bootsq.iyk

Cheri looked upon the speech scrolling down over the inner surface of her pink-hued scouter. She read it, memorised it, and would occasionally make subtle changes to it— this was one of those relatively unimportant speeches, you see, one of the ones Cheri was under no obligation to write herself but was still under mild obligation to give. Her task was interrupted, however, by an alert most peculiar: it was an automatic alert, or at least was flagged as such, but it was not an alert she’d ever seen before, nor one she had any recollection of having set up— and let me tell you, Cheri had quite the capacity for recollection.

Oh?

---

The ancient door creaked. Power circuits that hadn’t benefited from the slightest bit of charge in more than a year cleaned themselves through the mere virtue of their use. Maglev movement enticers whirred up, fans blaring, kicking up dust and web. The old door hissed as it slid, first quite slowly and then at a pace that could only be described as ‘just slow’ without further elaboration, opening up the decrepit room for access from whatever was in the adjacent, equally decrepit room. A glare of red light moved over the room as something cast a vast shadow upon the back walls: something round… and big.

‘Identify yourself,’ demanded a voice.

In response… beeps.

A small flying machine mutant, its surface layer made of the porcelain-like white material common to the model, waved its little hands. Looking at Iyokan with its flashlight red eye, it made cute chirping beeps of salutation… and, having just confirmed that the room was safe for teleportation, pressed a button on its own chest. There was a strange noise, but it didn’t seem to originate from anywhere in particular: it sounded like two different active tesla coils were leaning in for a kiss. A second later, though, the strange sound ended, replaced with a flash and a sudden imposition of ki pressure.

Where she was not, Cheri now was: one metre tall, decked with tech, and with back-mounted blaster weapons over each shoulder, ready for use at a moment’s notice. She wore a ‘wireless’ gas mask that covered all the skin and hair of her head, protecting her from the potential threat of environmentally-saturated destron, but, of course, it was light, sleek, and curved in the way tuffle tech tended to be. It was also one of those novel ‘tubeless’ masks that simply teleported oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, not ever risking interaction with the immediately surrounding environment. It was just as well, too: this place sucked.

”Iyokan.” Cheri recognised her and greeted her, though she was mildly surprised to see that she was still alive. Going by the reports Cheri had received, Iyokan had died— had she been repaired? By… Dr. Yatapi? Or had rumours of Dr. Satsuma’s death been greatly exaggerated? Her back-mounted weapons slid further back, no longer aimed at anything in particular. ”Last I heard, you’d died. How are you?” Her tone was rather neutral, despite the words.

Cheri assumed she wouldn’t need to introduce herself, but it was also entirely feasible that this Iyokan had none of the last one’s memories.

As Iyokan bowed her head, Cheri raised an eyebrow— this much was visible, too, thanks to the decently flattering, frequently translucent materials the gas mask was composed of. An automatic response, surely? Something programmed in? By Dr. Satsuma, surely. The chancellor nodded in confirmation, as if to say ‘yep, that’s me’.

”I’m glad.” Or maybe she wasn’t. Cheri still had to figure out precisely what was going on here before she could make any sweeping value judgments on what it meant that Iyokan was ‘operating within expected bounds’, especially when ‘expected bounds’ might rather strongly have something to do with destron.

The monstrously tall android stood, but that’s fine, Cheri was used to it.

”I received a rather strange alert in anticipation of your reactivation, though I do not know who must have set it up.” Cheri looked around, identifying what tech was in the room, and especially if she could spot any destron. She then looked back to Iyokan, curious as to whether there were any extenuating factors influencing the timing of her reawakening. ”Tell me, Iyokan, what is it that you last remember before booting back up? And have you been left with any active commands or directives?”

Iyokan raised her hand, allowing the projector to display its scene: Iyokan’s body destroyed, Dr. Satsuma slain, and Dr. Yatapi left victorious… hm. It was as much as she’d suspected it was going to be. Cheri noted the glitches interrupting Iyokan’s speech pattern with mild amusement, but her eyebrow would not fully raise until she heard the android’s prime directives.

”No one will begrudge you for disobeying Satsuma.” Her tone had a peculiar lightness to it, and her face almost somewhat had part of a fraction of a half-smile.

Then, a strange noise: not one of the accidental noises of a fan whirring, one of those noises that made a sound as a byproduct of the thing it’s really meant to do, but a deliberate sound, a sound designed with it being heard as its purpose. It was a sound of affirmation, a happy, chirpy noise, the type you’d get upon turning on a computer or completing a process. Some background process that was running in the background as Iyokan reawakened, it seemed, had finally finished at precisely that moment. And then came Yatapi’s clearly pre-recorded voice...


This confirmed a few more suspicions, but left so much more up in the open. Cheri didn’t know anything about this ‘namesake’, and she might even hesitate for a second or two if she were to think on how she could help Iyokan find such an individual, but it did confirm that it was Yatapi who reconstructed Iyokan’s frame. And while Yatapi was a rather eccentric individual, she trusted that he understood the weight of destron safety. She didn’t know if Iyokan still operated on destron, but she could be confident that she wouldn’t be leaking it out in the open.

”You heard him: I won’t command you, or order you. Your prime directive is to ‘be free’, after all. But I can help.” Dr. Satsuma was dead, and Dr. Yatapi was absent for reasons mysterious and unknown. Left to her own devices, who knew what destron-related trouble she’d be capable of? It may well end in disaster for her and everyone around her— and Cheri couldn’t allow that, not after hearing what Dr. Yatapi had to say. She took a step forwards. ”You can come with me, if you’d like the guidance.” Her pose was accepting, even if the still-visible weapons on her back weren't.