Phil.
Phil sat in the pristine chrome and semi-rubberized room, his fingers wrinkling the top of his foam cup while the miserable coffee within cooled, absent his interest.
He'd certainly had worse before—or, he thought he did. But lousy coffee was lousy coffee... And this particular brew managed to be a triple threat!
How, when in a world where machines cooked in place of humans, a simple pot of black could still somehow taste sour, ashy, and bland was indeed a contradiction of common sense that existed simply to spite those who enjoyed a good brew.
Admittedly, his mood was already lingering on the precipice of frustration, knee bobbing wildly while his boot tapped a staccato rhythm on the polished floor.
He was on edge, angry and confused, and maybe even just a bit ashamed.
He'd completely lost his marbles, his nerve deciding to piss off the near first moment when the going got tough.
Y-yes, it was technically his first day on the job after two whole weeks of intensive training, but Phil had honestly thought, after what he'd gone through, that all of this would be a cakewalk!
Instead, he'd come face to face with a body that had looked like it had been put through a blender. Only to then be told he didn't have the chops for the job.
His pride was wounded.
His expectations of his new career—skewed.
And worst of all was the look of exasperated pity he kept seeing in the older tech's eyes each and every time Phil found himself staring at the data pad, almost as if he were wishing something would magically appear and, all of a sudden, his worst fears would be ratified.
Sadly, at this point, he was going to have to admit that his paranoia might genuinely have been getting the best of him.
They'd been monitoring the android's systems for ten damned minutes, and not so much as a blip of abnormality had shown up in its log.
If he didn't know better, it was almost as if it were too perfect, too curated… But that couldn't be the case.
Oooof… and he'd been so sure the damned thing really was messing with them!
Oddly enough, after dropping out of college, his MIP career all but flushed down the drain with the decision, Phil had thought he'd won the lottery when his application to 'Paradise' had been accepted.
Decent money, fifty-percent co-pay health benefits, a free apartment, tiny and in the 'Meadows' as it was… Indeed, it had been a deal that seemed too good to be true. And now, Phil knew why.
He was getting compensated for hazardous work.
And while Frank had boldly proclaimed that there was no way one of their machines would go rogue and attack a Paradise technician, Phil also hadn't heard a single story about the machines attacking 'clients' either.
So, in his mind, it really wasn't a leap in logic to assume the company was doing the same thing to the public as it did to its own employees.
Mix that in with a warning that the job had a high turnover rate and that he'd all but signed his soul away under the mountainous contracts, NDAs, and waivers he'd been told were only 'proper procedure' and—
"shit…"
Needless to say, there was a sinking feeling in his guts that stood as the reason why Phil still held an intense distrust for the android upstairs.
Idly, he lifted his cup to his mouth, deciding that, while the coffee was awful, he still wanted his caffeine.
Yet, Frank's arm shot out and held his wrist, the other man's gaze locking on his own before nudging his chin at the cup.
"Fucking tore the rim right apart, son, there's more foam in your coffee than coffee!"
Phil glanced down, blinking at the floating mass of 'garbage' that was now collecting on the surface of his drink.
With a sigh, he put it back down on the table, grumbling to himself while slumping in his seat. "And, exactly how many of these sorts of calls did you say you got in a month?"
"Heh… eh, only two or three, lad. Honestly, most of the techs don't ever see this sort of thing, not unless we're short staffed. But those of us assigned to the 'Meadows' on a full schedule, like we are? Well, we see it fairly often."
"I feel like I've been lied to…"
"Nobody said nothing towards that accusation! Trust me, Paradise's hiring division is meticulous and good at what they do. Ha! I mean, surely you assumed there was a reason why such a massive company would hire on a flunky like yourself, no?"
"I just assumed three years in the program was enough for them to say, 'why not?' You know?"
"Well, it was, and it wasn't," Frank chuckled, merrily sipping with a loud slurp. "If you didn't have at least some background in the field, you wouldn't have gotten the shot you did. That said, not too many people who actually finish their degree would tolerate working out here, let alone what it uh, well, entails, if you know what I mean."
Phil glanced at the conversation distorter that Frank had deployed on the table. His gaze lingered on it for several moments before he tore it away.
Evidently, Paradise was so tight-lipped, even when it came to its own employees, that they were forced to deploy a 'conversation jammer' while agents were taking a break in public.
Insanely, the little drone had actually shot out of Frank's robotic arm the moment they'd sat down, though as to whether it was fully autonomous or simply something the other man consciously activated, Phil still wasn't sure.
Teams like their own always operated in pairs, with a senior agent acting as their leader and a junior meant to assist.
At some point, Phil would be considered experienced enough to lead his own little duo, at which point Frank had not so cheerily stated that he'd be saddled with yet another rookie.
The fact that so many techs who were assigned to the Meadows abruptly left Paradise's employ was something that the other man wasn't too keen on commenting over.
He'd said something along the lines of 'most people simply can't hack it'; however, Phil was starting to put together a much darker and alternate possibility for that discrepancy.
Why, when a job had so many benefits, would senior technicians leave?
It was a question that had seriously been gnawing on him all this time, doubly so after he'd witnessed what had transpired upstairs.
Well, maybe the reason stood as one with a more lighthearted cast?
Maybe people simply left for bigger and better things after getting some experience under their belts.
That said, Paradise offered better pay than sixty percent of competitors out there, so the math was already on the wrong end of things.
Worse was, of course, the darker option. One where the turnover rate wasn't at all related to people 'moving on' with their careers, but rather, 'passing on' to wherever it was people went when they were killed…
Again, Phil glanced at the data pad, mind just tuning out all the ambient noise around him. Hell, even Frank's voice distorted to a yawning garble as the young man felt his pulse skyrocket through the ceiling!
His lips twitched, eyes shooting wide, breath catching in his throat as, through the stream connected to the android's eyes, Phil watched as a gore-caked arm lifted itself, palm flat and out, pointing at the locked apartment door, but heartbeats before it slid open!
"F-Frank—"
"Get down!"
All at once, Phil's world was consumed by the rapidly approaching floor!
His eyes bugged out while his partner's hand pushed him down, even as the younger man felt something wet and weighty pass over the top of his head, heavily thumping against the nearby wall at speeds that beggared belief.
His ears were screaming as Phil, moving on instinct, scrambled behind the overturned table that Frank was already flipping, exclamations of pain and numbing confusion all coming together to scramble his fritzing thoughts!
Frank risked a chance glance over their impromptu barrier as, from the left, Phil watched a woman abruptly get smacked by a large heap of mashed vegetables that snapped her neck sideways with a sickening crack!
The woman fell in a twitching and convulsing heap, eyes wide with terror as drool spilled from her gurgling lips, body convulsing in the telltale signs of spinal injury.
Phil's breath was coming faster and faster now, the whistling hiss of projectiles constantly flying through the air and subsequent snap of food as it splattered against walls, people, and furniture, making it sound like the stuff was being shot rapid fire out of a damned cannon!
Swallowing, Phil chanced a glance as well, peeking around the side of the table, only for his head to retreat, but a moment before, a massive wad of goop tried its best to brain him!
"What the fuck is happening?"
"Malfunction!" Frank laughed, dropping back down to his ass and picking up the relatively durable data pad that had conveniently fallen nearby.
Though not right beside them, Frank's mechanical arm reached out, distending and extending in strange unlocking patterns as the limb practically stretched itself, just long enough for the man to flick the tablet their way!
A massive heap of chunky gravy nearly sent the man spiraling as it took him in the arm! Frank cried out in a moment of surprise as he was nearly dragged out into the open by the force of the blow, but Phil had him, taking hold of his jacket and keeping him behind cover.
"Appreciate it!" Frank grinned, an almost maddened gleam filling his gaze, winking at his junior partner as though this insanity were another damned morning for him! "Don't worry, I'll hack the fucker right, good and square. Might get a little slap on the wrist, but it's better than a broken neck, right?"
"Frank, the fucking Android was moving on the screen!" He shouted, uncaring for those who heard him. Even with the shitstorm that had abruptly manifested at the worst possible timing, Phil felt like he needed to alert the other man to what he'd seen.
For his part, Frank just looked at him with a raised and very bushy eyebrow, all his mirth and chaotic amusement for the situation faltering as he glanced down at the tablet, then back up at Phil, then back at the tablet.
The stream was still playing, and just as it had for the last quarter hour, the image thereupon the pad was of a familiar sight...
The apartment remained just as they'd left it.
The android's line of sight persisted precisely as it had each and every time he'd stared at it, save for one lone instance.
With an intensely weary and saddened look, Frank simply shook his head at him, letting out an exasperated sigh as he flicked over from the video and opened up the tablet's nearby available connections.
Then, as he used Paradise's hardware to brute force the maddened kitchen-bot, punching through its security with the weight of distant banks of super-processors, the younger man could only feel his heart sink to his guts…
"Frank…" Phil whisper-shouted, hands beginning to tremble. "I know what you're thinking, but you need to trust me! Just—look at the recording log when this is over! Please! I swear to Trinity, if I'm wrong, I'll march right back to HQ and tell them I'm done!"
For a moment, the older tech seemed to hesitate, glancing back up from the rapidly filling progress bar before offering Phil a stern frown.
Still, he allowed the younger man a single nod, his patience clearly thinning as the pad beeped, and he began tapping away.
Phil simply sat there while his partner worked, mind a hurricane of anxiety, thoughts invariably returning back to that brief moment when he'd seen the android upstairs—leave the apartment…