Day 24 (July 30th). Under Appreciated Characters
There are many, MANY characters throughout the series, and today's prompt is all about showcasing which character you felt deserved more.
An Android's True Nature
Primo's fingers furled over the hilt of the sword at his side. From the office of Director of Sector Security, the layout of New Domino City was spread out underneath him. His nostrils flared. The ants below were eating. Drinking. Being merry.
"These people don't appreciate me enough," he barked.
To this day, he had performed 826 personal arrests during his short stint as Director of Sector Security. Rex Godwin could never have performed such a Herculean task. Yet what had Primo earned? Expletives spat in his face? Bricks thrown in his direction?
Besides the physical effort of tracking down and taking in criminals, the paperwork associated was unimaginable. He himself had designed at least fifteen new criminal marks.
He required a breakthrough. A big case, a terror the size of the city itself that the people would cherish and praise him for. They'd never forget his face, his name, his heroism! He wouldn't become a graffiti-splattered statue, nay, he would be respected.
Primo stabbed his pen onto a blank sheet of paper. He hissed, "We eliminate Jack Atlas's ego."
"Sir?" Officers Mina Simington and Tetsu Trudge stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind him, almost afraid. Lazar stood far in the back very obviously afraid. Mina continued, "If you mean to arrest Ja- er, Mr. Atlas, I'm not sure what probable cause there is-"
"Nonsense," he snarled. "Signers of the Crimson Dragon are base at fault for at least eight-nine and six tenths percent of the world's issues. The reasoning can be manufactured."
"To speak frankly, Sir," Trudge started, "I'm not sure why the Crimson Dragon would be at fault-"
"Shut up!" he snapped. "Antidisestablishmentarianists are not welcome onboard my investigation due to their inherit religious biases!"
"What did he call me?" Trudge muttered.
Mina's mind was elsewhere. "He's going to get Jack in trouble. We can't let him do that for free. Do something!"
"Me? How? What?"
She huffed. "Director Primo, sir! If you would allow me, I will find a way to arrest Jack Atlas on reasonable grounds!"
That intense, red eye of his pinned her with a glare. "I assume you come forward with evidence towards your disestablishmentarianism."
"I…" She scratched beneath her hair. "Don't know what that means."
Primo remained scanning the City below. The tips of his index fingers touched, and his eye moved back and forth as though reading invisible lines of code. Schematics, even, for a particular bot resembling a particular Signer…
"He hasn't done anything yet, but if someone looking like him did…"
"Jack Atlas has a twin?" Trudge hollered.
Mina groaned, and she rested her forehead on her first two fingers. "No. He doesn't. If he did? No one buys the twin trope anymore. They roll their eyes, throw out the case, and tell us to go back to noir novels!"
"S-speaking of." Trudge was having a hard time making eye contact all of a sudden. "We should talk about what we've read lately! Over dinner. Sometime. My favorite detective is Nick V-"
"Enough of your interminable babbling!" Primo barked. He gripped his hilt and threw his head to the side. "Of course I would not take such a course of action. Fabricated justice is not justice at all, and the last thing your putrid world needs is further corruption. Were you truly about to follow through on whatsoever I ordered?"
He was giving her that glare again. She hugged her clipboard to her stomach and shouted, "No, sir, never!"
"You'd never follow an order?"
"I didn't mean-"
"Out of my sight!" he screamed.
She rushed out of the office. Trudge and Lazar were hot on her heels. They didn't stop hurrying until they hit the lobby. Then she felt she could release her held breath. To Lazar, whose legs still shook like poked gelatin, she asked, "Is he always like that?"
"Always."
But she found his odd point of introspection strange. Seeking justice and hating corruption? She wasn't used to a Director like that. Had his actions matched? In truth, she hadn't paid much attention since her focus on the Special Investigations Unit. If he was anything like the last Director, though, whom Mina worked very closely with…
"Being assistant is tough," she told Lazar. "How 'bout I take you for a drink?"
"Him?" Trudge shrieked.
Lazar sighed. "I'd very much appreciate it."
"Feel free to vent all you like," she said.
Maybe she could learn more about this new Director and where his loyalties lay. What if he was different from Rex Godwin? What if, in his own way, he had the best future in mind?
Unlikely.
No, she was probably the only person who'd ever put so much thought into Director Primo – something likely to not change.
"Let's get going," she said. "I need that drink stat."
"You're not even taking me with you?" Trudge whined.
They ignored him as they chatted about Lazar's family on the way outside the head office lobby.