Creation Side Stories: Second Gear

Creation Side Stories: Second Gear

…

Commissioned by Blue Flaming Wings

Word Count: 2561

…

Homunculi and Drones. Not drones. Capital ‘D’ Drones. They are the solution to my recruitment issue. Both are loyal to a fault, as in I literally had to program them instruct both kinds to make it clear to me when I’m overstepping my boundaries, and as well as that, I had a better foundation for upgrades than with humans.

I have nothing against humans. They’re great. They can also, however, take care of themselves and I don’t need to smother them. They’re big girls and boys, with mass drivers, powered armor, and Arcologies, they can take care of themselves. Like a good guardian figure, I can leave them alone to do what they can do, while I tackle bigger, tougher issues that they won’t be able to.

That is easier said than done, given what they can’t handle is a pretty big deal.

Not even considering the large number of idiots with personal agendas amongst humans, who think that having a nuke or a cargo ship with a few guns makes them kings, there’s the supernatural issues that are too big to for them to handle.

Cleaning up Ouroboros, and making sure nothing of them remains, is a big issue CORE can tackle, but there’s a few vaults and vengeance facilities that will take a chunk out of any force that enters them. My Homunculi and Drones, with specialized gear, can handle those and clean them up without any hostages getting killed.

There’s also cleaning up South America. Song did an amazing job transporting every civilian out of there, but now there’s Arcologies that need dismantling, AI that need to be rescued, artifacts that need to be recovered, and automated resource plants that need to be secured. Normally, it would be fine for regular nations to do it, but drones didn’t work well in a continent that is kinda constantly on fire, has space-time fluctuations due to what the Monarchs were doing before they were stopped, and has whatever Destruction’s newest corpse is shitting out into the surrounding area.

Then, of course, there is the need for me to build my whole organization from the bottom up.

Li Song made it look so easy, going to Japan and just casually picking up people, and smiling away so that more people would run over to join his Preservers. I had to make a whole Church before humanity started taking real notice of me, but he gets all the accolades in a few months by being charming, smiling, and handsome, and also saving a few million lives, I guess. Bleh. Damn attractive, sociable, and charming people. They make the rest of us look bad, while making us feel bad about thinking they’re bad! Wow, he really makes me feel like the bad guy for not thinking good things about him, huh!?

Lucifer really improved since he died.

Not that it was possible for him to avoid improving.

He’d hit rock bottom, then he decided to bring out the industrial drills…

If Li Song had turned out to been utter manwhore who didn’t lift a finger to save anyone and just minded his own business, even that’d have been a vast improvement.

Looking down on Lucifer feels as good as ever.

Is this some sort of immutable law of Reality? Hmmm, must be. I would never be this petty.

Anyway, what was I doing again?

Oh, right.

Saving the world when there’s only twenty-four hours in the day.

…

“Alright, a manufactory’s done. What’s next?” There is no point in me sitting behind a desk. Just as bad as going out into battle, which is a waste of my time and would have me dead within a week. My time is better spent working on things that would deal with paperwork and other such problems. As they say, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Make a man a robot that catches fish and he learns the value of treating sentient life fairly and gets to eat for the rest of his life. If he learns the value of treating sentient life fairly, of course. “C’mon, Tina, gimme something to do while I’m riding my high. That last screw fit perfectly!”

“Regardless of how your latest screw was, ma’am, it’s time for your break.” Ooh, I need to turn down the comedy setting on Tina. Or, is that the sass setting? The sarcasm setting? As a fair and just Aspect of Creation, I need to make sure to correct my failings. Obviously, a smart-ass secretary needs to get fixed up right away. “If you do anything untoward to me, I will call Valerie Creighton, regardless of the fact she’s currently in Hell, ma’am.”

Gah.

My only weakness.

My best friend reaching through time and space to punch me in the head for being an idiot!

When I inevitably betray the world and take control of the government for the good of all people, I will outlaw such things from existing. I’m sorry Valerie, but you need to understand that for the benefit of all humanity you can no longer be my best friend. So the whole world can be perfect, I’ll only accept friends that simper at my feet and say yes to everything I say. They’ll all agree that when I want to work like a Japanese salaryman until I find myself alone, nearly dead, and a virgin at 40, I get to work like a Japanese salaryman and die a forty-year-old virgin!

Why do I suddenly hear the sound of dialing--

“No, no, no! Stop! That was a joke! Seriously!” Valerie is no fun when work is involved. Everything is business to her. Everything’s a fight that needs to be won, so everything needs to be perfect. This includes perfect rest periods. My dear Tina probably thought I was just going to get a strict talking-to, but no. What was going to happen was that Val was going to crash through the ceiling, drag me to bed, and not do anything fun that solves any of my problems either. Damn, why can’t I have a boy as a childhood friend that teaches me to live properly? “No need for that! I’m stopping! No more from me!”

“Go to the break room and sign in. Have a nice break and take care of yourself, Celeste.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go and make sure we’re in the black, Tina.” One bad thing about having Homunculi and Drones was that they were very, very protective. Not that my Angels were any less protective, but Metatron didn’t enjoy the ability to look through the security system that permeated the entirety of Heaven. Given that my staff was composed of individuals who didn’t care about sleep, only observed basic necessities for fun, and had computational abilities above the norm, that meant I enjoyed less time doing what I want now, than I did before. “Jeez. You guys really need to let a girl work when she hits her stride.”

“Girls get to be silly. Commanders do not.”

So it is the sass setting!

…

There isn’t a need for a break room filled with VR chambers like with other military bases. I happen to be the only individual with a meat-suit to which I am semi-permanently strapped in. Homunculi and Drones are free to stick themselves into access ports, go full data, and wreak havoc on the forums, MMOs, and other online communities with ease, while their bodies are stored in capsules. Naturally, since they can do that whenever they want, they instead focus their efforts on the break room.

As in using their pay to contribute to it, making it silly, entertaining, and quite frightening.

I never know quite what the breakroom is ever going to be. It used to be a storage room for all of the artifacts recovered from Ouroboros and was left to be used for another day. Now those artifacts are situated in CORE, are getting dismantled, and will never be used again because they’re terrible, terrible things that really should’ve been blown up right away. Now that those are gone, I am instead tortured every day with a small warehouse with dozens of shipping containers full of ever-changing amenities.

I have yet to find a means to program a sense of fashion into Homunculi and Drones, but the day I do is the day I break a few rules regarding the changing of sentient lifeforms.

Because, by my own name and all my fancy titles, Tiki-house of Disco and Cold Brew Coffee should not be a thing anyone should have to experience.

And that’s one of the more basic ones.

It was like Azazel purposefully made Homunculi to all be individualistic, strange, and quirky, just so he could make whole harems with utter ease. Naturally, I’m just glad he was putting his brain to use and not hurting other people, estranged parent that I am, but I really, really didn’t like the fact that giving my employees some funds and space means having to deal with eclectic, bizarre inanities every passing day. Granted, of course, it is a welcome change to the drab, undersea environment that we live in, but a girl can only take a dozen clashing, terrible ideas a day before she starts considering the self-destruct button worth it to not see some deranged combination of a Thanksgiving restaurant in the middle of an Autobahn-- who’s only steady traffic is penguins.

I never thought I’d miss cafes filled with starving writers, but here I am doing my best in a Luau that serves drip coffee poured by a Homunculi in a grass skirt.

Tiki torches do not go as well with coffee as an atmosphere of a desperate need for recognition.

The coffee is still good though.

“Oh, commander! You’re finally taking a break, huh?” It is obvious I am taking a break, but if they have the chance to be cute and adorable, a Homunculi’s going to take that chance without hesitation. Yep, soon enough, I find myself with one of my employees. Jean is wearing the same Luau number as the rest of the attendees in the shipping crate, looking really good, while I remain in a grease-stained white-tee with my equipment tied around my waist. “Hey, did you catch the news? Humanity’s going on the offensive against the Chimera! The Preservers are leading the charge!”

Alas, poor coffee, you deserve better than getting spat out in surprise.

“What!?” There are three reasons I am surprised. The Preservers, over the last few weeks, have just been  idling by. Well, as far as idling goes for a group that’s the equivalent of a perpetual asteroid impact, anyway. Whatever they do has major significance, so it is understandable they just do small things like confront undead kingdoms, destroy whole powers structures in the wastelands, and help out the ruling families of Hell. Working with humanity to launch a counterattack is big. An order of magnitude bigger than they used to do. So big that the other two reasons don’t matter. “Give me the reports, now!”

“Nuh-uh, you’re on breaktime, commander. You can enjoy reading about gossip on Li Song all you like, but the rest of the Preservers are off limits now they’re on the frontline.” But…But... 

I. Made. You! 

I literally made you from scratch, dammit! What gives you the right to say no to me, huh!? “Hmph, puppy-dog me all you like, Celeste, but you and I both know that when you’re on break you’re not allowed to work!”

Gah, forget turning down the sass, I should just have a base full of drones. Just drones. No Drones or Homunculi. These guys are never going to fall in line! Hmph!

“Pouting will get you nowhere, either, Celeste.” H-hey! Head patting a woman who’s tired is cheating! That’s definitely underhanded. Red card. Foul! Get your hands off of me, woman! I’m a grown Aspect that’s cheated death! I do the headpatting around these parts, not you! “Just rest, we don’t wish for our lovely, hardworking commander to overwork herself.”

“Sure, sure. You can say that because you’re all just focused on the now, while I have to think about what we have to do later.” Petty. Those words are definitely petty, but they only earn a laugh from Jean. Why did all Homunculi and Drones have to be so nice? Aren’t they supposed to have variety? What’s up with the fact that they’re all decent to you if you’re decent to them? Shouldn’t there be a few assholes who I can mouth off to without feeling bad? “It’s hard to relax, especially when you have to help out the whole world, you know?”

“If you’re worried about that, don’t be, boss. You’re doing a great job. It’s just the Preservers are doing incredibly well, that’s all.” I’m not competitive. I’m totally not. Competition is just a way to split people up into tribes to compete with one another. An enlightened individual such as myself would never stoop to such low heights. I’m not competing with Li Song, and I’m not worried that he’d do better than me. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Mhmm, yep, I’m glad he’s out there saving the world a dozen times over while I get to tinker in my room surrounded by people who tell me take breaks. “You might not get as many accolades as the Preservers, but you’re doing plenty, ma’am. It might be slow-going, but everything you’re doing is helping people out the way you want them to.”

That’s the thing isn’t it.

If I help people out the same way Li did, I’d be dealing everyone a bad hand. I’m the Aspect of Creation. I make things. He is the Aspect of Conflict. He takes things and uses them to clobber people. Or smile at them and make them want to stop fighting. Whatever. The fact of the matter was, I’m better making superweapons to use against opponents that everyone has trouble against, while making sure there’s a steady stream of new inventions to help out humanity, and taking care of a few brushfires. Going out there, risking everything for a pivotal battle, is not the way I’m going to redeem my mother.

“Yeah, I suppose.” I’m doing well. There are the new Drone chassis being mass produced. I reinforced the Homunculi core designs and future-proofed them as much as I was able. A few warships had upgrades to their main guns that would make Monarchs very, very dead the next time they come around. But, in the end, I wasn’t getting that much renown or gratification. I don’t need it. It is a silly thing to want, too… but, I do want to be praised like anyone else would. “I suppose.”

Man, I really need a break from this place.

Not just the breakroom, but this actual facility.

It’s no wonder my mother went bonkers down here.

This place and this job are absolutely depressing.