Mission 07
SETTLING IN, AND THE DRAFT
When he awoke, he felt like a different man. His body still ached, but he didn't feel exhausted. For the first time since he could remember, he actually felt like his body's status was quite acceptable, and all of his needs were met. It was a strange feeling, but not at all unwelcome. When he sat up in his bed, shoving the boring white covers off of his form, he shivered at the sudden chilling breeze that circulated through the room, propelled by the lone ceiling fan that was fixed to the roof.
His sharp umber eyes, no longer bereft of sleep, were cool and calculating as he thought they should be, and they scanned his surroundings thoroughly – from the beds that lined the walls to the single door at the end of the elongated room, he picked apart each detail until he felt like he knew enough about where he was to move again.
The barracks were silent while he climbed out of his bed, clad only in a pair of coarse grey shorts and a white cotton shirt, and his hand immediately went up to feel his temple. The skin there, he found, was uneven and cold – hard and synthetic, suggesting something ran beneath the surface. Neural implants, he guessed, for interfacing with his Tome. That made enough sense – but they did not hum, and only now that all was quiet up there did he notice something absent. They must have been disabled by these Shepherds – that was to be expected, he mused.
Chrom had assured him that he was not a prisoner. In fact, it had been because of Chrom that he had anywhere to sleep at all; the Captain had been generous enough to 'offer' the lost amnesiac residence at the desolate barracks of the Shepherds' main base of operations for the foreseeable future, due to his lack of known family or home to return to. Robin was not fooled by the front, and fully understood that he was still a suspect in the matters that had occurred back in the fields, and what's more the many lives lost at the resort in South Town.
He was not out of the woods yet, so to speak.
He heard various joints pop as he hobbled down the way under the pale light, the ice-cold black tiles quickening his steps while he worked the last kinks of sleep out of his body.
As he moved, he noticed an asymmetry in his weight, and a quick glance down revealed a thin black band of plastic and rubber to have been wrapped around his ankle. The small prick of light fixed to it blinked softly, dim and blue.
He was being tracked.
Either way, he supposed things could have been so much worse. When he had arrived, Robin had fully expected to be treated mercilessly, as a prisoner of war or something of the like. However thus far, he had received nothing short of hospitality, being given a tray of food before being shown to his sleeping quarters for the night. His stomach grumbled as he passed the empty, crumb-covered tray that he had set beside the door the night before.
The air was crisp when he slipped out through the sliding door and into the hallway, the dark tiles following his footsteps like a path of black mirrors, and the light coming from overhead was reflected in the inky surfaces, the illusion broken only by the shadow that glided down the corridor almost soundlessly.
He wandered for a little while, peeking into rooms and searching for anything that might be able to tell him what was to be done with him next – the curiosity was eating away at him, and the desire to know growing stronger by the second as it was wont to do – but there wasn't a soul in sight, and each room was empty and varied in appearances. He found a room filled with sofas and chairs and coffee tables, with several large TVs playing what he guessed to be the news to the nonexistent patrons of the room, and another with long tables and unoccupied chairs suggesting that it was some form of mess hall. Both were empty.
The amnesiac wandered like this for some time, listening for any sounds save for the dull prattle of the TVs in the lounge, but heard nothing.
Just when he was about to give up and return to his room, a voice spoke to him.
"Hello."
Robin acted on reflex, ducking away from the loud voice that had spoken almost directly into his ear whilst his hand fell to where his weapon would normally be stowed. When his digits wrapped around nothing but air, he closed his hand into a fist and began running situations through his head while his eyes searched for the owner of the voice. He hadn't heard anyone creeping up on him, and now as he looked he could see no one either.
Seconds ticked by and he remained half-stooped in the middle of the hall, one hand in a fist and the other raised and ready to cast. His neural implants, if they had truly been tampered with, rendered the tool on his wrist nothing more than a paperweight, but hopefully if he was attacked his opponent would not know that.
Slowly, the amnesiac rose back into a standing position because his legs had begun to hurt from the half crouch. More joints popped, and he wondered if he had been hearing things – the doors on either side of the corridor were closed and, as he could attest from experience, locked. The windows on each side of the frame, thin and tall, were frosted and dark as well.
He tilted his head.
"I'm sorry, did I startle you? It is not often that I meet new people, and I wished to offer a greeting to begin a wholesome and intellectual conversation."
He twisted on the spot again, as quickly as he could while searching the new direction that the sound had come from. Just as before, there was no one there, but this time he was certain that he had heard what he had heard, and now the knuckles of his fist had begun to turn white. He looked up, searching for cameras or speakers, but failed to locate either – it didn't matter what appeared at a first glance, he knew, when such things could be so easily concealed in this day and age.
Robin had begun to shuffle backwards when a sound came from behind him, and he spun on his heels.
Behind him, or rather in front of him now, a broken cluster of golden light had begun to rise up from the floor, shifting pieces in the likeness of shattered glass orbiting a center of gravity like a small star system that had formed in the center of the hall. He stumbled away, surprised as they grouped and separated, never taking a distinctive shape, but he did not fall down. Rather, the amber glow it cast was reflected in his dark eyes, filling them not only with moderate wonder but an otherworldly light that gave them life none had seen before.
It was unlike anything he had seen before. But… no, he had seen something similar. He couldn't remember, but he must have.
"Allow me to begin," the voice came from the center of the amber storm, and as the light dimmed Robin realized that each shard seemed to literally be made out of glowing glass – when he stared into one, his own inquisitive orbs stared back from its depths, tinted orange. The shard drifted away, but not before he thought that it had blinked at him. "What is your name?"
Almost hypnotized by the sight, Robin stepped towards the mass, and it did not shy away from his approach while his bare feet soundlessly glided across the black tiles.
"My name…?" He blinked, remembering that most things that were beautiful were appealing to the eye as to lure one in, masking the dangers beneath the surface. He stopped moving, and took half a step backwards.
This was...
Robin's eyes, still filled with that glow, scanned the corridor quickly while his brain began to work overtime, picking apart each and every detail of the hallway no matter how insignificant it may have seemed. From the floor to the walls, he only found what he was looking for when he turned his gaze to the ceiling – set into the plain panels, a small glass fixture that was not even the size of his thumb glowed dimly, a tiny light held deep within the dark glass pulsing.
"Your name. Surely you know your own name?" the mass inquired, the shards twisting and speeding up and slowing down in their motions as his voice rose and fell. Yes, he decided, it was a male voice. "Perhaps if not your name, you may know something else – information regarding your past, mayhaps? I will go first. My name is Laurent; I am eighteen years old, and will have turned nineteen years old within the week."
The amnesiac, still partially lost, glanced up at the fixture in the ceiling one last time before turning his gaze back to the anomaly before him and folding his arms. The amber glow it cast turned his shirt orange, and shaded his forearms with warm light. He knew what this was now, and that inspired some confidence in him.
It was clever, but they hadn't fooled him.
"... I believe that my name is Robin, but I seem to have no memories regarding the rest of my past," he said, peering into the center of the swirling mass, where a bright pip of light floated absolutely – the center of the universe in front of him, where everything would connect. His voice was nothing but a breath, and a smile threatened to tug at his lips. "And you…" he breathed, fascinated.
He swatted a hand at one of the shards, and the pale digits went straight through the construct, making the shard flicker out of sight for a moment.
"You are an AI."
There was a pause, and every bit of fake-golden-glass in the storm went still, like someone had hit the pause button for the progression of the world around him.
And then it spoke.
"I am."
The sound of glass tinkling across the floor – a sound that he had become unfortunately familiar with during recent events – reached his ears as the shards dropped from the air, breaking up when they each hit the ground before flickering out of existence entirely.
When they were all gone, standing before Robin was something resembling a human male, though not quite. Even though it had two arms and two legs and a torso and a head, and even though it stood tall with its arms folded as to mirror Robin, it was not made out of the graceful curves that made up the human body – but rather angles so sharp that they looked like they could cut flesh. It lacked any discernable features as it tilted its head to mimic Robin's own head, until finally the likeness of a pair of golden specs materialized on its face.
"My name is not Laurent, but rather that it is what I am called for simplicity's sake," he said, the amnesiac's face reflected off of the blank, glassy gold surface that was Laurent's own featureless face. Though he spoke, he had no visible mouth that the magician could discern. "And you are Robin, a man that Chrom and my mother have been working so hard to learn about. Your eyes – they moved quickly, searching for an explanation, and so they quickly found one. I assume you spotted the projector, despite its small size; very quick thinking and excellent deductive skills. For a human, at any rate."
The backhanded compliment was delivered in the same cold, even voice that the program had used since it first spoke, and Robin derived no pride or sense of accomplishment from its observation. With its identity as an AI revealed, he now recognized that this being was merely a puppet. This, of course, raised the question; who was the one on the other end of the strings?
Regardless, it had been a clever plan, and if he had indeed been an enemy spy the wonder of the otherworldly sight might have put him off of his guard enough to trick him into revealing that he knew more than he claimed to know. Its only flaw was that he was not an enemy spy, and he did not know anything about his origins.
There was nothing for him to tell.
"Robin!"
Robin turned towards the new voice, and spotted a familiar face skipping down the hall towards him at approximately thirty feet per energetic leap. Her soft olive eyes were filled with a light that had nothing to do with the glowing AI that was behind him, but rather just an unfortunate byproduct of the youthful energy that danced playfully within. Her pigtails bounced as she did, and he wondered if the girl was going to be able to make a full stop before possibly killing him with her momentum.
Surprisingly, despite Robin's doubts Lissa managed to slide to a stop just a few feet shy of what would have most likely been a fatal collision with the amnesiac magician. A smile was plastered across her face, and unlike when he had last seen her she was dressed in a simple skirt and hoodie, having discarded her headphones for a plain headband as well as doing away with her goggles entirely. He found this strange – he thought that most teenagers were fond of combat boots and heavy metal and the like – not such… ordinary clothing.
"Was Laurent bullying you?" she asked after the calamity had been soundly averted, her canvas sneakers appearing to have found some traction on the slick tiles. The second the word bullying left her mouth, he was reminded that before him she was nothing more a child, and could not possibly understand the emotional abuse that the AI might have attempted to put him through had she not shown up when she did. However, beings as he was unscathed, he simply shook his head. "Great! Laurent's known to get a bit suspicious of new people, but I'm glad you two are getting along. Chrom didn't want you to meet him until you got settled."
Robin grimaced at the word settled, wondering how long they intended to keep him here. On one hand, he had nowhere to go after they kicked him out, and he would most likely starve on the street upon his genius going unrecognized by the unwashed masses. On the other hand, these Shepherds might be one of his best bets at learning about his past and possibly recovering his lost memories.
On the magical third hand that most humans were not capable of beginning to comprehend, running with Chrom's strange unit of soldiers was almost guaranteed in running the risk of meeting even more insane and eccentric people that did not understand the meaning of personal space, much like Frederick and this Lissa girl.
It was a win win lose situation, the first of its breed.
"It is certainly… unique."
Lissa frowned as Laurent visibly stiffened. "Laurent doesn't like it when people call him an 'it'. It makes him cranky."
Hm. What an interesting trait for a computer program. Very advanced indeed, he thought.
"I see." Robin did not see, but he supposed he could pretend rather than press the matter and learn about things that did not interest him at the current time. "Very well. Have you seen Chrom? I wish to speak to him about what our next move is."
"Our next move?" Lissa echoed, and he nodded slowly as so that she would understand. So long as she did not forget what he had said, he was confident she would be able to decipher his meaning if he gave her time. "Like, with your memories?"
"And my patience bears fruit," he mused.
"Chrom and my mother have been working diligently to find information pertaining to you and your past," Laurent assured him, leaning against the wall. His shoulder distorted where it met the panels, becoming unfocused and uncertain in such close proximity to the surface. "I suspect Mr. Jaegen has also been running his own searches as well, though I cannot confirm it."
"Of course he is," Robin mused. He blinked, looking at the AI. "Your mother. You've mentioned her before – who is she? I assume you mean your creator."
"You sure do ask a lot of questions," Lissa said, laughing and evidently finding amusement in the man's unending curiosity. He, for the briefest moment, wondered if she was able to fully understand what it truly meant for one to lose all of their memories; if she did understand the concept well, she would presumably realize that his asking questions was a desperate attempt to better understand the world that he had mostly forgotten. All that remained were fundamentals, and thus he had a lot to catch up on. As he watched her continue to giggle a carefree giggle, he decided that she most definitely did not understand the gravity of his condition. "But yeah, he means Miriel. She's the resident bookworm and the head of the Shepherds' research and development team." She pursed her lips. "I guess she's actually the only member of the R&D team."
"You are a very poor army," Robin noted. He had suspected to some extent, but it seemed that he didn't know the half of it. "Very very poor. How sad."
"How about instead of me telling you about them, you meet the Shepherds yourself?" Lissa suddenly suggested, and she didn't wait for an answer before grabbing his arm and tugging him along. He cast a glance towards Laurent, but the holographic representation of the AI had already vanished into thin air. "You're gonna love them! Come on!"
He sincerely doubted that statement.
"My personal space, Lissa – it is one of my dearest treasures," he said as she dragged him along. "Please release me. Lissa."
\\\
Robin had braced himself for a perilous journey, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the only thing standing between him and the Shepherds was not actually as much walking as he had thought it would be. The only thing that made the trip distressing was the energetic gremlin of a human being that forced him to move as if they were running from a pack of wolves, or what's more a pack of zombies riding wolves. For a moment, he wondered if a pack of zombies was indeed called a pack, but he was quick to write it off as irrelevant to him as a person due to the stunning lack of zombies in his life; zombies were fictional, after all.
When Lissa entered the room, he followed shortly after her due to the firm and oddly strong death-grip that she had on his wrist. He felt somewhat less like a human being and more like a dog brought to show and tell as she dragged him along, but he was far too much of a victim of circumstance to be embarrassed by said circumstances.
After what felt like forever but logically couldn't have been more than ten minutes of madly sprinting through the labyrinth that the Shepherds allegedly resided in, the pair came to a stop in front of a desk that was constructed mostly out of glass, with plastics supporting the fragile sheets. The room was lit only by the sunlight that poured through the wall behind the desk, which seemed to have been removed and replaced with a long window that would allow a sniper to pick off anyone that resided within the room.
The few pieces of furniture that decorated the rather bare floor were occupied by various posteriors of all genders and ages, while others were standing in front of Chrom's desk, and one lone individual was peering out the window almost longingly, seemingly being completely ignored by the others and excluded from the conversation like some sort of social outcast.
Robin tried not to look at him, for fear of catching whatever terrible disease the man might have had that caused him to be rejected by the rest of his unit.
"The hell do you mean we're not doing nothing?!"
It was far too late to try and escape from the room, as now several pairs of eyes had been drawn away from the current subject of argument and were paying him a moderate amount of attention. If he attempted to flee, they might react unpredictably – with that, he tried to stand as still as possible as to not provoke them.
"I mean we aren't doing anything," Chrom said, sounding tired as he massaged the bridge of his nose with his flesh digits. His prosthetic digits were tapping anxiously on the surface of the desk, and Robin could see the scratches in the glass from where the metal limb must have usually rested caught in the light. "Scouts weren't able to find anything when they checked it out, and the survivors from the resort told us exactly what we already know – masked terrorists attacked for seemingly no reason."
"Fuck," the woman with the red hair and the bad attitude spat on the carpet that had been laid over the tiles in front of Chrom's desk, and Robin mentally made a note not to step in that particular spot any time in the near future. "They killed entire fucking families before they hit the resort, chrome-head! I'm not gonna sit around and let 'em get away with that shit!"
"I know, I know. They won't, Sully, I promise."
Robin thought that standing perfectly still had been going rather well for him until the woman's eyes turned on him, and he quickly changed his mind; he suddenly felt like prey that had been sighted by a fearsome predator, and due to the fact that physical strength was not his forte he quickly tried to talk the woman down and defuse the situation. However, when he opened his mouth, he closed it just as quickly to prevent something that might further enrage her from coming out. Talking, he remembered, was most certainly not his forte either.
Her nostrils flared and she took a step towards him, her button up perhaps a little too unbuttoned revealing several faint scars on her neck. She had seen her share of combat, he recognized; if it came to a fight, he wasn't sure if they would be on equal footing.
"Sully, back off will ya?" a man who inexplicably was lacking in upper body clothing jeered from the side, his heavy boots kicked up on the coffee table as he lounged on the sofa beside a man with greenish-brown hair. Robin's gaze lingered on the greenish-brown hair for a moment, equally disgusted and curious as to what could produce such a strange hair color, before he realized that this was his chance to escape the woman's wrath and he scuttled to the side. "Poor kid just walked through the door and you're already lookin' like you're about to kick the shit outta him."
"Yeah? And am I wrong?" Sully looked around for a moment before finally her eyes settled back on Robin, who had thought that he was blending in beside the lamp rather well until it became apparent that he wasn't. She pointed to him with a finger, and he wondered what the point was when he was clearly the new subject of discussion/argument. "We don't even know where the hell he came from, and we're letting him sleep in our goddamn base without a guard. He obviously ain't a civilian – shouldn't we be treating him with a bit more suspicion than a fucking collar and a pat on the back for not dying?"
Robin had not received a pat on the back for not dying. He wished for this to be made apparent, but not did not seem like a stellar time to clarify when the woman was so clearly on a roll. He did not wish to throw her off.
"Robin was of great assistance in killing off the last of the mercenaries," Chrom interjected, his fingers stopping their rhythmic tapping on the desk suddenly as he looked back up at them. It seemed that he had been arguing with the red-headed woman for some time now, as he looked like he had reached the point where he simply wished that a meteor would crash into the building and kill them all. "If it wasn't for him, things might not have gone so smoothly-"
"Oh shit, he killed some mercenaries?" Her eyebrows arched at him before she turned back to Chrom. "Best just give him full blown fuckin' membership to the Shepherds then, yeah?"
Chrom winced, but said nothing.
The side chatter of the room stopped and soon the floor was silent as the Captain refused to meet her gaze, and as Sully looked around a most unpleasant look overtook her features entirely. She looked over to Robin, who waved uncertainly at her, before looking back to Chrom with a face that, while Robin could not see it personally, was most likely quite comedic.
"... No fuckin' way-"
"Emmeryn suggested it, alright?" Chrom raised his hands as it to calm her down, but she seemed too stunned to say anything as he hurriedly explained the situation to her. Robin got the feeling no amount of explanation could ever repair the rift that had just formed between him and the Captain; friends did not draft other friends into their military. He was almost certain of this, and he felt somewhat betrayed while at the same time admiring the man's initiative. "I haven't decided yet, but he could be useful-"
"Like hell he could be useful – he could slit our fucking throats while we're sleeping!" Sully tried to flip Chrom's desk, but Chrom shot out of his seat and weighed down on it with his upper body. Frederick, who Robin hadn't even noticed was standing beside Chrom's desk until he moved to intercept Sully, seemed to think twice about trying to stop the raging soldier. "You lost your goddamn mind?!"
After a couple seconds of struggle between the redhead and the Captain, Sully let out an angry huff and stepped away from the desk. She shot one last glare at Chrom before storming away with her arms in the air. "How the fuck have we not been decommissioned, I'll never fucking know. Whatever – do whatever the hell you'd like! I don't care!"
Chrom watched her go, sweat running down his face. Robin guessed holding the desk down must have been much harder than it looked, and he wondered how strong the woman actually was. Such information could be both useful in a dangerous situation and for his own personal safety. She seemed like a loose cannon.
"Guess what?!" he called after her, sounding like a child trying to have the last word in an argument. Robin found himself asking the same question that the woman had asked mere moments ago, and realized that it would likely keep him up at night. "Robin's a Shepherd now, and you can't do anything about it because I'm the Captain!"
Sully either didn't hear him or didn't care, and soon the room was left awkwardly silent in the echo of the door slamming shut behind her.
Robin was about to say something – even he wasn't sure what was going to come out of his mouth – and perhaps it was a good thing that he was cut off as the glass door that Sully had slammed seconds before suddenly shattered.
"Shit," Chrom grunted, massaging his temple. He looked around. "Right. So that's the verdict – until further notice, we aren't taking action. Any questions?"
"Don't I get a say in this?" Robin asked with a raised hand, coming to stand in front of the desk. It was quickly dawning on him that he had just been drafted, and he wasn't sure that he was pleased with the decision that had been made. "I would very much like a say in this."
"Excellent question." Chrom frowned, looking at the amnesiac with a thoughtful expression and a quizzically cocked eyebrow. "If you don't join the Shepherds, Emmeryn has also suggested that you are sent to a federal prison in the middle of the ocean without trial until it is confirmed that you are not affiliated with the organization that attacked the South Town resort two days ago. You will, if I'm being completely and brutally honest, probably never see the sun again. Next question?"
Robin cocked his head, considering his options. Could they truly send him to prison without a fair trial? He did not wish to find out, and to be honest, it sounded fair enough.
He lowered his hand. "That was my only question," he confessed.
"Excellent. Lissa will show you to your new office after Miriel reactivates your neural augments, and then someone will get you some new clothes." Chrom rubbed his eyes, and Robin wondered if the man had gotten any sleep. "You start today."
"What about pay?" he asked.
"What about pay?"
Robin realized that Chrom had answered.
\\\
Robin literally had nothing to move into his new office.
"Here it is!" Lissa cheered, as though the possibility that they would never reach his office had been a legitimate concern at a time. He did not share her enthusiasm when he stepped into the room, his eyes surveying the small office that he had been so generously granted by Chrom. He supposed it was certainly better than federal prison in the middle of the ocean, but he was having trouble counting his blessings when there was a small girl breathing down his neck and shouting things cheerfully.
"Here it is," he agreed, nodding slowly as he looked over his shoulder. She was watching him expectantly, waiting to trail after him like some sort of infant canine, and he frowned. He could not think whilst she was stuck to the seat of his pants like a melted chocolate bar that he had been unfortunate enough to sit on, thus staining his pants brown and raising questions as to his bowel control.
The more he thought about it, the more he enjoyed making this rather juvenile comparison. Regardless, whilst a chocolate bar could be dislodged from one's rear, it was beginning to seem as though Lissa could not, and he could feel a headache coming on.
Ever since they had left Chrom's office, she had continued to buzz with her distressingly naive peppiness like a fly buzzes in one's ear, telling random stories that while most would be entertained by he was most certainly not. It was getting to the point where he wondered if she had outlived her entertainment value or if her entertainment value had been a miscarriage, and he simply found that he wanted the talking to stop.
He just needed to find a way to end the conversation and see her off before he could properly examine his new office for undesirable things, such as leaky faucets or radiation leaks in the closet. He peered over his shoulder at her thoughtfully.
"Robin?" She sounded confused as she looked up at him, tilting her head. "Are you gonna step in, or…?"
"Goodbye," he said, stepping in and shutting the door behind him after finding that he could not come up with a clever way to end her chatter.
The thump of fists pounding on the door reached his ears, and he could see the blurry tips of her pigtails occasionally bounce up through the frosted glass of the window.
He supposed that was clever enough.
Turning his attention to his new office, he stepped down from the ledge and slowly circled the large round table that sat in the center of the room like a centerpiece, though a very dust-covered centerpiece that suggested the owner had died long ago and was no longer around to clean the room.
When he ran his hand across the surface, a holographic display appeared above the table, showing one of what he assumed to be his predecessor's unfinished battle plans. It displayed small 3D markers that he assumed to have been soldiers, and he realized that it wasn't small team tactics – whoever had been last working at this table appeared to have been planning for troop movements in a full-scale war.
Soon, as he continued to scroll from plan to plan, each showing an even grimmer representation of the armies clashing and entire cities and platoons being ravaged and wiped from the map entirely, he began to wonder who the table had once belonged to.
"Perhaps you were playing war?" Robin mused out loud, watching as what Robin thought must have been an entire enemy city was invaded and assaulted by tiny, almost endearing versions of full sized tanks. The number over the city began to plummet quickly as the allied troops moved through, from millions to thousands to hundreds and then to question marks as buildings fell. "Or perhaps I have shoes to fill."
The light flickered, the program encountering an error as the cities and soldiers all sank into the surface and the orange glow turned blood red.
He was left in silence, the large window that light poured in through being the only thing to bring movement to the room as the dark shadows crawled out from the dusted furniture.
He guessed he was home.
\\\
