Station Charlie -- Markus
Markus awoke on the fourth day of his stay in his unusual cell. While accommodations were pretty good, it was still a cell with minimal activity, and left him feeling stiff for the fourth day in a row. While he did have some board games like chess, all of them could be classified as a solo activity in his current environment. The feeling of always being watched also grated on him. While he did have a robotic companion in his cell to play games with, the little thing was such a nuisance that he had grown tired of the little devil.
Who programmed the little robot to be such a massive asshole?
On the second day of his stay, he was allowed a small game companion that was popular among teachers and parents, Techie. While the game companion didn't have many functions besides playing board or computer games, it was a good reprieve from the solidarity of his confinement. Markus knew it was a creature comfort, but he whole heartedly accepted it when they opened the doors and gave him a techie model and some games consoles. Markus thought that this was a good sign seeing as how their giving him more things to do, not less. Markus took a look at the user manual to see if he could change the name of the robot, as just calling it Techie seemed boring. Luckily for Markus, there seemed to be a whole section towards the back about how to change the robot's name. It comes from the factory with the ability to respond to Techie or T, but can also be called anything the user wants with some names already included in the manual. The names were somewhat boring, with names like Techmate, Techno, Turbo, Thunder, and Titan.
Markus eventually got the thing to work, going through all the steps outlined in the user manual.
"Now what should we call you?" Markus said while powering up Techie.
"Just calling you Techie seems wholly unoriginal, and calling you T just seems lazy." Markus said, as the robot came to life.
The Robot was a small thing, or big, depending on how you view robots. Almost as small as a three year old would be, or about 3 feet tall. The robot was sleek in appearance, looking like an action figure ripped straight from the 90s. The 2190s, that is. It had sleek angular lines, thin plates covering its extremities, and a faceplate that acted as a screen covering its head to display expressions. Atop the robot was a little ball, kind of like a hair bun if it stuck straight up. It said in the manual that this was what Techie used to look around and map its environment. It also had cameras and sensors in its palms and fingertips so that it could more accurately play games. In the manual it said that Techie also had the ability to connect through a wired setup for maximum efficiency for full-dive compatibility. The robot got up from its position laying down, looked around, and focused its gaze on Markus. Eyeing Markus up and down, the robot then slouched a little to the side, held its hand out to the side in askance and said, "Ready to get your ass whooped?"
"..." It took Markus a second to process what the little tin-can just said.
"Ah, my apologies." The robot straightened up a little. "My previous user quite liked my abrasive personality, and did not wipe my personality matrix before putting me in storage."
"... ah yea, that makes sense. that's fine, I guess" Markus fumbled with the user manual, smacking it a couple of times and walking around a little bit as he talked to the robot. "How about we tone down the combativeness a little bit?" Markus said, pointing the user manual at the unfolding headache standing in front of him.
"Okay." Techie said. "What do you want to do, now that you've booted me up?"
"Well," Markus said. "I was originally thinking of changing your name. Something like Turbo from the manual..." At the mention of the names found in the manual, the robot grimaced a little on his face display. "Seems a little too bland. What do you think about the name Tyrant?"
"Tyrant?" The robot displayed a confused face. "Is this because of my demeanor earlier?"
"Well," Markus said, ignoring the robot. "It's either that or Tempest, I'll let you have the final say."
"...I think I'll go with Tempest, Tyrant just makes me out to be an asshole." The newly dubbed Tempest said, while shooting finger guns at Markus.
Over the next 2 days, Markus quickly became what amounted to cell mates with this little robot named Tempest. They would talk trash to each other and play board games. Markus also quickly found out that Tempest was what the manufacturers said he would be. Not only did Tempest beat his ass with any game that didn't rely on chance, but also any game that they played in general. Tempest was a monster when it came to strategy games, and quickly beat Markus in all of them. Occasionally Markus would win a game, but Markus coughed it up to either horrible luck on the side of Tempest or Tempest allowing Markus to win some so that Markus wouldn't always feel bad. 'Have I become the little brother to Tempest?' Markus thought. 'How embarrassing. Well, at least he'll also wipe the floor with anyone else that plays with him.'
With Markus being so far stuck in what amounted to isolation these past 4 days, he was feeling rather pent up. Although he had Tempest with him to keep him company, he was starting to get fidgety and wanted to walk around a more open area or run somewhere. He also didn't have any sort of full dive tech with him that he used on longer hauls when he was making runs to the asteroid belt. When Markus went to go tap on the one way glass to ask for something like yard time, before he could do so he heard the door to his cell start to unlock. What came through the door shocked Markus a little, but he still managed to keep his composure. A little.
A captain for the USNASF walked through the cell door.
Markus' reaction was to panic a little, and then get to setting the little table up with what little accommodations he had, which basically amounted to two chairs. While he was aware that he was in deep shit as according to Jeremy's testification in the bar a few days prior, he hadn't realized he would get the honor of having a captain come and speak to him directly. As the captain entered the room, he took a gander at the spread that Markus had been living in for four days or so. He analyzed the room in a slow methodical way, looking at the slightly unkempt bed and the state of the room in general. Markus had seated himself across from the captain after he was done setting the chairs, which took all of 30 seconds to accomplish. Markus noticed that this captain had no name, which was quite ominous. The captain, finished with whatever analysis, walked up to the table and slapped down a thick military green envelope while sliding himself into the chair in front of Markus.
The captain slowly undid the small twine of yarn keeping the documents held together in what seemed to be a very slow and methodical way as if to unease Markus, slowly but assuredly flipping through the top layers what was assuredly Markus' file. Markus recognized some of the names on the top of the papers, some being some pharmaceutical companies he's done off-the-books runs for. He also recognized the name of a group of smugglers based out of a small private station operated out of the L3 Lagrange point of the moon, which wasn't much more than a place to dock your ship and board others. It had a decent bar. The captain turned a page, and he saw a photograph of him talking with another smuggler on earth. Markus realized that they dug deep for this.
"As you can see we've had our eyes on you for some time now, Markus. Honestly, we didn't really want to prosecute you as we know just about everything that leaves the surface of earth and mars. You could say that we implicitly endorsed your smuggling. We were even going to contract you for a very special mission, and honestly it's still on the table. With all the," the captain closed the file and lightly patted the top of the folder with his fingertips, "espionage however, it makes it difficult for us to offer you this job..." The captain leaned forward and placed both of his hands flat on the table. "With that being said, we feel the desire to offer you a deal. You can either be transferred to a medium security prison for a couple hundred years, live your life out and test those augments of yours and see if there really is a way to die of old age, or you can accept a mission from us and have your slate wiped clean. You won't be able to know what the mission is until you accept, but I can tell you that it will have far reaching and possibly lucrative consequences for both your company and humanity as a whole." The captain slid back in his chair, looking proud with himself.
"So," Markus wrapped up, "if I don't accept, you're probably going to throw me into a cell for a couple of lifetimes?"
"Yeup."
"And I'm guessing I don't get to talk to a lawyer for this huh?"
"Nope."
"This is ridiculous."
"Well... we could give you a couple of days to stew over it, let you come to a decision that you feel comfortable with."
"No," said Markus, his mind racing. "I don't think we need to do that." Markus took a glance over at the currently powered down Tempest. "I do have a couple conditions though." Markus leaned back, organizing his thoughts for a moment, letting his stack do some thinking. "When it comes to my company, I want some exclusivity contracts written up for whatever you guys have planned. I mean, you wouldn't be contracting me if it didn't have something to do with transportation, and I want my people to have a cut of that for years to come." Markus said, leaning forward towards the captain.
"Seems... Complicated." Said the captain. "And that's stretching it a little. But I'm sure we could work something out. Is that all?"
Markus felt like a massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders. If he was right this was going to be massive. Probably the colonization of the outer solar system, he had to guess. Markus leaned back and pointed over to the powered off robot. "I want him."
"The robot?" The captain looked a little surprised at the mention of the robot and glanced at it. "Yea sure, take em'." The captain looked back to Markus, and returned back to his stoic face "anything else?" The captain stated.
"Hmmm..." Markus hummed. "How about some upgrades for my ship? It's kind of been beaten to shit these last couple of years, and I haven't had the time or money to keep it up to spec. God there's been this sweet little grav-drive I've been looking to get that's nearly twice as fast as getting up to speed as my current one, but it's been just outside my wallets reach. Oh, and maybe some In-atmosphere dampeners? I've always wanted to see how my baby glides over Olympus Mons." Markus was damn near drooling by the time he was done talking.
The captain looked like he was about to break out into something other than that perpetual stoicism he always wore as he looked towards the one-way glass. "Yea." He said, " I think we can handle that."
"Alright" Markus stood up and went to shake the officers hand. "So in conclusion, a clean slate for me, some sugar for my company, an upgraded ride for me and the little asshole over there?"
The officer hesitated shaking Markus' hand. "Little asshole?"
Markus smiled a little at the captain. "ah, I mean the little robot over there?"
Markus and the captain shook hands.
"Alright," said the captain while standing up from the desk. "Looks like we have a deal. We'll get you a contract to sign shortly that includes all that was said, including a non-disclosure agreement, with the exclusivity deal to be looked over with whoever your company chooses to lead the negotiations." the captain looked pointedly at the one-way glass. "We'll have Jeremy debrief you on the mission while we're on route to Station Alpha." By the time they reached the cell door, it had been open by one of the lieutenants in the hallway. "Collect your things, we'll leave in 5 minutes." the captain said to Markus.
"I'll do just that" Markus said. As he was walking away from the captain to do just that, he turned around to ask a question.
"Hey, what do I call you?"
The captain looked a little confused standing out in the hallway. Looking down to where his nametag was supposed to be, recognition spread across his face. Pulling out a Velcro nametag and sighing, he aligned it and put it on his chest. the nametag read something that gave Markus some understanding as to why he may have left it off.
| Beavis A. Hubertus |
| CAPT USSF |
"Huh," Markus said. "And, uh, what does the A. stand for?"
"Adolf." Said the captain.
"why didn't they just use pl-"
"Zip it" the captain said, interrupting Markus for what must have been a joke he's heard a thousand times. "I'll see you in five."
"Got it" said Markus, turning around and heading for his clothes.
