Chapter 31: Special Visitors
Wednesday 5th April Age 798
Magdalena Dobos, the engineer for the King's Secret Service, wasn't the best driver, especially when she was nervous, and this was one of those days where she was very, very nervous. But there was an excitement too. She had been invited to visit the Capsule Corporation compound, basically the world's capital for all technological advancements, and to say that Magdalena was a little giddy would be a massive understatement. She was extremely excited. But as previously stated, she also retained a strong anxiety about the whole day because, as far as she was concerned, she would be setting foot on Holy ground.
It had only been a phone call about coming in to retrieve a piece of Secret Service tech, which only added to the anxiety because if she was questioned about how their tech, specifically a drone, managed to work its way onto Capsule Corp. property then Magdalena wasn't sure if she could present a truthful answer. However, Magdalena wouldn't have to do any of it alone, so she asked the one person she could count on to come along with her and help her feel at ease.
Hannah Larson was calm, so it was only right that she be the one to drive them. She managed to stay composed and professional, even in the presence of her friend and colleague. Despite being the newest member of the Secret Service main team, and typically being viewed as the timid one, she had no qualms about driving up to Capsule Corp. to collect their drone. After all, it was all business. But that isn't to say she didn't understand why Magdalena was feeling a little all over the place. Hannah more than understood her teammate's love for tech.
It was approaching midday, so the roads were pretty clear, and eventually the simple two-seater car they were using found itself approaching the gates of the Capsule Corp. compound. Hannah could hear Magdalena taking a deep breath beside her as the domes had come into view, and then the sign. Hannah smirked to herself but managed to drop into her professional demeanour once more as they came to a halt at the main gate.
She opened her window and looked out, staring straight at a video intercom. It blinked to life and the face of a young man was smiling back at them.
"Hello and welcome to the Capsule Corporation compound for Research and Development, and the residence of the Brief family," the man greeted, clearly reciting an often-repeated statement. "How may I help you today?"
"Hi, we have a meeting scheduled today," Hannah replied, getting right into it. "I'm Hannah Larson of the King's Secret Service and I'm here with Magdalena Dobos."
She introduced them both and held up her identification card at the same time, to prove she was who she claimed to be. At the same time Magdalena poked her head around and waved. The man smiled again.
"Great. Drive up to the parking zone just outside the main R&D building and head right to the reception afterwards. I'll be waiting," the man said, and the intercom immediately shut-off. The gates opened and Hannah started to drive up the road, into the compound. Magdalena had to do her best to contain her excitement and stop her trembling.
They reached the parking zone and stopped the car, got out, and headed straight into the main building, which had a sign saying, 'Main Reception.' They could see the residential building off in the opposite direction, but that building was off-limits for anyone called to the compound on business and was more of a family and very close-friends thing. Either way, Magdalena was more interested in the R&D building.
As soon as the two Secret Service agents stepped inside, they were greeted by a very large open lobby. Directly ahead of them was a reception desk, to either side were elevators and there were two large escalators behind the reception desk, either side of the desk. One going up, and one going down. But it was what filled out the rest of the room that interested Magdalena.
One of the earliest Capsule Corp jets was hanging from the ceiling, while on the other side of the room, also hanging from the ceiling was a more modern and up-to-date version. Clearly there to show a progression from the company's early days and earliest tech, to what they were producing in the present. Also, on one side of the room, there was a sort of mini garden, it had a pond, an artificial waterfall, there were some fish inside, and a few birds sitting on some trees. In the middle of said garden, stood a hologram of Dr. Brief, the founder of Capsule Corporation.
He was wearing a white lab coat, some thick black spectacles, he had a cigarette hanging out of one side of his mouth, and there was a little black cat sitting on his shoulder. This was Dr. Brief, the inventor of some of the most revolutionary tech the world had even seen, but this was the man in his happy place. A nice garden, surrounded by nature. Magdalena smiled as she looked at it.
Meanwhile, Hannah had only stopped to admire it for a quick moment before heading right up to the reception desk.
"Welcome to Capsule Corp., Miss Larson," the man from before greeted, standing up and bowing his head in a respectful manner. Hannah smiled and nodded. The man pulled up and looked at the data-pad in his hand. "It seems that your meeting is with Miss Bra Brief. Is that correct?"
"Yes. We were called about some tech," Hannah confirmed, but the man simply waved his hand as if to stop her from saying anything more.
"It isn't necessary to tell me about your business here today. That will be between you and Miss Brief," he explained, but saying it in a very friendly way. He stepped out from behind the receptionist counter and held an arm out, as if ready to lead Hannah somewhere. "If you would like to follow me, I will lead you to a waiting area where Miss Brief will come to meet you."
"Ok, thank you," Hannah said, and she was about to follow but stopped and turned back to see where Magdalena was. She had moved to a different thing and was examining some sort of concept car that was parked in the lobby area. "Magda, come on!" Hannah called out.
The engineer snapped to attention, almost like she had been lost in her own little world, distracted by something wonderful. She saw Hannah with the receptionist and understood. She rushed over to join them and chuckled nervously.
"Sorry, let's go!" She said, cheerfully.
The receptionist smiled at Magdalena and then turned around and began to walk further back through the lobby area, towards where there was a big set of doors. They were sliding doors that opened once the receptionist tapped a card to the wall, and the trio stepped into a hallway and the doors slid shut behind them, but it wasn't just any old ordinary hallway.
Magdalena's eyes widened in surprise, and she covered her mouth, managing to stifle an excited yelp, but the tiniest squeal was allowed to escape. Hannah's lips pursed and she tried to avoid reacting to Magdalena's reaction.
The hallway served as a sort of trip through the history of Capsule Corporation, beginning with some of their first and earliest experiments and tech. There was a photograph of a young Dr. Brief in a garage with a young blonde woman, both wore wide smiles as they sat, holding hands, beside a computer. It was one of Dr. Brief's first real breakthroughs. As the trio continued along, so did the technological advancements, as well as the different stages of Dr. Brief's career, and the development of his family.
There was capsule technology, early cars, and jets, moving onto the early brushes with space travel, and a continued focus on a blossoming space program. Along the way, Dr. Brief grew older, as did the blonde woman. There were wedding photographs. Photos with two young girls. One, a blonde, a writer. This was Tights. The first born. And then the second child, a blue haired girl. This was Bulma, the current CEO of Capsule Corp.
And then the family photos started to accrue more people. Beginning with the addition of Vegeta and baby Trunks. Then it continued, adding a baby girl: Bra. As it progressed further there was the addition of another blonde woman, holding hands with Trunks. This was his wife Marron. Then there was the addition of a baby boy, with lavender hair just like his father. This was flint. The Capsule Corp. story began with a man and his girlfriend, in a garage, with a computer, but it grew into something bigger.
It wasn't just the family that grew either, the brilliant technological and scientific advancements kept going, but the hallway eventually came to an end with another set of sliding doors.
They opened to reveal another large open room. Half of the room appeared to be a canteen of some sort, with a kitchen area and lots of food laid out. There were also a few drink and snack machines. There were tables and chairs, and on the other side of the room, a few sofas and armchairs, and an area for people to watch TV, where the news was playing. It was certainly some sort of waiting area/break room. As the trio stepped into the room the receptionist turned around to address the two women.
"If you wait here, I will go check to see if Miss Brief is ready for you. You are welcome to help yourself to anything here in the canteen, it is complimentary," he explained, and motioned to the rest of the room, letting them know they could do what they pleased. "I will come back for you when it is time for your meeting."
"Thank you," Hannah said politely, while Magdalena offered up a toothy grin. The receptionist smiled back at them and then turned, walking away towards an elevator. Hannah immediately turned to face Magdalena. "I'm so happy there's food. I'm starving. Do you want anything?"
Hannah walked over to the canteen bit, where the chefs were happy to offer anything, but the Secret Service agent was happy with a soda and a sandwich, while Magdalena was busy looking over the sweet stuff, pondering what cake she wanted. As they were just getting what they wanted someone else had entered the room and walked up near the women.
"Excuse me," another woman's voice said, casually. Magdalena and Hannah were standing right by the coffee machine and this woman wanted to get there. Both agents turned to look in that woman's direction and froze upon seeing who it was.
"Can I just get to the coffee machine, please," Bulma Brief asked, nicely. She was wearing a white lab coat and had an earpiece on and a phone in her hand. Both agents stepped to the side, letting Bulma get where she needed to go. Bulma smiled as a thank you and started sorting what coffee she wanted, while continuing to talk to whoever she was on the phone with.
Hannah and Magdalena quietly shifted away, backing up slowly, saying nothing until they reached a table and sat down. Magdalena couldn't stop staring and she seemed very, very embarrassed, and nervous, and excited, and everything all at once. Hannah was a little shocked, but it fell away, but she knew that wasn't the case for Magdalena.
"That's… that's… that's her, that's Bulma Brief, CEO… genius," Magdalena stated, staring at her, while Hannah looked from her friend to the blue-haired woman, and back to her friend. Magdalena turned to face Hannah, her eyes wide and filled with glee.
"You should go say hello," Hannah suggested, smiling at her friend. Magdalena scoffed and chuckled awkwardly.
"No, I can't do that, it would be so weird and awkward, what would I even say? No. I can't do it," Magdalena said, rambling, breathing heavily, and sweating a little bit. Bulma's coffee finished, and she turned around, taking a sip, and looking over the room. Her eyes fell on the two women, who seemed to be staring at her. "Oh my God, she sees us," Magdalena said in a whisper, turning to face Hannah again.
Hannah looked back towards Bulma again as she seemed to finish up on her phone call and start to walk over to the women. Magdalena was practically frozen in her seat, but Hannah stood up as Bulma approached them.
"Hi there, sorry about that, had an important call. Do I have a meeting with you two?" Bulma asked, seemingly in a good mood.
"Oh, no. No, actually we have a meeting with your daughter today," Hannah confirmed, smiling politely as she spoke to Bulma.
"My daughter? My sweet little Bra, already taking her own meetings," Bulma said, seemingly surprised, but also proud. "She's gonna run this place soon enough."
Bulma laughed at her own suggestion and Hannah chuckled along with her, but Magdalena was still far too nervous and remained seated, unable to find her confidence to add anything.
"So, where have you two come from? Who do you represent?" Bulma asked, kicking into business mode.
"We're agents for the King's Secret Service and we have a meeting with your daughter about some misplaced tech," Hannah clarified. Bulma reacted in a way that made it seem like she was impressed with who they were, which was probably to do with the fact they were meeting with Bra. "I'm Agent Hannah Larson and I'm in charge of communications, and this is my colleague Agent Magdalena Dobos, our chief engineer and tech expert."
Hannah had motioned to Magdalena, so Bulma looked towards the embarrassed engineer, but Magdalena also knew better than to remain seated after she had been brought into the conversation, so she stood up straight, with her arms by her side.
"Hi, yes, I am Magdalena Dobos," Magdalena said, introducing herself, but sounding strange as she did so. Her voice was wavering, and she was incredibly tense. Bulma smiled.
"She's also a very big fan of you and Capsule Corp.," Hannah added. Magdalena's eyes went wide again, and she shot a quick look at Hannah, but then turned back to Bulma.
"Oh, is that right?" Bulma asked, smirking. "Well, it's nice to meet you," Bulma added, holding out her hand. Magdalena suddenly sprung to life, grabbing Bulma's hand, but making sure she did it gently.
"Hi, I'm so sorry, I'm so nervous. Yes. I am a big fan of yours. I've followed everything Capsule Corp. has done for as long as I've been cognisant enough to even know how technology works. Capsule Corp. is literally the reason I went to college to study engineering and technical sciences. My dream was to work Capsule Corp., or even to be as great a scientist and inventor as yourself, but I ended up working for the Secret Service and that's honestly such good work too, but Capsule Corp. is… well, Capsule Corp.," Magdalena blurted out, taking no time to breathe or allow anyone else the time to add anything. She chuckled nervously again and shook her head. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's always great to meet people just as passionate about tech as we are here, especially someone who considers themselves a big fan of me personally," Bulma joked. "Honestly though, it's great to meet you, and never apologise for being passionate."
Magdalena had to do everything within her power to stop from melting on the spot. She just smiled and laughed awkwardly.
"I would love to stay and chat with you some more, maybe even show you around the place, but I do have some meetings to get to and you have your meeting too," Bulma explained looking between them both. "It was nice to meet you both, good luck with Bra," she said, chuckling and winking as she walked away, disappearing behind some sliding doors.
"Oh my God…" Magdalena said, breathing out a massive sigh as she dropped back into the seat and almost slammed her head on the table. Hannah shook her head, smirking to herself.
"You were surprisingly quite chill," Hannah said, returning to her seat and sipping her soda. Magdalena looked up again.
"That was crazy!" She exclaimed, but quickly covered her mouth, knowing she didn't need to be that loud. "I can't believe that Bulma Brief herself talked to us, I'm shaking."
Sure enough, when Magdalena held her hand up, it was clear that she was shaking. Her excitement and anxiety were overwhelming her, and she wasn't sure what to do to calm herself down. She just looked down at the slice of cake sitting in front of her, but her appetite had completely vanished. She instead opted to gulp down her soda. Hannah merely shook her head, amused by the scene, but also happy that her friend had a chance to interact with one of her heroes.
A few more minutes passed by, and the receptionist emerged from the elevator and walked across the room to the two waiting women.
"Miss Brief is ready for you now, so if you would please follow me we can head down to her lab," the receptionist said, beckoning for the two women to follow him over to the elevator. Magdalena stood up quickly.
"Wait, we're going to one of the actual labs?" She questioned. She turned to face her friend. "A real Capsule Corp. lab?"
"I'm afraid that while, yes, it is indeed a Capsule Corp. lab, this is the lab that the young Miss Brief has been using to work on personal projects along with her university coursework," the receptionist clarified. That did hit Magdalena's enthusiasm a little bit, but it was still something very intriguing. She motioned for the man to lead the way.
"Well, let's get going. We don't want to keep the young lady waiting," Magdalena said, smiling and suddenly acting professional. The receptionist didn't really notice any change in demeanour and led the way, but Hannah saw that Magdalena had finally managed to calm herself, which was good, because they couldn't have her getting overexcited in their actual meeting, they needed to maintain a strong image, synonymous with the King's Secret Service. They served Royalty, after all.
The trio stepped inside the elevator and headed down to the lower levels in silence, aside from the ordinary and cliché elevator music that supplied the ambiance for what felt like an awkward situation. It wasn't really that awkward, it was just that neither agent felt comfortable trying to strike up a conversation while the Capsule Corp. employee was standing in front of them.
Luckily, the elevator ride didn't last long, and the doors opened onto… yet another hallway.
"This place has so many hallways," Magdalena remarked, chuckling innocently. The receptionist smiled and let out an amused sound, almost like he was just being polite. He had probably heard that sentiment echoed by previous visitors.
He continued to lead them down the hallway until they came to a set of doors, only those ones didn't open automatically. The man had to press a button on the side of the door, which looked like another intercom, and he spoke into it.
"Miss Brief, your visitors from the Secret Service are here," he said, and then let go of the button and walked away, without saying another word to the duo. They looked back as he walked up the hall and then to each other, but the sound of doors opening drew their attention forward again.
The doors opened to reveal a lab, a workplace. There were a few lines of tables, or worktops, that all appeared to be in use. Each one had a two-monitor computer set-up and enough space to lay out a piece of tech, or by the looks of it, junk.
The lab wasn't tidy, but that just meant a lot of work happened in that place. Magdalena's eye's darted around the room as she tried to take in as much of it as she could, while Hannah was looking at the three people in the room. Standing closest to the door was the blue-haired Brief girl, Bra. She set down her capsule-pad and walked over.
"Hi, I'm glad you could make it," Bra said, holding a professional demeanour but also showcasing a casual nature. She wasn't hiding herself behind a mask, this was Bra. Hannah held out her hand and shook Bra's.
"I'm Agent Hannah Larson," the young woman said, Bra smiled and looked to Magdalena.
"Hi, I'm Magdalena. Dobos. Agent Magdalena Dobos," the engineer said, getting a little confused and flustered, forgetting she was there in a professional capacity.
"I'm sorry to call you down here, you're probably so busy with other more important things," Bra said. Magdalena scoffed.
"Oh, don't worry about it, this is still basically work for us, right? So, this is the important thing," Magdalena said, chuckling, Bra smiled and chuckled with her. Hannah looked over the room again. Bra noticed and looked with her.
"It's a mess, I know, sorry. We don't get visitors down here unless it's family or friends," Bra explained.
"Hey, it's a lab, you make things happen down here, you're allowed to keep it messy," Magdalena added, helping to make Bra feel better.
"You know what it's like?" Bra asked.
"Oh, yeah, of course. I'm the lead engineer for the Service. I live for a space like this," Magdalena explained, as she looked over the room, almost like she was itching to dive in and try to make something. Hannah knew they were at risk of getting off topic.
"You called us about a piece of tech, right?" Hannah asked, trying to sound friendly as she moved the conversation along. She wasn't used to being the point of authority and it felt weird, but she tried her best to keep it going.
"You found my drone, our drone?" Magdalena questioned.
"Of course, come over here," Bra said as she turned around and beckoned them to follow her over to a table. As they rounded one table and moved over to another that seemed to have something covered under a sheet, they came closer to the other two people in the room. Two men. One was blond, wearing a white lab-coat and protective goggles on his head, while the other had spiky dark brown, almost black hair, and was wearing a shirt and tie, with a jacket that read 'security.'
"Hi, I'm Dominic Kagaku, you can call me Dom," the blond man said, greeting the two women and standing beside the blue-hair young woman.
"He's my boyfriend," Bra confirmed.
"And her lab partner," Dom added, chuckling.
"Yes, that too," Bra said, and then she looked up to the other person.
"They know who I am," Noca said, looking up and smiling towards the two women, but it was a very quick smile. He went back to looking at the capsule-pad he was holding in his hand, clearly focussing on something else.
"Yeah, we know you," Hannah said, catching Noca's eye and offering him a smile too. She almost seemed wary of him, but Magdalena was more interested in getting to the tech talk.
"Sorry for taking so long to contact you about the drone," Bra said, pulling the sheet away to reveal the drone, in what appeared to be a brand-new state. Magdalena frowned for a moment but then her eyes widened.
"There were some damages, and it didn't feel right returning it without at least repairing it," Dom explained.
"My dad smashed it when he saw it," Bra added with a scoff.
"Wow, it looks so good, thank you, but you didn't need to do that," Magdalena said.
"Think nothing of it," Bra replied.
"It was sort of a learning experience for us anyway, we got to see how it worked, you know, considering it's not a Capsule Corp. design," Dom added. "Plus, we figured it was fair game considering it was on Capsule Corp. property," Dom continued, but made it sound like a joke.
Magdalena chuckled, awkwardly. Noca looked up from his capsule-pad again.
"What was it doing on Capsule Corp. property anyway?" He asked. Magdalena's eyes widened slightly, and the room fell silent. No one knew what to say next and there was anxiety flooding the room. Hannah cleared her throat.
"It was part of the investigation back in November. The attacks?" Hannah said, with a questioning tone, almost as if she felt she needed to remind Noca. The Saiyan held his tongue for a moment, not wanting to bite back or get too defensive. "Because of your involvement we were ordered to send a drone to follow you and find out what you knew. Our Captain thought you were involved in some way."
"I know," Noca replied, ready to start defending himself again, but Hannah cleared her throat again and seemed to drop her attempt at an authoritative demeanour.
"Sorry about that. It was an invasion of your privacy, all of you, and we were just following orders," Hannah clarified. Noca softened his defences a little.
"I understand," he said, and he smiled weakly, and returned to his capsule-pad, but paced to the other side of the room at the same time.
"Well, that was awkward, anyway, shall we show you what we did with the drone?" Bra asked Magdalena. Dom came forward with his own capsule-pad.
"We can also show you some notes we made, about possible improvements," the blond man added. Magdalena was wide-eyed and excited to get on with things, so the three of them stepped up to the table with the drone and the two Capsule Corp. scientists got to work.
Meanwhile, Hannah started to wander through the lab a little. Noca was keeping an eye on her, although only with a couple of glances here and there.
As Hannah walked around, looking at all the worktables, and the mess around the room, she realised she couldn't quite see any method to the madness of Bra and Dom. They kept their space so disorganised that it just made no sense to her, although it probably made sense to them, somehow. Hannah continued and soon her eyes fell upon a computer screen, a screen that seemed to have a map of a segment of a galaxy, and there was a line from one point that led to their own Solar System, specifically to Earth, and there were numbers counting down.
She glanced back to see what everyone else was doing. Noca was looking down and the other three were pre-occupied, she quickly took out her phone and snapped a photograph of the screen, then put her phone away, very quickly, very subtly, but she continued to look at the screen while pretending she was continuing to wander aimlessly.
Back at the drone table, the trio were still talking.
"I've always been interested in seeing more of what King's Systems can do, if I'm honest," Bra said to Magdalena.
"No way, for reals?" Magdalena asked.
"Yeah, why is that surprising?" Bra questioned, smiling.
"It's just, I've followed Capsule Corp. for a long time, I used to want to work here, so it's kinda ironic that we're both interested in the organisations the other is working for," Magdalena explained, chuckling awkwardly some more.
"That's really cool. Maybe someday down the line we could work together on something cool. I know that King's Systems were working with A.I. for a while, and I was always interested in that. We sort of worked on our own A.I.," Bra said.
"Oh, I used to want to work on that project, but it's not been hit with the best luck over the years. They've had tech stolen, the attack last year, it's not been a very successful project apparently," Magdalena said, getting a little lost in her thoughts for a moment, but she pushed it away and looked up at Bra again. "But if there's something our organisations could collaborate on, I think that would be awesome!"
As Bra and Magdalena continued to talk Dom looked over to Noca and then across the room to Hannah, and then back to Noca. He walked over to his friend and stood beside him for about a minute before saying anything.
"Are you not planning to speak tactics or plans or whatever with one of these agents?" Dom asked, "That's what you wanted them here for, right?"
"They didn't send the one I wanted to speak to. I don't know either of these women," Noca said, "I was hoping they would send the agent that helped me and Pan."
Dom replied with something, but Noca seemed to tune him out when he saw Hannah was very intrigued by what was on that screen, and Noca knew exactly what it was on that screen. He stopped Dom for a moment and walked over towards Hannah. As he approached her, he somehow changed his demeanour and seemed to force himself to seem friendlier.
"Hey," he said, nicely, as he stepped up beside Hannah. "What was it again? Agent…?"
"Oh," Hannah was surprised that Noca appeared beside her. She chuckled softly. "Agent Larson. But you can call me Hannah."
"Ok," Noca replied, smiling. "I was wondering where the Agent that assisted me and my friends was, and how she was doing?"
"Oh, um… do you mind if I ask why?" Hannah asked, politely, but also warily.
"It was just that she helped us in a very tight situation, and I was hoping she was doing well," Noca explained.
"Oh, yeah, she's fine," Hannah said, "well, actually I don't know that for sure. She's been on a mission for a little bit now, the past couple of months, so we haven't heard from her properly. Just an update every now and then to let us know everything is well."
"Well, I'm happy to hear that you think she's doing ok," Noca said, laughing softly. Hannah was about to look back at the screen and Noca knew the longer she looked the easier it would be for her to figure out what she was looking at. "What is it you do with the Secret Service?"
"I work very closely with Magdalena, she's engineering and tech, while I'm more in charge of the surveillance side of it, and I handle liaison with the emergency services during crisis events, like in November, and I run all the communications systems when we're on missions," Hannah explained.
"That's interesting, have you seen much action?" Noca asked, trying to get her to keep talking.
"Not a lot, I've had my training, and I was in the Royal Navy for a little bit, but the most action I've seen was definitely last year," Hannah explained, but she wanted to move on from talking about herself. "What about you, anyway? Aside from being the Martial Arts World Champion, what do you do around here?"
Noca scoffed and smirked.
"I work security," Noca said, showing the capsule-pad briefly and motioning to the security badge on his jacket. Hannah scoffed and smirked too. "I pretty much do ordinary security guard stuff, I monitor the screens on here when I'm not in the main hub, and I have a partner down there right now."
On the topic of screens, Hannah looked back to the screen that seemed to be running something by itself, and she opened her mouth ready to ask something, but suddenly a door opened at the opposite end of the room, and in stepped a robot. It was a strange looking robot. It was humanoid, but it was nothing like anything a human had seen before. The robot was sleek, shiny, didn't have any jittery joints, and seemed to move seamlessly, as if it was a person. They walked in, holding their own data-pad, and seemed to be tapping something on the screen.
Everyone in the room stared towards the robot. Hannah was confused and wary, Magdalena was almost excited and a little shocked, while Bra, Dom, and Noca were beginning to feel concerned.
"I was looking over the specs for that recent addition to be made regarding the cargo-hold of the ship, and I was wondering… oh…" the robot was talking about something, and his speech was plain, clear, and fluent. Not like any computer. But the robot stopped upon noticing other people in the room. The robot's demeanour seemed to change, and they stiffened up. "I was not aware there were visitors here today. My apologies." The robot turned around to walk away.
"Hold on!" Magdalena exclaimed. The robot stopped and everyone, bar Hannah, looked to Magdalena. "Is that what I think it is?"
"It's not exactly what you think it is…" Bra started.
"Have you guys actually started to trial run an A.I. assistant?" Magdalena asked, looking over the robot, starstruck. Bra and Dom looked to one another.
"Yes, this is our prototype," Dom lied, looking straight into Bra's eyes as he did so, and she wasn't sure what to say or do. "It's called ADAM."
"ADAM?" Magdalena questioned, genuinely interested in knowing why that was the name choice. Bra's brow was furrowed as she continued to stare at her boyfriend with confusion written across her face.
"Yeah, it stands for Automated-Droid-Assistant-Machine…" Dom replied, awkwardly. Magdalena made a weird face and looked to Dom.
"That's what you called it?" She asked. Dom remained still for a moment and then chuckled.
"Yeah, well, I named it after my first dog… I liked the name Adam. I guess we're still working on what it stands for," Dom replied, scratching his arm, nervously.
"Well, whatever you call it, it's beautiful, for a prototype," Magdalena said, walking closer to 'ADAM' and looking them up and down.
"You know Capsule Corp., we like to make things looks good," Bra added.
"But it doesn't look like anything Capsule Corp. has made before, it doesn't match the aesthetic," Hannah said, looking over 'ADAM' as she got closer to them. 'ADAM' turned to look at her and Hannah froze for a moment.
"I only wish to serve," 'ADAM' said politely.
"I guess I took inspiration from all the Sci-Fi movies I watch," Dom said.
"Maybe that's what it is," Magdalena said, continuing to stare at the robot.
"Well, I think it's about time to shut you down, Adam," Dom said, walking over to the robot. "But first let's go see if that trial task we set you up with was a success," Dom continued as he led 'ADAM' towards the door. The young man glanced back at the others. "Sorry, I should rush and sort this out, it was nice to meet you ladies."
Dom left the room with the robot, the door shut behind him, leaving Bra and Noca alone with the Secret Service agents.
"Well, I do have work to be getting on with, so if we could wrap this up soon," Noca said, as politely as he could to Bra, while offering her a look that told her he was serious.
"I do have a lot to be doing as well, but I would like to say, Magdalena, I would love to work with you sometime and maybe we can have a discussion soon," Bra said, addressing the engineer directly. Bra quickly walked over to the drone, capsulised it and handed it back to the Agent. Then she handed Magdalena a card. "It's weird that I have these, but this is a business card, it has my number and email on there, feel free to get in touch."
"Oh, wow, that's so nice of you, I will definitely try and find the time to hit you up. I'd love to talk more about the ideas you have for our drones," Magdalena said, smiling. She weirdly felt compelled to hug Bra as she said goodbye, but Bra accepted and returned the gesture. Noca looked to Hannah and nodded. She returned that gesture.
The two agents turned and headed towards the exit together, thanked Bra for returning their tech and for inviting them, and bid farewell. It was a strange ending to their visit, but then again, it was always a visit they were both quite anxious about.
Noca and Bra remained in the lab together, standing in silence for a moment. Noca looked over to the screen with the countdown to Kuyato's arrival. Bra didn't notice where he was looking.
"I can't believe Airen just entered like that," Bra said. She scoffed and turned away, seemingly annoyed. "That could have been so much worse."
Noca just continued to look at that screen.
"And you didn't even discuss anything tactical with them… what was the point of inviting them?" Bra questioned.
"I didn't know them, I didn't know if I could trust them," Noca added, but continued to stare at the screen. Bra turned to look at him again.
"I think we can trust them, they seemed nice enough," Bra suggested. "Are you listening to me?"
"We might not have a choice," Noca muttered. Bra frowned and looked where he was looking, noticing the screen, and the countdown, it had continued, and it was on for everyone to see.
"Oh… shit," Bra said.
"It was on the whole time, and I know she saw it," Noca said.
"Do you think she understood it? It's kind of just nonsense numbers and distances… could be a probe or something we sent out there, they don't know," Bra said, trying to think of a situation that would be positive for them.
"I guess you're right," Noca muttered. He continued to look at the screen and appeared to be deep in thought. He was certainly contemplating something. He didn't want Bra to worry anymore so he just kept it bottled up inside himself.
It wasn't important anyway, what was important was that they got themselves ready for the imminent arrival of a great threat. They needed to stop Kuyato from getting to Earth, and there wasn't much longer left until he would enter the outer reaches of the Solar System.
The clock was ticking.
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