Seeing Gray stand at his office window overlooking the everything and nothing that was the Badlands of New Mexico was nothing new. Sometimes, Makina wished Gray was a robot so he could just tap into his files and understand what he was thinking of - his plans, his ideals, the mind games he so carefully planned and executed to ensure that he got to his goals. But alas, he was still human. No getting around that one.
The old man stood at the floor-to-ceiling window while Makina watched his turned back and imagined all the ways he could kill the man where he stood. As hard to read and cunning as humans were, they all did have one downside compared to being made of machines and that was how awfully fragile they were. The human body was a machine in its own right, albeit one made of meat and bones and tendons and tiny sparks of electricity commanding the whole thing from one lump of flesh to another. One thing breaking down in the human machine could be disastrous, unlike one thing in a real mechanical body. Makina had learned a thing or two from Doc about the human body and all the ways it could shut down within seconds removing one vital piece. Doc hadn't acquired books from the outside for nothing, and it was obvious the innocent Medibot was capable of quite a lot if he dared to act on his knowledge. Well, at least between the two bots, Makina was very much capable of acting out.
Despite thinking of all the ways he could kill Gray in that very second, it didn't make sense to do so now despite the old man being completely vulnerable and likely very unaware of the danger each second passing posed. What was he to do after Gray was dead? Hundreds of falsely-loyal robots would be at the door in seconds. Hell, the two Heavybots constantly posted at the doors of the office would rip him apart and throw him into the incinerator in seconds. Still, the idea of using the pen on Gray's desk to stab the vile puppet master seemed pretty good. Later, he told himself. There will be time for this.
"You did well, Makina," Gray's voice crackled. A man at a hundred and fifty years old didn't speak very well anymore, even with his veins full of the golden elixir of life. Things were bound to wear down in the human machine, no matter how much liquid magic rocks were used to keep things going for longer than they deserved. "I've always trusted you to do the job efficiently."
Gray turned halfway to look at Makina, half his face illuminated by the scorching sun of the Badlands, and the other half darkened by the shadows. "I've never told you exactly what I'm doing here, have I? Do you want to know?"
Makina met his gaze evenly and in total silence. As much as he wanted to know, he knew that voicing his interest was a way to give Gray a reason to always hold it out of reach like a bone on a stick for a desperate dog. Gray smiled, though it lacked any humour. "I know you do. No one follows someone's orders so closely and carefully without making them wonder why, or what the end goal is."
Now he was really using Makina as a soundboard more than anything. "You see Makina, I may appear successful now but like any other successful businessman, I've known hardships that one can only imagine. Getting to this point, it wasn't all that easy." He vaguely gestured out onto the expanse of dirt and dust and dead trees that stretched for miles with nothing but the tiniest silhouette of a city in the distance. "There have been people who doubted me. Believed that I could not create something that would alleviate our problems. Why send people to war? Why force wives, sisters, and daughters to say goodbye to their husbands, brothers and sons for a fight they never asked for? My brothers have fought over a pit of gravel for decades and died for it but my intentions go far beyond that. You remember Olivia, right?"
How could anyone forget Olivia? She looked like little more than an innocent little girl with the most devilish eyes, but did she ever harbour some of the darkest and worst intentions ever. She was six when Makina had first met her, and the Sniperbot was glad that her presence wasn't all too common on the factory floor. Where she went and what she did, no one but Gray knew. But was Makina ever glad that their paths didn't often cross. The few times he had seen her, she was maiming some creature in a variety of creative ways. Sometimes it was another robot. Makina hadn't felt anything for that, for they were stupid enough to kill each other over misunderstandings and misfired commands. Sometimes, it was a hare that had been found out in the desert. Or a bird that had been just hit by a stroke of horrible luck to end up in her clutches.
"I don't talk about how Olivia appeared in my life at such a late age, but she is very important to me. I know she will outlive me one day and that's okay. She will eventually grow up, and have a husband, maybe even a son. I have never wanted her to have to watch them go to war over something they didn't believe in, and come back as letters in the hands of an army official with his hat off. Which is why I made robots. Hundreds of different designs, thousands of prototypes. Most have not worked out until the recent batches designed after Mann Co.'s mercenaries, but I'm sure you know they have the intelligence of a goldfish at best. Not you, but you're special. You and that Medibot. It's hard to find others like you and I haven't figured out how to replicate such an interesting quirk. But I've been designing something new; something better. Which is where those two mercenaries come in handy. You see, it's rare for someone to be able to control fire, or whip lightning out of the sky like a god. Humans don't come like that often, as much as people write stories about it. I don't want to hurt them, of course. In fact, I'll need them intact to get a better understanding of their skills. Angry and upset as they may be because they won't understand what I'm trying to do, all I need to do is watch them to finalize my newest prototypes. I already have one, but he's been put with some of my own hired guns to really test the earliest prototypes that got into manufacturing. Anyway, I suppose I just wanted to share because I haven't had anyone else to talk to about it. And it's nice knowing that you understand what I'm saying. But now, I want you to go down to their holding cells and just see if they're awake. I'll come by soon to talk to them."
Makina logged every word Gray had just rambled to him, transcribing it all into written text. Once he was dismissed, he saved the file and quietly left like the good, little obedient robot he was supposed to pretend to be. He did follow Gray's orders however, though it was partially out of personal interest in beginning the plans he had crafted with Doc's reluctant help on how to escape the hellish facility he was forced to stay in.
The holding cells were on the upper floors of the facility, in a wing that was heavily guarded by some of Gray's less stupid creations. Ones that were gifted in brute strength and particularly keen to follow his orders very thoroughly. The Heavybots stood stoically at the entrance to the wing, ignoring Makina as he walked through the sliding glass doors. The halls of the wing were quiet and plain, with very few signs to tell anyone where they were going. After all, the only people who were there were people who already knew the place inside out. Anyone who didn't know where they were going, were likely not supposed to be there at all.
Makina had a map of the entire facility, including every single floor he had access to. There were a few access points that had been shut off for one reason or another, particularly those going below the manufacturing floors in the basement and he hadn't been able to get down there, so it likely wasn't important. The rest of the headquarters had been mapped out and layered in a neat display that allowed him to know where anything and anyone of interest was. In fact, he could key in the serial number of any robot at all and know its exact location, but the only one he was interested in was Doc.
He followed a set path along the halls, passing through groups of guards set up at key access points. No one said a word to him as he turned down the stark halls, only stopping once he reached a heavily guarded area. Instead of fancy glass doors, the door was a three layer monstrosity made of tungsten that required clearance to get through. There were four Heavybots guarding the door, one standing next to the keypad that was the first way to access the door. Makina stepped up to it and keyed in his serial number. Once it accepted his number, he connected his hand to a pad with a reader and waited for it to read the micro engravings in his palm that had been carefully forged by a machine. A slot in the wall opened up and presented a chip reader. That was when the Heavybot standing by the keypad moved into action as it was designed to do. Makina quietly turned around and allowed the Heavybot to open his back panel and shut him down temporarily while it pulled out his logic chip, inserting it into the chip reader. When it came to a robot, the logic chip was everything. Without it, they were just a machine incapable of doing anything but executing manually-input commands. It told the lock mechanism for the door everything about Makina that it needed to identify the correct robot, before spitting the chip back out as the behemoth of a door began to unlock.
The Heavybot shoved the chip back into Makina's reader slot and turned him back on before shutting the back panel. By the time the Sniperbot had rebooted, the doors were open. He absolutely despised knowing that he could be shut down so easily as an older model and thought of Gray as stupid for designing anything with a literal off switch, but he had to make do. The newer models didn't have those stupid switches. Not that such a thing had ever stopped the Mann Co. mercenaries from making sure that the robots got sent back to headquarters as piles of junk and scrap.
Makina stepped through the doors and heard them roll shut behind him, effectively trapping him here on this side with a new set of Heavybot guards until he was ready to leave by the same processes. The other side of the doors led into a heavily watched gated area, where rows upon rows of cells stood. Most of them were empty, though some of them had a few bones from captives of long ago. There were a couple of deactivated robots in some of the cells, but most of them were quiet except for two.
Pacing at one of the fortified, fire-proof, six-inch glass walls was the RED Pyro, who occasionally set his cell on fire. Not that it did anything to harm himself or anyone outside, for the whole thing had been specifically treated to ensure that the mercenary's fire would not be a way for him to get out. Next to his cell was the BLU Spy, who simply sat against one of the walls and seemed content to just wait until a proper opportunity for escape came about.
Well, Makina was ready to give them that opportunity. The Sniperbot walked up to the cells, noticing that the Pyro's mask was gone. So were his weapons, though Gray had the decency to let him keep the asbestos suit though Pyro had shrugged off the top half of it and tied the sleeves around his waist. As soon as the fiery mercenary caught sight of Makina, he threw a ball of fire at the glass, though it harmlessly dispersed against the barrier. Makina did not offer him the satisfaction of flinching, simply standing there and watching it. By the looks of it, Pyro was cussing up a storm while Spy simply stood up to meet the Sniperbot's look evenly; likely observing the machine to know what he was going up against.
He figured it would be easier to talk to the Spy, since Pyro was likely not going to listen to him. Each cell was mostly soundproof, with any attempt to talk, scream, yell, swear or bargain coming out as muffled and incoherent at best. Gray had intentionally made it that way, because he never liked hearing people talk when they weren't spoken to. But since he did need to converse with the people on the other side of the glass, he had installed a speaker that allowed conversation to flow naturally between both sides. Now that Makina thought about it, it was likely that he had thought about the plan for a very long time already to build things exactly the way he needed. The Sniperbot hadn't ever known why Gray installed those speakers until now.
Truth be told, Makina was a little unnerved by Spy's piercing stare, like he was looking right through him and reading his data. In fact, that was probably exactly what the Spy was doing just by looking at him. It was quite incredible for a human to do that. But Gray wouldn't have just wanted any random mercenary. Makina reached for the switch on the speaker and turned on two way communications, while the side of his metal face lit up with a warm glow as Pyro aggressively threw blast after blast of fire.
"Can you hear me?" Makina asked.
Spy tilted his head to the side. "Yes."
"Good. Listen, I don't have a lot of time. I shouldn't even be talking to you."
"Then why are you talking to me?"
Makina glanced around, not liking the fact that one of the Heavybots was looking right at him with its cold, unfeeling and unthinking lights. As much as he liked to think he was in control of the situation because he was the one who could just walk away and not the two human mercenaries, he desperately needed their cooperation if he even wanted a tiny chance at escaping and running free. They knew things about the outside world that he didn't, and they also needed him to help them get out if they didn't want Gray cutting them open for his own malicious intentions. There was one chance to convince them to work with him so everyone could get out, but he somewhat understood the hesitance. After all, he looked no different from the hundreds of other robots that had been sent to try and destroy Mann Co. property.
"I… you need me. To get out. Do you want to stay here and let Gray do whatever he wants?"
Spy's gaze remained even and lacked any emotion that could give away what he was thinking of. "Why are you talking to me if you shouldn't do so?" He repeated.
Makina's old processors whirred louder and he felt his core temperature rising. His heads-up display reflected that with a rising temperature reading in the lower right corner of his vision. There wasn't much he could say without getting crushed like an empty soda can by the Heavybot that was watching him intently, and no doubt it was probably recording the whole thing in case it needed to be sent to Gray. He couldn't do anything to immediately incriminate himself.
"Look, I can't talk for long. You want to get out, right? You and the Pyro. I also want to get out with a friend. We're not like the rest of these guys. And I know you can read my data. I can tell you're accessing them now. I'm going to give you a map and a plan that's going to be executed whether you like it or not. If you want to escape, you just have to follow."
Makina was a little hesitant as he started to realise that this was it. Here he was planting a seedling that would either flourish into a tree, or be stomped out forever. In the distance, he could hear the monstrous doors being opened. Shit. Gray was coming. He quickly moved some files around, dumping the floor plan of the facility in the easiest to access spot. He didn't have a written plan yet, so that had to come later. "Please. I've put the floor plan down. At least take it, and be quick. Gray is here."
For a robot, he must have reeked of desperation if such a thing was even possible, for Spy frowned a little before taking the data with him into his own mind without even touching the mechanical person. Now he had an image of the floor plan in his mind, though it was incomplete, but there was no more time. Makina stepped away as Gray walked up with a devilish smile that could almost pass for polite.
His presence was greeted with Pyro setting his whole cell on fire, the flames illuminating his face and that of Gray's with an amber glow. Pyro was thoroughly upset and didn't seem like he was going to put out the fire any time soon, so Gray just shrugged. He reached a bony hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small remote, pressing a combination of buttons. The fire in the cell was quickly put out as the oxygen was vented, leaving Pyro gasping and straining until he was on his knees. Gray only let the oxygen flow back into the room once he decided it was enough of a warning for the arsonist to not do something stupid again.
"So angry, and for what?" Gray muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Good to see that both of them are awake. I trust they haven't given you any trouble?" His cold eyes landed on Makina, and the robot remained stoic and quiet. Yes, it was how Gray liked his robots to be, but speaking was also a way of accidentally letting slip.
Gray reached out and turned on the speaker for Pyro's cell before reaching for Spy's. His hand hovered over the switch as he noticed it was already turned on. The old man gave Makina a look but said nothing. The Sniperbot wished that he decided to just move past it.
"Well, good that both of you are up. I do apologise for the sudden change in environment but you must understand, I don't think either of you would have agreed to meet for a little champagne even if I had asked nicely."
"You would not be wrong," Spy commented.
"I'm glad you understand, and I sincerely hope that are no hard feelings." Gray almost sounded like he was genuine, even though Makina knew that he was anything but that.
From his cell, Pyro snarled. Makina noticed for the first time, that his eyes had turned orange as his hands lit on fire. The flames licked and crawled up his arms though the mercenary seemed unfazed. "No hard feelings? You're such a fucking coward that you have to keep us in cages to make sure we don't tear you apart!"
Gray glanced over, unimpressed. "Mr. Bigarsky, I will vent the oxygen again if you do not cooperate. Please just listen to what I have to say. I promise it isn't as bad as you think it is."
"What is it that you want?" Spy asked.
"I'm sure you and Mr. Bigarsky both have an understanding that I'm an inventor of robots. What you may not know is that I did not originally create robots with the intention of unleashing them upon Mann Co., but business rivals sometime step beyond boundaries and must be retaliated upon to ensure that one titan does not overtake an entire industry and control the needs of the population on its own. You understand that, right, Mr. Charpentier? I do hope I'm saying that correctly."
Spy remained calm, even if he was a little thrown off by how much Gray knew. Guess he had been doing his research. "What does this have to do with us?"
Gray sighed, a thin smile forming on his cracked lips. "You have a lot of questions and I assure you that I want to answer them as best as I can. What I'm seeking is a cooperation between you two - like a business deal, perhaps one done away from the eyes of your employer. I'm sure Hale wouldn't like it if his mercenaries were working with me for a side project of my own, but I'm willing to pay just for a short bit of your cooperation in helping me to refine my newest prototypes. Not a lot of humans can create fire or electricity with their minds the way you two can. I'd like to just observe you closely for a few days, maybe answer some of my questions on your powers. I'll even open a guest room for you two so you don't need to be stuck in here the whole time. Provide you with your needs just for say, a week and then you'll be on your way back to your usual lives."
Despite every word Gray was saying, both Pyro and Spy were reading beyond it. Observing body language, paying attention to the shifts in tone of voice and the way the old man's eyes moved around. When neither of them gave a reply, Gray let his head hang, shaking it a little. "I see that my proposal isn't good enough. Perhaps I'll let you two think about it for a day and ask again. But do remember - I will get what I want, so it's up to you if you want to cooperate and do things the nice way, or force my hand. Makina, keep an eye on them."
The two mercenaries watched as Gray walked off, hearing his footsteps grow softer and softer until he was gone. The Sniperbot remained behind, eyeing the two mercenaries though not with the intent of carrying out Gray's orders. "You two know he's lying."
"Doesn't take a genius to figure that out," Pyro huffed, "and where the hell are my mask and weapons?"
"Armoury, probably. Gray might have kept them as trophies. So, my proposal? It's either mine or his. I really want out of this place, and I've got a friend who wants out too."
Spy glanced at the wall that split his and Pyro's cell off. He couldn't see the RED, but knew he was there. "You said you gave me a floor plan. It's incomplete."
From the periphery of Makina's vision, he could see the Heavybot start to move out from its statue-like position. Shit. Guess it didn't like that Makina was talking to the prisoners. "I know. You didn't download everything, but I got to go. I'll be back with Doc in a few hours when they stop suspecting me, okay?"
Pyro watched the Sniperbot, clearly not trusting him yet. "Where are you going?"
"Back to wherever they stop looking for me. I'll give you guys a solid plan when I'm back. Just whatever you do… do not trust Gray."