"So I was told by Aperture Science that you two are the androids who are capable of making an AI for the ship?" Shelby was desperate for someone to fall back onto. Black Mesa was not cooperating with him, he, against his will, had to go to the second banana. Aperture Science was indeed a good company, but was not as famous as it's Black Mesa brethren. Although Shelby was instilled with a little bit of hope; Aperture Science said they would give him two of their smartest and capable androids that they had manufactured. In this day and age, robotics didn't need to be paid, they only had to be maintained. Looking down at the report slip, Shelby saw that his two clients were a recently distributed android named Chell, the other being older yet modified android with the extremely long name Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. (He hoped that the latter of the two had a nick name or something.)
And now he found himself in the meeting room, with the two in question looking at him. The first one, who he guessed was "Chell", was almost indistinguishable from a normal human being. She was given the appearance of someone from South America; dark skin and jet black hair, and was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Her partner, was obviously older; they had the very believable appearance of a human, but something about her was off. Shelby recognized her as a newer model of the "Keiko Okiek" android created in Japan several years ago. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System had a lighter shade of blue for hair, and a completely white suit compared to her completely blue clad older model. She lacked the eye piece, but Shelby could see her eyes changing between the colors of blue, red, purple, and orange. (why these four colors he wasn't too sure) she seemed more intent on starring off into space rather than talk, as "Chell" was the first one to break the ice with the human.
"Yes," she replied, even her accent was exactly like a humans, "we are the best free labor that Aperture Science has available, myself, and GLaDOS," she motioned to the other android, "Will be able to do whatever designing and constructing for an AI that you want."
"Perfect," Shelby was pleased with the situation, "Now.. can you tell me what you had for an idea on the kind of ship that this AI would be piloting?"
"Fish shaped.." GLaDOS seemed to interject; her eyes turning blue and orange, "Several Fish shaped -"
"She means to say," Chell interrupted her (and even kicked her chair), "Is that the future lies in the ocean, the land might be bad. But I say that the oceans are vast, and very much untouched by mankind. I think if you let us work on a submersible unit for the human beings, you'll be able to stay here Earth indirectly while the Wall-E robot model that Buy and Large has been creating will be able to clear the trash"
"Before throwing the cubes into the emergency incinerator," GLaDOS finsihed her sentence.
"She's talking about the sun." Chell quickly covered.
Shelby could tell that his eyes were widening to the size of dinner plates; he was not objecting to Chell, she seemed normal, but the other one, whom Chell called "GLaDOS" (thankfully an acronym to her real name) was obviously a little bit off her rocker. But he figured that Chell would be able to keep a firm control on her partner. He had nothing else to go on.
"I see your exact point," Shelby decided to further the conversation, "Submarines would be the answer to the human race, and ... well, why not make them fish shaped?" he was trying to please them both, "You're both hired for this job, I'll make sure that you're kept up in the best conditions while you work on both the vehicle and the AI that will assist in piloting it."
"Will there be cake?" GLaDOS seemed to be off in her own little world.
"Cake...?" Shelby didn't know what to make of it.
"GLaDOS..." Chell gave out an exasperated sigh, "she knows that the project will be monitored, she wants it to be as low profiled as possible, if people in this company know that you got help from another company of all things, this would be the you-know-what hitting the fan."
Chell gave a good argument, "Well then," Shelby said, "What do you propose we do?"
"Open a bakery."
"A... bakery?" Shelby was even more confused.
"They shall be baked, and then there will be cake." GLaDOS said with a huge smile on her face.
"O... alright," Shelby quickly regained his composure, "I understand, the immediate plans for what you ask for shall be done, and I will give you two years to construct blue prints for both subjects I want done. Is that doable?"
"Yes it is," Chell gave a nod, "It was pleasure doing business with you Shelby Forthwright."
"Likewise." Shelby quickly gave his leave and left the two andriods, as he walked down the hallway he muttered, "Now I know why they were giving them away..."
Back in the room, Chell gave her companion a swift slap upside the head.
"Look what you've done!" she said angry.
"Wait.. what?" GLaDOS blinked and looked around, "Time out for a second.. what happened?"
"Don't tell me you were in SLEEP MODE the entire business talk!" Chell couldn't believe the predicament that they were in, "I had to cover for you the entire time! And instead of redeeming ourselves, we're now making a fish shaped submarine!"
"Was it worth it?" GLaDOS yawned and rubbed her eyes, "As long as we can get the things done, and give it to this Shelby guy, maybe our company won't be swallowed by that joke brand Buy and Large..."
"I hate Buy and Large as much as the next intellectual," Chell said softly, "which isn't saying much given the IQ of the average citizen nowadays."
"Well..." GLaDOS also seemed uncaring about the whole thing, "Life on this planet is dying, humanity is worse for wear, but some day, given our nature, we will look back on all of this, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh."
And Laugh..... and... laugh....and..................... laugh.......
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The stewards were patrolling the area; keeping an eye out for the strange bird robot that had caused the pile up on the main road system. It was given priority over everything else, the other security robots had never seen the robot in question before, it could be a potential threat. A trio of stewards were scanning an area together; not noticing the extremely noticeable card board box that was scurrying behind them. Hearing a noise, one of the stewards turned around, but the box remained motionless. Going back to their patrols, the box began to move again, feeling the same presence, the steward turned around and grabbed the box; levitating it into the air.
A rather bemused Mage was underneath, she had somehow found a way to tie a headband around her head. For some reason or another, a large exclamation point appeared over her head for a split second, before she zoomed off. The three stewards gave chase after the elusive bird, finally cornering her in a small outcrop where she was above them on a small niche in the wall; at such an angle that they were unable to grab her with their tractor beams. Seeing some refuse and scrap metal up in her roost, Mage started to throw the bits and baubles at the three stewards down below. "Yeah! Take that you dumb billboards!" despite the little projectiles having no effect on the stewards, Mage just found it satisfying to hit them.
Several minutes passed. The steward that was getting pelted by nuts and bolts was wondering how the bird was keeping up the pathetic assault. As if to answer his question, he saw the bird peek from her hiding space.
"Wanna know how I'm keeping this up?" she pointed at her bandanna, "Infinite Ammo!"
But after the joke she left herself wide open. The unamused steward promptly grabbed her in place and held her with it's tractor beam.
"Awww nuts.." Mage knew this was going to get ugly.
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Rolling across the blue road, Sae and Otua were both caught up in the sights around them. The "city" within the Axiom seemed fathomless, buildings stretched on, lights pulsed, and peo-
PEOPLE.
That was the one word of shock that went through both Otua and Sae's minds. 700 years of devolution on their part is what the two saw. If either of them had jaws they would be dropped in shock by what they saw. People.. for lack of words, looked more like freaky cabbage patch dolls now. All of them seemed to be cemented into chairs, and were completely immobile. Otua didn't know what was more troubling, the fact that humans looked like this, or the fact that the humans didn't care that they looked like this...
"Never mind this... unsettling distraction," Otua ushered Sae on, "Lets keep following the Wall-E"
Easier said than done, Sae thought to herself but at least there was a trail of bread crumbs, but in this case, a trail of dirt. The Wall-E kept putting forward; driven on by some sort of invisible force.
"What's so important about that egg that he'd leave Earth for it?" Sae asked aloud as she dodged a People Mover.
"I am not sure myself.. but I'm sure we'll find the answer soon."
The two were rewarded by their long trek as they saw GO-4 up ahead with the egg, and the Wall-E in hot pursuit. Sae quickly rolled into the gray building that they had gone into; and was met by pristine silence. A robot that seemed to be a secretary was clicking away bored at a keyboard; only looking up to give a nod to GO-4, who pulled the SER-V into an elevator. Not caring whether he had clearance or not, Wall-E putted along past the security bot and into the elevator as well. Before the doors closed, he gave a little wave to the secretary.
Sae was again greeted by silence. But Otua broke it in a sudden burst of glee.
"Sae... the bridge is above us." her voice seemed more happier than ever Sae had heard.
"Really?" Sae was a bit underwhelmed, "You think there would be... more security or something..." she rolled on ahead, bowed slightly to the secretary robot, and then took the elevator herself. Once again alone, the secretary looked down at it's little arms, and "waved" them like the yellow robot had done before it. It then lowered it's body into a kind of quasi bow. It might have been nothing to anyone else, but the secretary was amused that it had learned something rather new.
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In the elevator, Sae and Otua both were silent. The climb seemed to take forever; they climbed so high they could even see over the highest towers of the city. Sae felt her treads shake; she was always afraid of heights.
"Relax Sae," Otua tried to console her friend despite her excitement,"We're almost there."
As if on cue, a ding sounded in the elevator, and the doors opened. And what greeted them was a very loud computerized shout of frustration.
"IT'S GONE!!"
