Sandra and Jakes First Meeting

Jake stood in front of the large metal vault door, bouncing on the heels of his feet nervously. The foot-thick-steel reinforced door had a dent sticking out of it, several dents as a matter of fact.

“What the fuck is that…yo, you didn’t say anything about this thing being that strong…”

The Lab Coat talking with the head security guard glanced back to Jake, before turning and approaching him.

“Is there a problem Jake?”  She was one of the more unassuming looking coats, brown hair done up into a bun, simple looking glasses. She’d greeted him earlier with a smile but had since moved to a more professional demeanor after he agreed to this. Why the hell did he agree to this again? Oh right, they finally agreed to let him go topside as part of his daily routine.

“Yes there’s a problem, you want me to go in there and talk to something that can damage one of these doors? Fuck. That.”

“Look, Jake, we don’t want you to fight it, we just want you to talk with it. E-97, has been rather volatile towards security forces, we’re hoping a more unassuming individual will be more readily welcomed. We just need you to find out what we can do that will make it more amicable towards us…Dr. Elroy suggested you as being our best choice to survive one of its outbursts if it were to have one. You’re one of our more…. amicable….as well as indestructible, non-persons.”

He winced inwardly at being referred to as a non-person. He never liked the way some of the "people" staff referred to him.

“Look, I understand that you’re feeling some trepidation here. Try to remember what we’re offering you in exchange. You’ll be doing the BPRD a large service if you do this, and if you succeed think about the other things we might be able to bring in for you…”

Jake looked back at the door. His eyes shifted to the four fully decked out guards that made the men that escorted him here look like they were holding toys by comparison. There was a small tinge of jealousy about that. He waffled back and forth mentally. What the hell was he supposed to do if whatever this thing was decided it was done listening to him? Would it dismember him? Would it be worth getting the ability to go topside if he had to worry about his legs flying off if he tried to run? The doctors were good, but jeez. Taking a second to steel himself he stood up to his full height and sighed.

“Okay….okay fine….hurry up and open the door before I change my mind.”

Lab Coat turned back to the security lead and nodded. He spoke into a device on his wrist, and the large yellow hazard lights flicked on as the doors pressurized bolts released with a loud hiss. Jake stared at the dent as the door slowly slid open, rolling to the side enough for a person to enter.

“Security is on standby if things get out of hand, alright Jake?” Lab Coat offered him a placating smile. He’d have rolled his eyes if they hadn’t been feeling loose lately. He took a deep breath, for what little good that even did him anymore. It wasn’t like he was scared, he’d already died, what else was there to be scared of at this point…….

“Yeah, sure, if you have to scrape me off the walls, be gentle at least….”

He stepped into the vault, the door sliding shut behind him. He looked back at the dent from the inside and felt a ping of nervous energy swell in his chest. A part of him was thankful he could still feel something like that. Little things like that were what kept him from fully turning feral.

Taking a minute to look back at the rest of his surroundings, he finally noticed what sounded like a clicking noise, and the dull muted operatic opening of something he vaguely recalled from the 90’s. The room was spartan, just a bed, a large armchair, and a TV hooked up to a VCR. He could just make out something sitting in the chair. It was…small. It was orange and had a row of spines that traveled down its head in a uniform line. Large yellow eyes with slitted pupils stared at him. There was a twitch from, what he could only call antenna, off the sides of its head. It sat huddled against the back of the chair, doing its best impression of Killroy.

“Uhmm…hi?” A twitch came from the antenna and the clicking seemed to intensify. Jake looked around and took another step further into the room, and could see the creatures hands tighten on the back of the chair for a moment. He glanced around the rest of the room. It couldn’t have been much bigger than the chair it was sitting in. He kept thinking if he got closer, he’d find out it was just really far away. Every step closer earned more clicking sounds, and a better view of the creature. It was small…at full height it would probably barely crest his chest.

It reminded him of a cross between an insect and a reptile. Four arms, and a pair of legs that reminded him of a cricket or a grasshopper. Its lower jaw consisted of mandibles, that were currently open as if it were warning him. He looked past it towards the TV where a flashy red woman with dark raven hair was currently absconding with a tower via a helicopter.

“Oh shit, is that Carmen Sandiego?” The clicking stopped abruptly. He glanced at the creature for a quick moment, to see it’d turned its attention fully back to the TV. He watched it shift back into the large armchair, hugging its knees to it chest. It was childlike in the way it was rapt with attention at the colorful cartoon. He looked back at the dent in the door and then back to the critter. Were the doctors punking him? Was this some other kind of test? There was no way it was this critter, right?

“You uh….like this show?” He said taking a step up next to the chair, a small distance away from it, looking between the small bug-like thing and the tv. It didn’t respond, but the clicking had stopped at least, that was good right?

“Are you going to try and take her away too?” It said finally breaking its silence. Their voice was surprisingly light, almost cheerful. He figured there’d be a hidden buzz, or a growl, or a hiss, or a lisp even.

“Uh…no, no I am not.”

“Good,” they looked at him for a moment then back to the TV, the antenna and spines on its head seemed to relax further, “…not like the others? You taste different…”

Jake had to do a double take.

“Excuse me?”

“You taste different,” they repeated. Jake did a body check to make sure every part of him was still in place. He wasn’t missing anything, fingers were all in place, no skin had schluffed off, ears were still in place…

“Right, sure….so uh, is that what happened before? They tried to take your show away from you?”

The critter sighed deeply. Was that annoyance? It sounded like it. It didn’t really show any visible signs of it though.

“Told them not to, they kept trying. So, I stopped them. Now they aren’t allowed back in…” They looked over at Jake, seeming to take stock of him, “You can stay though, but shh….”

This is not what Jake was expecting when he walked in here. He took a seat on the floor and looked at the TV, he let his mind idle out as the show played. Every so often he’d be jolted back to tuning in when the critter would cry out a response to the TV when it asked a question regarding some trivia it had presented. It was oddly charming when it began trying to sing along with the ending. The VCR clicked and whirred as it began the process of rewinding when the tape reached the end of the spool.

The critter turned to look at Jake, bouncing a little in their seat.

“Isn’t this show great? It’s got so much knowledge, and shows a lot of what the outside is like. Plus Carmen is the coolest, she’s always one step ahead even when she loses. I wish I could be like her someday.”

“Yeah? You’re really into this show huh?”

“Oh yeah! It’s been really helpful, I’ve been learning a lot from it…I do wish there was more though,” It leaned towards Jake a little closer, “You come from outside, is it really that colorful out there? Have you been to England? What about Tokyo?”

“Heh, it can be that colorful, I think it’s a lot brighter than a cartoon though,” He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the bug as it leaned over the arm of the chair and peered back down at him, “Didn’t really have much of a chance to travel after I turned, but I always wanted to see like, Paris, or Machu Pichu. What about you? You want to travel?”

The bug nodded vigorously.

“Oh yes! I want to visit the Easter Isles and see those giant heads, they look fun to climb. Ooh or Australia and see Ayers Rock…or Egypt and the pyramids!”

“I always wanted to see those heads too! You know-” The intercom crackled to life, stopping Jake short and causing the bug to turn its attention to the speaker in the ceiling and start clicking again.

“Jake, you aren’t in there to socialize with Clicks, wrap this up…” The voice of the security officer Jake had seen the Lab Coat talking piped in through the intercom. It them fizzled out. Leaving Jake slightly annoyed.

“I don’t like that one,” Clicks muttered quietly. Jake looked off to the side and sighed reflexively.

“Yeah, neither do I….” Jake stared at Clicks, there was a kindred spirit here that just wanted to go running around outside too, he might have liked to stick around a bit longer and chat if it wasn’t in this depressing place, “Look, here’s the deal, they might be mean, and ornery and a bunch of jerks, but they’re just making sure you’re not going to go around killing people, or hurting them. If you go throwing fits and making them scared, they’re going to take your things away, or worse, just leave you in here…they’re going to run tests, and they’re going to poke and prod, but in the end, if you’re lucky, you’ll get that chance to go outside and see those places for yourself…yeah?”

Clicks looked back at Jake, staring for a long moment.

“Why do they get to decide that?”

Jake shrugged.

“I dunno, cause they got the power behind them to do it.” He didn’t think it was possible for this cheerful creature to look so down, but there it was, sinking into the chair, knees up to its chest again. Sulking? Probably. After a moment there was a soft click from the VCR clicked as the tape finished rewinding. Jake sat and watched Clicks get up, and push the play button.

“Aren’t you going to put in the next tape?” Clicks looked at him mandibles slightly agape, “You know there’s more than just those episodes right?”

“THERE’S MORE!?” The shock and utter childlike ecstatic glee that was behind that voice was almost priceless. Jake cracked a smile.

“Look, you play nice with them, and I’ll make sure you get the rest of the episodes, sound good?” A promise he was not even sure he could actually keep, but he’d try. Clicks nodded vigorously, their excitement was almost infectious.

“Alright, Clicks, it’s a deal.”

Clicks stopped and looked at Jake for a long moment.

“Don’t call me that…” Jake paused and blinked at them.

“Uh…oh, sorry I thought it was your name…do you have a name?” it shook its head.

“No...you sat and watched her with me…so call me something else.”

Jake stood there a little dumbstruck. He’d never named anything larger than a dog before. He looked around the room, his eyes resting on the TV for a minute as the theme song for Carmen played.

Carmen? No, it felt too much on the nose, and too cheap. He didn’t want to give them some weird complex about a cartoon character, seemed like they had enough of one already. Sandy? Mm…better but still no….

“Sandra?” He blurted out loud thoughtfully, more to himself than to the critter.  They looked at him with those big yellow eyes.

“Yes.”