The Most Fabulous Object.

"It's a blueprint."

"Yes, I know that."

"I don't follow as to why I'm supposed to be excited about it."

Goethe had found Savannah idling around Port Atlantis and he rushed to show her his 'find'. Savannah turned it over in her hands, and held it up to the light. It was just a normal blueprint.

"This is the blueprint for a map. A map to a buried robot citadel - and a functional robot triphammer."



"How do you know?" Savannah raised her eyebrows, unconvinced. "Wait, let me guess. A robot told you."

"Yes! You're right, and what's even better is that I only need a few more odds and ends of enmatters..."

"Save it." Savannah pressed the blueprint back into her friend's hand. To her, it looked like a crudely modified blueprint for a shirt, but Goethe had never been that observant. "Tell me about this triphammer."

They settled down in a corner of the RDI building, and Goethe began to gush about this triphammer. He was a sucker for technical details, and frankly, it was kind of funny seeing him get so into things. Goethe was a wannabee weapon manufacturer, and he loved designing fanciful, impractical guns.

"Basically, it's a railgun that fires a copper/cadmium pellet. The pellet disintegrates in flight, leaving a stream of particles. The stream stays coherent, under Calypso Standard, for about nine seconds - however, this is long enough for the completion of the attack."

"Which is?" Savannah asked, now genuinely interested.

"One million, eight hundred thousand volts."

"I'm impressed."

"It's designed to take out cities."

Savannah let out a low whistle.

"And a robot told you this? Can I meet it?" She leant in closer to Goethe, who was not really sure if she was making fun.

"Yes..."

"You're insane."

"Possibly."

"I'm bringing a big gun."

"Feel free!" Goethe pushed away from the wall of the RDI, and stiffly walked away. "Are you coming, or not?"

* * *

"This is your robot?"

"No, it was right here, I swear! This is just--"

"And yet I see a pile of robot bits. Goethe, somebody took it apart."

"But..."

Savannah knelt next to the pile of junk that had could have easily formed a standard drone. Whomever had taken it out had cleaned the wreckage well. There were a couple of filters left, but the wreck was otherwise clean. The limbs mostly showed damage from an edged weapon, but one leg was fused into a black mess.

"Sav, I swear, this must be something else. It looked fine--"

"You could have a genuine map there, you know." Savannah stood up, and brushed her hands over her hips to knock excess dirt from her fingers. "I think it was malfunctioning. A few circuits short of a--"

"Hey, what are you doing?" A voice caught them both off-guard, and Goethe whirled to face a woman standing behind wielding a sword he wasn't quite sure he wanted to get much closer to. "That's mine. I'm back for the scraps."

"Who are you?" Savannah squinted, and stepped forward. The woman wore a patchwork suit of armour - some shogun, some rascal - which shielded her features. Both Goethe and Sav raised brows at her wickedly bright red hair, which the woman brushed a hand through before shrugging.

"Kit will do. The robot was raving when I found him. Offered me some stupid blueprint. Said it was the key to some hidden city, or something like that. I didn't really let him finish. Good loots, though.." Kit produced a mangled blueprint from her suit, and showed it to them. Savannah could practically feel Goethe's disappointment. It looked almost the same as his 'map.' Apparently, the robot had been trying to buy survival.

"Anyway. You're going to leave now. Or we're headed to an Octagon." Kit tilted her head, her expressionless mask giving Savannah a chill.

"Of course. Sorry. We just happened by, and wanted to see." Savannah steered Goethe away from the fallen robot, and pushed him around the corner, walking him back toward the teleport. Behind them they could hear the grunts and clanks that followed as Kit gathered the rest of her spoils.

"You know, Goethe... I--"

"I don't want to hear it, Sav. 'You told me so.' Congratulations." Disheartened, Goethe stalked off away from Savannah, dropping the blueprint and stomping on it as he went. Sighing, Savannah shook her head, and picked the pieces up as she followed, to dispose of later.