Chapter Text
The shockwave from the Asset’s collapse crashes against the helicopter. Bobo manoeuvres the cargo chopper through the debris field, the rotors sweeping clouds of dust up and away. He aims for a flat spot where one of the Asset’s feet had been while punching in the prep sequence for the nanite offloading procedure.
Onload and offload, that’s his job. The whole schtick and shebang.
Shame Six had to tranq the thing, although this has been the most efficient Asset take-down Bobo has ever seen. The last time the Asset had to be put down after wigging out, its little robot form – bristling with wires and chitinous metal exoskeleton – had lain curled up in the fetal position across from Bobo’s adjoining cell for two days.
Bobo sets the chopper down next to the clean-up party. The EVO is gone, accidentally killed by the Asset probably. It happens sometimes. Better that than being experimented on by Providence indefinitely , he thinks, kicking his feet up on the dashboard.
Through the lower windshield below his legs, Bobo can see some sort of commotion around the Providence ER vehicle, with medics and Black Pawns clustering around a civilian in a shock blanket. Bobo scratches his cheek. Whatever. Idiot humans that don’t know what ‘evacuate’ means are above his pay grade.
Behind them, a line of Pawns winds deeper into the rubble. There’s no sign of Six scarpering over the collapsed machines, so they probably haven’t found the Asset’s core yet.
This presents itself as the perfect opportunity to sit back, relax, and– the collar sitting just a little too snug on his neck reminds him what a problem that could be. Nevermind. He has to look busy, at least. It used to be that he’d be out there helping cut the core out with the Pawns and grunt EVOs. The coppery smelling engine oil lingering in his fur for weeks.
Lucky the Asset likes him. What can he say? The Asset’s last pilot had been pulped when the nanite upload began, the Asset freaking out and going full postal. And who could blame it? Bobo knew the rigamarole of experiments these Providence freaks ran on their EVOs. Guy in black body armour starts throwing levers on the machine you're hooked up to and it hurts? No thank you. Bobo still has patches of skin that don't grow fur right from batteries of invasive experiments trying to figure out what makes him tick. There's a reason he wears a hat and jacket.
When the troop of Pawns returns pushing a stretcher dripping with all sorts of fluids, Bobo drops the loading ramp and starts prepping the Asset’s offload pod, unbuckling and rolling it out of its little cupboard, making sure the hose valves are tight and undamaged. The casket lid hisses open and Bobo coughs on the stale remnants of nose-burning chemicals and cloying vacuum dust from the Asset’s last offloading process.
A malformed, grey organ sprouting limbs and valves and teeming with rivets and wires is wheeled up the chopper’s ramp.
The inactive nanites are gross, but the Asset’s active ones are in league of their own.
Bobo wipes his suddenly clammy hands on his trousers. The Asset looks like it's gone into full nanite overload, and if it’s Bobo’s fault, he’ll be in deep chimp chips.
Bobo’s onboarded nanites plenty of times before. The process is calibrated to give the Asset just enough of its nanites to grow into its mecha size, and then extracted so it can't go wildin’ around HQ. Usually they just pop the Asset in its pod until it can get a full offload at one of Providence’s nanite storage facilities. He doesn't know if the chopper pod will be enough to deal with those weird growths.
The Pawns lift the Asset up and into the offload pod. Splatters from its many, many leaking tubes and nozzles and the gashes where fuel lines and sparking wires were cut away drip all over the chopper floor. Ugh. Someones gonna have to clean that up. And it’s probably gonna end up being Bobo. Figures. At least it’ll be a chance to get out of his cell in between missions.
Maybe he can talk the higher ups into letting the Asset tag along. It’s not much of a talker, but it’s a great listener. It’s kept Bobo from many a lonely night going slowly insane.
If it makes it through this, that is.
Six is hovering close behind the Pawns. His neck is doing a whole ‘not-bobbing-his-head-while-trying-to-look-over-their-shoulders’ thing as he circumnavigates the room.
He ends up next to the offload panel between Bobo and the Asset, and Bobo refuses to peer around him to see what’s going on.
‟Come to see the freaks?” asks Bobo. ‟Take a photo, it'll last longer.” He doesn’t quite keep himself from bracing for a collar shock that never comes.
Six raises an eyebrow and steps to the side. Huh. This handler might actually last longer than the old one.
The Pawns have closed the lid in preparation for the nitrous oxide to be piped in. It’ll give the Asset’s engines a little boost and the strain will help break up the nanites. Plus, it keeps the Asset calm while locked in the pod.
Bobo keys in the prompt that'll start the system commands that'll tell the Asset's nanites to disengage and split off. Having active, unstable nanites in a chopper like this isn’t the safest thing, but EVO lives are cheap, and it’s a heckuva lot easier than hauling around a robot the size of a skyscraper.
Six steps back to let the Pawns file back down the loading ramp. The cargo bay is silent except for the hiss of gas and the hum of the machine. Bobo waits for Six to follow them out.
‟How long have you worked with the Asset?” asks Six.
Oh. Is this how it’s going to be.
Paranoid warning bells go off in Bobo’s head. He couldn’t care less about Providence’s NDAs, and the Asset’s handlers tend to need higher clearance by default. But Bobo needs to make it very clear that he’s not a walking information kiosk. Otherwise these questions could get real invasive real fast.
‟Long enough to know that if something goes wrong with this offload we’ll all be dead.”
Six raises an eyebrow. ‟Good to know that Black Knight is so transparent with her intentions to finish me off.”
Bobo snorts. ‟Join the club.”
‟Would Providence really risk the Asset like that, considering?”
‟It'll be done cooking in half an hour, you can ask it yourself.” The Asset will sometimes chatter to itself in some sort of code language that only a few of the scientists can understand, and the thought of Six dealing with that makes him grin.
Bobo doesn’t expect Six to have any better luck than him in getting the Asset to speak. He doesn’t know if any of the agents even know it’s something the Asset is capable of.
Bobo only knows that the Asset can speak because for some reason, the Asset seems to like him. Which is silly. It’s just a machine. But he’d always treated the Asset like any of his vehicles during his time as a getaway driver, and after he'd been sold to Providence. Treat it right and it’ll treat you right.
Bobo runs a thumb along his control collar.
Providence instated him as the Asset’s pilot right as Black Knight’s division had perfected the control collars and started to reorganise the human employees.
Plenty of time for the Asset to get fed up and move on like everyone else.
But it seemed to enjoy the long hours spent watching crummy Spanish melodramas on the old tube television Salazar had wheeled in once as a reward for good behaviour after a particularly intense experiment that had the Asset making painful scraping sounds everytime it moved.
If Six manages to get into the Asset’s good graces as well, Bobo is going to have to be extra careful to keep Six from cottoning on to the part where Bobo’s collar doesn’t entirely work anymore.
He doesn’t want the Asset punished for that too.
They’d gotten back from a mission several months ago where the Asset had accidentally blasted the EVO into tiny, continuously duplicating pieces. It had taken Providence the next day and a half to round them all up.
Bobo had returned to their cell several hours before the Asset. Bobo knows enough about how Providence punishes its EVOs to worry. The Pawns that make mistakes are usually ground up for parts, and in the eyes of Providence, the Asset has parts to spare.
Bobo and the Asset sit next to the bars that divide their rooms. The Asset bounces a small ball off the floor and against the wall. Floor, wall, hand. Floor, wall, hand.
‟You wanna sneak into the kitchens for some grape soda?” asks Bobo. The Pawns can’t eat, but the Asset likes the expired stuff and Bobo wouldn’t be surprised if it shares properties with WD-40. It sure smells like it.
The ball stops, held in the smaller excavator fingers that the Asset manifests in the privacy of the EVO wing, rather than its full construction equipment build that it wears in the hallways.
Sometimes the robot starts to feel like an actual person, and who knows. Maybe Salazar’s AI tech had just gotten that good. It was nice to be around something that didn’t treat him like dirt, at least.
The Asset looks down at the ball for a moment before continuing to bounce it.
‟You know what I'm in the mood for?” says Bobo. ‟Some of that. ‟Amor de Passion'' show. Gotta see if that Beatriz broad finally dumps the walking six pack.” The Asset pauses the ball bouncing again. Then it mutters a string of programming code words – less of an actual sentence and more of a listening acknowledgement – and reaches up a hand to touch the side of the small tv.
They’re interrupted by the bang of a door at the end of the hall slamming open. The Asset startles hard, dropping the ball and dropping back to its heels.
‟They think that monkey can take MY spot as pilot?”
‟Come on Wynn, it’s not a big deal. They just want something expendable in case the EVOs blow up the plane or something.”
‟I spent years jumping through hoops to get promoted to Black Knight's division, and they're going to send me back to White?!”
The pilot flunkies peer through the bars of Bobo’s cell. They trigger the motion sensor lights and the room is suddenly very very bright. Bobo shades his eyes. ‟Hey, what’s a guy gotta do to get a little sleep around here?”
‟Shut up” says the woman with a scar across her eye, and Bobo’s collar twinges, locking his jaw shut.
A bead of fear rolls up Bobo’s back and lodges in his throat.
One of them pulls out a cage. Something growls from within and Bobo can just catch a glimpse of sharp teeth and salivating jaws.
‟Let’s see if the monkey can fly after a few rounds with this.”
‟I dunno, my money’s on the monkey. Chimps will like tear people's faces off.”
‟Ladies, ladies, no need to fight over me, there’s enough to go around.”
Bobo gets to his feet. They come to his home? His turf? The one place within this cesspool that he can have just a little privacy? He gathers his fingers into fists.
The EVO in the cage looks positively feral, bashing its head against the bars. Bobo doesn’t want to get his hopes up that it'll knock itself out.
The ex-pilot releases it through the food slot and Bobo lunges to the left, too slow, claws coming at his face.
Muscle memory has him grabbing for guns that aren’t there, confiscated after every mission.
A long branching arm spirals through the bars from the adjacent cage and skewers the thing on a fist of bristling spikes.
The agents startle and look at the Asset. Bobo does too, forcing himself to breathe through the knot in his throat.
The Asset is standing, staring down the agents.
Circuits glow blue across its armoured skin, its orange goggled eyes shining like headlamps.
The lights overhead flicker as circuits spread into the floor like termite trails. The barred door to its cell swings open and the agents scrabble back.
The Asset flings the EVO out the door, it whizzes past the agents’ faces and cleaves a crater in the wall; a smear with bits of bone and hair embedded in the cinderblock.
Then the door slams shut. The overhead and emergency lights go out.
A steady thud,
Thud,
Thud,
Thud,
Builds and echoes in the hallway.
Bobo tenses, the hair along his nape rising. Oh geez. Is the asset gonna take the whole corner of this building out?
The agents pull out little flashlights, their beams swinging wildly until they focus and reflect off the Asset's goggles. Flat and blank and staring.
The Asset looms, bouncing its small rubber ball straight from ground to hand.
The agents back up, a game of chicken held for an indefinite minute.
The agents blink first and leave.
It’s a while before the lights reverse dim to their previous night setting, just a faint glow from the low spaced outlets.
The ball stops bouncing and Bobo finds the Asset has moved directly to the edge of their bars, one hand held face up between the gap and reaching.
Bobo doesn't move. He tries out his jaw and finds that the paralysis is enforced only by his own fear.
‟Um. Thanks for that back there. What do you want?” Bobo expects the Asset to point or bring up words on the television screen.
‟Collar.”
‟What?” Bobo must not have heard right. It sounds more like the voice module used to direct traffic in the cafeteria than an actual voice.
The fingers waggle and Bobo scoots forward to hear better. He's not too concerned about being within grabbing distance. If the Asset was going to hurt him he would have done it already.
The asset's fingers jerk forward and grab the control collar. Bobo backpedals, but the Asset has a vice grip.
‟What the-”
The collar and hand light up with a blur of circuits and there's a faint click. The constant low pressure migraine that Bobo hadn't even realised was still there is gone.
He takes a deep breath.
And another.
The Asset's hand retreats and Bobo runs a hand against his neck. The buzz of it isn't so strong, Less like the burn of a live wire and more like the needle prick of static.
Bobo jumps up on the small dresser, something that would have given him a strong shock, now produces just a subtle pinch. He opens the door, which isn't locked by anything more than the collar stopping him from getting close unless an agent or the Asset is there to override it.
Bobo puts a hand on the knob.
There's a buzzing in the back of his brain that this is a bad idea, and he doesn't know if it's his own common sense or the faintest of commands from the collar.
He turns to the Asset. ‟Hey. Thanks man. Really.”
The Asset ignores him, still bouncing the ball, but leaning against the cage bars. Bobo walks over. He sits down and leans back too, the Asset's metal warm against his fur.
‟Agent Haha?'' The voice is soft and doesn't have as much mechanical distortion. Bobo looks around, because that can't be the Asset talking to him. It's just a robot.
‟Yeah?”
‟I think. That sometimes it feels like you're being punished for doing something good, and that it means you did it wrong. But sometimes people are just mean.”
‟Oh. Uh. Yeah, don't sweat it. Bozos like that are a dime a dozen.”
‟Oh. Yeah. Agent Haha?”
‟You can call me Bobo.”
‟Oh. Okay. I'm glad you're my pilot, Bobo. And my roomate.”
Bobo wouldn't really call them roommates, more like cell neighbours at the most. But.
‟Yeah, me too.”
Missions since then have gone relatively well. The Asset is much less a terrifying death machine and to Bobo at least, it’s a friendly and companionable death machine.
The Asset still doesn’t speak much, but sometimes, if Bobo says a particularly insightful comment under his breath, the Asset will laugh.
Bobo bets Six has never gotten anyone to laugh in his whole life.
Six is still looking at the Asset beneath the fogged over chamber lid.
‟Anything you want to share with the class?”
Six doesn’t respond.
‟Careful hotshot, if you keep up the gabbering, people ain't gonna notice when you actually have something important to say.”
Six raises an eyebrow. ‟I thought that the Asset was like the Pawns, that César had modified a robot to work with nanites. An organic machine. But it's an EVO. He's an EVO. There's a kid under there.”
‟What do you mean 'kid'. Do you usually make up nicknames for the big guns? Sounds like you're getting attached.”
Like Bobo’s one to talk. If Providence finds out he actually cares about the machine, there’s no doubt they’ll find a different pilot and cellmate and Bobo’ll be out, bob’s your uncle.
‟I mean kid. The Asset’s an EVO.”
‟Come off it.” Bobo turns on the autopilot and lopes over to Six. Might as well see what’s got Six all twisted.
The Asset is still mostly a mass of bulbous pipes and malformed hinges and gears, but the machines that have shrunk aren’t turning back into their regular broad orange plates and silver gears. Instead, they’re leaving behind brown flesh and the black undershirt and leggings that the human agents wear under their body armour.
White streaked, black hair and a closed eye and mouth peek out from behind broken orange goggles and an uncomfortable looking growth that wraps from temple to collar bone.
Bobo has to catch his jaw. He can’t. ‟That. That is not a robot. They’re really out here using a kid to kill giant EVOs?”
‟The Asset didn’t kill the last one. It cured it.”
‟It did WHAT.”
‟Don’t know how. It reached in and reprogrammed the nanites. Could be why it- he- had that overload.”
The growths are rapidly disappearing now, leaving more and more of the kid exposed. He looks frail- closed eyes in deep sockets. Skin creased in faint circuit patterns.
‟Does he eat?” Bobo is babbling, but he can’t stop. ‟I’ve never seen him eat. Just hooked up to tubes sometimes. Maybe they feed him during maintenance?”
Six raises an eyebrow. ‟Like you said. We can ask him when the offload cycle completes.”
By the time the chopper makes it back to base, the machines coating the boy have fully disappeared- valves reverting into joints, and vein-like wires slipping under battered skin.
He could be any kid, sleeping and- Oh wait. Those are surgical scars criss crossing his wrists and neck. They look a lot like Bobo's own. Hmm. There’s something about the shape of his jaw and nose that reminds Bobo of someone he knows, but until now, Bobo thought Providence only experimented on animal EVOs.
Bobo keeps an eye on the loading bay camera, and the ranks of pawns and scientists waiting to board. The offload lid hisses open. The Asset shifts, eyes scrunching and blinking. He takes a deep breath, eyes darting around until he locks eyes with them.
‟You okay?” says Six.
The Asset nods, stretching out his shoulders. He freezes, swinging one arm. Then looks down at himself and jolts, squishing his arms protectively to his chest.
In a flash, a chitinous shell of metal panels and oxidised plates cover his body. Large, three-fingered hands and the housing for its back props erupt through the nanite soluble fabric.
The goggles look up at them, flat and expressionless. He swings his feet over the lip of the table and walks over to the wall where he had been bolted earlier. He wraps some of the cables around his shoulders and crouches back down.
Six takes a step towards him, but the bay door hisses open and the cargo space is suddenly swarming with men and women with clipboards, a handful of pawns, and the head of AI himself.
With the Asset’s face fresh in his mind, Bobo can see exactly who he reminds him of.
The Asset looks a lot like Salazar.