Chapter Text
『 GO TO TOWN 』
「 MEDICINE FOR ZEDAPH ACQUIRED 」
「 BUY INGREDIENTS FOR DINNER 」
🔒「 … 」
The door closes behind Tango as it leaves the drug store, scanning its area once more to analyze where the supermarket is located. Its surroundings, including the people, vehicles, and birds, slow down into a halt as if time has stopped, moving its gaze left and right to find what it’s looking for. Considering the amount of traffic in town at the moment, it is quite difficult to finish its task as soon as possible and get back home to take care of Zedaph’s needs. It deactivates its scanner and moves the time back to normal, uses the sidewalk to head to its destination that is two hundred meters ahead from its current location.
It smoothly dodges and weaves the crowd as it quickens its pace. When it checked Zedaph’s temperature two hours prior, the reading was one hundred two point six degrees Fahrenheit while the hybrid was drenched in his sweat, showed signs of dehydration, and general weakness.
【 SOFTWARE INSTABILITY 】
「 - 02:37:15
TIME BEFORE DINNER 」
It glances to the right side of its screen to see the remaining time it should buy the necessities. It should hurry up, then. Zedaph is a bit finicky when it comes to dinnertime. If it’s even a few minutes later in preparation, he would dissolve into an hour’s worth of speech about the importance of eating together during the right moment. A man’s shoulder bumps into Tango, which makes it stumble and fall onto the ground from the strong impact. It tries to look up, but a foot lands on its head and firmly pins it down.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, you plastic freak!” The man yells with a growl.
The circle LED located on its left temple flickers yellow as it curls its fingers into fists and uses its elbow components to boost itself up to hopefully continue with its remaining tasks but with how the human’s foot is forcing it to stay in its current position, it’s impossible to lift itself.
“Can’t you see I’m walking here?” The man continues as he stomps his foot harder on its head. “Do you think you’re so important just because the government allows freaks like you to roam free?”
An anomaly has occurred in Tango’s system that it can’t decipher when it detects a rise in temperature as if there is dormant lava starting to bubble inside, threatening to rise towards its biocomponents and burn them all into a crisp that it makes it want to punch the man in the face but ignores it.
【 SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ︿ 】
The LED blinks red for a moment as the human pushes his foot with more force than earlier before it returns into its flickering yellow state.
“Hey! Sir, you can’t do that.” Another human’s voice can be heard approaching their direction.
Tango takes a quick glance to see a police officer beckoning their hands towards the said man as a gesture to step away from it. After a few tries, the man finally obliges and clicks his tongue as he lifts his foot before stepping back with a frown. In return, it releases the strains from its rigid limbs including its clenched fists as it slowly stands up, sensing the peculiar internal heat dying down to its stable state while the LED turns to blue.
“It’s not my fault, officer. I was just passing by and this thing bumped into me!” The man crosses his arms as he scrunches his nose and glares towards Tango’s direction.
“Alright, alright.” The officer leans forward as they stand between Tango and the man while hovering their hands in front of them. “That’s enough. If you don’t stop this now, you might damage it and I’ll have to ask you to pay a fine.”
“Fine.” The man clicks his tongue. “Wait ‘till that thing takes your job, too. Let’s see who has the last laugh.” He adds between gritted teeth before turning back to walk away with tense shoulders and shoves his clenched fists to his pants pockets.
Tango observes the police officer leaving the vicinity before it glances to the countdown to see there is only T-minus two hours, thirty minutes, and forty-two seconds left before supper.
┬┴┬┴┤┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈├┬┴┬┴
“That will be ninety-one fifty. Please confirm payment.” The JO300 model android states as it places the plastic filled with groceries on the counter.
Tango accesses Zedaph’s account, inputs the recipient with the android’s serial number and clicks next. It enters the amount ‘$91.50’ before clicking ‘continue’ and proceeds to select ‘Ram Financial Services’ as the mode of payment before clicking ‘next’. It swiftly reviews the information and confirms that it correctly inputs the requirements and successfully sends it to the said android with a yellow flickering of its LED.
The LED of the other android across from it flickers as well, confirming that it receives Tango’s payment.
“Payment confirmed.” Tango informs.
“Transaction complete.” Android JO300 steps back while its LED reverts to constant blue.
Tango’s LED returns to blue and picks up the plastic before it beelines towards the exit. It checks the timer to see that there’s still T-minus one hour, fifty-three minutes, and two seconds left before dinner.
『 GO TO TOWN 』
「 MEDICINE FOR ZEDAPH ACQUIRED 」
「 INGREDIENTS FOR DINNER BOUGHT 」
🔓「 TAKE BUS HOME 」
It heads to the front of the huge store where the bus stop is located and stands under its roof to wait for the vehicle to arrive. A few minutes later, one arrives and slowly skids into a stop before the doors open for the passengers to enter. Facing the opened door with a label ‘Android Compartment’, it goes in and walks to stand on a free space between other androids before the engine roars to life as an indication that the bus is departing towards the next location.