Chapter Text
Ding.
“Your application has been submitted. Before we can confirm that you have submitted your application for the raffle, please agree to our terms and conditions.”
Johan put his hand to his face and sighed, as he lowered his head and stared at his desk. He reached into the desk drawer beside him, pulled out a large roll of tape out, and fiddled with it momentarily before finally managing to tear off two pieces. The first piece, he plastered onto the camera on top of his monitor. The second, onto the second camera at the bottom.
Even after having known about it for a few years, he couldn’t help but wonder if the second camera was even legal. It was practically hidden, and the only reason he even knew it was there in the first place is because of an obscure online forum he browsed. But that didn’t matter to him right then. He scrolled through the terms and conditions, disappointment surging through him when he noticed the agree button was greyed out.
“Please reread the terms and conditions.” Both he and the computer knew full damn well he didn’t read a word of it, but whether or not it would fall for his tricks was another matter. Even with the complete lack of tone in its voice, he could tell it wasn’t having it with him.
“I’m a fast reader.”
“Please reread the terms and conditions.”
Damn it.
“Fine, then. How long should it take?”
“The average human is able to read at a rate of-”
“Skip.”
“Approximately one hour. Your activity will be monitored to ensure that you read the full contract.”
“My camera doesn’t work. Is that alright?” The computer fell silent for a moment, presumably as it checked both of his cameras to make sure they were indeed off. Lucky for him, it couldn’t tell the difference between the cameras just being taped over or dead.
“That is acceptable.”
Johan rolled back to his seat and tapped his way through his phone, set a one-hour timer, and scrolled back up to the start of the page, letting autoscroll take care of the rest. With his gaze still glued to his phone, he brought up the phone app, headed out of his room, and speed dialed the only number on there- his best friend, Damon.
It took a few rings, but eventually, Damon answered, his raspy voice barely coming through on the shitty, decade-old cell phone Johan had.
“Yo, Damon.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got an hour or so to kill.”
“Lemme guess, you tried to submit an application to meet that scientist lady up in Fresno? Yeah, they really tried to make sure you read that shit. I tried, but I didn’t understand most of it, so I figured I wasn't the type of person they were looking for.”
“Didn’t know you were into that kind of stuff. I thought you didn’t like what you call ‘nerd stuff’.”
“I mean, yeah, but… dude… she’s hot.”
“Hm. Fair point. Is that seriously all you applied for?”
“Do I need another reason?”
“At least a little respect would be nice. You just wanna meet her cause she’s hot? Is that seriously all you’re after?”
“...Yeah?”
“You’re hopeless, dude.”
Johan listened to Damon’s chuckling on the other end of the line, and rolled his eyes.
“Okay, okay, so, when does this thing get announced? I didn’t actually check.”
“I’m… I think it’s a couple of days from now.”
“Yeah? ‘N when do ya get to go and actually meet her?”
“Uh… I think sometime in the next couple weeks? Why?”
“Oh, yknow, just…”
“I don’t think I can bring anyone with me.”
“Damn it.”
“Life’s tough like that, man.”
“Yeah, whatever. What do you got in mind for where we’re heading?”
“You feelin’ McDonald’s? I could go for some nuggets right about now.”
“I was hopin’ you’d suggest food. Meet me at my place.”
“Yeah, yeah. See you in a bit.”
There was a reason Johan had been willing to go to such lengths to fill out such a ludicrous application. Over the last decade or so, the scientist in question, one Ms. Vei Roseburg, had been the leading mind in some of the most revolutionary technologies of the last few centuries. To meet someone who had essentially reinvented the worlds of prosthetics, renewable energy production, and transportation would be the honor of a lifetime.
However, like any of the greatest modern minds, she came with her fair share of quirks. Most importantly, she was a total recluse. Having an actual opportunity to meet her would most definitely be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it was not one Johan intended to waste. He didn’t know exactly what he was getting into by going to meet her, given her reclusiveness didn’t exactly lend itself to knowing what talking to her would be like, but it didn’t matter. Meeting a top world scientist is a top world scientist.
As Johan made his way down the stairs and to the door, a faint meow made itself heard from the kitchen. With a few clicks of his tongue, Johan was almost instantly greeted with the sight of a fluffy calico cat sprinting in his direction. With a graceful leap, the cat landed squarely on the railing beside him, as he meowed and purred his little lungs out. Johan gave him a plethora of kisses and scratches beneath the chin, resisting the urge to talk to him in a baby voice.
“Ok, Lelijk. I’m going out to meet with Damon. Don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone, alright?”
“Maow.”
“I know, I know, my sweet angel.”
“Maow.”
“I’ll be back in less than an hour. You have plenty of food in your bowl.”
“Maow.”
“Goodbye, Lelijk.”
“Maow.”
The walk to Damon’s was brisk, though the biting cold air made it seem far longer than usual. As he arrived on the doorstep, he checked his phone. 47 minutes left. Plenty of time to go get food and come back.
As he stepped up onto the messy concrete pathway leading from the sidewalk to Damon’s house, Johan couldn’t help but stare at the door handle. Or, rather, the lack thereof. It was flattened on the door, and a gentle hand rubbed over it revealed that it was indeed stuck there as a 2d object. Whatever.
Johan shook his head and pounded on the door, a knock he had practiced a thousand times before. Something to let Damon know it was him before he even came to the door. It was always something Damon had been annoyed by at first, but in time, he came to appreciate it.
“Alright, alright. I’m here. What do you want? I’m ordering ahead of time.”
“Uh… get me some fries, a McChicken, and a McFlurry. Oh, oh, uh… with Oreos. Cookies and cream is the shit, man. You gotta try it sometime.”
“You haven’t convinced me before, it’s not gonna happen today.”
“Pft. You’re missing out.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”
The two set out through the chilly Stilton streets, hands in their pockets. Hardly anyone was out at the time, making the trek there a breeze. Not that it was ever particularly busy. Even with their relative proximity to a well-known city like Fresno, there wasn’t ever anything worth coming out to Stilton for, even for the most bored of tourists. Johan liked it that way, though. Living somewhere where the air hung heavy with the sound of blaring horns and permanent chatter was never quite his style, a taste acquired from back in the Netherlands.
It wasn’t long before the two stood across the street from their beloved golden arches. Pretty much the only place in all of Stilton to get some decent fries. The only thing between them and today’s lunch was a single crosswalk. Their intense fixation on the beacon was only broken by a hearty shove from behind, one that sent Johan stumbling into the street and causing his phone to drop from his grasp, sliding in between an unluckily placed grate down into the sewers.
“Shit-”
Johan dropped to the ground and reached after it, slipping his hand through the grate. Water poured from the gaps beneath his fingernails, chasing after the falling phone. Mere centimeters from the filthy sludge below, the water snapped around the phone like a vice grip, having stopped its descent just in time. Johan breathed a sigh of relief, and slowly but surely fished his phone from the sewer grate.
Back on his feet, he glared at the man who had shoved him. Tall, clearly muscular, and with his face obscured by his massive hood, the man didn’t even spare a glance for the person he had just knocked over, or any regard for the signal.
“Hey, hey! Pay attention next time, jackass! You nearly-”
A towering figure rose from behind Johan, a swirling mass of looming, shimmering, crystal clear water. As Johan pointed a finger and the figure moved to throw a punch, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Damon’s.
“It ain’t worth the trouble, man. Just leave it. Probably just wants some fries even more badly than we do.” Damon cackled to himself over his lame joke, and Johan couldn’t help but smile with him, eventually bursting out into laughter alongside him.
“WALK.” The mechanical voice of the HAWK beacon finally had let the pair make their way to the other side, laughing with each other the whole way across. The smell of frying oil and the constant buzz of activity emanated from the restaurant, a welcome smell and sight both Damon and Johan were familiar with and fond of.
"Hey." Damon stopped in front of the window as he walked, and Johan could hear him chuckling to himself under his breath.
He held out a singular, oversized chicken nugget, signature shitty grin on his face. "Wanna nugget?"
Johan stared in confusion and amazement. "We haven't even gone in... where the hell did you get that?"
"Oh, yknow... just... picked it up."
"I'm not eating some random nugget you picked up off the ground. That's super gross, dude."
"Your loss." Damon popped it in his mouth without a second thought, and looked back towards the entrance of the McDonald's. "You know what, man... we've been buddies for like a couple years now. I'm gonna trust you with a little... secret, I guess."
Walking up to an advertisement plastered onto the side of the store, Damon reached out to it, and with the flick of a wrist, peeled off one of the nuggets. He held this one out to Johan as well. It was huge, like the scaled up food in the ad.
Damon snorted. "See? Not any sorta ground chicken or any of that crap."
Johan's eyes widened. "How the... you can do that? Is it real?"
Damon scoffs. "Course it's real."
"But, but... it was painted on the side of the wall? So it can’t be… real. Right? I didn't know you could do that... just take whatever you want."
"I can't." Damon bared his yellow teeth in a smug grin.
"Who d'ya think put it there in the first place? I rang this place up and offered to help them with their advertisements for some cash... Been there for a few years now. And since while it's on the wall, it's paint... so it doesn't rot. You get it?"
“...Aren’t they gonna get suspicious that some pieces of their advertisements are missing?”
“Ah, c’mon. You worry too much. Besides, I think this is actually the first time I’ve ever bothered to take something off. You wanna go through the drive-thru again this time?”
“Pfft. Yeah, let’s do it… hey, how’d you even get a nugget that-”
“Shh. Gotta trigger the weight sensor.” Damon held a finger to his mouth as he unzipped his jacket. With one hand in the front pocket, he jostled it around, shaking it violently until cinder block after cinder block fell out of the inside, crashing down onto the asphalt. With enough shaking and enough bricks, finally, the speaker crackles on.
“Welcome to McDonald’s, what can I do for you?”
“Uh, I’ve got a… mobile order. Johan Johansson. Jo-”
A piercing scream through the speaker cut his order short.
“...Jo.”
Thundering crack after thundering crack rang out through the speaker, so loud that the two could even hear it coming from inside the restaurant itself.
“Hell was that?” Damon scooped up his cinder blocks back inside his jacket, mirroring a bewildered look with Johan.
“EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!”
It was a robbery. Johan sneered. “A goddamn robbery? What kind of scumbag robs a McDonald’s? You’d have to be some kind of freak to do that… they better not have touched the good fry cook…”
With a shared nod, Johan and Damon rushed out of the drive-thru and towards the main entrance, cinder blocks falling from the latter’s jacket in their hurry.
In the middle of the store, standing tall over all the kneeling and crying civilians, was a deranged man in a deep black hoodie. The man from earlier, the one who had nearly catapulted Johan’s Android to an early, shitty grave.
“I SAID EVERYONE ON THE GROUND! OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF! YOU HEAR ME? NOW PUT THE SHIT IN THE BAG, OR THIS WHOLE PLACE GOES TO HELL!”
“...Hey. Asshole.”
“W- HUH?”
The lunatic whipped his disfigured head around to face Johan. He narrowed his eyes, and the robber did the same.
“DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME? I SAID-”
“I heard what you said. Shut the hell up… we’re going to kill you.”
The man falls silent for a moment, staring at Johan with wonder and confusion. His voice drops to a calm, even tone, and a mechanical beast rises from his side, flashing red and black, towering over the three of them.
“Then… try not to make a fool of yourself.”
| TO BE CONTINUED >