Another story! This one was done in May and yes, I will post the rest of it in due course. Just been busy with irl things as usual. No smut in this one...

In this story, I play a starategy game, Krutonium complains and we don't get lucky in the broom cupboard

Part I: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61041055/
Part II: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61638448/
Part IV: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/62263856/
Part V: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/62838622

As usual story is pasted below

---

[DC-05/N] Agent Telaroth
Imperial Intelligence Service

It actually wasn’t too hard to get myself captured. The patterns the Etarans follow to ‘boost the workforce’ as they call it were fairly predictable. All I did was putter around the slightly grotty trade station after booking a room for myself, occasionally picking up odd jobs and the like. Eventually, I was approached by one of the lizard-like Etarans who offered me a better job in manufacturing.

By then, the news was already common knowledge, so I’m not sure why they thought the ruse would work, so I said no… Not that it mattered as they broke into my hotel room while I was supposed to be resting and stuck an inhibitor chip to my neck.

Of course, these chips don’t work on me, but from what Krutonium was telling me, that would’ve most definitely worked on him. While it’s supposed to basically let them command synths to do whatever they want, I decided that would be too easy for them.

When commanded to get up out of bed, I stood up on the bed and then immediately feigned a collapse onto one of my would be captors, leaving him pinned under my limp form as the others tried to drag me off. They had also brought with them a cart, doubtlessly to have me sit inside and be smuggled out that way, but well, I’m not doing anything for them. They had to manhandle me into the cart, with me flopping around and making sure to hit them more than once with my various limbs, culminating with them rather unceremoniously dumping me inside when they were done. Of course, this also led to much grumbling about the poor quality of the inhibitor chip the entire time. It was admittedly a little entertaining, but well, neither Krutonium nor I really enjoyed being thrown around like that. Krutonium also complained that a few of his plates got scuffed up by the treatment and I had to remind him again that he was going to get new everything when we’re done anyway.

Either way, with a few bags of light rubbish thrown on top of me, I was wheeled out of the hotel, with nigh a question asked, out to a little rubbish truck and trundled off to a shuttle. Of course, it was more than immediately obvious that money had changed hands to make this happen, but that was not my mission to dig into. They have I-A agents looking into that and enforcement within our stations will come in due course…

As the van was driven into the shuttle and parked, I was expecting to be wheeled out and dumped onto a charging pad or something, but no. I was left inside as-is while my three captors jumped out to operate the craft. Krutonium remarked that they probably didn’t see me, or well, him, as a person and that tracked, considering that I was being referred to as ‘it’ the entire time and they didn’t seem particularly worried about the recent news aside from a few passing remarks. Something about the rest of the galaxy ‘coming round to realising that robots are just robots’.

Disgusting.

While Krutonium had a lot more to say on the topic than I did, since he can say as much as he want when only I can hear him, but it boiled down to the same thing.

The little cart that I had been left in wasn’t strapped down, but the van they used was as I heard the engines spinning up. While I had to feign being under the influence of the chip, I flicked through the last minute briefing data that Telricktus had sent to me before I had left.

There wasn’t much and way less than what I had hoped for, but from the handful of escapees that had sought refuge with us, what I was going through seemed to be typical. Apparently I won’t be leaving this shitty little cart till I arrived at whichever factory it was that they wanted in, so all I could do was settle in as best I could and wait.

From the dark confines of the trolley, I could feel the shuttle enter and then exit FTL as I played a base building strategy game to pass the time, followed by an atmospheric entry sequence as the whole thing rattled and creaked. I even managed to lose a few units by accident because their pilot was garbage and couldn’t correct for turbulence. However, eventually, I felt the shuttle land and the van was unloaded.

I was half expecting the cart to be dragged out and pushed to wherever, but no, instead they drove off, headed to what was probably an industrial area.

At the back of my mind, Krutonium was insisting that this wasn’t the time to play video games, but I pointed out that my sensors hidden under his form gather data and process it all regardless and the time won’t pass itself. Besides, if I linked with their satellite positioning array even for a nanosecond to figure out where we actually were, my comms signature, spoofed or not, will probably trigger a warning and blow my cover. So, with that clarified, he decided to start trying to tell me how to play my game. It ended up with us playing co-op as the van trundled its way down a highway.

I felt us exit the highway and roll down an offramp, onto increasingly poorly maintained and potholed roads before I started hearing the sounds of machinery working and smelt the pollution in the air – they must’ve been driving with one window open. We eventually stopped and went a few times, probably at traffic lights before driving into what I presumed to be a compound of sorts. I saw a few flashes of light as the cart was unloaded and the stuff on top of me shifted around, but not enough to tell where I was. I must’ve gone into a building, that smelt of grease and I could hear machinery running as we trundled along, before the cart was just left in a room.

Again, I wanted to take a look around, but with that chip on my neck, I was still having to pretend to be comatose, so I just sat there.

My internal clock registered a few hours without any activity, with the sounds of various footsteps, including several with the unique gait of a synth coming and going, but nobody came to get me.

It was only when night fell that the cart was emptied and I got a glimpse of my captor, a black-scaled lizard who looked down at me and grunted, picking a screwdriver out of one of his pockets and twiddling with the chip on my neck, mumbling something about them never working right first go. He eventually stopped and commanded me to get out, so I obeyed, keeping my expression neutral as I clambered out and just stood there.

While I was half expecting whoever this was to start inspecting me or something, instead, he simply grunted and walked off, telling me to follow. While my nanites had already mostly assimilated the chip, showing me how it was supposed to disrupt the control circuits that I didn’t have, I could also tell that I was supposed to be docile and do whatever I was told, so that is what I did.

While I was expecting to be led to the factory to be put to work, instead, I was brought to what looked like a dormitory, with cheap double decker beds packed in so close that other than the pathway that ran down the middle, all the other gaps were so narrow that I could see other synths having to shuffle sideways to get past.

Thankfully, I was pointed to a slightly grotty bed that wasn’t too far from the walkway itself and commanded to lie down. As I did, my boss, if you could even call him that, pulled a cable out from under the bed and plugged it into a port on the inhibitor chip. It immediately started flooding me with instructions and a roster, trying to reprogram ‘Krutonium’ into being a mindless robot, but well, it didn’t work, obviously. He was quite up in arms about it and making loud complaints at the back of my head as I pretended to take the programming. I still have to do the work, so I did go through everything and by the time it was done, whoever it was had gone and the cable retracted on its own, leaving me with a command to recharge till triggered.

I don’t need to recharge, but well, the energy field does help with my nanites, so I just went to sleep. Usually my host sleeps as well, but it seemed like Krutonium would have none of it.

While I dozed and sifted through the data that I had, he kept trying to prod me for some sort of explanation and asking me what the plan was. While it would’ve been easy to just lie to him, I don’t do that with my hosts usually. I told him the truth - there was no plan, I’m supposed to figure it out. That’s why I get the fancy nanites. He didn’t seem very impressed with that, but well, its not as if he can kick me out.

I just told him to trust me. Telricktus had left me with a vague lead or two, but it’ll take a bit of time to figure out.

Either way, after roughly figuring that I was in an industrial site relatively close to a spaceport, which, in the grand scheme of things is a piece of utterly useless information since there are multiple planets and spaceports in the system, the roster triggered what would be my wake up sequence, so I sat up in bed, in exactly the same way as a quarter of the occupants of the room.

While provisions in the code had been made to make people move in an orderly manner and whatnot, the lack of walking space still meant that a major jam happened and it took a while for all the lobotomised synths to make their way out the double doors at the end of the hall.

As I walked through the doors, I was greeted with the sound of motors whirring and hit with the smell of grease, oil and metal shavings as various lathes and mills were worked by other synths. As the ones from my shift filtered in, they took over from the others, who walked away without a word. Conversation is not necessary for slaves, I suppose.

As I walked to my workstation, I couldn’t help but notice the damage on some of my fellows – broken plates, missing digits and cracked visors around. Some even had dead displays, so you couldn’t see their digital eyes anymore. It was…suffice to say that if they had been organics, even the Alliance would’ve been up in arms about it. Shameful, really. Krutonium insisted that we should’ve sent the Fleet, but well, while I don’t disagree, at least they sent someone – me.

The first few days went about the same, walk out to the factory, churn out made to order parts on the mill I was stuck on, then walk back to the barracks and charge up. No time was given to wash up and since there were charging pads, meals were only given once a week to keep the digestive subsystems of the synths working.

The food was, well, abysmal, as one would expect. It was a piece of bread with a slice of the most plasticky looking cheese on it. I ate it anyway and considering that it had the texture of a rubber sheet and next to no taste, I’m still convinced that it wasn’t cheese.

Either way, as the time allowed for eating and bathroom use went by, I drank my cup of water and sat there, staring blankly into space like the rest till it was my turn to use the toilet. As I got up, I heard the buzzing of an overvolted servo as another synth fell into step next to me. I glanced over discretely and found them to be painted mostly blue and grey, with scuffs all over their plates and a cracked visor. They were also missing one of their horn-antenna things.

As I noted their look, Krutonium pointed out that they were signalling in binary for me to follow them to the bathroom.

Well, I was well on my way already, so I followed them, though instead of entering one of the stalls, yes, at least we got stalls to do our business in, they headed into a small storeroom in a corner of the bathroom itself. I followed them in and shut the door with my tail.

Before I could say or do anything, though, he half-grinned at me and prodded at the chip on my neck, cocking his head slightly at it as he poked at the ports and whatnot, “How’d you do it? You’re a fresh one, they’re not easy to break when they’re new.”

“Didn’t work when they put it on,” I replied as I batted the hand away and rubbed the spot, “Played along so that I wouldn’t get killed. How’d you know?”

“These chips run hot and yours is barely over idle,” He replied as he shook his head, “I could see you ages away, stuck with infrared because my other optics are broken. The question should now be whose side are you on, but I don’t think you enjoy a life of an industrial robot, do you? You’ve seen what its done to the others.”

“I don’t think anyone does.” I replied flatly, “There a way out?”

“There are ways, but you’re fresh and new, you could use your help in…longer term efforts.” He replied with a nod, “The Alliance support these scum, but we have contacts elsewhere who will help us.”

“I rather die in a firefight than live as a slave,” I replied with a nod, realising only after that Krutonium had wanted to say something similar, “whats the plan?”

“We will be in touch, now go and use the toilet so that suspicions are not raised,” He replied with a snort, gesturing to the door, “No cameras in here anyway and nobody will report you, they’ll just think I got a bit fried and dragged you in here for a rut.”

I couldn’t help but snort slightly before nodding and leaving, going to the toilet as instructed before rejoining the group while my counterpart doubtlessly did the same a short while later.

Things kept going the same way, with the preprogrammed routine being honestly easy to follow and fake, while I kept my eye on the surroundings, noting that the factory was dirty and plenty of synths were getting damage from stepping all over chunks of metal and bits of shavings, since they had no free will to walk around things. The housing was mostly the same, with lots of detritus and oil on the floors and the cardboard that passed as beds. While I took care not to get too scuffed up, not wanting to rip a hole in my disguise or something, there were more than a few scuffs and dings that I couldn’t avoid without arousing the suspicion of the wardens that would patrol around now and then, looking for any signs of free will.

While it would’ve been nice to phone home and ask if there was any progress on other things, that would’ve also blown my cover. Instead, my new blue-painted friend would slip me notes now and then asking me to slip into other lines of synths, squirrelling away what turned out to be weapon parts or quietly breaking machinery here and there to free up others to slip away.

As I worked with my new comrades, they told me about the mymarid things that they had been programmed to do and while it all looked mostly peaceful on the outside, they were all stuck in their own heads, forced to be passengers in their own bodies. Some fought back, some gave up. It’s almost a parallel to what I do, as Krutonium pointed out, but in this case he had signed up for it. Wasn’t a pleasant parallel to think about, but well, it is what it is. Besides, at least we’re giving him a new body once this is done. I do sometimes give my hosts control too if they behave, but in this case it’s kinda pointless since he'd have to pretend to be lobotomised too.

It was…a bit strange doing my job while pretending to do my job, but it worked out. I would slip away from bed in the evenings with all my lights blacked out to help in the effort. In doing so, let them slowly realise that I was decent at putting improvised weapons and whatnot together as I churned out jury-rigged rifles, pistols and the occasional hand grenade with my peers. Nevermind that I had copies of the captured schematics to work with in my memory. Krutonium asked if he could keep a few copies and I said no. We might’ve stolen them, but they’re still classified.

It was a lot of alliance weaponry, I recognised their sleek lines and design flair that Drakonian fare lacked. Who knew that they could make even death look beautiful, too bad it’s all tarnished with slave labour now. I made it a point to slip a few extra surprises into the actual production units that were shipped out too.

Krutonium ended up asking me if we had these people make weapons too, to which the answer was thankfully no, since we make our own weapons ourselves, but we bought plenty of other things from them in the past, so we were not all that much better. He also tried to put pressure on me to push harder in what I was doing, but no, I can’t look too good. They’ll get suspicious. At best they realise who I am, at worst they think I’m a Etaran plant and I doubt that’ll end well. All I could do was urge patience…