895G straightened out his uniform and stared back at the pained eyes that reflected back at him in the mirror. Quickly looking away from his own accusing eyes, he looked around his apartment and found everything perfectly in order. His kitchen was spotless as usual, his bookshelves organized by serial number, and his living room was untouched by the lack of visitors. He was home where he had wanted to be for the past week, so why did he feel so awful?
He recalled the shot that brought down Petri and how Indo had raced to his side to stop the blood from seeping into the dry ground. How the robot had fought over two dozen Combatants and could have walked away without a scratch, but had given themselves up to keep the other two alive. 895G had no reason to feel the burden of guilt since he had been the one captured in the first place, he was just trying to live!
Straightening out his collar, he confronted his reflection and gave himself a second look-over before finding his confidence. Yes, he was the one on the right, those three were the ones in the wrong and he should be proud that he helped bring down a criminal the GreenHouse had been hunting for two decades.
Shoving his key card into his breast pocket and wrapping his HQ-issued ticker around his wrist he left his apartment and walked down to the third floor and walked down a hallway tinted with blue glass that bridged to its neighboring building.
The HQ was known for being efficient and had officer apartment complex built alongside their main building with walkways built between the buildings so Scouts, Patrollers, Scientists, and whoever was on the payroll didn’t even have to risk going outside to report to work. Troopers were the lowest rung of the hierarchy and were responsible for paperwork for Scouts and Patrollers. Scouts were next, carrying out reconnaissance missions and determining if action needed to be carried out on a location/persons. Patrollers were in charge of the majority of tactical missions and were constantly out in the field making sure the law was being upheld. Each field had a ranking system of their own consisting of Grunts, Active Duty, First Commander, Second Commander, Third Stripe, Star Admiral, and then Head.
895G’s goal in life was to work through the system and become a head Scout, but after years of training in the academy, he had been stuck on Active Duty for five years. Now that he was headed back to work for the first time in over a week, he wondered what the response of him being absent from work would play out. Would he be demoted back to grunt Scout? His palms grew sweaty from the very thought of having to fetch coffee and kiss the asses of the officers above his pay grade.
As he meandered through the maze of hallways and elevators to the head Scout’s office, he nodded hello to a few faces he didn’t recognize along the way and it made him even more nervous when he read an expression he didn’t recognize painted on their faces. Wiping his sweaty palms on his red uniform pants, he grabbed the doorknob and entered the large office. The head Scout was talking to someone on their transmitter, but as soon as he saw 895G enter he hung up, not even offering a goodbye to the person on the other line.
“5G, my boy! How are you feeling?” The older and larger gentleman rose from his leather chair and gave 895G a bear hug, patting him on the back a few times.
“As good as I can get considering the circumstances.” He said with a shaking voice. “How are you doing sir”
The Head pulled away from him and beamed a smile at him, not bothering to reply to the question asked out of courtesy, offering him a seat while he went back to sit in his plush leather chair.
“You stirred up quite a ruckus yesterday. Trapping Indo after twenty years and his assistant, plus a sentient robot? Never would I have guessed I’d ever see that happen during my time here.” The Head stated once 895G sat down in front of his desk. “You should have seen the Troopers scrambling to find Indo’s files from the archive! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many of them in one place at a time before. Needless to say, you’ve impressed the GreenHouse board and we’ve decided to promote you to Second Commander.”
895G felt his jaw drop.
“The board wanted to acknowledge your loyalty even while you were captured, and the effort and dedication you performed in order to orchestrate the criminal’s capture. We have Indo in custody because of you, our most viable lab rat is back in the pharmaceutical division, and Robotics Research loves us for handing over that new type of robot. And we couldn’t have done it without your bravery.”
The Head opened a desk drawer and plucked something metallic out of it, placing it in front of the Scout. When the Head removed his hand, 895G could see that it was a pin with two long silver horizontal bars on it. The Scout was grounded and had to pinch himself in the arm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Cautiously, he took the pin in his hand and rolled it around between his palms, letting the news sink in.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Go on, put it on. You deserve it.” The Head urged.
895G carefully stuck the pin through his breast pocket and felt the weight of the metal tug down on his pocket. The Head stood up with his arm outstretched.
“Congratulations Second Commander Scout. A Trooper will guide you to your office and get started on your paperwork. You’ll receive your first assignment tomorrow when you’ve settled in. The key card to your new apartment is sitting at your desk and your things are being moved as we speak. I suggest you use today to contact anyone close to you to inform them of your new address and position. The case file for your priorities for tomorrow is already on your desk if you want to get a jump start. Once again, congratulations. Welcome to the higher levels.”
895G left the Head’s office in a daze and almost jumped out of his skin when a Trooper was waiting for him right outside the door. They soundlessly walked him to the elevator and went down a few stories before stopping at the fourteenth floor and guiding him down another hallway, coming to a stop at a door. The door already had a placard with his name engraved on it. Second Commander Scout 895G.
The Trooper opened the door for him and he entered his new office. Up until now, he’d had a cramped cubicle where he’d constantly get yelled at for bumping elbows with the person in the cubicle next to him. Half the size of the Head’s office, his new office boasted a large glass pane on the entire wall that displayed a new variety of colors and shapes he’d never seen before.
“The bathroom is just down the hallway and there’s a new change of uniform hanging in that cabinet over there.” The Trooper pointed out. “Let’s get started on paperwork so we don’t have to stay here overnight.”
895G sat down in his new chair while the Trooper sat across from him, telling him where to sign and initial. After what seemed like hours, the stack of paperwork had been diminished and the Trooper left the room, leaving 895G alone with his thoughts. Not knowing what to do, he checked out the cabinet with his new uniform. A clear plastic bag kept it preserved, but he could see the gold trim along the cuffs and lapel and the two horizontal silver bars sewed on the breast of his uniform that indicated that he was indeed a Second Commanding Scout officer. The red of the uniform was darker than the red of his active duty Scout uniform, resembling a color closer to blood than anything. Flashing back to the blood that coated the ground as Petri was shot, he shut the cabinet and tried to distract himself from yesterday’s events by opening up the case file on his desk.
The first page was a summary of everything the HQ new about Indo along with his picture from his ID when he worked for GreenHouse. Caught off guard, 895G slapped the case closed and backed away, pacing the room until he mentally gathered himself together. Why was he in charge of investigating Indo’s actions for the past two decades? Weren’t there other agents for this? Maybe someone who wasn’t so emotionally involved? But 895G knew it was because he had been involved with the group that they were having him investigate the group. Not wanting to disappoint the GreenHouse board that had given him such a hefty promotion, he opened the file up again.
Everything written for the next few pages were things 895G already knew about Indo. He’d been a scientist who revolutionized the robotics field but took things too far when he started embezzling funds to put towards his own project. Apparently, Indo had been stealing pieces of robots to build his own personal robots in his own apartment and HQ ended up finding half a dozen robots made from spare parts in his apartment when he went on the lamb. The Scout concluded that the Efficiency model who called itself Terra was probably a hand-made robot Indo had taken with him when he was on the run. 895G continued to flip through the pages of the file and found himself staring at a picture of Petri along with a summary of everything known about him.
Petri was a lab rat created by the pharmaceutical division in order to test new drugs. Hundreds of years ago there was a ban placed on animal testing, so scientists resorted to creating test-tube babies that ‘felt nothing’ so as so deem their experiments weren’t tested on the children cruelly. The fact that the lab was experimenting on children was unknown to the public otherwise there would have been an outcry, so the children were labeled as lab rats. Petri had outlived his life expectancy thirty years ago, being the strongest subject the scientists had, therefore testing more drugs on him. Somewhere along the way, Indo had come in contact with Petri and must have struck up an arrangement since Indo took Petri when he ran from the organization. They then bombed multiple HQ labs with lab rats in them, causing hundreds of fatalities.
895G shut the file, sick of reading about the two. He thought he’d finally gotten away from his captors, but now they were back to haunt him and he would be the one investigating their past dealings. They had been living under the radar for twenty years, and extremists like them were most likely working on something large considering how much time they had to themselves. And the robot somehow fit into the mess.
Groaning into his hands, he rose from his chair and grabbed his the key card to his new apartment and left his office in the hopes of getting rid of some of the exhaustion he felt. The joy of his promotion had worn off the instant he opened the file and he knew he would be making a trip out to the Eldern landfill for the second time in order to uncover what they were working on.
When he got to his new apartment, he stripped and got into bed. This new place was much larger than his other place but was similarly structured so the movers had been able to put everything in its respective place. It took him a long time to fall asleep and he found that this new apartment was too empty for just one person.
Shadows would move just as his eyes would droop shut, causing adrenaline to shoot through his system and immediately waking him up, only to repeat the cycle until he passed out close to the start of the new day. For the positive day he had just had, his sleep was less than extraordinary now that he knew he would need to go back to the bunker where he had gotten captured. He hoped this time there would be no robot scaring the shit out of him.