“So, what was it you wanted to show me?” Benjamin asked his younger brother, more out of concern than curiosity. Malcolm was the quietest, most reclusive and most well-behaved (excluding Ben himself) of the four Walker siblings. The issue is that Cole, tended to get carried away with his little “Hobbies” and his moral code begins to turn a darker shade of grey.
As the oldest and self-proclaimed “most responsible”, Ben had always felt it was his duty to make sure his siblings didn’t stray far from the path of normalcy and clean up any messes they made if they did. So when his youngest brother had wanted his opinion on “a new side project”, the alarm bells in Ben’s head rang.
Malcolm must have heard the distress in his tone, because he stuttered an indignant reply, “I-I haven’t done anything illegal!” Ben raised an eyebrow sceptically.
“Technically” Malcolm reluctantly admitted. Ben just sighed rubbing his forehead trying in vain to soothe the headache that was forming. “Just follow me, excuse the mess.”
Malcolm turned to the pure white metal sliding door behind him, the silver plaque above the door read in black ink “Dr Malcom Joseph Walker” and in the smaller text under that “Head Robotics Engineer”.
To the right of the door were several devices attached to the wall, a small grey keypad, a card scanner as well as a fingerprint and retina identifier. The Higherups took their security very seriously and Malcolm was considered a high-value asset, thus Malcolm's office/apartment was highly protected. It was also situated on the higher floors so that if anything did happen to the facility, Malcolm could be evacuated safely and quickly.
Ben took a peek behind him, where two indomitable figures stood guard, large as professional bodybuilders the twin security Droids never let their camera eyes off him for a minute, not that he would harm his brother anyway, infuriating as he maybe.
By the time he had turned around Malcolm had just stuck his eye in front of the retina identifier. Causing the door to slide smoothly open after a second or two of calculation. Malcolm turned and gestured for Ben to go inside first, he did just that.
Ben was greeted with an unwelcome but familiar sight and frankly, he wasn’t the least bit surprised. It looked like a mad scientist had turned NEET and taken up residence in a respectable person’s office. Clothes both dirty and clean were thrown over the only two chairs in the room or strewn across the floor.
Noodle cups, disposable coffee cups and numerous microwave meal trays were piled in a single corner of the room presumably because the paper wastebasket under the garbage pile was not designed to hold that much plastic.
The desk was littered with bits and pieces of some sort of machine or gadget as well as tools, meanwhile, the shelves were packed with figurines of anime characters and little robot men, he assumed they were “Gundams”. Posters of various anime and movie titles lined the walls. The posters for “Place to Place” and “Aliens” were very familiar to Ben, Cole had owned those for a while.
Locked inside a glass case (the cleanest piece of furniture in the room) were a collection of DVD cases and old-looking books which Ben also assumed were manga. That kind of stuff was expensive nowadays more collectors' pieces than anything else.
Coles's room looked similar when they were living together at home. Benjamin, being the responsible older brother (and also the one sharing the same room) was always the one picking up after him. The man shook his head in exasperation.
“You two stay put, I’m discussing private family matters with my brother,” Malcolm ordered the Droids.
“Request is respectfully denied.” The two droids immediately and simultaneously said. “Protection protocol eleven states that priority three personnel must be accompanied by at least one security droid while alone in a room with uncleared personnel.” Their voices were deep and monotone, designed to be intimidating, to make a potential attacker rethink their chances, not that their hulking forms and thick black armour wouldn’t already do that.
Cole sighed “It wasn’t a request.” before the droids could even reply, the man took a backwards step into the room and pushed a button on a panel on the side of the doorway, causing the door behind him to close with a sharp hiss.
He then quickly typed out some sort of code using the rest of the buttons on the panel, the door groaned alarmingly, but nothing appeared to have happened. “Good, now those blasted things can’t get in.” he nodded to a security camera in the corner of the ceiling “They’ll still watch and record us though, making sure nothing “unsafe happens”, as they like to say”
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Cole visibly slumped with relief, he tried to fix himself with what may have been a cheeky grin but it appeared more like a wry smile. “They’re going to have my head for that one, it's not the first time I’ve done that, doesn’t make the coming lecture on the “importance of protocols” any less painful.”
Benjamin stared at his brother, taking him in for the second time today. The younger man looked like he was just skin over bones, gaunt and pale. Dark circles and heavy bags sat under his eyes, wrinkles and worry lines that should not be present on a twenty-five-year-old marred his young face. He looked like he could be blown away by a slight breeze. It broke Ben’s heart to see him like this, It wasn’t healthy.
“Are you doing okay Cole?”
The other man sighed and closed his eyes. “Not really, Disknee Corp keeps piling on the pressure, they want me to hurry up and figure this “Xenobacturium” thing out. The issue is the Biotech labs are struggling to analyse it beyond “its alive, not of this world and is trying to assimilate us”. If the people who literally cured cancer can’t make heads or tails of it I have no idea how I AM supposed to do anything about it! I guess it's all hands on deck at the moment so anyone who can be spared has been asked to focus on it.”
“Sounds tough. In some way, I can relate, I get a lot of older patients who are suffering mentally after being stuck underground for so long, and this “Alien Bacteria” is putting a lot of people on edge.”
“It's easier on us I suppose, we’ve never been above ground, this life is all we know…” he trailed off staring in no particular direction with a glassy look in his eyes. He shook his head, seemingly bringing himself back to reality.
Cole then strode over to his desk and sat on the chair behind it, gesturing for Ben to sit on the second chair opposite of him. He did so, only after dumping the clothes and garbage from the chair onto the floor “How's Judy and Aaron?” Cole asked.
Ben’s face broke into a small smile as he thought of his wife and five-year-old son “They’re both doing fine, Judy is starting her tenth year as an English teacher at Sector-Beta High and Aaron’s starting his third year of primary school.”
“Smart kid that one reminds me of his uncle.” Cole chuckled.
“Yes, well let's not hope he picks up on all your traits.” Ben made a show of looking around the office while screwing up his nose.
“Hey, at least he’d have good taste, the media nowadays is complete slop and propaganda.”
“Speaking of the state of your room, shouldn’t someone in your position have a cleaner or at least be able to afford one?”
“Yeah, the company had a droid that would come in here and do domestic chores, in my office and apartment.” He gestured to the closed door behind Ben that most likely led into the living space.
“Issue is, it was a GoodUse droid.” Cole spat.
“Ah, that explains things.”
“Was about as dumb as a bag of rocks, never remembered orders, kept moving my things around and because it had to serve several rooms in one week it only spent an hour and a half tops every third day.”
“For normal people, an hour and a half of cleaning a single room and a small apartment are enough, plus moving things around IS a part of the cleaning process.”
Cole scowled at him “That's beside the point”. Cole is one of those people that has a deep love of his craft and is considered a genius in the field. He is confident and perhaps a bit prideful of his ability. So when he sees someone trying to emulate what he does with sloppy craftsmanship and cheap imitation it is an affront to his very being.
GoodUse was the main perpetrator of this particular issue. They belonged to Halfdolllar a Chinese mega-corporation. They reverse engineer, simplify, mass-produce and sell obsolete models for cheap. They had earned Cole’s ire more than once.
Cole leaned in and whispered conspiratorially “Between you and me, I think Disknee is going to try to absorb HalfDollar soon. I mean, I know their droids are cheap and all but it makes no sense Disknee would risk buying cleaning droids from an enemy Corp. Unless Disknee wants them to steal something, sue HalfDollar for plagiarism then buy up whatever is left.”
“Sounds like something Disknee would do, HalfDollar doesn’t exactly have the Chinese government to fall back on anymore, but they’re not stupid either. Anyway, I assume you complained about this?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“They said unless I wanted to make my own I had to deal with it or refuse the service, which I did.” Cole seemed to perk up all of a sudden. “Actually, this is a perfect segway into what I wanted your opinion for.”
“Cleaning Droids?”
“Kinda. I’ve been wanting a personal assistant for a while now, also someone who will help clean up, know not to touch my things and follow my rules to a tee.”
“I follow you so far.”
“So after the higher-ups practically green-lit me to build a custom droid for personal use, I got to work and…got a bit carried away.”
Ben's headache was beginning to return in full force. “What did you do?”
Cole stood up and straightened his white lab coat “I’ll show you.”