Vexus found it pretty unusual that she would find herself sleeping late so often. It was already 11:20 am, and she still wasn't awake. Even when she was a queen, and she could do basically whatever she wanted, she almost always woke up at around 7:00 am. The reason was most likely the fact that she felt as if she had nothing better to do anymore.
At 11:42, her eye's finally opened. Once she realized what she was looking at, she grew terribly disappointed.
"I wish I could be staring at the ceiling of my bedroom on Cluster Prime instead of this old dusty wooden piece of garbage ceiling that I'm forced to wake up to every morning," She said with an angry irritated tone.
She heard a slight unusual noise for a second, then it stopped the moment she realized she was hearing it. Not paying it any mind, she let out a sigh. Another few moments of silence passed before she decided that it was time to get out of the bed. She sat up and heard the unusual noise again, only this time, it was much louder. She looked down and found a large beetle on her right thigh. Its legs were scraping against her metal skin making that noise she kept hearing. Surprised, she jumped out of bed screaming at the top of her lungs. The beetle fell off of her thigh and onto the floor.
When she stopped screaming, she finally said "That damned thing is about the size of one of my hands. I didn't know Earth produced such monstrosities."
She walked over to the bug and stared at it for a moment as it struggled to get off its side and back on its feet. When it finally did, Vexus raised her right foot above the beetle as she prepared to crush it. She thrust her foot downward seemingly lightning fast and stopped about a millimeter before touching the beetle.
At this point, Vexus was becoming frustrated. She couldn't figure out why she was unable to bring herself to carry out the deed. After all, it was merely an insignificant insect, right?
The expression on her face kept getting angrier and angrier. Her fists clenched so tightly that her metal skin made a disturbing grinding noise. About another twenty seconds passed before she decided that it probably wasn't worth it and set her foot down on the floor.
She finally calmed down and said "I wouldn't want to have to clean up the mess anyway."
Looking around the room, Vexus finally located the glass pot that she found in a dark corner of the first floor. She sat in down on the dresser beside her bed and never had a use for it until now. She picked up the beetle, walked over to the dresser, and put the beetle down inside the pot.
"It usually is a little boring in here. Scratch that; it's usually very boring in here, but I suppose you'll keep me company somehow," Vexus said with a frown.
After contemplating what she just said for a few moments, Vexus said in an almost whisper "My situation has got to be really bad if I'm forced to find amusement in an Earth bug. Speaking of amusement, I might as well listen to the radio again. There's got to be something worth listening to on that thing."
She walked over to the radio, turned it on, and turned the tuning knob slowly until she found something rather interesting indeed.
"In today's news, the robot named Global Response Unit XJ9, otherwise known as Jennifer Wakeman or Jenny as she likes to be called, actually failed in capturing a criminal for the first time in her otherwise spotless record. The criminal known as The Mudslinger managed to escape from Tremorton's largest bank with two million dollars. Immediately following this event, XJ9 searched for two hours in the area that she and the police believe that he might have landed only to return empty handed. Questioned by news reporters this morning about her performance, she had this to say…" The female announcer said.
"Look people, before you criticize me, go fight a few mega villains yourselves and see how well you fair against them. It's not like you all don't make mistakes from time to time. I tried my best, and he actually managed to outsmart me. It's not like I've completely given up on him either. I'll find him one of these days," Jenny's recorded voice was played back.
"In other news, the price of oil just went up by 3 cents today," Was the last thing Vexus heard the news reporter say before she changed the station to a station playing classic rock music from the early twenty first century. Since it was the year 2093, the music playing was considered classic.
"Well well XJ9 my dear, this is a first. I wonder what's bothering you. Something seems to be slowing you down. I can't get too excited though. This could just be fluke. Let's see how progressively worse your little problem becomes," Vexus said with a grin.
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The time was 11:42 am. The computer filled room still dark with only the green computer screen to provide any light at all. The screen flickered then straightened.
A message in red reading "CONVERSATION CHANNEL OPEN," appeared on the screen.
Another line in black read "Phase one is completed."
Another line in blue read "Phase? That was more like a simple test than a phase. Since when did we decide to start calling them phases?"
Another line in black read "What we are trying accomplish isn't some ordinary task. Calling it a phase makes it sound so much more important. It makes it seem as if we're actually doing something worth our efforts."
Another line in blue read "So, you mean that you're calling it that for some kind of confidence boost, are you? Being overconfident got us in the mess that we're in now. At this point, I could care less about confidence boosts. I just want to actually succeed this time."
Another line in black read "Though I despise that kind of attitude, I'll admit that you are right this time. We should take this a little more seriously."
Another line in blue read "Any luck locating the component?"
Another line in black read "Not yet. In fact, I didn't think I would have quite this much trouble finding it."
Another line in blue read "How come?"
Another line in black read "Well, it's actually much more difficult to find when it's not active. But don't worry, I said that I found it before, and I'll find it again."
Another line in blue read "Well, I guess that's okay for now. It's not like we're in a rush."
Another line in black read "Maybe so, but I do want to get this over with."
Another line in blue read "Me too."
Another line in red then read "CONVERSATION CHANNEL CLOSED."
