CYOA – Life And Death Situations – Chapter 10 (Patreon)

warnings: none

Rather than have Lúcio focus on the past and what happened between him and Gabriel, he focuses on the present and his new encounter...

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Lúcio’s heart is racing, the scream stuck in his throat. He presses his fist against his chest and closes his eyes, taking a deep, settling breath.

“Holy… shoot,” he whispers eventually, his spine slowly curling as he relaxes. He’d been so deep in thoughts that suddenly seeing Louis and Miller’s robot has freaked him out badly.

He hadn’t even known they had called it back in for maintenance.

He shakes his head, then his shoulders and limbs to get the shock out of his system.

“Good thing nobody’s seen me almost pee my pants over a robot boy,” he mutters as he rubs at the back of his neck, then inhales deeply one last time and calls out louder, just to make sure, “Hello? Miller?”

The lab remains deserted. They must be out somewhere for lunch.

He glances at the robot again. It is in the back of the room, hanging off of thick cables, feet dangling just-so off the floor. It’s all long, thin metallic limbs in hues of dark blue.

Itt feels lewd staring at it hanging there naked and vulnerable, so he glances away after a moment and towards the workstations of his colleagues.

He should just get what he’s come for and then move out. The whole feel of the place is unnerving and seriously mucking around with his vibe.

It’s dead silent in here, other than his own lab where music is constantly running. It reminds him of how interested Gabriel had been in the beginning whenever Lúcio has brought… any sound at all with him, really. The silence is enough to drive a man insane, he supposes.

Ah… Gabriel...

Their relationship had been a bit… strained as of late. Specifically, as of that particular night.

Lúcio might have been… avoiding him. There haven’t even been any movie nights, even though both of them had enjoyed them very much before the… accident. He’s a bit scared to try and pretend like everything is fine, if he is being honest.

Maybe Gabriel would not want to drag himself out of his tank now to sit next to Lúcio and watch with curious annoyance what kind of shit humans got up to.

Or maybe Lúcio would just sit stiffly next to him, hands in his lap, barely daring to breathe because suddenly it feels like all those months he’s spent trying to get to know Gabriel have never happened.

He doesn’t know which option scares him the most.

It is true that Gabriel had apologized in his own gruff way, and had not approached him again with… ah… intent, but...

Lúcio can’t help but be hung up on the whole experience. The more he thinks about it, the creepier it becomes – how easy it had been for Gabriel to curl into his every thought and twist them until Lúcio could have sworn – sworn! – that they had been his own in the first place.

He stands there, lips pressed into a thin line, thinking about how good it had felt to have Gabriel underneath him; and yet how unnerving it had been coming back up from the trance the hybrid’s voice had lulled him into.

The robot is still in his peripheral.

Lúcio is hovering by Miller’s desk, unmoving; wondering why he is so hung up on the robot. It takes him a bit to find the cause – the robot is headless. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t noticed that earlier.

Lúcio swivels slightly to look at it again, and it is true – the most disturbing part of the creation is missing: its weird as Hell octopus head.

He has no idea what Louis and Miller have done with it, but it’s good riddance as far as he is concerned. Something about the thing had just been… off right from its conception. It had looked like a bad puppet that had slowly started to rot away in the liquid it had been suspended in.

Lúcio shakes his head and drags a hand across his face. This is not important. It is not his project… yet, at least.

He turns back towards Miller’s desk, pushing papers and datapads aside to look for the disc that he needs back...

“Can I help you, Sir?”

Lúcio snatches his hands back from the table, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth as he does so. His pulse, which had been starting to slow down after his scare from earlier, has ratcheted up once more, pulsing rabbit fast at the base of his throat as he looks to his right where the voice has come from.

“I’m sorry,” the voice says… and nothing more. Goosebumps crawl up his spine and settle tickling and prickling at the base of his skull.

He slowly pushes a box to the side and flinches back when there is a decapitated head staring back at him. He makes a high, pathetic wheezing noise in lieu of a scream – there is no breath left in his lungs for more.

It’s two heartbeats before his brain finally kicks back in and tells him that the thing is not human and is, in fact, in all likelihood the missing head of the robot.

Just as its body, the head looks shockingly naked without the creepy fake octopus that Louis and Miller had used on it. It’s an improvement in Lúcio’s opinion. It looks docile like this... with two slitted optical sensors at a sweet, almost sleepy angle.

He finally, slowly inhales and reaches behind himself, pawing for a chair and letting himself plop into it when he finally finds one. His knees are like jelly. 

“Ah,” he says because there really isn’t much more to say, and no other words are flying around his head at that moment.

“Sir.”

The voice is surprisingly deep, and very gentle. It definitely comes from the robot’s head.

Lúcio blinks slowly, goosebumps rising all along his forearms.

He stares at the head, gathering his scattered wits, then says slowly: “You can talk now?”

“Yes. Although my AI is still learning.”

“Wow,” Lúcio exhales softly, a sense of wonderment and confusion settling deep in his belly. That, and acceptance. He wonders if Alice had felt that way after falling down the rabbit hole: just a sense of vague delight and bafflement where she should have been completely out of her mind with fear.

Shaking off his stupor, he leans further in, hands clasped between his knees, pulse calming down. He can deal with this, at least. Robots are a lot better than say… ghosts and stuff. “That’s awesome, man.”

He’s talking to a lone robot head and it feels just… exciting. The good kind of exciting. The kind he felt when first starting here after he had been approached by the organisation; a humble musician just out there trying to get by.

“So I have been told by Mr. Louis and Mr. Miller,” the head answers placidly. “They are very proud of me.”

There is a moment of silence in which Lúcio tries to figure out what seems so off (other than.. you know… the obvious), but the robot continues before he can put a finger on it: “I am sorry to have scared you so much. It was not my intent.”

Lúcio laughs very softly, shaking his head.

“Uh. Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I’m just pretty nervous these days, I guess…” This is all so surreal… but he’s loving it. He slowly reaches out for the head.

“May I?”

“Certainly.”

He very carefully grasps its cheeks – surprised at how warm the metal feels against his palms – and gently lifts it a bit closer so he can see it better in the light.

He leans left and right, watching it from every angle. The faceplate is as easy as they come; no particular expression or articulate features; just two slits for the optical sensors and a gold chin that looks like it can be opened up for ease of access to the insides.

Lúcio slowly leans back after having looked his fill.

“I hadn’t even known they had called you back in.”

The robot doesn’t answer to that. Lúcio feels like there is an almost… sullen edge to the silence. Again, there is just this little bit of loose thread that is niggling at the back of his mind.

“I am surprised they decided to make adjustments now after we have made contact…” he continues softly, thoughtfully, one hand at his chin, rubbing at his goatee as he thinks about it.

In his peripheral where the body has been hanging absolutely motionless, an arm twitches violently. Lúcio’s head jerks towards it, but as he watches, the body hangs limp once more. Not even a slight swing of momentum.

What the...

The robot speaks again, distracting him.

“Mr. Louis and Mr. Miller have realized that my old face has started to rapidly lose its allure, so they decided to risk losing the specimens in favor of fixing some aspects of it.”

Lúcio has no reason to doubt the robot. As far as he can tell, they have installed a rudimentary intelligence that is able to learn and accordingly react… he doesn’t think that it would have learned to lie already. Absolutely fascinating.

“So they’ll put another face on you?”

The head hums placidly. “I do believe… if you were to look behind me…”

Lúcio’s eyes flick obediently behind the head to even more boxes. It takes him a bit to catch the glint of glass behind one of them.

“Oh?” he murmurs, leaning up and over the head of the robot to push the box to the side. Behind it, the octopus head comes to light, swimming innocently in its fishbowl as if it hadn’t been the star of some of Lúcio’s nightmares the first few weeks after seeing it.

Though… he has to admit… this one is a vastly superior version. It looks a lot less like it is about to rot, and a lot more... lifelike. Its stubby, chubby arms are perpetually moving while its glass eyes stare at him.

“Damn!” he exclaims and stands to have a better look at the whole thing. The body moves like a gelatinous mass without the metal head to fill the mask. “That looks good! It’s way better than the last one…”

“Thank you,” the head answers softly. 

He looks his fill just a few moments longer before murmuring: “I didn’t know they’ve planned so many adjustments. I knew that Miller had been debating on whether there should be some, but...”

“Mr. Louis and Mr. Miller are still working on me,” the robot interrupts calmly, then adds: “But yes. Many adjustments indeed.”

There is a weird… lilt to the gentle cadence of the robotic voice; almost like… amusement or something. Lúcio huffs another soft laugh, staring at the unmoving metal face.

“So… uh… Your targets… the specimen… they can talk?” he asks softly. Wouldn’t hurt to try and get a bit of information out of this. He wonders if the targets that they have been observing all this time are the same that have made contact with Jesse. He is still trying to figure out the mystery of his wound.

The robot does not answer immediately. Lúcio almost feels like it is taken aback by his question.

“I don’t know,” it says eventually and falls quiet again.

Lúcio sighs. He would have loved to find out more about the hybrids that they have sighted. He’s only ever seen slightly grainy videos without any audio.

He thinks about Gabriel again briefly; how taciturn he had be in divulging even a little bit of information about any other hybrids living out there.

The thought of Gabriel waiting for him at home sobers him up immediately. He shakes his head and steps back, dragging his hands against his pants. He should just grab the disc and leave and not fuck around with Miller’s work – though he has to admit that he very much likes the adjustments he has put into motion.

“This is brilliant. I didn’t know about any of this,” he says while starting to root through the debris on the desk once more.

“Mr. Louis and Mr. Miller are very secretive,” the robot confirms, and Lúcio can’t help but feel like he sounds a bit… anxious or something. He shakes his head, frowning, pushing yet another piece of paper to the side.

He should stop putting so much of his own thoughts and feelings onto what amounts to be an object.

“May I ask what you are looking for?”

“Hmn… a data disc. It’s got ‘sample mix volume 3’ written on it.”

“Ah. I might have seen it in Mr. Louis’ desk. In the upper left drawer…”

Lúcio makes a soft sound of surprise and turns. He feels calmer now that all the scares are over and done with. The body dangling in the back of the lab doesn’t even ping as creepy anymore now that he’s gotten used to it.

He pulls the drawer the robot mentioned open, and pauses at the sight of all the little gadgets inside; a little tube that a thin, advanced looking net is hanging out of; a slew of little sharp blades. Vials of liquid that he doesn’t even want to touch.

Louis has always been the kind of crazy mofo that Lúcio never wants to deal with. There’s just something supremely unpleasant about him.

“Hmm… no… it doesn’t seem to be here,” he says out loud, carefully nudging just a few of the safer looking things to the side.

“Ah. I see…” the robot says after a drawn-out moment of silence. “Maybe it is- ah. I think I am seeing it. Right here on Mr. Miller’s desk. Beneath that pink slip of paper? Yes… Yes, there exactly.”

.o.

Just as Lúcio is about to go, the robot pipes up again. His voice sounds strangely faint.

“Sir. May I ask your name?”

Lúcio pauses, surprised at the question, but gives the answer willingly enough.

“Lúcio. And yours?” He asks back without really thinking about it. He drags a hand across his face.

“Nevermind. Sorry, It was just a refl-”

“Zenyatta.”

His brows shoot up. He had not thought that either Miller or Louis would be sentimental enough to name their creation anything other than a slew of numbers and abbreviations.

“Um… alright then. Have a good one!”

He waves jauntily with the disk he’s found, then slips out, thoughts already back with Gabriel. He should talk to him again. This… limbo they were currently in did not sit well with him.

He makes his way to his lab without any detours. He had been hungry as a bear before going there but now his mind is just... full. Too busy to think about stuffing his face.

He just sat down at his desk when his phone goes off, his face lighting up some when he sees that it’s Jesse.

“Hey there, Jesse! Everything alright?”

“Hey buddy… uh yeah. I just… wanted to talk to you.”

.o.

Back in the lab on the other side of the facility, Zenyatta sighs softly. He had hoped showing the kind young man that drawer would garner a bit more of a reaction.

“Oh dear… However will this all end.”