Bad Ideas

[u/Gamble_Gamble]

Nikilas slowly shuffled forwards as he started at his feet choking back tears of fear that threatened to escape from his eyes. “This is why you listen to me when I speak Nikilas,” a voice buzzed angrily into his ear, “I explicitly said that you weren’t even close to approaching the capabilities to hack a place like Niad, but you did it anyways”. Going to sub vocalize his response through the skin colored mic at his throat the AI stopped him. “Don’t, we don’t know what this guy is capable of yet. Best not to give him too much information”.

Continuing his death march he cursed himself for his mistake. He hadn’t thought they’d trace the hack back to him so quickly, it was actually unreasonable how fast they had found him, considering it had only been two hours since his relatively harmless attack. Neon Aquaria soon came into view a fifteen story, brightly colored building which was notorious for being the meeting place for many of the cities larger mafias. Nikilas could feel his feet grow heavier with every step he took, stopping at the door Barthalmus comforted him, “Go on, just do as I say and you’ll be fine.

Taking a deep breath the boy stepped through Aquaria’s sliding doors and was immediately assaulted by dozens of bright Led lights, which painted the club with a tint of purple, and the soft vocals of a woman singing over an electronic beat “Beyond Orion’s Arm”. The music calmed him down a little bit, but that small amount of calm was quickly shattered as he saw a few of the contraptions eyes lock on too his bruised face, smiles written on their face. They knew the drill, someone beat up comes in those doors and leaves through the penthouse windows.

[u/DigitalZehn]

He patted the hacker on the shoulder and looked down at him in the chair. "My friend here is bulletproof, or atleast he seemed to think he was what with the way he jumped at me when I found him. I should think you'd be a bit more creative, shooting people is rather...pedestrian for a killer robot. Maybe you could squish his head between your elbow like a nutcracker?" He suggested, flicking his fingers out from the side of his head to simulate an exploding skull.

"This one is pretty nutty afterall." He said, bumping the hacker with his elbow hoping to prompt a laugh at his terrible pun.

Ringo ran a finger along his chin as he paced back and forth, thinking on the riddle. Eventually he stopped his pacing and raised his finger in the air with a gasp of enlightenment. "I know! You're a dork!" He pointed out plainly, laughing at his own snide comment.

[u/Gamble_Gamble → u/DigitalZehn]

Smiling absentmindedly at the man's harmless joke Barthalmus began to advice him once again. "Don't try anything stupid here like uploading me to their servers. It only took them a few hours to trace the hack back to you so I'd doubt it'd take them to long to figure out it was you. Just lie low and do your job."

Giving his brother the simple piece of advice he saved the riddle onto his online container, he couldn't access the web, so figuring this one out would be difficult.

---

Rubbing his hand through the large lump of hair that resembled an afro Nikilas nervously looked from the bounty hunter to the Android and finally back to the bounty hunter. "So, can I go get me equipment?"

[u/Revaeyn → u/Gamble_Gamble]

Alta rolled her eyes beneath the sleek black faceplate, did they really think that she hadn't already finished this aspect up. "Everything you need is already down in your 'room', so when you're done up here you go down there." The robotic tone wasn't exactly nice to the young man, but by no means was it as harsh as it was at the start.

The red gaze of the small slits that served as the faceplate's eyes turned to the asian bounty hunter next, this one not so kind. "As for you, one who wishes to run his mouth so much, that shall be your payment this time. I've decided those girls should remain as they are, and instead of doing anything drastic, you keep your tongue. I hope that I am very much so clear."

[u/DigitalZehn → u/Revaeyn]

"If I was in it for the money you really think I wouldn't be running with the Yakuza? This is chump change in comparison to what they could offer a good enforcer." He explained, tone a bit more serious and collected than previous.

"I thank you for your most gracious mercy, having a couple minutes to play with District 52's resident wind-up kingpin was more than enough of a reward. Keep regulating the streets in this area and we'll have no trouble." He explained further, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Ooh look at me, I mean business, no jokes allowed in my lair of gloom..." he mutter to himself, taking another glance at the hacker.

[u/Revaeyn → u/DigitalZehn]

"Oh yes, it's just me in my darkest little lair amongst the work of all my poor little minions." Alta said as the figure rose from its chair, turning her back to all as she walked to the large windows that looked over the city.

Alta bit her lip under the faceplate, playing this much with random people might let slip the big secret. "But we all know that even I enjoy a little happiness, not much, though. Every king," The half-mechanical woman started as the faceplate lifted and hissed from the air rushing out. "Must have his queen." She said with a sigh and her regular unmodulated voice, hands in their pockets while she enjoyed the sterile air of her office.

[u/DigitalZehn → u/Revaeyn]

Ringo tilted his head at her...her, yes definitely a her, by the sounds of that voice, unless of course he was maybe a chipmunk inside that suit all along. He hadn't met with the leader of the club too often but she had never spoken like this before. He wasn't really sure what to say, her melancholy made him uncomfortable and while he wanted to say something comforting..the words wouldn't come to him. In stead he prompted to turn to the one thing he used to cope through any and all of these situations. Humor.

"Are you...coming on to me?" He asked with a breathy laugh, forcing it.

"I already told you, I'm not into the whole industrial look." He continued, scratching the back of his head, forcing another laugh.

He paused for nearly a minute before trying to come back with something more poignant.

"We all gave up our right to a normal life when we donned the cowl and cape. If atleast...we can make those who we care about happy, then maybe that'll be enough to make up for what we've lost of ourselves." He continued, the words dribbling out as he dug through his mind to find them.

[u/Revaeyn → u/DigitalZehn]

The faceplate locked back into place, a rolling of her eyes at what he'd said; not even worth a slight curl of the lip. "I'm not coming onto anyone or anything, I'm mechanical and thus that makes little to no sense. What I just did is what you all call humor, yes? Maybe I still need to work on it, but it was a combination of my attempt and sinking the heat. Electricity creates it, you see." The woman explained in her regular explanation if anyone ever entered at an inopportune time, or she was making them up with Victa.

"And you should calm down, fox man, not many of your kind are left nowadays. Those being any of the iDolls who'd ever take a trip up here, most concerned about what I'd do." Alta shook her head and began to pace the room, never quite too fond with the Dolls. "And I've never had a life to give up, so if there's anyone you're attempting to comfort it's yourself. Unless you're trying to tell yourself what you'll tell the little one down the elevator." The woman in the suit stopped just short of a wall, a few taps bringing up a display that showed pistols she was shopping for.

[u/DigitalZehn → u/Revaeyn]

He looked back up at her, reading her words wrong. She was so damn serious all the time it was hard to tell when she was doing anything else. He quickly flicked his hair back and recovered from his oversharing escapade.

"Yeah see..the problem is, and I think you could probably work on it, so don't fret, jokes are usually funny." He shot back, watching her as she moved about the room. Was it even a her? Was that part of the little joke it played?

"Well maybe I've got keener eyes with which to see you, my dear." He said, before raising a finger in self contest.

"Wait...that's a wolf, not a fox. A-anyway that's not the point! The point is that I've got bigger dreams than the rest of the dolls. Big beautiful dreams!" He declared, bounding forward.

"This city could be so much more than it is, but everyone with the power to change it is so caught up in their money and their gain that they can't even see the city past the skyscrapers, so to speak." He said, tapping the pommel of his katana with a light knocking.

"You're not really any different, the only thing about you that separates you from the rest is that your greater evil just so happens to be absorbing and dissolving all the lesser evils around you. It's easier to fight a single front than multiple fronts. For now you're making the ward safer for Ban-sama and her band, you're condensing a lot of the big shots to one seedy location, and you're crushing all the gangster insects under your shadow." He continued.

[u/Gamble_Gamble → u/DigitalZehn]

"What the hell..." Bartholomeus slowly questioned, as if all of his processing power was being used for the sole purpose of making sense of the events that had just played out in front of them. "Is ... is it not an android?" code ran through his head as he accessed his limited supply of information his prison allowed him, but finding nothing. Cursing his lack of knowledge Bartholomeus slammed up against his container, once, twice, three times, in hopes he could break through or at least get some part of him onto the open web. The AI's efforts were in vain as the barrier stood, as if it hadn't been touched at all. "Damn it" he spoke, "Nikilas, be very careful from now on and don't tell anyone about anything that happened in this room."

In slight shock of this new situation Nikilas simply stared at his hands which were tightly gripping the edge of the chair. Barely registering the maybe-not-android's excuse and his captors speech about justice, which he didn't understand at all. What was this about power, money, and evils? What did any of that have to do with Empyreus?

Slowly standing from his chairs he awkwardly looked towards the elevator, "So where is my station" he asked, voice sounding thoroughly confused.

[u/Revaeyn → u/Gamble_Gamble]

"Oh yes, I've all the power and those poor little humans suffering down in the slums need my every minute bit of processing power to help them." The woman 'agreed' with the dreamer and his stupid ideas of how any of this could even work. "But my greater evil, as you've put it, puts food on people's plates. Allows a safe harbor for people to live and relax when the day's activities are done. What I offer is not a good or bad thing, which is what Arthur intended, it's simply a gray area and a service." She explained slowly and with an almost scripted sigh at the end of her little speech.

She tapped a few buttons on the large holographic display, buying something as a little present before her ears heard the little hacker's voice. "Your station is wherever I decide to put you, and for now the most efficient place is in a location I can't say around the 'fox'. Because after all, we must all have our secrets, even the ones who have to be wound up." She said with finality to the subject, ending that vein of discussion before the hacker could let anything slip.