The morning arrived, albeit slowly. Viktor ended up being too deep in thought to shut himself off for the night; because of this, he was able to watch the sunrise. Its refreshing beauty took on a different form in his state of turmoil. He found himself wishing that it would either come into prominence immediately or just stay hidden forever. Unfortunately, the sun rose as it always did, and to the anxious android it was absolutely agonizing. Watching it oppressively and inevitably crawl skyward gave him the impression that nature was mocking him.
He suddenly did not feel like looking at the sun anymore, so he instead began to ponder what Maria and Jane meant by “preparations”. They’d all seemed well prepared up to now, equipped with strong weapons and dense metal skin. What else could they possibly need?
His thoughts were cut short by very audible footsteps outside his room and then a loud banging on his door. He knew only Vivienne could make herself known in that manner.
“VIK! Wake up, bud! We gotta get moving!” She projected.
The sound of her voice snapped him out of his thoughts and got him up and running. He composed himself, then opened the door to face her and resolved to ask her a burning question.
“Where’s Vanitas? He’s usually the one to rudely wake us up for important things, yeah?”
“T-that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking! My internal alarms had to blare in my head for me to actually get up this morning. I think he’s still in his room right now. Shit…do you think he’s glitching? Should we go check on him?”
“We need him to be up anyway. I, uh…don’t see why not.”
The two concerned partners made their way to Vanitas’s room, and Viktor chose the downtime to remember what it had looked like the last time he had seen it. Along with other aspects of his existence, his room was especially unique. Being MetalBody’s first piece of technology got him lots of elaborate and experimental possessions that none of the other future models were given. In fact, he was even the only android of his model. Vivienne’s line would end up setting the precedent for the creators’ mass production, while the effort and cost of Vanitas’s production had proved too daunting to replicate even a second time. His room, therefore, was less of an area explicitly for rest and safety like it was for the rest of them and more like a reflection of himself. Instruments of all natures lined the walls, notebooks crammed to the last blank space with words were stacked nearly to the ceiling, vibrant and dynamic lighting gave everything a strange hue.
At least, that’s how it looked the last time Viktor had been in there, which admittedly was quite a long time ago. He didn’t tend to feel the need to frequent that place and/or meddle in Vanitas’s business, of course until the circumstances of that current morning arose.
Viktor took up the responsibility of knocking on the door this time in an attempt to prevent the cacophonous eruption of noise Vivienne’s attempts resulted in. He figured that Vanitas’s volatility would not mix well with an intense disturbance no matter how well-intentioned it was, so he chose to approach it with his best Maria impression: patient, professional and clear.
“Vanitas? Are you alright? We need to meet for our mission. Like, right now.”
Not a single sound came from the door. Viktor could feel his hollow patience crumbling away by the second.
“We don’t have time for this. You know we have keys, right? If you don’t want us to come in, say something.”
No response.
“Fine. Have it your way.”
Motioning for Vivienne to follow, he unlocked the door and warily pushed forward. As he had suspected, the scene looked a lot different than he remembered. The lights were a bright, intense white, and his notes had been haphazardly splayed out along nearly every square inch of the room. It all had the look and feel of a hospital examination room, and Vanitas was laying apprehensively on his bed as if he were there for a check-up. Bizarrely enough, he had an almost sickly expression on his face that seemed to further match the theme. While Viktor chose to stay near the door, Vivienne made her way towards the bedridden android, making sure to carefully maneuver around his notebooks. He turned and spoke up.
“Why are you guys in here? You’re interrupting my studies.”
Viktor could no longer contain his irritation. The sudden changes in his teammate’s behaviors deeply confused him, and he hated being confused.
“We warned you multiple times, Vanitas. No one was interrupting anything. We have a mission preparation meeting that we were supposed to be present for 2 minutes and 32, 33, 34, 35–”
“You get the idea.” Vivienne interjected, waving off Viktor’s anxious counting.
He sat up with Vivienne’s assistance.
“Oh. Is that why my alarms were going off?”
“Vanitas!” Vivienne exclaimed.
Viktor was too concerned with being late for the second meeting in a row to be properly outraged. He turned to leave.
“Just–let’s get going, huh? Like I said before, we absolutely do not have time for this. We can figure this all out after, okay? Please.”
He started out the door and heard the other two attempting to catch up to him. The sound reassured him, but it didn’t do much to help him gain confidence about the overall plan. He still couldn’t shake the thought that he was blatantly going against morals by withholding information from his partners, regardless of how integral it was to succeeding. Not to mention this “glitching” business. It just seemed to Viktor like these issues chose to reveal themselves at the absolute worst time possible. At this point, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Vivienne started uncontrollably shooting fire out of her throat like a dragon. He caught himself burning up again and quickly distracted himself by attempting his leader role once more.
“Do either of you know what Maria and Jane are planning on giving us today? I’ve been trying to think of something we don’t already have and I’m drawing a blank.”
He turned around to face them once more. Vivienne’s expression turned puzzled.
“I couldn’t think of anything either, but I have been hearing some strange sounds coming from the Mother Room this past week. It seems to me like they’ve constructed some more tech for us.”
A look of pleasant surprise spread on Vanitas’s face as they approached the doors to the creators’ headquarters. Viktor had always noticed he seemed to sport a much more realistic range of facial expressions than the others. He thought this detail was odd but figured it was just another aspect of his more thorough design. As much as he tried to maintain an unaffected demeanor, Viktor could feel his face change too. The prospect of getting new tools was understandably exciting for all of them, and though they were encouraged not to talk about it much the Corps knew that any tech they’d be receiving would be especially complex and interesting.
Vanitas was the one to barge in this time, to Viktor’s frustration. The tech speculation had seemingly refreshed him to his former self. Unfortunately, Maria and Jane were not so spirited. The loud entrance the Corps made actually roused the two from sleep, an occurrence that none had ever witnessed prior to that day. Maria was initially slumped against Jane’s shoulder and ended up nearly falling from her throne before attempting to quickly regain a sense of composure. She made a noise sort of like “Wuh–uhhm”, cleared her throat, and spoke up.
“Alright, you three. Today’s the big day. You’re all in working order, correct?”
Viktor and his partners nodded. Scans done within the androids’ bodies broadcasted data to the screen on the back wall that further confirmed their proper condition. Viktor could’ve sworn he noticed Maria make the subtlest glance towards him.
“Good. We can’t afford any delays. This mission is much more important than you may think.”
Jane yawned and stretched in a cat-like manner before beginning to contribute to the debriefing.
“Because of the mission’s importance, we thought it would be necessary to fit you with some new tools to boost your power and efficiency on the field. We’ve been hard at work creating them, which is why we’re so unusually tired.”
They both went under their desk and brought back with them 3 large and equally-sized cases each labeled with a different Corps android’s name. There were also other names printed in smaller font below them, but Viktor didn’t look any further in order to not spoil anything for himself. Luckily for him, they got to opening the cases relatively quickly. When the contents were revealed, he almost couldn’t believe his eyes. Three strange shapes emerged from the cases, all around the size of a tablet computer.
“We call them companion droids. They’ll assist you in many small ways, but they’ll mostly be used in combat. Each one was designed to fit your individual strengths and weaknesses. We’ll be handing them out one at a time in order of–”
Vanitas apparently couldn’t stay patient after witnessing the reveal and sprinted up to his own case, interrupting Jane. She gave a patient sigh and continued talking.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“In order of release dates, which means Vanitas is coincidentally up first. We’re glad you’re, uh, so excited about this. Activate it, Maria. It’s time.”
Viktor pried his eyes away from the droids and noticed Maria grab a tablet from the back corner of the room. She tapped it, and the droid supposedly assigned to Vanitas came to life. It most closely resembled the typical cartoon depiction of a star, sporting one’s distinct five-pointed shape. Its color was more unique, though, with its top half shining bright white and its bottom displaying a deep black. The thing was a brilliant machine, smaller than any of the ones present yet seemingly hiding an equally complex range of functions; it hovered in the air, moved fluidly and lit the room up all before being commanded to do anything. It settled contently at Vanitas’s right shoulder. Maria looked in awe at her creation, and began to explain it to Vanitas.
“We call it Streya. It’s been in development for the longest time–as is usually the case for projects relating to you–so its uses are a bit less clear and streamlined than the others, but it can definitely assist you the same. We’ve also gone ahead and developed software to help you become comfortable with using it in different ways, which should be finished downloading right about–”
Vanitas’s eyes flashed green and he raised his eyebrows as if in shock of an information overload.
“Hover capabilities…detachment and re-summoning via ‘Mjölnir Code’...full rotation …retracting blade tips…oh…holy shit. Holy SHIT!”
The room already had an air of excitement, but Viktor noticed that with Vanitas there was a tinge of deranged glee being thrown out that was beginning to concern him. It clearly was beginning to concern Jane too, as she took the reins of discussion back from Maria, who seemed too absorbed by Streya’s beauty to take in much else.
“And I just want to mention, before you get too excited, that we’ve executively decided to take full control away from you in certain locations. You can’t take advantage of any of the companions’ offensive capabilities while in most of the rooms of this building, including this very room. That goes for you two as well, ok?”
The three teammates nodded in agreement. Thankfully, it looked as if that sentiment had calmed Vanitas down.
“Good. Now, Maria-”
As she said her name, Jane gave her partner a light, loving whack on the back of her head.
“Let’s get Vik set up.”
Said android was busy having no idea what to expect. Were all three companions star-shaped? If not, how varied did their designs get? He forced himself to tune back into Jane at the last second.
“--rder of release dates, Viktor’s up next. You may come forward to receive your companion, bud.”
He ran up to the cases, giving up on trying to remain composed almost immediately. This led to him going through data conflict at a never-before-experienced speed and heating up so fast that it caused him to stumble and fall to the ground, conveniently placing his body in front of the desk. He looked back at his teammates and saw Vanitas break into laughter, as usual. He noticed that Vivienne didn’t, though, which steeled his nervous malfunctioning to a significant enough extent to be able to cool down, stand up, and face Jane. He made it a point to try and hold eye contact with her so as to dissuade questioning.
“Woah, Viktor, what was that? Are you alright?”
“Just got a little too excited, boss. Let’s continue.”
He forced himself to shift his focus from Jane’s confused face to his case. In it, Viktor saw a vague and pitch-black-colored spherical shape staring back at him. Somehow, he visualized it as having a different feel to Vanitas’s droid’s black color. His was deep, deeper than any darkness Viktor had previously encountered in the HQ or looking at the night sky. This was something else, more like a dark shadow cast by something out of the field of vision provided by the droid. The unclear nature of the thing disturbed him a bit, almost like he didn’t have the capability of processing what its true nature really was. He wondered now more than ever how his creators, so limited and insignificant in nature, could get their hands on such puzzling pieces of technology. Even with the added help from their alien supplier.
“This is Charybdis. It has a more focused and streamlined purpose than Streya, but we figured that would suit you more anyway.
Maria pressed her finger to a lower portion of the tablet screen. Just like Streya, the sphere lifted itself into the air and stabilized, this time above Viktor’s left shoulder.
“Its specialty is its ‘Vacuum Code’. You’ll see more about it when the tutorial software loads, which should be any minute–”
Viktor’s vision blurred for a moment before coming back in near-shockingly overwhelming form. It took him a second, but he was eventually able to process that this was the same experience Vanitas was just going through. He could see why his teammate was so excited. Segmented text had laid itself out on the left side of his FOV presumably broadly describing the droid’s main features. The first portion read:
“YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED ACCESS TO charybdis. ITS MAIN FUNCTION IS ITS vacuum FEATURE.”
Text underneath it read:
“Play demo video? [YES] [NO]”
Ceaselessly intrigued, Viktor selected [YES] using the direction he moved his eyes in as a cursor.
He was suddenly transported to the roof of HQ. More specifically, he was standing on the bottom edge of a painted circle in the middle of the roof. Maria’s voice rang in his head at a comfortable volume.
“Hey bud! Here’s how Charybdis’s vacuum works.
A holographic humanoid figure appeared on the other end of the circle. A handgun materialized into its left hand.
“Say you’re fighting a guy with a gun, or really any projectile. Once shit starts flying at you like crazy, just think real hard about the image of stuff getting sucked up into the droid. The processing you’re doing is gonna send signals to the droid, and then it’ll actually inhale all the incoming shots. Just be careful. If you use it for too long, it automatically switches into a cooldown mode to prevent frying itself from overuse. It doesn’t last too long, but just think of how inconvenient it would be if you had to wait to use it again in the middle of battle. As long as you’re conscious of that, things should go ok. Oh, and it doesn’t have to be just small bullets and projectiles. Though we didn’t plan for this much, you can use it on…bigger things…if necessary. Sound good? Cool.”
He tried to put the endless stream of questions as well as the implications of “bigger things” aside and quickly followed Maria’s instructions. If there was one thing he was good at, it was thinking hard and fast.
Just like she said, the holographic bullets got dragged right through the air and into the droid’s abyssal frame. He could slightly feel the intensity of the pull on the left side of his face. The holograph man looked at his emptied clip. He blinked as if dazed and suddenly his form broke away, dispersing into the air like glitchy smoke.
Viktor, himself legitimately dazed, blinked and found himself back in the Mother Room. The first portion of text was now grayed out, with one more left for him to take in. It read:
“charybdis ALSO HAS STORAGE CAPABILITIES.”
A two-dimensional graphic of a sword that bore resemblance to Viktor’s entering into Charybdis labeled “STEP 1” popped into view. He scanned it and noticed a scroll bar to its side, which he engaged with in a similar fashion to the previous interactive menu option. “STEP 2” displayed a graphic of a figure that bore resemblance to Viktor issuing some sort of vocal command, at which point the sword graphic flew out of Charybdis and into the figure’s hands. If Viktor was reading this right, this meant the droid could store and summon different objects at his command.
He could feel excitement creep across his face. This was cool. It was more than cool, it was existence-changing. The implications of this droid’s uses were staggering, even if it seemed to sport less variety than Streya. He zeroed in on the words “[QUIT TUTORIAL]” and his vision restored itself to normal. He looked at Maria, in awe of her and Jane’s technical prowess. The expression on her face was a bit more peculiar to Viktor than during Vanitas’s download. Her eyes were fixed on Charybdis with a tenacity that denoted to Viktor a sense of great longing, yet at the same time they looked glazed over as if control of her mind had somehow been rent from her by his companion. There was just too much going on for Viktor to solidly concentrate on, just like when he saw that strange blinking red light behind Vivienne. Surprised that that image hadn’t yet left his mind, he refocused and halted thinking once again.
“Uh…y’all, uh…y-y’all can also access tutorials at any time if you want to refresh anything or get…get a fuller understanding of your droids.”
Vivienne must have gone to her briefcase while he was entranced, because he suddenly saw her at his left side just as lost in her menus as the previous two were moments ago. Her droid looked to be an oblong-shaped aquarium of some sort filled with murky water, obscuring a shapeless form sat at the bottom except for 5 yellow tentacle-like appendages flopped over the opening at the top. They lay limp, but Viktor figured they wouldn’t stay that way forever.
Vivienne finished her demos and guided her companion back to its case. Viktor figured he’d do the same. Curiously, Vanitas did not move from where he was standing. Maria slumped back down into her throne, the excitement draining from her face as quickly as the exhaustion returned to it. Jane addressed the trio broadly for the final time that meeting.
“We expect you to get accustomed to using these on your mission. You may not understand why, but you need to have these starting today.
Another even tinier glance Viktor’s way.
“Thanks for your compliance, guys. You may leave.”
All of a sudden, Vanitas burst into a full sprint across the length of the spacious office. Too late, everyone in the room seemed to catch on to his ploy: Maria sat, too frazzled to do much but react, Jane called out to the foolhardy android and Vivienne tried grabbing hold of him to no avail. All but Viktor and Vanitas seemed trapped in slow motion. But, as established before, Viktor was nothing if not for his speed. He took off running whole seconds after Vanitas, but that didn’t matter. For every step Vanitas was taking, he would take five. He often took solace in his running, as it was almost always a surefire way for him to purge his brain of all the thoughts that constantly ate at him. Now too he found it served him particularly well, as he was actually able to get out in front of Vanitas at the last second, blocking the exit.
They collided with a loud thump that reverberated throughout the room. Viktor secured Vanitas with an arm around his chest, making sure he didn’t try anything. Jane began to jog up to them, but Viktor’s attention quickly went back to his captive android when he noticed his gaze drift to the floor.
“Don’t let this go to your head, roadrunner. If you feel like getting reminded of the gap in our skill levels, you know where to find me.”
As Jane caught up she pressed a button on the control tablet that made Streya’s light fade and it subsequently began dropping from its previous resting position above Vanitas’s shoulder. She caught the companion and put it back into its case.
“Were you listening to what I was just saying? We’re not just gonna let you sneak off with this thing to go use it wherever and whenever you want. God only knows what kind of ridiculous shit you’d get up to if you could. Wait until you’re clear for the mission. It’s almost time, I promise.”
Vanitas sulked off through the doors, followed by Vivienne. She exchanged a confused glance with Viktor, who could only slightly humorously feign confusion back. Unlike Vivienne, Viktor felt like he knew way too much to be confused at that point. He looked back at Maria and Jane who were then in the middle of disappearing off to a room deeper into the office. He hoped it was a bedroom so that they could finally rest and catch the sleep that had eluded them recently. He frequently wished that he could experience sleep and this occasion was definitely no different. Nevertheless, he started on his way back to his room, head still full of thoughts.
It hadn’t even been a full day of lying and withholding information and Viktor was already sick of it.