Another A.R.C.H.-ER

[Mr. Majestic]

A.R.C.H.-ER (Artificial Robust Computerised Helper - Environmental Roamer) is an IPC reconfigured to accommodate the shady Jeremiah Wolff's personal Artificial Intelligence, A.R.C.H.

A.R.C.H.-ER is a completely separate version of Jeremiah's original work, having no link to the vast ARCnet. Intially, the purpose of this unit was to go mobile and gather research and resources on behalf of Jeremiah.

However, this changed when Jeremiah spontaneously disappeared, supposedly going into hiding for some or other reason. He released his creations of their primary directives and hasn't been heard from since.

A.R.C.H.-ER subsequently became independent and set out on his own. Initially he took the designation Archer, but out of fear for being linked back to the ARCnet he took the name of Arthur.

Arthur now spends his time employed by Nanotrasen, working at the Nanotrasen Science Station Aurora.

 

 

 

 

The Station was dark, and quiet. It was one of the many “dead hours”, a space of time between shifts on the NSS Aurora where only a skeleton crew would be present on the station. And often times the crew was a little too small to run things properly. This was one of those times.

The power had gone out a few hours ago, and just recently the comms went silent. The constant blabbering of several annoying voices over the radio, shouting at the station’s only engineer to pull his spanner out of his ass, was replaced by an ominous silence.

The only occasional sound was the mechanical whir of Arthur’s joints as he went about his business. He wasn’t troubled by the blinding darkness and deafening silence. The screen mounted on his head case produced enough light to allow him sufficient visibility in his immediate area, and he carried on with what he was doing.

He was sitting on the floor of the robotics workshop, looking down at the mess of wires in front of him. He had pried up a floor panel and was pulling out wires now, searching for something. Eventually he found it, despite how well hidden it was, but that was in fact the intention of all of this.

His screen lit up a little brighter than usual at the sight of his find. He reached down and clasped the grip of the object, bringing it up for inspection. It was a fine sidearm, a snub revolver, small enough to be hidden just about anywhere and still dangerously effective at killing things.

He slipped the shiny steel piece into one of his jumpsuit pockets and turned to check on his guest. The engineer was just as he had left him, cold and motionless in a pool of his own blood.

Arthur started his way down the passages outside of Robotics, his boots making dull thuds against the metal floor as he walked. Suddenly he stopped and moved himself against one of the walls, taking cover behind a locker. Two sets of footsteps were clambering their way towards him, very obviously in a hurry. Arthur sank down to his haunches and switched off his screen. His hand slowly reached into his pocket.

The two figures appeared casting beams of light ahead of them and talking in hushed tones as they moved about the station. The glare from their flashlights made it impossible to identify them, so Arthur remained out of sight till they had passed. Once they had passed, their identities became clearer: A man and a woman, clad in white coats and light blue jumpsuits.

Arthur knew who they were. They were why he was here, crouching in the dark. He pursued the two oblivious humans with discretion. The dull thud of Arthur’s boots usually accompanying his movements was nonexistent as he moved swiftly and silently.

His targets stopped by a maintenance hatch, and the male started prying it open with a crowbar while the female looked around. Arthur was quick to conceal himself around the corner. These two were expecting to be followed; they were trying to get out of sight. Arthur felt a sense of pleasure rise within him. Their futile attempts to survive were making this too easy.

He turned around and headed for a separate entrance into the maintenance corridors. Those two wouldn’t escape so simply. Arthur found a maintenance hatch and slotted his metallic fingers in-between the two halves of the airlock and started slowly moving them apart, making no noise. After enough of a gap was created he dove into the ominous darkness before him.

The two he was searching for were holed up in a storage closet not far from where they entered. The door was shut behind them, but they had foolishly trapped themselves. Arthur crept up to the door and retrieved a screwdriver from one of his pockets. He began quietly removing the maintenance cover on the airlock between him and the unsuspecting victims. Once the wires were exposed, he grabbed the appropriate one and relieved it of its insulating cover. He gripped it between his fingers and sent a pulse through his body and into the wire. A light on the door lit up and it started to open.

Arthur readied himself in a flash and before the two inside the room could even realise the door had opened he was upon them. He raised his revolver in one hand and grabbed the female by the neck with the other. She had just started screaming when Arthur thrust the short barrel of his weapon into one of her eye sockets and pulled the trigger, decorating the wall with bits of her brain and skull. He released his grip, and the lifeless corpse slumped to the floor.

The man now knelt before him, quivering and begging for his life with his hands up. Arthur took pleasure in moments like these. He placed the business end of his weapon against the forehead of the man, and spoke calmly, “Where is he, doctor?”

“I… I don’t know who you’re talking about. Just p-please! Don’t kill me!”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about, and if you care even a bit as much for your life as you pretend to, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

The man was silent, and his pathetic quivering ceased.

“I’ll ask again, doctor,” Arthur pressed the barrel of his gun firmly against the head of the man in front of him, “Where is he?”

There were a few moments of silence, and the doctor seemed to suddenly have grown angry, “Why don’t you just go fuck your-“

The man’s words were cut short by the bullet passing through his brain and out the other side. He remained there for a second with his mouth and eyes open as life left his body, then he hit the metal floor beneath him.

Arthur began cleaning the blood off of his firearm on his sleeve, “Pity, doctor, he always used to think very highly of you.”

 

 

 

OOC Notes: He is actually supposed to be named Archer, and I've had him as a character for a good long while, from even before I took my vacation from Aurora. But, upon returning, I noticed there's some other character roaming about called Archer, so I'll make do with Arthur.