Chapter 196 - Trash Clump Soul

Thanks to the pre-sorting the service bots performed, combined with the sizable strip of space Lucas and Miss Masher had cleared out for their jousting tourney, it doesn’t take the two of them very long to finish clearing out the front area of the 13th floor.

Well, more like smashing apart everything that stands in their way. Technically, it’s the service bots that are actually clearing things out.

After some time spent in contemplation, they decide to divide and conquer. They separate to clear out some of the trash barricades that prevented the service bots from reaching a few of the side rooms, as well as one entire wing of the floor.

Now that they have a few rooms worth of space separating them, Lucas looks at a cracked display table and grins, shifting his mask a bit with its intensity. Walking over to stand before his soon-to-be-victim, he assumes a poor adaptation of something vaguely resembling about three different martial arts stances at once. His center of gravity is all wrong, and his feet aren’t in an even remotely stable position.

Regardless, he happily shouts out, “Hi-ya!” and does a terrible mockery of a judo chop down at the table, effortlessly splintering it into tiny pieces, leading to him giggling with delight.

[...]

‘Man, I always wanted to be able to do that. Fuckin’ sick.’

[...You always wanted to wave your arms around weirdly and then shout at a defenseless, already damaged, table, mere moments before you ruin it?]

‘Tch, forget you. Killjoy.’

[..? Uhh… I mean, good job, I guess? ...At least it’s good to have fun while you work, I suppose.]

‘That’s more like it!’

[...Ahem. Regardless, have you actually looked into the room you just cleared the entryway for? Miss Calculated will most likely be pleased.]

‘Hmm? Oh, shit, I should be careful in here, huh?’

Finally taking in his surroundings, Lucas looks over at the neat row of three inactive service bots sitting against a far wall, all of them a similar model to the one Miss Calculated was gushing over earlier.

[Yes, you probably should be mindful not to wreck any potentially still-useful equipment anywhere that was previously out of reach of the service bots. Actually, you should probably just go around clearing pathways for the bots, rather than worrying about actually clearing any of the rooms out in their entirety, to give them a chance to sort through everything first.]

‘...That’s probably a good idea. Oh, I’ll send a pic to Mary. If I only mention them to her, she’ll probably ask me a bazillion questions I don’t know the answers to, tryin’ to figure out what kinda bots they are.’

As he’s having that thought, Lucas pulls his phone out and snaps a few different pictures of the abandoned bots, zooming the camera in on them from a distance instead of navigating through the unknown jumble of dust-bunny-laden junk strewn across the floor.

Shortly after sending the pics to Miss Calculated; while he’s in the process of tucking his phone back away in the reinforced front pouch of his enhanced work overalls, his phone vibrates in his hand while making a default text message ping.

‘...That fast? Oh. No, it’s Jon.’

Although, to be fair, Miss Calculated did see the text rather quickly. However, she’s too busy zooming in and speculating as to what kinds of bots they are, and cooing over what good shape they look like they’re still in.

From kiddo (9:03 PM): Any word from Josephine yet??? Are you still working???

[Bold of him to assume you did any work at all.]

‘HEY! RUDE!’

After taking a moment to be mock-insulted by 427’s rather legitimate declaration, Lucas butchers his way through auto-correct to send a response.

To kiddo (9:04 PM): No I haven’t heard from anyone yeah

From kiddo (9:04 PM): Oh… You should probably stop soon, it’s not good to spend so much time somewhere so dirty. You want to have time to shower and get dressed before dinner anyway!!!

Lucas snorts with amusement after reading the latest text before belatedly noticing what time it is.

‘Pfft, so he can talk plenty through a phone, eh? Oh, shit, I didn’t realize how late it was… I guess he’s right?’

[...Maybe you should quickly clear a few doorways first so that the bots can keep working, but yes.]

‘Ah, right. Good call.’

To kiddo (9:05 PM): In like 5 minutes

Following through with 427’s suggestion, Lucas clears out three previously blocked side-room entrances, and is currently clearing out a particularly large tangle of damaged racks with an impressive pile of fallen boxes scattered around them that is blocking off a side hallway.

[Given the few things that are still neatly stacked against the wall, I assume this was a tower that went too high and collapsed. Perhaps it was inadvertently impacted by these racks when they meant to go past?]

‘Sure looks like it, huh? Woah, brutal. RIP, buddy.’

After Lucas crushes and shoves aside quite a bit of trash, revealed beneath the mangled knot of racks is a crushed service robot.

[...I assume its signal cut off after the collision. I don’t think they’d just abandon a functional bot without digging it out, even without sapience. Perhaps this explains why they started spreading everything out so thinly, stacking it too high posed problematic, and no one gave them any instructions to do otherwise.]

‘...Guess so, sheesh. Huh, past this pile-up, the rest of the hallway actually doesn’t seem anywhere near as cluttered, yeah?’

[Notably so.]

‘...I’ll leave explorin’ for later though. Whelp, I’m goin’ back anyway, might as well bring it with me, yeah?’

[You might as well. You’ll save the bots that would otherwise be stuck carrying it a trip.]

Once the unfortunate bot has been sufficiently unburied, Lucas gathers its severed limbs and stacks them on top of it, then lifts the robo-pile up to bring back to the front of the floor in a princess carry.

When he’s by the elevators once more, Lucas attempts to sit it upright next to the other salvaged bots that 23 brought out. Unfortunately, it is too miss-shapen to hold the pose, so he eventually gives up and leaves it lying on the ground next to them.

Satisfied it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, he walks over towards the entrance to the hallway that Miss Masher had wandered off to lay siege upon.

“Hey! Marsha! HEY!” A few seconds after Lucas shouts this out, Miss Masher sticks her head out from a doorway down the hall, several rooms away.

“What!?” When she comes into view, Lucas catches sight of a few streaks of dirt across her forehead and the right side of her face, making him laugh.

“Let’s call it a night. I don’t wanna be the reason we’re even later for dinner, needin’ to go get washed up and stuff.” After he says this, she gives an agreeable grunt.

“Sure, be there in a minute!” As she’s saying this, Miss Masher disappears back into the room.

Lucas heads to the elevators, hitting the downward call button as soon as he makes it over there.

Behind him, from Miss Masher’s direction, there is a loud thump, followed by her quietly saying, “Oops, I made it too big.”

Lucas turns around to see what’s going on, catching sight of a large irregular curve of metal sticking through the doorway, clearly stuck in place.

“Hey, uh, Lucas? Ya were gonna remodel anyway, right?” She raises her voice enough that he can readily hear her, and he reflexively answers.

“Yeah, I figure-” Before he manages to say any more than that, Miss Masher has already ripped out one side of the door-frame to widen it.

Shortly after, she rolls out a large ball of irregularly lumpy, heavily compressed, steel. Its mass was scavenged from display racks, mannequin bars, shelf supports, and a few other such components.

‘IT’S A FUCKIN’ TRASH KATAMARI, WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF DOING THAT!?’

[..?]

-----

Lucas’s total kills: 7

Lucas’s total deaths: 11

Lucas’s total assists: 1

Lucas’s current GDV: 17.43 (+.01 +.01 = +.02 net change)

Lucas’s fame level: 6.0* (Local fame is completely maxed, he’s creeping up on minor celebrity status even on a global scale. Thanks, internet.)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.0*

Jonathan’s total kills: 7

Jonathan’s total deaths: 2

Jonathan’s current GDV: 6.09

Jonathan's fame level: 4.0* (Local fame is near-max, but everyone thinks of him via his affiliation with Lucas, and not often just for him, alone.)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 2.5*

Willy's fame level: 4.75* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Mr. Quacks.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.25* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Willy.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan, after getting dressed and then briefly checking on Willy, is now curled up on the armchair in the spa lobby that he and Miss Chievous were sharing earlier, playing games on his phone once again: Oh, come on! I aimed way better than that! Stupid pinball!

Willy has that dog bed firmly secured, don’t you worry.

Lucas, mentally serenading 427 once again: Na-naaa, na na na na na na-

427 promptly deafens Lucas’s mental rendition of a certain game’s theme song.

Author, watching Miss Masher struggle to smoothly navigate the lopsided ball down the hallway towards the elevators: Bet you wish you had a royal rainbow right about now, huh?

Mr.. Quacks, alongside his companion, of course, is back on the 8th floor as well. The two of them are ‘helping’ the service bot that is bringing Lucas and Miss Masher’s washed, dried, and neatly folded clothing to the changing rooms they had used previously: Quack!