Chapter 02

›Noise‹

As she walked along the aisle of the underground level again and came closer and closer to the lab, she actually got kind of nervous. A part of her questioned if it had been so smart, just doing her thing. But it was too late for that, she had to roll with it. When she finally entered, no alarm screamed and no drone came flying to execute her. At least. Doctor Robotnik still sat on his chair, his fingers sliding over some kind of in-built tablet on the table. Sal in- and exhaled once, before approaching him. She was certain that he had noticed her return and had actively decided to ignore it. Silently and careful, she placed the glass next to him.

»It's still hot, so...«

In an instant, he stopped his movements and turned his head to her. His expression was saying ›duh‹. Without changing that face, he held one hand up, wiggling his fingers, to show he had gloves on. Sal just now noticed they looked like some kind of weird controllers. A little bit fascinated, she tilted her head, but before she could get a second glance, he pulled his arm back and finally looked at the coffee. Eyeing it for a few seconds, he then lifted one brow and squinted back at her.

»... that's not how my latte usually looks.«

Since Sal had expected that kind of reaction, she quickly responded.

»No. This contains the same basic ingredients, but to make it like that requires more...«

before the last word she opened her eyes a bit wider, to underline it.

»... skills.«

Robotnik stared at her for a moment, and Sal thought that she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. As if he at least slightly credited her for the guts of this comeback. Even if he seemed surprised by it. She was looking him straight in the face, swearing herself not to back away. It was hard to maintain her posture though, considering her pounding heart and those piercing brown eyes. Luckily, he then decided to turn to his latte. Sal's mouth instantly became dry, as she watched him take a sip. I could have poisoned him instead. Maybe that would have been the better choice? He took his time, getting the taste, sipping again. Sal could have jumped out the window. If there was any.

»...hm...«

She waited with a frozen expression while squinting on the milk in his mustache.

»...I... uhm... know this isn't Stone's...«

»Acceptable.«

»...«

She opened her mouth a little, unable to say anything, but her heart jumped a bit. The doctor took the glass and turned back to his work. To her, that was a victory. More than she had expected of him. Simply nodding, with a tiny smile, she swung around, heading to her desk. As she got there, she found some sort of hard drive on it. Only in the aesthetic of this whole place. No doubt that had to be one of his own creations. As if he had seen her questioning face, he commented on it from afar.

»There are some files on that. Put their content into a presentable form. That's your actual job, after all, isn't it?«

Sal lighted up a bit.

»Y-Yes! Sure...!«

Actually motivated, she opened her laptop. It was a relief to get a task that was actually suited for her. For a second, she was wondering how to use this strange device of his, but the question answered itself. As soon as her desktop lit up, she saw several folders appear on it as if she was being hacked. Sal watched this in amazement, even though it also was kinda creepy. Considering what else you could do with that. On the other hand, that guy probably was capable of things, far more dangerous. After a few seconds, a little window popped up saying ›TRANSFER COMPLETE‹ and she started to look into the files.

Sal was working on her pages highly concentrated. She had to. The tons of absolutely cryptic content in Robotnik's files were making her head smoke. It was scientific, technical and sounded like another language to her. Only some blueprints gave hints to what he was referring to. Even those however, didn't look like anything Sal had seen before. Most seemed to be machine parts in development. After about 2 hours, she stretched her arms out and yawned. In the corner of the room she had noticed a water dispenser. Realizing she hadn't drunk anything at all today, she took her bottle and went to fill it up. As she walked passed the Doctor's back, she peeked at the large screen in front of him and stopped. What she saw on it, looked familiar. It was like an x-ray of the drone that had threatened her.

»That is inside of it?«

Her mouth had said it out loud before her brain could consider it. Robotnik turned his head, noticing her genuinely intrigued expression. Sal was baffled about how that thing was actually armed. Were those... rockets?

»How would I have been killed, if you didn't show up?«

She couldn't take her eyes off the projection.

»The badniks are not allowed to fire inside the laboratory, unless there's an actual hazard. Which... you obviously aren't.«

»Huh.«

Sal didn't care about the little taunt this time. She didn't even notice that he was still staring at her.

»And yes...«

He then pressed some buttons on his glove and the drone came flying, making her turn to the right.

»... that is inside of it.«

In a flash, the egg-shaped machine opened up in six places, revealing a total of sixteen rockets as well as the two guns on the sides.

»Of course this is just the weaponry.«

He sounded fairly proud of himself, even enjoying Sal's obvious amazement. Something about that thing fascinated her. Was it the fact that she simply had never seen anything like that before? That is was right there, a meter away from her face? Or that lethal perfection that seemed to be radiating from it? It had an aesthetic to it.

»... hm...«

Sal felt like being hypnotized by this red-glowing eye. Like remote-controlled, she leaned forward and slowly reached out to the hovering device. Robotnik's eyes followed her hand, looking almost spellbound, as Sal tentatively touched his drone. A weird silence was hanging in the air for a few seconds. Until the doctor coughed. Quickly he then made another input and the weapons disappeared inside the machine again. Sal jumped a bit from the sudden event, pulling her hand back, as the drone took off. Almost embarrassed, she rushed on to the water dispenser, while Robotnik went back to typing, as if nothing had happened. When she sat back at her desk, she felt as if she had touched a wild animal for the first time. Her heart was racing in a weird way as she squinted over to the doctor's place.

»...«

As she did, she noticed another thing. His glass was empty. Guess it really was acceptable, hm? Grinning just a notch, she went back to her work.

It was already dark outside, when Sal stepped out of the elevator and walked down the aisle on ground level once more. It had taken her the whole day to finish the doctor's report, but it was eventually done. She had even given the pages a discreet design that slightly reminded of his machinery's color scheme. It was printed and neatly put together. With a good feeling, she made her way through the building, ready to head home. When she passed the open door to her regular office, she peeked inside the empty room and jerked a halt. From her position she was able to see her desk.

»... really?!«

There was a massive amount of trash piled up on her table. Empty candy wrappers, juice packs, styrofoam containers and dirty cutlery. She clenched her fists for a second, but quickly decided to just wipe it off her memory for now. Let the kids play. Guess they weren't that busy after all, huh? Idiots.

The next morning, Sal was early as ever, strolling back into the still empty building. Somehow she had slept very well and felt ready to tackle whatever would come her way today. Before she headed for the elevator, she took a turn to make a stop at the kitchen. Five minutes later she came back out with one of her lattes ›acceptable style‹ in hand. Yeah, she wouldn't let anyone say she wasn't trying. It took her another three minutes until she finally approached laboratory 708 again. She slowed down her pace though, when she sensed something odd from around the corner. Was that music? As she moved on, she also saw red light beams flicker through the glass facades. It looked wild. The closer she came, the more she felt like attending a basement party. It wasn't until she had opened the door, that she could actually hear how loud it was. The strange light show made it hard to focus on anything in the room, but she definitely didn't see the doctor. Turning her head to the right, she found his chair empty. Somewhere from far though, she witnessed something between the funky beats. Sal slowly followed the dull, mechanical sound to the back of the lab until she stood in a short passage to a room she hadn't seen yet. The closer she got, the more she realized how large it was. Most notably however, it was high. Sal's jaw dropped as she saw, that the entire opposite wall was actually some kind of rack, that held dozens of drones. From the top, some kind of slide came down, stopping at one of the many rows and hooking on hearably. Then eight drones at once were moved out of their position and smoothly brought down to what looked like a control panel. Sal had no idea what was going on, but she watched in pure curiosity. What was going to happen next? Before she could find out, something flew into her vision from the left, ripping her from her hypnosis. The tails of Doctor Robotnik's black coat fluttered into view, as he had danced passed her in a dynamic motion. Completely in the zone, he almost glided through the room, turning and swinging left to right. Sal's mouth still was open, as she watched him hum to the melody while making entries on a few different tablets that were installed in the room. Holographic projections appeared out of nowhere, showing numerous bars, graphs and numbers. Robotnik danced along, his right hand swaying in time, apparently marking some information every now and then. Sal had watched the scene at least for a minute, when the doctor swung around, almost doing a pirouette and finally noticed her.

»HUAH!«

»KYAAH!«

He had screamed so suddenly, that she had flinched and answered the same way. Looking caught and appalled, he quickly used his glove to end the party.

»What the hell are you doing here already?!« He barked.

Sal's jaw finally closed again and she swallowed before forming an answer.

»Uhm... I always come in... this early.«

»Well, don't!«

She felt even smaller than usual, with the doctor glaring down at her. Then it dawned on her.

›Do not show up early on Wednesdays.‹

Whoops. Sal swore to herself to read in that notebook more. After a few very uncomfortable seconds, the doctor's angry eyes fell on the glass, she was holding. Then he looked back at her and his expression slightly softened. Raising one brow, he now mumbled almost bashfully.

»... is that for me?«

Irritated by this sudden contrast, Sal just nodded and passed the latte over. Robotnik took it, turned away from her and began sipping from it, while marching back to the holograms. Sorting her thoughts, Sal was thinking about going back to her desk to check her mails or something. But her curiosity held her back. Nervously fiddling with her fingers, she made a tiny step forward.

»Uh... Doctor...?«

Robotnik didn't bother to stop typing.

»... hm?«

»... what... is it... that you are doing there?«

Now he made a half-turn to look back at her. It seemed as if he hadn't expected her to care.

»Wednesday morning is maintenance time.«

He had noticed Sal's eyes wandering over the imposing rack system. Squinting her direction for a long moment, he then gave her a ›come here‹ gesture. The young woman blinked a little surprised, but then carefully stepped into the room. Getting closer to the projections, she began to understand that the shown data was directly referring to each drone that the slide had gotten down. While they all looked the same, the information onscreen revealed them to differ.

»Each of these machines is capable of accomplishing the work of several highly specialized human beings. They do the job faster, cleaner and far more efficiently.«

Sal's eyes followed his hand, that made a swiping motion all the way from the left to the right.

»All of that, without the tedious need for vacations, praise or gratitude.«

There was some kind of devotion in his voice right now, that she had not witnessed before.

»The only thing they need...«

She watched as he pointed to the third drone's statistics.

»... is a little check up, here and there.«

There was a slightly filled bar, that read ›Armor Damage - 21%‹.

And a little further down, a yellow attention-sign next to the line ›Sensor Unit B‹.

The doctor tipped on a symbol in the right bottom corner and the whole screen turned orange. As the rest seemed okay, he confirmed his input and the slide came again to lift the remaining seven drones back to their places. Sal looked up for a second, but then back down at the lonely drone number three.

»This one will get a new shell. Also needs a little fixing on the inside.«

That said, the patient was transported to the left by a conveyor, until it disappeared through a small tunnel. Visibly mesmerized once more, Sal just stood there like a child in a zoo.

»...«

»... wanna try?«

Sal's head turned to give the doctor a baffled look.

»...uh... m-me?«

His eyes moved left to right, pretending to look for something.

»Weird. I don't see anyone else here.«

Then his eyes locked onto her again, his head provokingly tilted. His expression said ›don't act like an idiot... idiot.‹. Before Sal could reply, he had pulled off his right glove and held it out to her. She stared at it in disbelief. Somehow this seemed to her like something, he wouldn't typically do. Not that she knew him very well, after one day. But his whole demeanor so far, his condescension and indifference, plus Stone's intimidated notes. They all painted a picture of him, that contrasted strongly with this very moment. Hesitant, she took the glove from him. As if she was awaiting some kind of trap, she kept her eyes on him, while slowly slipping her hand into the fabric. It felt surprisingly soft and comfy. With his remaining left one, Robotnik made the slide bring eight more machines in front of them. Like before, their reports popped up from left to right. Then he spread the fingers of his undressed, right hand, as if to say ›your move.‹. Sal looked down to inspect the slightly oversized, black glove for a second. Then she stepped forward, holding her hand in front of her, as if that limb didn't belong to her. Slowly walking passed the screens, she let her eyes fly over the tons of information. Nothing caught her attention, until she had reached the fifth badnik. There was another exclamation mark in a triangle, next to the line

›CPU Core Δ‹.

Sal turned her head to the doctor, who looked back without any expression. No hint. Was that supposed to be some kind of test? Was he waiting for a good reason to scold or make a fool out of her? She realized, that she had gotten so used to that kind of thing, that she was expecting it all the time, in every situation. Either way, all she could do now, was to repeat what she had seen him do. She had paid close attention, after all. Stretching out the index finger meaningfully, she aimed for the little space in the corner. Since no-one intervened, she touched it once to select... and twice to confirm. Like a taxi, the slide arrived to transport the rest of the drones away. Okay. Now what? Opening her hand, she eyed the glove again, trying to remember, what kind of move he had made at the end. Slowly and a little uncertainly, she brought her thumb and forefinger together. The very moment that they touched, the belt started moving with a buzzing sound and number five went on it's journey. Sal could feel her heart pump. Some sort of nervousness fell off her. Also that had felt strangely satisfying. With wide open eyes, she looked at Doctor Robotnik again, who's slightly slanting mustache gave away a faint smirk. As if he knew exactly how she felt right now. She couldn't keep it in.

»That was fun.«

Now he actually chuckled, before walking up to her, with an open hand.

»Well, well...«

As he stopped right in front of her, within a second his expression transitioned into plain seriousness.

»... fun is over. My glove.«

Visibly puzzled, she did as she was commanded and returned it back to him.

»... will you repair those damaged drones now?«

Sal didn't even know, why it all sparked her so much. That wasn't exactly her field of interest. Neither did she have any kind of knowledge or experiences in technology. Perhaps that was why? Or the fact, that down here she felt like being on another planet. Or a space ship. It was oddly exciting. Or was it even...?

»Not now. I have less pleasant business to deal with.« Robotnik answered tersely, while readjusting his glove. What did that mean? She died to know, but wouldn't dare to ask. In fact, she felt like she had already pushed the boundaries pretty far today.

»... and so do you.«

At that she raised her eyebrows.

»Take that report you printed and give it to General Barker in M405. He's one of those stuck-up, fossil geezers that don't read emails.«

As he swung around and marched away energetically, he muttered ›Rusty old dweeb.‹ to himself.

Ten minutes later, Sal got out of the elevator on the third floor. With the report under her arm, she walked the aisle, the soles of her shoes squeaking on the PVC flooring. She didn't know what to expect, so she felt a little nervous. Finally, reaching M405, she found the door open. Uncertain what that meant, she stepped into the door frame and carefully peaked inside. There she saw a gray-haired man sitting at a desk, writing.

»... General... Barker...?«

»Yes. What is it?« He didn't look up, nor did he stop his writing.

»... I am here to... bring you a report from Doctor Robotnik... sir.«

Now he raised his head, looking a little surprised.

»Oh? I was expecting Agent Stone.«

»Well, he's... on vacation.«

Sal made a few steps forward, until she was close enough to hand him the papers. The General looked at the report, but didn't take it. Instead he leaned back and smirked a bit.

»So you replace him for the time?«

»Yes, sir.«

»Wow. Didn't think they would find anyone else willing to deal with Robotnik.«

»...«

What was she supposed to say to that? She didn't exactly sign up for it.

»... he can be a handful, huh?«

»...uhm...«

Now he laughed dryly.

»Yeah, I bet you already know that that's an understatement.«

Did he expect her to bad-mouth with him?

»I'd love to be the one firing that insolent crackpot.«

Sal didn't know what it was that the doctor had said to him in the past, but somehow she imagined it must have been hilarious. How would an actual meeting of those two go? No wonder Robotnik always sends someone else.

»Unfortunately... his work is brilliant.«

That said, he finally took the report. Faintly nodding, Sal turned around to leave. As she made it out, the last thing she heard was General Barker calling someone.

»... Smith. It's me, Barker. The lab rat has sent me the newest plans. Yeah, that jerk, haha.«

Then she was out of earshot. A weird feeling crawled through her body, as she stood in the elevator again. Exhaling, she pressed the U3-Button and waited. Just a second before the doors completely closed, a hand reached in to keep them open. Quickly, three men then jumped into the cabin and Sal stopped breathing. One of them was Pence, again. Another, called ›Waters‹, also belonged in her team. She didn't know the third guy, but he seemed to be good friends with them. As soon as her colleagues noticed her, they started grinning.

»Heeey...! Our girl Sal!« Pence proclaimed, walking up to her.

Waters followed and Sal backed away a bit. The elevator was tiny, so that she could only make one step before reaching the back wall.

»I see you didn't quit yet?«

»...«

Pence now stood uncomfortably close to her. He stared her in the eyes with a manic expression. Sal could feel his breath on her face, unable to flee anywhere. How she hated him. How she hated all of them. Waters pushed a button and the doors eventually closed. Then he came to join his friend.

»How's it going down there with Dr. Frankenstein?« He whispered, before blowing air into Sal's ear, making her flinch. How she wanted to answer something tough, but her mouth refused to even open. Instead she just looked down, trying to survive this situation.

»You two are impossible.« The third guy said while laughing at the same time. Hypocrite, she thought. Pence turned his head a little. Then he lifted his hand to flip his finger against her forehead.

»Are you deaf?«

Trembling inside, Sal endured the ordeal, trying to remain steady. Why ain't I stronger than that? How though? How should she fight back? She couldn't even think of a way. After what felt like forever, the lift finally reached the men's floor. Pence slowly separated himself from her and walked away backwards.

»Until next time, noob.«

Waters slapped Sal roughly on the shoulder, before following him out. Even after all of them were gone and the elevator set itself in motion again, she didn't move out of her corner. She didn't look up. She hardly breathed. In her ears, the blood was circulating loud as a waterfall. All the way through the hallway of the basement, she heard nothing else. Nor did she see the scientists, that had finally shown up to work in their spaces. Her eyes were fixated on the floor while she walked back to the lab. Back to her desk. Like automatic, she opened her laptop and turned it on. She hadn't logged into the system yet. In perfect routine, she typed in her credentials and hit the enter-key. The very second she did, a whole pile of email-previews popped up on the right side of her screen. Furrowing her brows in wonder, she opened her inbox, only to find 156 identical mails. They all had been sent by, of course, Pence. ›I asked you a question. Deaf cow.‹ Sal started to hit the Delete-Button, more and more forcefully. Boiling inside, she trashed every mail separately, while the noise in her ears became even louder. A lump formed in her throat as she stared into the screen without blinking.

›I want another.‹

She slammed her keyboard in an unhealthy way.

›Hey.‹

It even hurt the bones in her fingers.

›Hello?‹

She didn't care.

›Hey!‹

She didn't care at all.

»Are you deaf?!«

»NO I AM NOT!«

She had swung around, shouting it out loud. Straight into Doctor Robotnik's face, who suddenly stood behind her. Eyes wide open, breathing way too quick, she now stared at him. He stared back, slightly startled. Sal swallowed, trying to catch herself. Trying to appear normal. But her eyes looked glassy and her lower lip was twitching nervously.

»S-sorry. What did you say?« she cleared her throat.

Robotnik's face changed in a way, that she could not interpret. He almost seemed to be scanning her. As if he smelled something.

»I said, I want another.«

At that, he put his empty glass on her table, waiting for a response. Sal looked at it quietly, but her stomach twisted unpleasantly, as she thought about going back up there. She blinked a few times before grabbing the glass.

»Okay.«

The doctor watched her get up and walk out of the lab again.

»...«