A is for Atlas
Red stared at the portion of his face that fit in the large shard of mirror the four half-turtle clones had scavenged. He spent quite a long time at it, critically examining each feature: the white ridges of the crown of horns, the jagged, sharklike teeth, the blood-red scales that covered the parts of him outside of his shell. Were they, or weren't they? There were parts of him that he rather liked. His horns were a nice shape, broad and pointy, their whiteness standing out in stark contrast against the rest of him. He had thick arms that he felt proud of, and, for whatever reason, he liked his toes. But were these positive traits enough to offset what seemed the vast majority of negative ones?
Not that he had the vocabulary or brain power to think about it in such terms. All he really wanted to know was, was any part of him pretty?
The Michelangelo turtle had given him a compliment, then explained mockingly that it was sarcasm. Red had never been called handsome before, and had actually been quite taken with the idea, and even when knocked loopy in the fight, being pretty was at the forefront of his mind.
It had become an obsession.
Red didn't even know he'd had feelings to hurt, but to be told he had some inherent aesthetic value, only to be denied that and insulted on two fronts on top of it—and beaten in the fight by an opponent a third his size—had stung deep and left a lasting, open wound to Red's psyche—in short words more befitting his intellect, it made him sad.
"Hey! Wide-load! You gonna get out of there sometime today? Some of us need to use the little clones' room!"
He turned and side-stepped his way out of the area demarcated as the bathroom, only walled off on two and a half sides, allowing Yellow in. But before Yellow could get to the toilet, Red snagged him by his dangling tongue, hauling him back.
"Am I pretty?"
"Mwo!" the chameleon clone snapped back acidly, trying to get the other to loose his hold on the appendage. "Oo wook wike da back ob an aiwbuth!"
At Dark Leo's—Blue's—insistence, the clones were starting to be nicer to each other… Well, perhaps nicer wasn't the word, but more accommodating to each other, at least. Blue had also been the one to suggest finding different names than simply being 'dark' shadows of their genetic progenitors. Red had been fine with the proposed change; spit tended to fly out of his mouth every time he said 'Raphael', and while no one dared comment on it, it personally annoyed him. So that they simply called each other by their colors for now was peachy with him.
He also wasn't sure why he liked the word 'peachy' so much. He'd never had a peach in his admittedly short life-span. It just seemed built in.
He tapped his chin, thinking about Yellow's answer. The city's airbuses were aesthetically designed, sleek and aerodynamic, even the backs of them. Red wasn't sure why the comparison was supposed to be a bad one. He continued to consider this while his so-called 'brother' flailed and pounded at the fist holding his tongue.
"Hey! HEY! Cowmowm! Wemme gwo!"
"Uh?" he responded, looking down at the appendage still in his grasp. "Oh," he seemed to realize, quickly letting go so that Yellow toppled backward, ending up head-first in the toilet with a splash.
"Thank you…" the chameleon called back dazedly.
Red wandered their lair aimlessly. Every few steps he would stop to ponder his looks more, and what Dark Michelangelo had said.
As he stood there dumbfounded, Purple stalked by. "What's the matter? Forget the way to the pantry again?" he threw nastily at his horned lizard brother, without so much as sparing him a glance.
The iguana-turtle hybrid had nearly disappeared into what he considered to be his 'lab', when Red asked, "Am I pretty?"
Purple halted in his tracks and turned back toward his teammate, moving a hand to his chin in contemplation. "You're not my type," he stated directly. "But a subjective opinion is merely one data-point. More empirical data is needed to determine a consensus. Come." He headed into the alcove where he kept his experiments and electronic equipment. Red grunted curiously and followed to where his brother was madly typing, words and images flying up onto a holographic pane and vanishing again just as quickly. Another pane flew over in front of his face. He backed a couple of steps away from it, unsure if it would attack.
"Say 'Cheese' for the holo-imager," Purple sneered at him.
"Unh?" he responded, one brow-ridge rising in confusion. The pane passed across his entire head at that moment, capturing the unwitting look in a 3-D holographic image. Before he could ask, Purple floated over a projection pane with the kooky-looking picture of Red featured prominently among several lines of text.
"There. I've made you a profile on Cinder, a dating site where people can rate your looks." The resident genius pointed to the incoming reactions. "See? You've already got… oh. Hmm…"
Yikes!
Ug-LEE!
Eesh…
Red's low growl at the initial posts prompted Purple to collapse the pane. "Well, that's only the first people to see it. Just wait… There will be some better ones."
"How c'n ya be sure?" Red looked up to him, beady eyes pleading.
"Law of averages. Over time, the responses should fall into a typical bell-curve, with outliers to either side and—Just… give it some time. Someone's bound to find this sort of thing attractive." And with that, Purple shooed Red off, not allowing him the chance to start obsessing about hits and comments.
And so he ended up standing in the common area again, looking even more lost and distraught than before. He paced aimlessly, as if walking would make the disturbing feelings go away. Suddenly the expansive, open-plan lair was too confining. He headed for the exit ladder.
Unfortunately, his path led him past the one brother he would prefer not to interact with.
"Where are you going?" Blue's single eye remained closed as he sat, contemplating whatever thoughts he was currently fixated on, but Red was sure he could see him anyway. He suspected the cybernetic implant was always active.
"Out," he replied with more acid than the simple exchange called for.
"Where?"
"I dunno! Just out!"
"Why?"
Blue's cold response rankled him. He didn't know what it was about the turtle clone who'd declared himself their leader. Red frequently got the urge to be snappish or contradictory around his 'brother', even though Dark Leonardo was an insanely talented, clever fighter who, despite Red's size advantage, could kick his ass seven ways to Saturn if crossed, and his cold, calculating remorselessness meant Red would never dare to follow through on any threat he made to the blue-skinned clone. Purple called it genetic, something he got from his precursor. Red thought maybe he'd be better off if he wasn't cursored with the need to challenge Blue at every turn. Blue was freakin' scary. But, here they were again.
"'cuz I wanna be pretty!"
Blue's real eye opened and he sat up, pulling back with a quizzical look. "Erm… " Red should have felt proud of himself. It wasn't often that one could take Blue by surprise. But instead, he was just more annoyed.
"You don't think I can do it, izzat it?!"
Blue sighed to regain his composure. "No."
"Well, I can! Just watch!" he hollered back.
"No, I mean that's not the issue. What is this need for you to be pretty? And, what exactly are you planning to do to achieve it? Plastic surgery? Spa days? Even if people don't run in fear of us up on the surface, we don't exactly have the resources for petty things like makeovers for you to feel good about yourself."
Blue's words cut as deep as his laser-katana would have. Water started to well up in Red's tiny eyes. "I'm goin' up!" he stated, voice cracking, and clambered up the ladder that led to the surface. Right now he didn't care what the consequences of disobeying the self-styled leader would be, he just had to get away from him. He couldn't endure the criticism. He tried to channel the emotions into the same path he used for his rage, but they didn't all fit in that box the same way, and sometimes the sobs slipped out as he climbed.
Yellow peeked out of his alcove, watching the horned-toad turtle crush his way, crying, out of the grate at the top. With Red gone, he turned toward Blue.
"Boy, you really stepped in it."
"You be quiet," Blue replied, closing his eye.
Red stepped out of the dark alleyway into the light and motion of the city. There was no running and screaming, though people edged leerily around him, giving his imposing figure the widest berth they could. Under normal circumstances, he would have been proud of that fact, able to throw his weight around and barge past anyone not smart enough to clear out for him. Now, it felt like more of an impediment. There was nothing dainty about him. He wasn't out to intimidate, but it was hard to do otherwise when every aspect of him was literally built to intimidate. He felt he had to scrunch into himself as much as possible, just to stay out of people's way. He supposed it was a first step; if his looks weren't what made him approachable, perhaps his attitude would.
He wandered the streets aimlessly. He didn't know what he wanted up here or what he expected to find that would help him. But as he passed a window display, something struck him about the elegant cuts and forms draped over the humanoid mannequins. If he wasn't pretty himself, perhaps he could be if he wore something that fit the bill, mitigating his looks.
He entered the shop.
The golden robotic attendant glided over on its single roller-ball, only pausing once upon seeing him. "Welcome, sir, welcome! What may I assist you in finding today?"
Red had to stop and consider the question. He really wasn't sure what he was looking for. "Somethin'…" he said after pondering to the extent of his mental capacity, "…somethin' nice."
"Of course, of course, sir wishes to be dressed to impress!" the robot said, keeping up its swanky tone and leading Red to one of several holo-pads arranged around the shop. It took a little nudging, but the sales-bot finally managed to get him positioned properly on the device. The imager started up, projecting a full formal suit on him. Red gaped at his own image, reflected in multiple angles in mirror imagers that popped up around the holo-pad.
"This is one of our more popular styles, an Andromedan angora/syntho-cotton blend. It is also available in gray, charcoal, blue, pinstripe, and burgundy, if sir desires."
He analyzed his reflection to the best of his ability. It was… nice, he guessed, but not like the things he saw in the window. "No," he grumbled bluntly.
"Ah. Perhaps sir is looking for a more sporty style." The suit around him transformed into another, with a deep V cut. "Famous Eridani-9 designer Aq T'an designed this model. The president of the United Federation himself caused quite a stir by wearing a T'an suit!"
Red squinted. Something about the clothes on him had changed, but if he had to say what exactly, he'd be out of luck. He shook his head at the robot, who merely proceeded, recommending style after style, all of which Red rejected, his patience wearing thin. The shop-droid paused, reading the annoyance on his client's face. "Perhaps sir would prefer to browse the full selection?" it suggested meekly, bringing up a scrolling window showing three more suits.
Red shooed it away, stepping through it as he did and off the fitting pad. "No!" he snarled, then paused a moment to think. "I want… somethin' like the one in the winda."
"In the window?" the bot repeated, bringing up another pane. "These are the three suits in the outside display. Sir has already tried these two."
"Not those! Like the yella one!"
"The yellow—oh? Ohhh… I see! Thane wishes to see our dress selection! Thane should have said!" the attendant said, switching to the gender-neutral form of address, and as Red offered no objection to the term, stuck with it. The pane switched, and Red's beady eyes lit up, a normally terrifying, pointy-toothed grin spreading across his face, but the pleased expression put the android more at ease. It continued its sales commentary as Red selected the dress from the display and scrolled through the list to select two more before allowing the bot to lead him back to the fitting pad.
The sales drone droned about the fabrics and features and designer as the first dress was projected over Red. Nothing it said mattered a bit to him… only the swish of the lovely skirt as he moved back and forth. Pale yellow, with light pink flowers, ruffles, a wide skirt with lots of crinkly fabric underneath to make it poof out, cap sleeves, all trimmed with lace, and little ribbons holding it together around his side spikes. Reaching down, he seized the skirts in both claws, enjoying the crinoline rattle, swooshing them back and forth, executing as much of a spin as his bulk would allow for, his mouth open wide in utter joy.
Even the droid looked as if it would cry, if it was capable. It clasped its hands together, exclaiming, "Oh! Thane looks quite dashing! And, as it's our display, this model is on special: half price! Only 450 credits!"
The first experience of sticker shock jolted Red's system, as though he and the lovely dress had been doused in ice water. Blue was right… that much money would feed them for months; he couldn't justify satisfying his vanity over making sure his family, such as it was, were provided for. The tears from before threatened to push their way out of his eyes again. Dejected, he gathered the full skirts, hauling them up to his middle in an attempt to pull the dress off, until the sales-bot turned the hologram off and the garment disappeared.
"Something about this model displeases you? It is fully customizable… if there is anything thane wished to change about it…"
"Can't afford it," Red uttered, trying to keep emotion from seeping into his voice and failing. Without so much as a final glance at the attendant, he trudged out the door.
The bot, in one final bid at a sale, or at least customer satisfaction, called after him, "We have a layaway plan! Oh…" But whatever that meant, it didn't register in Red's ears at all.
Maybe creatures like him just didn't get to have pretty things…
Distraught as before, now with an extra layer of sadness coating it, Red wandered once more. As he came to a bench, the single occupant's eyes went wide, and he abandoned it as Red took a seat and filled it completely. It creaked slightly from the added weight. He wasn't really looking at anything, just staring off into space with his thoughts and not at the construction site across the street, walled off by a clear forcefield barrier. He paid no attention to the teal-skinned woman in a skirt, suit-top, and hard hat as she discussed with the foreman over a screen depicting blueprints. Nor did her hard-hatted, teal-skinned girl really register with him, as she scuffed the dirt and picked at rocks, looking for something to stave off her boredom; the large book she carried apparently did nothing for her.
However, the sudden shouts of alarm from high above caught his attention and his eyes snapped upward, just in time to see the final piece of hard-light rigging on a crane drone fizzle, and its load plummet toward the girl.
Red moved like one of his ninja progenitors. In great leaps, he vaulted through traffic, taking a hit to his shell that did more damage to the floating vehicle than to himself, shattered the top of the barrier wall as he tried to clear it, and dove on top of the little girl, just as the pile of framing material and beams crashed down on them.
"CASSIE!" the woman shrieked, fighting against the foreman, who was the only thing that kept her from being buried under more falling debris as another drone failed. But the mother would not be kept from her daughter, and she eventually broke free of the foreman's grip and ran to the heap her girl had been covered by. She grasped a beam and desperately tried to shift it, to no avail. As the dust cleared, there was no motion. A stricken look landed on her face.
Then there was! Beams and planks toppled and slid from the pile, and after a moment, with a great roar, the giant red turtle creature broke through the rubble. He reached down and pulled the girl out, completely unharmed. He set her on something relatively stable. She pointed down into the rubble emphatically, and the turtle-man turned around and reached back in, pulling out her book and handing it to her.
"Cassie!" her mother called, climbing over the fallen beams awkwardly in her dress flats, followed only slightly less desperately by the site's foreman. "Are you all right?!"
"I'm fine, mom!" the girl replied, more enthused than scared in the least. "The big gamera saved me!"
Red blushed slightly at being pointed at, though it probably didn't show against his already red scales. He stepped free of the debris, standing there, not knowing what to do as the girl spread her arms as far as she could against his plastron. Dumbfounded, he patted her back gently.
After her hug was over, she backed up a couple paces to look at him. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Red," he said simply.
Cassie scowled at him. "That's not a name. That's just a color."
"Cassiopeia, don't be rude," her mother chastised.
"'s okay," the turtle mumbled. "She's right. 's a dumb name. Been lookin' fer somethin' better anyway." He crouched to be closer to the girl's level. "Maybe you wanna give me a new one?"
She gave a nod and opened the book. Red caught sight of a man riding a winged horse on the cover. Cassie turned, coming up close to Red's face so he could look at the picture with her. She pointed to a human, bent over, carrying a giant globe on his back. "This is Atlas. He was so strong, he could carry the whole world on his shoulders! So that's what I'm gonna call you. Atlas."
Cassie's mother, meanwhile, took up discussion with the foreman. "What happened?! Why were the failsafes not in place?"
"They were, Ms. Rigella!" the man defended. "Checked 'em myself at the beginning of shift. Somehow, they failed anyway," he said, scratching his head.
"Two of them, within seconds of each other?"
"Could be a glitch. Or a manufacturing problem. Might need a recall."
The teal-skinned woman scowled. "Ground the rest of the drones, have them examined by maintenance. Take the maglev cranes offline too, just in case." As the foreman began to protest, she cut him off sharply. "I will not have casualties occur on my sites due to lack of caution, Mr. Deacon! I have made myself more than clear about this!" She stepped away, draping an arm over her daughter's shoulder.
"Yes, ma'am," Deacon replied, then turned and shouted to the crew to land the drones and shut down the machinery.
With a definitive nod, the woman turned back to the giant red turtle who had rescued her daughter. "As for you!" she shouted at him, severe enough to make him flinch, then calmed as she seemed to realize she was directing the wrong emotion at the wrong person. "I cannot thank you enough! Cassiopeia means more than the stars in the heavens to me. Come, give me your credit pass… I shall transfer your reward to it."
Red—or Atlas, now—slumped, retreating a step from them. "Uh… ain't got one." He wasn't sure why that was a shameful thing, but somehow just having the attention of such a high-class, important person embarrassed him. The stark contrast between them only highlighted how low in society and poverty a mutant clone like him was.
"No credit pass?" Rigella exclaimed, jaw dropping in privileged shock. "Well then…" She whipped her pocketbook from her purse and flipped it open, pulling out its contents. "This is all the Earth-system currency I have on me. Please take it."
Atlas boggled at the thick stack of bills the teal hand waved at him.
"Please," Rigella urged.
When the spiked turtle still made no move, Cassie snatched the money from her mother and planted it in Atlas's gigantic hand, forcing his fingers closed around it. "Come on, Atlas! You did the good deed, now you get the reward!" the girl likewise insisted.
He could only stare, with his mouth hanging open. He didn't try to count it—that would take him much too long—but he could tell by how thick the stack was that it was an awful lot of money. He glanced over his shoulder at the dress store, looked back to the cash in his hand, and back to the shop again. The tears from earlier crept into his eyes again.
Rigella bent to catch the distraught look on his face as they exited through the security barrier. "Whatever is the matter? Is there something in there that you want?"
Atlas met her gaze desperately, then looked away and shook his head. "Shouldn't. Dis much money'd keep me an' my fam'ly fed for years…"
"Whatever it is you want, let me buy it for you!" She set both hands on the flat of his shell, shoving him toward the street as Cassie grabbed his hand, tugging his arm forward and not moving him a bit.
"But… 's so much!"
"Oh, atmospheric rubbish! The cash isn't half of what I'd have given you in credits! In the shop with you."
"Come… on… Atlas!" Cassie said, hauling on his arm as hard as she could, book tucked under her own. Her shoes merely slid across the smooth pavement, giving her no traction at all, so she yelped when he finally took a step forward, then another, and she was left dangling from his arm as they crossed traffic. After a stunned moment, she started laughing, swinging from him. Atlas's brows screwed together, as he couldn't figure out what to do about this, so he just kept his arm extended and let her swing until she let go of her own accord.
The shop-droid wheeled over immediately. "Oh, Thane! My goodness! You're not harmed, are you?" Various cords sporting brushes, vacuums and other cleaning implements extended from the robot's chestplate to remove the dust and debris from Atlas's shell and plastron. Atlas tried to tolerate this, but the attention made him uncomfortable, and he instinctively kept backing away and occasionally took a swat at the hoses if they invaded his personal space too much. "I witnessed the whole incident, but unfortunately, I'm programmed to stay in this shop and couldn't come to your aid! Oh, dreadful, dreadful! Thank goodness you were there for the young one! Are you all right as well, Miss?" it addressed Cassie.
"Fine!" the girl grinned, rocking back on her ankles. "Atlas saved me!"
"Indeed!" the android agreed.
Rigella cleared her throat to gain its attention. "There was something our gamera friend was interested in?"
"Oh yes, quite!" the droid said, ushering—and perhaps more herding—the turtle clone back onto the display pad. "I'm sure Madam will agree that Thane's choice is very fetching."
The ruffly dress appeared on him again, and he ducked back toward his shell at feeling all the eyes suddenly on him. His cheeks burned as though he wasn't supposed to want such things. But then Cassie spoke up.
"Atlas!" she gasped, beaming. "You're so pretty!"
All the tension in him immediately eased at that. A genuine smile curved across his beak, showing all the sharp little jags of his teeth. He picked up the skirts and swished them back and forth, then trod around in an awkward circle to show off how the material moved. Cassie hopped up on the pad to join him, immediately clad in the same dress, fitted to her proportions. Mimicking his motions, with a bit more natural grace, she executed the same swings and turns, and they shared a joyful laugh as they danced together.
Rigella and the shop-bot watched from the sidelines. "The dress is currently 450 credits, a half-price special, you know… but I believe I could knock 50 credits off the price as, shall we call it, a heroism bonus…?"
"Done and done," the teal woman stated, holding out a chip-card for the android to scan. "Perhaps a slight adjustment… Atlas," she called, halting the dancers, "what would you say to making it a shade or two darker yellow? It would match your complexion a bit better." The changes took effect on the projected hard-light dress as they were suggested, and Atlas looked down at the change. "What do you think, Cassiopeia?"
"Yes, yes!" the girl cheered.
The turtle continued to look down at the dress, not really noticing any difference. Did it make him any prettier?
Did it matter?
"Naw," he decided. "Liked it fine how it was."
"Well, all right," Rigella conceded. "Please produce the hard copy and a box for it," she instructed the droid. "Atlas…?"
"Hm?" the clone grunted, looking up from swinging arms with Cassie.
"Have you ever actually worn a dress?"
"Naw," he admitted freely, now unhampered by any feelings of judgement upon him.
Rigella gave a nod. "Then you haven't actually learned to put one on or take it off again, have you?" The turtle clone shook his head. Her brows rose anxiously. "Perhaps a couple of test runs are in order?"
He had to admit it was a good idea, especially when, pulling it roughly over his head, he caught the fabric on his spikes and tore the crinoline to shreds. A moment of panic seized him as he thought he'd destroyed the actual dress, but breathed in relief as it disappeared from the holo-pad and was replaced with a new version. The second try went well, but the third, he split the dress stem to stern trying to pull out of the sleeves, and the shop-bot let out squeal and fainted (or at least seemed to… he was up on his wheel again after a couple minutes of Rigella fanning his face).
"No, no! You have to undo the ribbons first! Then pick up the skirt and pull it over your head, then pull your arms out of the sleeves," Cassie directed.
He was quickly losing his patience, but with the girl's bossing, Rigella's occasional suggestion and the shop-bot's thinly-veiled threat that he might faint again, he managed to put the dress on and take it off again twice in a row without ruining it. In the end, that was good enough for them all.
He tugged the holographic dress off for the last time, saddened by its loss despite the real version awaiting him, boxed up and ready to go. "Not pretty anymore now, am I?" he mumbled, letting the holographic image fall, crumpled, to the floor. The sight nearly made him cry.
But the girl clung to his arm. "You're always pretty," she said definitively, "because you're pretty on the inside, Atlas. You're pretty in your heart."
That made him beam his sharp, jagged teeth at her again. His heart felt so big it could lift up the whole world.
As the three organics stepped out of the shop, it was clearly time for them to part ways. Atlas had never learned manners, and thus it never occurred to him to say thank you, but his repeated looks of gratitude at the woman and girl, his joy at his reward, were sentiment enough for them. But before he could leave, Rigella pulled a card with a rotating rocketship logo from her pocketbook, holding it out to him. "And Atlas… if you or your brothers—how many are you?"
The clone looked about, confused by the question. "I'm… er… one?"
"I mean how many brothers have you?"
"Three," he replied, more sure on that account.
Rigella nodded. "Should you or your brothers be in need of a job, I can certainly assure you a place. And if you happen to be in the neighborhood of Vega 9, look us up."
He accepted the card, and slipped it into the dress box so he wouldn't lose it.
With that, Rigella turned on her heel and began walking away. "Come, Cassie. Mother has things to attend to."
Cassiopeia trotted along behind her, turning to walk backward and wave at her new friend. "G'bye, Atlas! Don't forget me! And thank you!"
The words registered with him. They had done so much for him in exchange for what little he'd done for them… He supposed the least he could do would be give the same back in turn. "Thank you!" That felt right.
He breathed a pleased sigh, and headed for the sewer grate he'd come up out of, but as he went some of the joy drained from him. He'd spent less than an hour with people who were grateful for him and accepted him, even taught him more about being pretty than he'd ever considered, and given him a new name. Now, he had to return to three beings who little more than tolerated him, and one another. He couldn't say he was looking forward to it. Nonetheless, thoughts about Cassie and Rigella buoyed him up as he took the ladder down, carefully shifting the precious box as he descended.
Yellow amusedly watched his 'brother's' attempts to maneuver the giant box and himself down the access ladder, without offering any help. It was way more entertaining staying on the sidelines and watching Red struggle. Once there was no work to be wrangled into helping with, though, his curiosity couldn't be constrained.
"What's in the box, Red?"
"Atlas."
Yellow's brows pulled together. "An atlas? Like one of those things they used to have with maps on paper?"
"It's called a book, Yellow," Purple supplied, casting an eye out of his makeshift lab to view the spectacle.
"Yeah! One of those!"
The red turtle clone growled impatiently. "Atlas is me. 's my name now."
Curiosity piqued, the iguana-turtle padded over. "All right, I'll bite. Why Atlas?"
"From a little girl."
"Ohh, so a little girl named after a book of maps," Yellow reasoned.
Atlas stared at him, shaking his head. He himself was generally considered the meathead of the group, but there were times when Yellow said something so astoundingly stupid, Atlas felt he should relinquish the title. "Naw. The little girl is Cassie."
"Nobody cares. What's in the box?" Yellow demanded, and Atlas, rather than waste more words or brain power, set the box on the floor and flipped the lid off, pulling the ruffly dress up by its shoulders. The chameleon clone mock-tried and failed to stifle a series of snorts behind his hands. "You bought a dress?!" But his expression fell and he slunk away as if he suddenly remembered he had a sock drawer to organize very much elsewhere, and Atlas, ninja thought he wasn't, could feel Blue's eye on him. Funny, it was never a pleased expression he felt boring into the back of his head. Then again, Blue's emotions didn't range very far, walking the gamut of vaguely annoyed to cold rage. Not wanting to drag things out, Atlas trod the slow circle that brought him around to face the inevitability of his chronically pissed-off 'brother.'
He wasn't sure where in the range this expression fit, but he swore the temperature around them dropped several degrees.
"What. Is. That?" Blue intoned through gritted teeth. Atlas didn't bother answering. He could have said it was a dress or a polka-dotted Durgan elusiphant; it wouldn't have mattered, because here came the lecture anyway. "What were you thinking? I told you, we don't have the credits for—"
Atlas pulled the wad of bills from his belt, smashing them into Blue's hand. For the second time that day, the turtle clone was stunned silent. Atlas grinned inwardly at that; it was a new achievement.
Blue leafed through the stack, silently counting, then did it again as if he didn't believe his original total. "This is 3,400 credits." The open plan of their lair, while not affording much privacy, also meant the sharp intakes of breath from his other 'brothers' also carried directly to them. After a too-long moment of staring at his red sibling in what was less awe and more likely an alpha-male power play, he asked evenly, "Did you steal this?"
"Naw. 'za gift."
"A gift?!" Yellow's yelp echoed around the empty space."
"That's a heck of a gift," Purple agreed, not quite below his breath.
Blue's real eye continued to pierce him. "What kind of gift? A gift that will get us in trouble?"
Atlas's ire rose. "I saved a little girl!" he shouted. "Her mama was grateful."
The turtle clone blinked stoically, working on stunned silence #3 for the new record. In a curious tone Atlas had never heard before, his brother said, "Put it on."
The red mutant started into his turn, but froze, glaring back in suspicion. "Ya don't have ya sword on ya, do ya?"
"What? No," Blue answered too quickly for it to be a lie, but Atlas wasn't satisfied.
"Ya not gonna wait fer me ta put it on and slash it all up, are ya?"
"I won't. That's your reward. Besides, haven't we pledged against being unnecessarily cruel to each other?"
Yellow raised a hand, long tongue swishing back and forth. "I haven't!" Purple, standing beside him, snaked his tail behind him to knock his ankles out from under him. Yellow landed on his shell with an oof!
"Let the record show that I found that to be necessary cruelty," Purple stated as his yellow sibling groaned.
The leader nodded. "Noted, and agreed," he smirked, then turned his attention back to Atlas, who painstakingly removed the piece of clothing from its box and began sorting his way through the crinoline.
As he did, the business card, caught up in the folds, fluttered down, unnoticed by the red clone, but not escaping the sharp eyes of another. Purple stepped forward to pick it up, looked at it, and emitted a choked gasp. "You rescued the daughter of Rigella X'Anteres?!"
"Who?" Yellow asked, slinking around his purple sibling for a peek at the card.
"Rigella X'Anteres… She's an up-and-coming architect. Top in her field. She designed the weightless buttress when she was only 14!"
"Wow," Yellow quipped. "I didn't figure you one for looking at girls' buttresses."
Purple shot him a glare, and turned to Blue. "Am I justified in knocking him on his shell again?" Blue shot him a look that was no enough, and Purple relaxed his tail.
"Nice lady," Atlas rumbled, slipping the dress around his horns. "Nice girl, too. Kinda bossy. Guess her mama is too. Says she got jobs fer us if we want 'em."
"Jobs!" the other three chorused.
"Like, real jobs? That pay real money?" Yellow asked.
"Would we really be working with X'Anteres?" Purple added fannishly.
"What kind of jobs?" Blue queried with his usual, expressionless face. "What's the pay? Is it dangerous?"
Atlas shrugged. "Heck if I know. Maybe at th' construction site. Couple 'a drones failed, near squished Cassie. Tie the ribbons on dat side, wouldja?" he indicated to Blue. His blue brother complied.
Purple pondered, curling one digit over his chin. "Construction drones don't just fail. They have backups upon backups to warn and prevent this sort of accident from happening. Two at once? Beyond coincidence. I'd suspect foul play. If Rigella lets me have a look, I may be able to figure out what happened."
"She took everything offline," Atlas informed him. "Didn't want nothin' happenin' ta anyone else." Purple nodded, approving of the action.
Blue glared at him thoughtfully, standing after finishing with the ribbons and moving to Atlas's other side, unrequested, to repeat the process there. "Anyone, including herself and her daughter. Given that you saved the girl, X'Anteres may be looking for capable bodyguards."
"We can do that!" Yellow grinned. "We even come with our own safety gear!" He knocked on his plastron in demonstration.
"Dere," Atlas announced, picking up the hem of the dress to keep from dragging it across their filthy floor. "Whaddya think?"
Yellow made an awed little noise. Purple held up a finger as he dashed back to his alcove. Blue, without the flat glare of his expression changing, decided, "It's nice."
"Do a spin!" Yellow called. "You gotta do your little turn on the catwalk!"
Atlas humored him and swished his skirts around as he plodded in an awkward circle.
"Come on, you've got better than that! Show us what you got, big guy!" his normally irritating sibling hollered, but Atlas felt encouraged and began to repeat the moves he had made while dancing with Cassie. His eyes closed as he moved. He didn't even notice when the rectangular frame from Purple's imager swept over him to capture his face.
The occasional giggle came from Yellow, but otherwise, he remained quiet on the sidelines. Blue glanced sideways at him. "You aren't laughing at him," he noted.
Yellow flicked his long tongue. "Oh, I was fully prepared to. But he looks really great!"
Blue turned his eye back to his red brother as he continued to dance. "It does look good on him. But a darker yellow would look better with his skin tone."
"Not that… Look at his face! Have you ever seen him do that?"
When Blue glanced back, Atlas had his mouth slightly opened, showing his sharp little points of teeth as he swirled around the floor. Blue's carefully schooled mouth did not curve—he wouldn't allow it to—but it did loosen enough to lengthen a little bit in amusement, and perhaps something more.
After a few minutes of twirling around, Atlas figured he had shown off his gown enough, and with a pleased sigh began the excruciatingly careful process of removing it and putting it back in its box. Blue offered no assistance, but oversaw the process in case some detail escaped his sibling's notice… It would be a shame if any damage came to the only fine thing they had among them, simply due to a moment's lack of attention. But Red-nee-Atlas took more pains with the beloved dress than with anything Blue had ever seen him with, and that allowed him to look away from the box-wrestling process and glance over to another brother, who was slinking his way to the exit hatch.
"Don't," he said shortly.
Yellow spun around, his own dangling tongue slapping him in the face. "Wha-aat?"
"You're jealous of Atlas, so you're going to go up to the surface and try to find someone to rescue. But when nothing happens, you'll try to make it happen by putting someone in danger, 'rescuing' them, and implying they give you a big reward. But it'll backfire, and you'll only end up in trouble."
"NO!" the chameleon denied with irritation. "Well…. Okay, yeah, but…" Yellow sulked, stepping away from the ladder. "I want some little girl to give me a name too. I don't wanna be 'Yellow' anymore. I don't even like yellow! I'm not even supposed to be yellow—Michelangelo's color was orange! Both Darius and Sh'Okanabo were freaking colorblind!" He paused, huffed, and added, "And I wanted ice cream. Saturn Marshmallow Swirl!"
"We don't have money for frivolous—" the turtle started into his well-practiced lecture, but as his hand bumped the mass of Atlas's credits stuffed into his belt, he cut himself off. "Hell. Let's go for ice cream."
"All right!" the chameleon clone crowed with a leap in the air.
Blue stuck a finger in his face to subdue him. "No going overboard. Double scoop only."
"Awh…" his brother moaned but conceded.
The two of them joined Atlas in his alcove, where he was debating where to put the oversized box, scooting it from one corner to another. He looked over a shoulder at them. "Ya don't think the rats'll get it, do ya?"
"Sure. Rats 'll chew up anything!" Yellow announced, more cheerfully than was comforting to his red brother.
"Why don't you put it on the ledge?" Blue offered. There was only one wall with a built-in ledge, and it ran past Blue's alcove.
"The ledge…" Atlas repeated, shocked at the offer. "Where ya keep yer sword?"
"Nothing can reach the box up there, and if there's not room for both, I can always deactivate the sword and put it elsewhere."
"You'd do that? Fer me?"
Blue turned away as if the concept embarrassed him. "It's no big deal." He stalked off to move his sword, with the horned toad mutant trailing him.
"Thank… er, um… Thank you."
Blue craned his head back at him with one of those unreadable gazes. "I… suppose the correct acknowledgement to that would be, 'you're welcome.'"
The pair stared at one another for an awkward moment before a tinge of fear crossed Atlas's features. "Yer really not gonna mess it up?"
The turtle clone gave a sharp nod. "There's something our genetic progenitors had that we don't."
Yellow leaned against the wall. "A penthouse lair owned by a wealthy heir and his robotic butler?"
"Yeah, I'd say dey got a lotta t'ings we don't," Atlas had to agree.
"Trust. The turtles implicitly trusted one another, to their very lives. We…" He waved his arms to indicate them, including Purple as he walked up. "…don't even trust each other with our basic possessions. We need to work on that. I'll start by keeping my vow not to harm Atlas's dress. I expect the rest of you to start putting forth the same effort." He glared at them all for another moment, then headed for the ladder topside. "Let's go. That ice cream isn't going to eat itself."
"Actually, I think there's a Dsartarian flavor the does eat itself…" Yellow corrected. "But I'm not gonna be the first to try it…"
"Red—I mean, Atlas!" Purple called as they were heading out, waving his homemade, cobbled-together holo-tablet. "You should see this."
Atlas grunted in interest, taking the screen from him and scrolling through the pictures and comments.
"Your Cinder page. I took another holo-still of you dancing for our little experiment. The contrast in the commentary between the two is night and day! Look!"
At Purple's insistence, he looked. The odd mean comment still cropped up, but overwhelmingly more were positive.
Such a happy face!
They're having so much fun!
Almost don't mind the teeth…
A beautiful soul!
Nice
So pretty!
They… they thought he was pretty! And most of the dress wasn't even in the shot, so they weren't just commenting on it, but on his face… on his smile.
"I'm pretty," Atlas stated to himself, and believed it.
"Hey, that's cute!" Yellow said, barging his way in to see and shoving Purple out of the way.
"Do you mind?!" the iguana clone complained, trying to elbow his way back to his spot.
"No," Yellow relied, leering at him. "Hey, what's this icon thingie?"
Purple reached over him to tap the green swirl. "That means someone's interested in seeing him!"
"Bring up the picture," Blue ordered, now also crowding in to get a look at the pane, and Atlas tapped the tiny preview picture. As it expanded, he grimaced and dropped the pane, which merely floated in the air. His brothers all flinched as well.
Yellow drew back. "And I thought we were ugly! And yellow again?!"
"Well, they've got… a…. unique… number of eyes…" Purple tried tactfully. "The two joined ones on the side on the side are interesting… I'd like to see how they function…"
Blue remained stoic, turning away rather than adding a possible insult.
"What's all dis?" Atlas asked, pointing to a string of symbols across the bottom of the picture.
"Their name, in Gh'blthrexian," Purple answered. "I believe it's pronounced Glaldig Urgth'dr'thribna."
"Glaldig," the red clone confirmed.
"No, their first name is Urgth'dr'thribna."
Atlas quirked an eye at his brother, then shook his head. He tapped a green button at the bottom of the pane, then grabbed its corners and reduced it to a palm-sized rectangle before handing it back to Purple, who looked aghast.
"Did you mean to hit the 'Invite' button?!"
"Yeah," he said confidently, pleased grin reclaiming his face. "They could be pretty on the inside."
*-*-*
a/n: I ran into the problem that there is no equivalent form of address to sir or madam for they/them, so I'm using Thane as it's respectful, and sort of close. As the story is set in the future, the term is already accepted and in wide use then. ;p
I expect this will turn into a series, and already have titles for B is for Bellerophon, C is for Cassiopeia, D is for Draco, and E is for Echo, but right now, am a little thin on plot ideas for them, so they may go on the back burner for the time being. Suggestions welcome... what would you like to see in the Fast Forward universe?
Also, I'm going on mostly memory of the Dark Turts, so forgive me if some of the details are a bit off.