Ricochet: The Lucky One

[NebulaFlare]

“That could have been me.”

It was early morning in Mendell City. Automated street cleaners were sweeping away the trash left by the night owls and graveyard shift workers. The corridors and hallways of the shuttle station were mostly empty, filled only by workers ready to be lifted off into the lower rims of space for their morning jobs. Few shops were open in the shuttle station – most where just 'twenty-four hour' fast food pickup stalls, lined with people purchasing their first cups of coffee.

An IPC hopped off the escalator, making his way down the hall. These waning hours were a familiar sight for him. His uniform bore the proud colors of a NanoTrasen engineer, complete with a toolbelt and webbing vest. A backpack was slung over one shoulder, and his hand was tucked away in his pocket. He whirred softly, scanning the area around him.

One could easily tell, with its confident stance and gait, this IPC was a regular here. His chassis was old – very old. Dents and scrapes were visible on its surface, evidently obtained from its many years of hard labor. Curiously, the tag around its neck seemed newer than the chassis itself, reading: Ricochet K056A895V012 – Property of Ashlyn Talin. It walked off, heading toward its gate.

Upon rounding a corner, it almost collided with a skrell. Before it could issue an apology, the skrell scowled at him, shoving the IPC out of her way. Ricochet stumbled to the side, quickly righting itself back up again. He glanced back at the skrell, then turned around and headed off. He was used to this kind of treatment.

As he continued on his way, he paused, spotting something being highlighted in his peripheral vision. It was a newscast, displaying the hologram of the Mendell City Bugle. It was the headlines that had caught his attention.

Unregistered IPCs Being "Executed" By Biesel Police

The Ricochet model quickly stepped over, scanning the newsletter. His cameras lingered on the still photos of IPCs being callously terminated one at a time. He pulled out his ID, swiping it through the newscaster, and printed out a copy of the report.

His hands whirred and clicked as grasped the paper, pulling it out of the printer. He read it over again in silence.

“That could have been me.” He whirred softly.

A memory file was pulled up as he stared at the newsletter. It was a considerably recent file, still undamaged by the wear of time and file decay, detailing the day he met his current owner, Ashlyn Talin.

Before he had even met her, he was nothing more than a smuggled maintenance and service unit. He had been passed through many hands, purchased and sold through the black market, until he ended up at the mercy of a criminal gang that ran a chop shop. Ships, vehicles, gravbikes, and even other IPCs would enter the shop, be stripped into pieces, and sold for profit. Ricochet had worked tirelessly to appease his owners, knowing all too well that if he failed to meet their approval, he would be next on the worktables.

He did whatever they demanded – fix their getaway vehicles, clean up their tools, and dispose of the evidence. When they were done with him, they shut him off and stuffed him away in some corner of a room. He would lay there, naked and alone, until he was summoned again for more work. They never gave him clothes – he was just a robot, and clothes were for people. Fabric could get caught in moving parts, and they didn’t want to be bothered with repairing him.

They made it quite clear that he was illegal – if he ever stepped out of the safety of the warehouse, he’d be terminated by authorities, without question. He had no choice but to believe them – he had no tag, no identification. Nothing. So when the police finally busted them, Ricochet was certain it would be the end of his own menial existence.

The only reason why the police hadn’t decommissioned him on the spot, was because they needed information about the gang that owned him. They threatened the IPC, telling Ricochet that if he didn’t give them the details and information they needed, they would just take him apart and get the information out of his processor.

Ricochet tucked the memory file away, not wanting to view it anymore than necessary. He whirred softly, placing a hand on the identification tag around his neck. So many IPCs saw the collar as a blight, a horrible proof of their position in society. But to Ricochet, it was something else. It was his saving grace, his rise from the bowels of the black market. It was his rite of passage from illegal to legal.

Ashlyn Talin had been the detective working on the case, and when she saw Ricochet, she took pity on him. She promised to help him break free of his oppressive life, legalize him, and give him a new start. Ricochet saw this as his one and only chance to survive. If he did not help the Mendell Police, he would be terminated for evidence. But by helping the police, any surviving gang member would seek him out and eliminate him in an effort to keep him silent and cover their tracks. Ashlyn could protect him, and promised to keep him safe from either side.

She kept true to her words, and bought his rights after the case was closed. With the information he gave the police, most of the gang members were put behind bars, the rest fleeing the city. Shortly after, he became Talin’s property, and with a fresh new start, was finally a legal unit, and could exist without the fear or threat of brutal termination.

The status of an IPC was deplorable, and the more one would dig into it, the more evident it would become. Ricochet knew this more than most – he had experienced it firsthand. The IPCs with tags were fortunate. The ones without…not so much.

Ricochet quickly folded up the newsletter, stuffing it in his bag. He had a shuttle to catch.

----

I saw Jackboot's newsletter in the Mendell Bugle, and ran with it! Wrote this segment up, about my character Ricochet. hope you ladies and gents enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I hate that I'm missing out on all this Synthetic Shenanigangs with poor Onyx being in the shop (that's the name of my desktop. I named her Onyx. Sue me) So yeah. I hope I'm not missing out on anything crucial. D: