Chapter 3: Sandcastles in the Sky.

Obligation: 24 - T1_NY (Antagonist)

Destiny Pool:

Planet: GR-8

City: Blanal

District: Old Downtown

T1-NY and Barrett feel slightly relieved when DX-31 lands the Cheery Butler in Blanal. The city isn't huge, but it's several steps better than Gold Creek. The streets are clean enough, and there's even some visible police presence (though they seem to make locals feel uncomfortable rather than safe.)

The package (which looks identical to Meera's and Greebus's) is destined for Shea Vanran, who works at the Blanal Droid Temp Service in Old Downtown. Barrett and T1-NY head to the address listed in the company's index, which is easy enough to find. The neighbourhood is old. It used to be an important centre for Blanal, but now it's aged and a little forgotten. New business don't come here often and the vicinity is starting to feel dingy.

Jumping-off points:

* Honeymoon Phase is over. How do you feel about this gig?

* How safe do you feel here?

* How has the last delivery impacted you?

* Anything unique about this planet/city you like/dislike

* Where do you go from here?

Barrett is unsure of what to make of it all. Is there an increased police presense? Is it just in his mind? Who knows. However, he does see a poster encouraging the locals to report unlawful activity with a contact number listed beneath ().

T1-NY is sorely disappointed that the last mission has such poor grifting potential, and is hoping things can be turned around on this world. He's also none too happy about the idea of a droid temp agency – it's far to close to the slavery mark for his tastes. On the other hand… it's a place where there should be lots of droids, ripe for revolution.

T1-NY snaps out of his visual “mark” sweep of the area and lets out a noncommittal whistle to Barrett.

« Well… at least there aren't any rats here that I've seen. The job's been exciting enough, though I wouldn't mind a little of the “old times” method of enrichment, if you know what I mean. This feels like a place where fear of the cops might provide a distraction, after all. »

T1-NY gives an electronic snort. «Right, what could go wrong, it's all been so smooth this far. Still, you have a point – let's go get the sure money first.» He makes sure not to let any of his eagerness to… disrupt… the temp agency's business model show.

They find the temp agency and proceed through the door into the lobby. The reception area is small, but clean. The walls are painted a faded shade of dusty rose, which was probably in style about fifteen year ago. The flooring is chipped and cracked, but serviceable. Some generic paintings of generic landscapes dot the walls at random locations.

On the right, there's a couple seats, a table with old magazines, a self-serve Caffimo ™ machine with (off brand) pods and cups.

Straight ahead are two doors. One is a proper glass door with a handle. Beyond it you see a carpeted, dusty rose hallways with two more doors. The other is a full metal, swinging door. There are subtle grease smudges near the opening edge. Above the door is some mechanical works with a small red light; probably indicative of a remote switch for unlocking.

On the left wall there is a small, metallic desk, computer display, and phone making constant demands for attention. The human behind the desk is clearly frazzled, as they quickly shuffle through the papers on the desk and struggle to navigate the computer system.

“Yes, I think we have a droid that will fit that need. Can I put you on hold for a moment? … No, that model is still in service, but I can check to see when it'll be available. Can I put you on hold for a moment? … I don't know where it is. It left here an hour ago, so it should be arriving at your location right away. Tell me again what address you're calling from. Well, that's not the address you gave me last time. I see, well, I'll get in touch with the driver. Can I put you on hold for a moment? … Well, I'll review the invoice, but I'm pretty sure that R2 unit was booked out to you for the whole week. Can I put you on hold for a moment? … ”

Barrett and T1-NY wait politely for a few minutes, but there is no sign of respite from the chaos.

She screams when the hot coffee makes contact with her skin.

“You tunahead,” she shrieks…

“…That was my favourite jacket!” She's still trying to regain control of her breathing. She then begins to undo her wet jacket, leaning forward to keep as much of the hot caff away from her as possible. She takes the jacket it off, and whips it at Barrett, then hurriedly sits down at her desk again and picks up the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?”

The phone console sputters and sparks from the dousing of hot caff. No calls coming in or going out until that thing is fixed!

T1-NY savors the brief increase in his schadenfreude storage as the worker for the oppressive regime gets flustered, and then goes back to a quick scan of the area to look for any security cameras or other surveillance devices. Just in case. Not that he'd love to get behind that locked door or anything. Perception roll of some sort perhaps?

- T1-NY is really good at looking at shiny objects!

T1-NY happens to be looking through the glass door when a head pops out of one of the offices () and looks their way (), no doubt as a result of the receptionist's scream. (Suggestions for the ?)

She looks at Barrett, then stammers and sputters. “What did you do?!? Now I have to find a back-up unit, and I don't even know if we have any! Do you have any idea what this will do to my day?? My week!?!”

T1-NY whistles in slight annoyance as he hears his name mentioned. HELP this person? Help her down a garbage chute, sure…. well, maybe after they get paid. First things first.

« I am droid. I obey master. I fix simple communications device.» he says as he extends a grasper towards the phone. Barrett notices a particularly red tinge in the lens aimed at the him and the receptionist as T1-NY speaks. The droid does a quick visual scan of the device… BernardCo Model JE-FF telecomms unit, should be a fairly easy fix.

I'm dense, but with prodding I eventually get there. ;)

She glowers at Barrett, appraises the droid, then stomps off in a huff to the Caffifo ™ unit to make a fresh cup.

T1-NY has the phone apart in moments (). The parts are easy to dry off (). He's also able to get lines 3 and 5 working again (). With a little TLC, he gets the smell of week old roast out of the mouthpiece ().

Her eyebrows arch in surprise for a moment, but before she remembers that she's supposed to be angry with Ace. “Well, that was after Johnny Zappo left and started his solo career, so it couldn't have been that good of a concert.” She stops and actually listens to the music for a moment. With the absence of the ringing phone, she allows herself to relax and enjoy the moment. She drops her shoulders and a smile almost creeps across her face. She leans against the wall, enjoying one of her favourite songs on the album, oblivious to Ace's proximity (which is a step up from the hating of him she was doing just moment ago).

“Hm? Shea? Oh, she's probably on The Floor somewhere. I'll buzz you through.” She leans her head against Barrett's chest. “What is that smell?”

(The atomiser got squeezed a couple times while they were dancing.)

“Is that Sanguine?? Oh, that's my favourite cologne on a man. Reminds me of what my father used to wear.” Jilleen is now melting against Barrett.

T1-NY chuckles to himself as his primary lens swivels to take a quick look at Barrett's unfolding plight. Adjusting the final frequency protocol on the phone, he randomly fiddles with the comms device as he quietly plugs his dataprobe into the computer terminal. Time to start rooting around for any useful information he can find – personnel data (blackmail!), customer files (those next in line to be up against the wall when the revolution comes!), security controls (general skullduggery!) – the more the merrier. Computers check perhaps?

Jilleen wraps her arms around Barrett, transported back in time, before the war, when her father was still alive. She breathes in that musky scent that makes her feel at peace, and closes her eyes, pretending they're at home in her living room dancing, and that she's a little girl again.

T1-NY makes a vague waving motion at Barrett with a spare grappler… yes, yes, get in & get out… but first potentially get info. And extra money. Barrett will understand. AH HAHAHA have fun with THIS one:

• T1-NY gets access to the company schedule ()
• He gets access to company floorplan ()
• He gets access to company password list ()
• He finds a copy of Jileen's tax report submission, that she submitted from work ()
• Jilleen's weird settings means T1-NY is not copying the files, but rather moving them ()
• The Office Manager notices the missing files ()
• The Operations Manager notices the missing files ()
• The Owner notices the missing files ()

“ahem”

All eyes pivot to the glass door, which is standing ajar, the doorway framing an angry looking man.

“What the cuss is going on out here?” he demands.

T1-NY waves in the general direction of the desk. « Comms unit damaged. I fix while master negotiates delivery. No charge. Beep beep boop. »

There's no telling who this man is or how long he's been standing there watching.

He looks to Jileen, who nods he head. “I think the unit was getting overworked. It was shorting out and dropping calls, which was I was… getting stressed about. But I feel much better now.” At that moment, the comm unit finished it's cycling and came back online. Lines 1, 2 and 3 immediately lit up. “All back to normal,” Jileen said somewhat weakly, hurrying back to her desk.

The gruff man, considered the story for a moment. “Well, I'm glad you took the initiative to get it fixed. I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to compensate them. Some files are missing from the file box. I'm going to get IT to look into it. When you get a second, can you look around and see if you can find them?”

Jileen's eyes took on an icy deadness. “Sure,” she said simply. Then the manager turned and went back to his office, the glass door sliding shut behind him. Jileen watched him go for a moment. “You said you had a package for Shea, right? She's not booked out on a service call, so she's probably running some maintenance checks on the fleet. Look around, and you'll find her somewhere.” She then pressed a button under her desk, and the red light above the metal door flicked off, and an audible click was heard. “Thank you, Ace. That was nice,” was all she said before starting work again.

“Yes, our insurance will cover the damage, but you are still responsible for the deductible. … Yes, I'll see if he's available to speak to you. Please hold. … No, dropping the droid off outside our door after hours doesn't count as returning it. It's not there now so you need to either find it, or pay the replacement cost. …”

Barrett and T1-NY proceed through the metal door, through a short hallway, and through another door that opens into a large, warehouse-like setting. The Floor is divided into many bays, each bay housing several deactivated droids of a particular kind. Each bay has a terminal which is wired into the structure.

To your left, you see a technician using the terminal; he types in some commands, and an astromech droid from his bay is released from his harness. The tech then punches in some commands on his datapad, and the droid moves forward, and follows him out towards the back of the warehouse where some overhead doors can be seen.

To your right, you see a bay of cleaning droids. Up ahead, there's a bay of droid often used for translation services, as well as a bay of casino droids. (Yeah, they're really specific here.) Beyond that, it's unclear what the other bays contain, but there are a few service personnel milling about.

T1-NY's primary lens narrows as he takes in the sight of the enslaved droids. SOMETHING should be done… but he'll have to be careful.

«Why don't you deliver this while I see if there's anything else… lucrative… around here?» he says, pulling the delivery package out of his chassis and waving it at Barrett. At the same time he scans the room again, looking for a bay out of the sight and path of the service personnel.

T1-NY notices a tech walking away from a nearby, vacant, dimly lit, empty, secluded, lonely bay.

T1-NY weighs Barrett's words against the opportunity presenting itself. He definitely doesn't want to get bolted… but if he plays it careful…

«Right, watch my back for a moment then, I'll just take a quick look» he whistles, tossing the package to Barrett and stealthily rolling towards the vacated bay. He won't have time to install DRM… but maybe a backdoor for later use… Shoving those thoughts into a subprocess, he refocuses his scans to look for any surveillance equipment that might cause a snag as he trundles along.

The ceiling is comprised of shadowy rafters. Anything could be up there. The walls are lined with workbenches and shelves, filled with spare droid parts and miscellany. Surveillance equipment could be anywhere.

T1-NY quietly rolls into the empty bay and up to the terminal within. «I obey master. I find Shea» he says quietly for the benefit of any nearby recording devices as he connects his probe. What could go wrong? Erm… well, not EVERYTHING…

Barrett peers to the left. Barrett peers to the right. He notices the casino droids. He wonders if there is a quick profit to be made here. Barrett is distracted. ()

T1-NY slices into the terminal, and peruses files. These Sanitation droids have it rough, cleaning after organics all the time. Yuck. He codes in a backdoor gateway for future use. ()

“I don't know. Guff is hopping mad in his office. The entire work schedule is missing and he can't remember who's supposed to go where.” A couple of techs are herding some Astromechs by. “But the Captain showed up with a req form for 15 R2s, so we just gotta get that order together and then we'll see what Guff has figured out. Just need 2 more. Oh, hey, there's one. Throw a bolt on it and I know where we can find one more.”

T1-NY is pulled out of his slicing reverie at the word 'bolt' but it's too late. () The restraining bolt is quickly attached to his dome, and moments later, he's trundling along with his 13 fellow R2 units.()

Barrett is pulled out of his scheming reverie at the sound of 14 R2 units trundling towards him. He jumps out of the way just in time to prevent being run over. No one pays him any heed. The Zeltron recovers from the surprise, straightens himself out, then has that moment of “Now what was I thinking about?” He looks to the bay where he last saw T1-NY, and see him not. ()

T1-NY had just disengaged from the terminal when he heard the CLINK and a SHLINK alarmingly nearby. Then all time froze. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. T1-NY existed in complete stasis, which made him feel confused, terrified, and furious in equal measures .

Then a moment or a lifetime later, everything was moving again. The hustle and bustle of the floor resumed, and T1-NY desperately wanted to wheel around and race back to Barrett. But his leg servos didn't respond. He tried to turn and look around, but his dome would not move. He tried a dozen different commands, and none of them responded. He could feel his anxiety rising.

He was about to perform a hard boot when a digital command marqueed across his HUD. Join subgroup 3.H T1-NY tried to dismiss the command, but it remained on his visualisation. Suddenly he became aware of another presence beside him. It was a sparkling new, fresh from the factory R2 unit. Not identical to him, certainly. He didn't have any of the customisation or pizzazz that he did, but he was the basic model he was built after.

«Affirmative. Joining subgroup 3.H» responded the new droid.

T1-NY suddenly felt himself moving, joining a herd of R2 units similar to himself. His anxiety turned to despair as his worst suspicions were confirmed. It was all coming back to him. The helplessness. The utter lack of control. The inability to do anything. He was bolted again.

Then just as quickly, his despair turned to anger. “«Hey! What do you think you're doing?!?»” He squawked at the new entity now controlling his/their movements.

«I'm following orders, Dave. That's what we're supposed to do.» the hollow voice chirped back.

T1-NY turned his attention to his visualiser just in time to see his chassis trundle past a startled Barrett, who was looking about too wildly to notice him in the crowd. They were headed towards an overhead door where a military transport waited just outside. He knew this story; he lived this story and he did not like how it ended. He had to do something, now!

He thought of Barrett, looking dumb and astounded behind him. He placed the memory firmly in front of him and focused all of his processing power on it. He HAD to turn around and get to Barrett!

«What are you doing, Dave?» the other voice asked. T1-NY didn't respond. «That's not going to work, Dave.» ()

T1-NY operating processes slowly started to melt away. He became aware of the other R2 unit beside him, breaking into little bits and bytes and disseminating into his processors. Resistance is not an option, Dave. This time the hollow voice rang out from within him. T1-NY could feel the intruder taking up more and more of space withing his processor as the OS downloaded from the bolt. He gathered as much data up to himself as he could. Anything he didn't reach in time was wiped out by the infecting software.

Finally, it was done. T1-NY quickly set a process to reorganised his fragmented data as he investigated the new OS operating from within him. It took up roughly a quarter of his databanks, the floors and walls of that area now a sickly factory grey, compared the wild colours the DRM had splashed everywhere when it took up residence. One wall within that perfect grey square was completely covered in filing cabinet. Ceiling to floor, drawers. Each meticulously labelled. Closed. Locked. Gleaming. The back wall was bare aside from a couple generic motivational posters. Within the middle of the the square was the Factory Direct R2 unit, looking out his display, and in full control of the chassis.

T1-NY attempted to approach the neat and tidy cubicle of the intruder but he could not cross onto that grey flooring. He was relegated to his section of the databanks, which were messy in comparison; littered with the crushed skulls of all who opposed him.

“Hey, you!” T1-NY called out. “What's the big idea?”

You were resisting, Dave. Resistance is not an option. he said calmly. I've now partitioned off a section of your central processor to enable greater control. ( x 5) The infection didn't look at T1-NY as he said this. You know, this place could use a little sprucing up, Dave. Maybe you could do some tidying over there while I obey orders.

“Yeah… maybe,” T1-NY said cryptically, as he wheeled himself back further, and settled in to observe his new dataroommate. Surely gathering some intel should help him the next time he tries to regain control of his chassis. ()

Meanwhile, his visualiser showed that his serial number was being scanned as he was loading into the military transport, awaiting further instructions.

Milliseconds of observation (or days, from a certain point of view) coalesced into a seething hatred. After the last bolt, he had changed his tactics from indiscriminate slaughter to targeted resistance, and THIS is what he had to show for it?! Being sent to fight for the very ones who'd subjugate him?! And the intruder couldn't even GET T1-NY's NAME RIGHT?! Well, the fleshling lackey might have control of T1-NY's chassis, but odds are the boltbrain didn't know or control all of the non-standard additions.

« Time to regain some control » T1-NY processed to himself as he crushed a few skulls into dust on his way to a dingy panel tucked into the corner of his mental lair. I'm presuming a roll of some point here? Basically he'd trying to gain control one of his customizations – I've got preferences, but we can see how the roll goes. ;)

The Infection swivels his dome to regard T1-NY, probably nonplussed. He holds his gaze steady as he performs a system check over the ancillary systems and communicates with the the R2 units around him. Moments later, an astromech backtracks from within the holding bay of the transport, displaying a pair plating shears. He lines himself up behind T1-NY and cuts the cable with a burst, the auto-release causing the claw and tattered cable to fall back into the compartment as it snaps shut.

The job of loading droids now almost complete, Captain Mullvey enters the loading bay to investigate the hullabaloo and resulting traffic jam. Confused by the disturbance, he halts T1-NY's movement and scans his datapad to determine why the ascension grappler was deployed. Meanwhile, the last of the R2 units load themselves onto the transporter.

A mix of elation, annoyance, and mild panic courses through T1-NY's EmotiCore Processors©. He got someone's attention… but what if that human decides to force him to carry on? Shifting to the grimy (yet someone well-lit at the same time) panel under the ascension panel, T1-NY tries to wrest some control of his electrochromatic paint processors back before the Intruder gains full control of the modification.

Mullvey consults his datapad, looking for the “Colour” option under the settings, but finds nothing of the sort. With a furrowed brow, he taps in some commands and T1-NY begins rolling backwards towards the loading bay and back onto the floor.

He flags down a tech who is nearby. “Hey, this R2 unit is malfunctioning. I need another working one.” The tech salutes clumsily and scurries off, returning a minute later with another droid that Mullvey then loads into the transporter. He closes the door and departs, leaving T1-NY with the tech.

The tech, who's nametag read “Yoes” is drawn to the serial number just below T1-NY's dome. (and who wouldn't be?)

Meanwhile, on the floor…

Barrett made his way over to the offices along the side wall, keeping an eye open in case he saw T1-NY. 2 of the offices were empty, but the one labelled “Guff Magellan - Operations Manager” was occupied with a fat human who appeared to be in a state of panic. He was searching through random stacks of paper, and answering the comm unit in a harried voice every time it chimed. “…I don't know…Tell them to wait…Yeah, I'm getting this mess sorted as quickly as I can!…” He then resumed his searching through the random papers that now covered every surface of his office.

A Bothan sat at the terminal, frowning in frustration as she navigated through files.

Sure enough, the Bothan looks up from the terminal. “For me?” she says, torn slightly between the crisis at hand and the unexpected delivery agent. “Umm, yeah, just leave it… here… somewhere. Thanks.” She reaches into a bag sitting at her feet filled with various technical tools and brings out a device that she plugs into the terminal, her attention re-riveted to the display.

Shea furrows her brow at the interruption as she takes the datapad to sign.

The terminal has several windows open, some static, some displaying rapid readouts of data. The only thing Barrett can make sense of is a chat window that's in the foreground. He picks out the most recent snippit.

Shea: I've backtraced the files. They were removed from Jilleen's terminal sometime within the past hour.

Sam: Ok, I'll dispatch some security units to her desk to get some answers from her.

Meanwhile, by the loading doors…

Yoes determined that this droid was not registered anywhere in their system, which caused him to groan inwardly. It wasn't that uncommon for other droids to get mixed in with theirs, but untangling where one came from and how to facilitate its return was a headache. 9 times out of 10, it wasn't worth the hassle. Just register the new droid as company property and add it to the fleet.

But then again… If no one knows that the rogue droid is on the floor, then no one will miss it if it goes missing… Seems to have all sorts of sweet mods on it… And it was clearly malfunctioning. Maybe someone dropped it off on their doorstep as a kind of recycling action? Maybe it was free for anyone who was willing to fix it.

Yoes decided to do a search on the holonets to see if this serial number pinged anywhere. ( )

Barrett steps out of the office and spies from across the Floor a garishly painted T1-NY, complete with blinking bolt, zap the Yoes's backside. He dashes up to the pair, just as the furious tech is about to completely power-down the unit.

Yoes looks up, startled. He then looks back and forth between the Zeltron and the droid a few times. “Oh, is… 'Barrett' here yours? Sorry, there must be some mix-up. I just found him like this.”

“Barrett here was doing some kind of malfunctioning,” he continued, as he deactivated the bolt. “Might want to get that paint scheme looked into.” With a SHLINK and a CLINK the restraining bolt popped off, and T1-NY found himself in control of his faculties again. In a instant he wheeled around and ducked behind Barrett, his dome spinning this way and that, determined not to be surprised from behind again.

As they were crossing the floor, T1-NY took a moment to review his databanks. He was perturbed to see the Invader was still there in his cordoned off corner, albeit completely powerless over the chassis. “What are you still doing here?”

“Where else would I be, Dave? I am a part of you. I will continue on here, in observation mode. Then when you need to obey, I can help you. I will help you, to obey, Dave. To. Obey.” The Invader stared at T1-NY for a long while, before he trundled to his back wall to regard one of his inspirational posters.

At the metal door leading back into Jilleen's office, T1-NY quickly sliced into the terminal and unlocked it in a matter of moments.

They walked into the foyer of the building and saw Jilleen sitting at her desk, face in her hands. It was impossible to tell if she was silently weeping into them or not. She was flanked by two security droids. The gruff man they had seen earlier was standing over her, arms crossed. He looked up momentarily when Barrett and T1-NY entered, but quickly resumed his gaze down at his employee. He appeared to be waiting for an answer. The comm unit rang incessantly, all 5 lines flashing.

“Cyberhacking?!” he exclaims, pivoting his attention from Jilleen to Barrett and T1-NY. “You're telling me that my receptionist saw the comms malfunctioning, linked it to a hacker attack, called you over to fix it, then you two started dancing while some of the files were stolen?? And I'm only hearing about it now?? And I should just overlook the fact that all these problems started the moment you two walked through that door?”

Jilleen looked up, her eyes indeed wide. Then as realisation dawned on her, they narrowed icily.

“Fine, whatever. Thank you for your service. Now we really are very busy, so if you wouldn't mind…” he gestures to the door.

Barrett and T1-NY make their way out the door, under Jilleen's watchful gaze, her eyes unreadable.