sxllbotvp – Page 2 – Siblings-a-Fixin'

“Alright then…?”

He set the Repairman back onto his desk, this time quite far from any edge. He had treads, yes, but he did have some hydraulics holding him up. So he emptied them back into their containers inside his undercarriage, his gear-like ‘belt’ making contact with the top and a small “poomf” sound effect had been played. Well, probably.

“So what’s the scoop?”

The inkblot was sweating somewhat. Well, no turning back now.

“You know how you said it was like a game…?” he began, quavering. This was killing him to say.

“Well, you’re…not wrong.”

Another crack in the Wall appeared in the office, and the Repairman winced.

The cog seemed unfazed when the creature gently splatted against his hand and reshaped immediately: he’d run over other toons before. Hey! He can’t see everything in front of him! Don’t just STAND IN FRONT OF A MOVING PIECE OF MACHINERY, THAT’S DANGEROUS.

“Started noticing? Hah, I don’t actually remember! Probably because it was so long ago. Either way, I’m pretty used to it, as unsettling and creepy as it is. I guess it’s no different than that one really quiet part of night.”

Okay, maybe it would help this character if he knew. The Repairman took a deep breath; he’d be lying if he said he was looking forward to doing this.

“Um,” the Repairman began, tentatively, “I…might know why that seems to happen…”

The Repairman gulped, looking around.

“…You may want to…” he continued, before seeing the VP’s lower half, “sit down?”

Apparently, the Vice President had treads. The Repairman hoped the phrase still had meaning.

“If there was some way I could get a break from this I certainly would, pcht. Sometimes there’s times when there are no toons around at all, anywhere, but not a cog is doing anything either, we all just…. idle? Then when toons seem to come right back they go right back to do whatever they were doing, maybe something new happening or something. It’s almost reminiscent of what being updated feels like except it’s the entire world around me.”

He watched the blobbish creature fall off the side of his desk and immediately put out a hand to catch him. Certainly he wouldn’t wish his own experiences on others.

“Oof!”

The Repairman landed on the VP’s hand. He seemed to splat for a brief moment, then he bounced back up into his normal form.

“Heh, thanks,” he said, rubbing a hand behind his head. Thankfully, the robot’s hand, despite being a little cold, was big enough to hold him.

He would never admit it, but the Repairman knew perfectly well how bad he was at keeping the Fourth Wall secret. Especially when the people he talked to seemed to be getting increasingly aware of the worlds around them.

Maybe if the Repairman tried to break it gently…

“Huh…” the Repairman replied, innocently, “When’d you start noticing that?”

“Oh, it’s because I’m the Sellbot Boss, and also because as a result of taking over toon buildings we kind of? Put the shopowners in a cage? And keep it in my tower office? And have it there even during Promotion? I don’t know, that’s just weird and I didn’t really even suggest it but I guess that’s what happens. Then I have all the fun damages to be repaired and placed back up there, hoo hoo. Been this way for twelve whole years as of December 19th, 2003!”

He let out a sigh, his head spinning to its frowning face, although his expression changed from one of anger to one of glumness.

The Repairman merely listened, his eyes widening in unpleasant surprise. This boss didn’t just rematerialize back on top of the Tower? Kidnapping was a regular thing? For twelve years?

The Repairman was at a loss. It didn’t seem best to tell the VP that his subordinates come back, given the giant cog’s own experiences. It would be worse still to tell him it was part of a video game. And he couldn’t really say anything about the endless war; he hadn’t seen it.

All he could think of to say was, as calmly as he could, “It’s not your fault.”

With that, he extended an arm out towards the Vice President, in what he hoped was a kind enough manner.

And then lost his balance and fell off the desk with a “WAUGH!”

“Well. Um. Years ago, our leader, the Chairman, triggered an invasion of Toontown with us Cogs and had our headquarters built on the edges of town, and so far nobody’s bothered to really make peace between the two sides. There’s just too much prejudice on both sides. Cogs rarely’ve ever ‘killed’ a toon: we can really only sadden them, and I’ll admit to my fair share of greening. But cogs? Just one toon can take out probably 80 of us at once, maybe even more. We don’t get backups very often: in fact, us bosses are the only ones since we’re the master software…”

He sighed, folding his hands.

“I was created post-invasion, I don’t know what Toontown was like before we existed. All I know about most toons are that they’re here to toss pies at me and knock me straight off the Towers.”

“Geez…” the Repairman replied, shocked. He had never sat down to talk to an MMO character, so he had never known their lot in life.

The Repairman put his clipboard away, considering his options. The VP certainly wasn’t wrong about the MMO aspect of his world. From what the Repairman could gather, he was talking to an “enemy”. As this was a game, all these enemies eventually respawned, most likely. But would the VP believe him? If the VP believed him, what would happen? Would it make his job worse?

He swallowed. This was not going to be easy.

The Repairman believed he knew the answer, but he asked, “Why would they knock you off the Towers?”

“…Whatever business there is to do:
building more of ourselves, invading places, attending court cases,
handling money: you name it, we business it. Okay, that sounded kind of
dumb, nevermind. Our headquarters are scattered around the borders of
Toontown. Pccht, Toons, coming in here and killing us en masse like some
kinda Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.”

Cue a wallbreak.

Business stuff was all the Repairman noted, as he was too busy mouthlessly gaping at everything else the VP was saying. Toontown? Toons? Killing en masse? MMORPG?

He winced at that last one. At least his siren light was already up; he’d hate for it to be a huge surprise now. Besides, now he knew that this was a “Toons vs. Cogs” world, not a “business robot” world.

The Repairman began to squirm. He had to keep choosing his words carefully. He was a Toon himself, and he didn’t think this cog would take too kindly to the idea that he was one, as well.

“I can’t imagine,” the Repairman said, nervously.

Composing himself somewhat, he continued, “Why would Toons do a thing like that?”

The idea of a Toon-led massacre was foreign and unsettling to the Repairman. Aside from deletion and Dip, most characters just found a way of bouncing back (or respawning, or reincarnating, or something). There were very few Toons who actually killed anyone.

“Here? Here’s Sellbot HQ. We’re one of four types of cogs, and we’re business bots.”

He
took out a piece of paper and scribbled down some symbols. A circle
with three bars in it. A circle with a dollar sign. A circle with a
gavel. And a circle with a tie.

“See, us Sellbots are the ones
who go out and do the advertising. Cashbots are the ones who handle
money, Lawbots are the ones who fuss over the legalities, and Bossbots
are. Well. Our bosses.”

The VP seemed to roll his optics at the last ones. He had contempt for them.

“I’m,
however, a special type of Sellbot in that there’s only one of me, and
I’m the Senior Vice President of Sales. You may call me the VP though.”

The Repairman pulled out a clipboard and began writing this down, with a few very rough drawings of the symbols and the VP.

Well, now he had a vague idea of where he was. A land ruled by corporate robots, by the looks of things. An odd place for fourth wall breaks, though…

“Um,” he began, trying to choose his words carefully, “so what do cogs do for business?”

“Er. Yes. Um. Are you. Are you… lost…?”

He made what
could be recognized as a confused expression. He’d never seen a toon
like this before. Was he even actually a toon? The critter looked more
like ink to the VP.

“If you’re here to recover an SOS, there’s nobody here yet. The day’s just barely started, you know…!

The Repairman sighed in relief. This giant clearly wasn’t going to be a danger to him. Still, the bot’s assumption surprised him. Was he used to seeing characters as small as the Repairman visit him?

“SOS?,” he replied. “No, I don’t even know what that is.”

He could see the confusion in the robot’s eyes. He looked down at his
blob form, and took a quick look around. As per usual, he didn’t quite
mesh with the world around him.

“As you can see,” he replied, shuffling his lower body, “I’m… not from around here. If you could tell me a bit about this place, that’d be nice.”

@sxllbotvp

The massive cog turned away from his paperwork for a minute or two, to
return to— oh what on Earth was that thing on his desk. "Hello…?“

The Repairman was used to traveling between universes. It came with the job, after all. But he would never get used to gargantuan characters or their environments.

So he had wandered on a desk, that much was certain. There didn’t seem to be cracks here, so the Repairman was looking for a way down to the floor and out of this…office?

And then someone spoke to him. The likely owner of this place.

He stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned towards the binocular-eyed robot. Sheesh, even though this character was half covered by the desk, he still towered over the inkblot, who wished, not for the first time, that his siren light could be turned off.

“Um…h-hello?” he said, waving weakly.