Paranoia: IC

[spineyrequiem]

The bot continues its stumbling advance unbothered by the Troubleshooters until it suddenly comes to a halt two metres from the door. The power cable, only four metres long, was pulled out of the socket by the bot's motion. As it lurches to a halt, the flat metal disk on the side falls off with a clatter.

'Ah, good to see you're in here without noticeable injury! How does the bot look, Troubleshooters?' As usual, the Computer sounds unpleasantly cheery.

 

[Mello]

"It deactivated itself Computer, pulled itself out of the plug." D muttered. He didn't like this one bit.

"Yakai, I think its a trap. I've seen robots like these before. The power cable is merely a charging cable.

I think... its trying to lure us in.."

 

[The Archivist]

"Well we're this side and you're that side. Let's go round it so we've access to the console."
Yakai puts a finger to his lips and shakes his head. He mimes throwing something near to the bot.
"Understood?"

 

[Mello]

D raises his spare laser pistol, and mimes throwing it to the corner of the room, and then a questioning thumbs up.

 

[The Archivist]

Yakai puts his thumbs up.

 

[Mello]

D fiddles with his pistol, setting it to safe, as to not coincidently make the device fire off, and threw it hard towards the base of the robot, hunkering down behind the shield in case anything happened.

 

[The Archivist]

Yakai presses himself against the wall behind Mike and the shield and braces himself.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Jack reaches back and pats D's rump as a show of a job well done, not taking his eyes off the robot.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Mike crouches down as much as possible hoping that the bot didn't respond in a fashion beyond what their protection could handle.

He nervously tapped his fingers of his left arm against his right forearm.

 

[spineyrequiem]

D's pistol knocks into the robot and bounces off without noticeable effect. It hits the floor and begins emitting a high-pitched beeping.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Mike glanced at Yakai
"Whys it making that noise?" he asked

 

[Mello]

D stared at the pistol. Of course he'd never really used it, so he wondered what the robot had done to it.

 

[The Archivist]

"I don't know, spread out."
Yakai sprints towards the far wall, taking care to keep clear of the bot.

 

[spineyrequiem]

The beeping gets faster and rises in pitch. A light on the side of the pistol glows a friendly red colour.

 

[The Archivist]

Yakai passes the bot and dives into the far corner of the room.

 

[Mello]

D's eyes narrow.. Red isn't ordinarily a friendly colour.

 

[spineyrequiem]

The beeping continues to rise in pitch and the light flashes until suddenly, it stops. The pistol lies silent and dark on the floor.

Needless to say, it then explodes. All the Troubleshooters are far away enough that they are unharmed, but the robot is knocked over onto its back with a large hole in the front. This causes a door to swing open, releasing a foul stench of rotted food. The bot is full of suppurating meat, withered, discoloured fruit and a pair of green bottles with gold foil at the top which appear to be alright. The red dome on top of the bot begins to flash red.

'Progress report, Troubleshooters? I hope you haven't damaged the incredibly expensive, one-of-a-kind robot at all?'

 

[The Archivist]

Yakai stands up and walks to the console.
"Since Desarius was idiotic enough to throw a weapon at the robot, disobeying the orders I gave that the robot was not to be damaged in any way, instead of something less damaging, there now appears to be a large hole in the chassis. There also appears to be a large amount of food waste inside."
"Despite Desarius's incompetancy, from here it doesn't look like anything but damage to the chassis. Since we had to fix the robot anyway, we should only require a sheet of metal to make it servicable again."
"Would it be considered appropriate to the mission if I asked for printouts of the robots design and function so that we can fix it, Computer?"
He turns away and looks at the others.

"Mike, have a look at Imana. Desarius, stay where you are. Jack, come over here please."

 

[spineyrequiem]

'I'm sorry citizen, that information is not available at your security clearance.'

A security camera turns to point at Desarius. 'Now, citizen Desarius-R, that was a very bad thing you did and we will have a proper talk about it later. You will not be given another warning, so don't do it again.' The Computer pauses for a moment to think. 'But don't worry about it, what's done is done and the important thing is not to allow it to dampen your mood. Just keep on having fun! You ARE having fun, Citizen?'

 

[Mello]

D sighs and after a moment, blinks, straightening up. He became eerily genuinely happy and smiley, or at least what sounded and appeared to be genuine to the computer's cameras and audio sensors.

"Of course I am computer-friend! I was needing a talk anyway. I will contact the R&D department on how effective their safety switches are, considering the safety protocols I have been told to follow ends up with the weapon exploding, they may need to rethink their definition of 'safe'.

Well, I'm no longer needed here, so I can speak to you now! I've been-"

He blinks and slouches again, emotion falling off his face like Ice melting, as he gave the room a hard stare.

"looking forward to it.."

 

[Get of W'soran]

Mike stood slowly from cover.
"It blew up, how surprising." he muttered sarcastically.

Smiling at Yakai he nodded
"Not a problem boss." he said happily.

Mike approaches the bot warily, trying to ignore the foul smell.

 

[Mello]

D hrmphs to himself at how no-one understood his situation.

like they ever do...

He hailed the computer over his earpiece, finding somewhere private, and blinked, his voice becoming cheery again.

"So computer..."

 

[spineyrequiem]

There is a grinding sound behind the Troubleshooters and the door swings ponderously open. It is then pushed open at a significantly faster rate by a full squad of twelve BLUE Vulture Troopers. The first six are armed with long needle rifles, and these push Jack-R to the floor, their faces inscrutable behind fearsome masks. The next hefts a cone rifle, with some difficulty and their squad leader jumps aside to allow the final quartet to enter, all fully suited in the heavy powered Armour-All. Extension leads trail from their backs out of the door. The leader points his vastly oversized energy pistol at Jack-R's head and begins an accusatory tirade, magnified to painful volume by his helmet's speakers.

'Aha! So, you thought you could fool us? The Computer is infinitely wise and it knows your secrets, oh yes! You're trying to destroy a High Programmer's valuable property, using that unregistered mutant power of yours. Oh yes, we know about how you can break electrical systems! Well trust us, we've got plenty of non-electric weapons on us!' There is a click of intra-squad vox 'SHUT UP! JUST KEEP IT AWAY FROM HIM! Oh, this is still on?' The leader clears his throat nervously, looks at the ground for a few seconds then snaps his head up to continue his damning report as if nothing has happened. 'You know your friends down at the Sierra club? Bet you didn't know they were IntSec agents all along, eh? You were assigned this mission specially to trap you, and we got our last confirmation when you tried to steal the upstanding citizen's ME card! You wanted it so you could sneak further into MEM sector and destroy...' Here the leader reaches out a hand, shoves it into Jack's pocket and pulls out large, folded diagram 'THIS!' It comes unfolded as he holds it up, so that all may look on the evidence of Jack's crimes.

The diagram shows a nuclear reactor in exquisite detail. At the top it is labelled 'MEM sector main reactor plans. BLUE clearance. If you are below BLUE clearance and are reading this, please report to IntSec for immediate termination. Have a nice day!' Scrawled across one corner is 'Katy-O-MEM 068396738295 call me xxx'. It appears to have been written in crayon. 'It would seem that despite repatterning twice your clone line is utterly unsaveable. Uriah-B, you get execution duties. Terry-B, PleasereferallnamingrequeststoPBWsector-B, take him outside.' Two of the needle gunners drag Jack-R outside, followed by the trooper lugging the cone rifle.

There is a thump, the sound of running feet and a cry of 'DON'T FIRE YET!', swiftly followed by an explosion. All three of the Vulture Troopers re-enter, looking slightly singed. A small screen drops from the ceiling, on which the words 'Please wait. Deleting clone template.' Beneath it is a steadily-filling progress bar. The leader cranes his neck around to look at it and starts as he notices the other Troubleshooters again. 'None of you read that diagram, right? Because if you did, I'd have to shoot you.'

 

[The Archivist]

Yakai draws his laser pistol.
"Permission to target practice this piece of paper, sir! Only way to safely dispose of it sir!"

 

[spineyrequiem]

'Oh, ah, that won't be necessary.' The leader folds up the plan and shoves it into a pocket. 'Alright Vulture troopers, move out!' As the squad leaves, the leader turns to say one more thing. 'You're the ones repairing that bot, right? Have you tried just asking it what the problem is?'