank, Soldier’s Syringe, Sticky Bomb, Topaz Brooch, Hopoo Feather, Molten Perforator, a couple pieces of scrap, and Gnarled Woodsprite. It was good to keep items on hand.
Once that was done, he powered on his computers, logged in, and immediately began typing on his screen with his ASCII text.
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It didn’t perfectly capture the pure energy surging through the magnificent weapon, but he liked it. He wondered if Mercenary would like it.
He wondered if he’d ever see Mercenary again. But if he saw Mercenary, would he also see Captain?
“Captain,” Mercenary called out, having recently returned from his assignment. He couldn’t shake the thought of what happened down on Petrichor V, he had to mention it.
The old man turned from the console he was working with in the cockpit. “Yes? Did something go wrong during your assignment?”
“No, me and Seek, uh.. found someone. He wouldn’t come back with us though. ...do you know anyone by the name Operator?”
Captain paused. After a moment, he turned to the window at the front of the ship, looking down at Petrichor V below. “..so this is where you ended up.”