Disconnect

Chapter 4

     Despite your best efforts, you couldn’t think of anything to say during your walk throughout the manor. You just walked beside Tessa and admired the grandiose building that surrounded you. You would catch her glancing at you from the corner of your eye, but when you went to look, she would always turn away. You hope she wasn’t mad at you. Soon enough, you heard the sound of someone talking a little ways away. You couldn’t make out the words just yet, but not long after the voice was audible, Tessa started to pick up the pace. You and J followed as Tessa put some distance between you.
     As you get closer to the source you can begin to piece words together, “-and sometimes they get haircuts to make their heads and tails have these little balls of fluff! Apparently, they have these big events where thousands of people come to just see them! I’d love to go to one of those-”
     The owner of the voice is quickly interrupted by Tessa turning into a large open doorway and charging inside. With an excitement you haven’t heard from her yet, Tessa screams, “N!”
     You and J enter the doorway into a bar looking area where Tessa was- Holy shit. Tessa must be stronger than she looks, because she's got a butler drone’s head in her hands, and she’s twirling him around like a parent would swing a toddler.
     After a few twirls, the drone is just held off the ground by the head. Because of this, he sounds like someone is squishing his cheeks, “Hi Tessa.”
     “What are you doing right now?,” Tessa askes the butler excitedly, putting him down on his feet.
     “I ran out of things to do, so I came here. I found some books in the library earlier about dog shows and I wanted to share what I found,” The drone points a thumb behind him to a book on the bar table beside him.
     Tessa tilts her head, “Who were you talking to?”
     “Who? Obviously I was talking to-,” the drone looks behind him at the bar, then he hops up to look over it. When he doesn’t find what he was looking for, he looks at Tessa, “No one I guess. Cyn must have been busy.” He gives an awkward chuckle.
     Tessa pauses for a moment before speaking, “We’ll meet up with her later. For now, I want to introduce you to someone.” She moves behind the butler and scoots him towards your general direction.
     The butler moves on his own after a foot and a half, “Hi! I’m N. Nice to meet you,” when he gets close to you, he holds out a hand to shake, “Put it there.”
     You go to shake N’s hand but you suddenly remember the hand crusher 9000 behind you. She’s always going to be called that to you now. Just in case anyone tries that again, you’re going to start out with a firm grip this time. “I’m (Y/N). Nice to meet you too.”
     N gives you a smile with one eye closed, “That’s quite the grip you’ve got. Haha.”
     You retract your hand, realizing that you are now on the giving end of an uncomfortable handshake, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to grip so hard.”
     “It’s fine. I doubt you’d do any damage. I’m a tough butler,” he says this last part while giving you finger guns.
     You give him a laugh at his hijinks, “So you’ve never seen a dog show before?”
     “Have you? I only found out about them today,” N says excitedly.
     “Not in person, no. I think I have the next best thing, though,” you pat the left side of your chest to get the portable game system out only to realize that you had forgotten your jacket in Tessa’s room. “Oh, uh…,” you look at Tessa, “Can we go back to your room real quick? I forgot my jacket there I think.”
     She shrugs, “Yeah, that's ‘right. Thought you left it there on purpose.”
     “I did not… And I have something I want to show this guy,” you point at N.
     “Ooo, I love surprises,” N is all smiles. Good to know you’ve made a good first impression with at least one of Tessa’s friends.
     You do that little half jog, half power walk thing to the doorway ahead of the group as the four of you begin to advance back to Tessa’s room. You stop just past the doorway to look back at everyone moving at a more reasonable relaxed pace. You’re only in a hurry because you don’t like to leave your stuff unattended. This may have been a mistake, as only a second before collision, you spot a maid drone getting closer to you. When the two of you collide, you get knocked off our feet with the maid following soon behind. Unfortunately, she falls onto you. The back of your head hits the bottom of the door frame with a thud, making you shut your eyes from the sudden jolt of pain. The sound of a metal tray and glass bottle hitting the floor fills your ears. You hear the bottle bounce a few times, but not break before going quiet. You do, however, feel a weight pushing on your kidneys in a painful way.
     As the weight begins to rise from your body you hear the maid speak, “I’m sorry. I can’t see where I’m- Oh robogod I’m so sorry sir! I didn’t mean to…!”
     “(Y/N)!,” you hear Tessa yell with concern as footsteps draw nearer.
     You groan as the throbbing in the back of your head continues. Thankfully your insides feel better without the extra weight. You hope you didn’t get a concussion from this or something. You open your eyes to see a very fearful looking maid drone with the same colored hair as J and N, as well as Tessa holding a hand out to you. You take Tessa’s hand and allow yourself to be brought back to your feet. You stumble forward a bit, but Tessa puts a hand on your shoulder to steady you.
     “Thanks, Tessa,” you give her a smile while holding a hand to your head in an attempt to ease your headache.
     “Any time. Are you alright?,” she sounds worried about you, and you understood why first hand. That was a nasty fall. Speaking of hands, she quickly takes her hand away from yours now that you’re upright.
     “I’m so sorry…,” you hear the maid that bumped into you repeat.
     You look at the maid, who seems on the verge of a panic attack. N is trying to calm her with a hand at her back, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. She’s holding onto the cuff of N’s sleeves and you notice a tremble in her grip.
     “I’m fine, and I’m not mad. Are you alright, miss? You look worse than I do,” you hold up your hands placatingly.
     “You’re…not?,” the maid says in disbelief.
     “I mean it hurt, but you didn’t mean to right? Accidents happen,” you speak softly as to not agitate this clearly anxious girl- uh, drone.
     She does seem to be calming down a bit as she speaks, “I really didn’t. Are you bleeding? I can get something for that.”
     You feel around your head and don’t feel any wetness, “I’m fine really. No need. Though I might get a few bruises.” After you tell this joke you pat your stomach where she had fallen, and you realize that it still hurts. There are probably going to be bruises.
     Tessa walks the short distance to the maid’s side, now standing opposite of N. She puts an elbow to the maid’s shoulder, “This one here’s V-” Tessa stops herself and does a double take at V, “V, where are your glasses?”
     The question seems to set V on edge as her eyes go hollow, “I… They broke, so I put them away.” You notice V glancing at you before returning her gaze to Tessa.
     Tessa moved her eyes over to the glass bottle that had fallen to the ground. You look that way as well and see a bottle of whisky that seemed a third of the way full. Without thinking, you move over to the bottle to pick it up, also picking up the silver platter along the way.
     “Sir?,” V said, “You don’t have to do that. It’s my job, and you’re a guest.”
     You just give her a perplexed look, “I was closer. I don’t mind. As long as no one sees, it’s fine right?”
     V raises a hand like she wants to argue, but doesn’t want to talk back to a guest. Her hand lowers as you bring both the bottle and platter to her.
     “I’m (Y/N), by the way,” you hand her the items.
     She takes the items in her hands and gives you a polite bow, “I’m V, sir.”
     “Please don’t call me sir. I’m not old yet,” you laugh at your own joke and she returns a small giggle.
     “Good to see you two are getting on well, but your jacket?,” Tessa takes the opportunity to remind you about the matter at hand.
     “Right. Sorry to bother you. I’ll let you get back to work,” you give V a nod and continue on with Tessa and the group.
     As you walk away, V speaks, “Oh, no. I just have to put these up, and I’m done for a while. It’s no trouble.”
     “Then you should join us! (Y/N) said he’d show us something cool in Tessa’s room,” N waves at V as the group moves forward.
     V seems to like that idea, but has other things she has to do. She still has to clean the platter that was on the floor, and put the bottle in its place. She decides to return a wave as the distance between her and the group grows, “I’ll catch up.”
    
     With V returning to her duties, you and the others make your way back to Tessa’s room. Once inside, you go straight for your jacket. You turn to see Tessa following close behind, and soon she plops onto her bed. You also see J and N looking at the drone on the floor with its insides open. You’ll think of something about that in a moment. You rummage around your jacket to find your portable system and start it up. You know of just the video to show N. You find it quickly and you gesture for him to come over to Tessa’s bed so everyone can see. Even J decides to join in. With everyone gathered, you play a video of a dog in a dog show completing an obstacle course with funny music poorly edited in. I wasn’t funny, but that didn’t stop N from loving watching the dogs look silly when they run. Tessa and you were giggling like children, because despite how much you hated to admit it, you are still an immature little kid. J seemed happy at least, even though she didn’t care for actually watching the video. After a few minutes, there’s a knock at the door.
     “Come in,” Tessa says between giggles.
     V walks in and immediately halts when she sees the drone on the floor, her eyes becoming hollow.
     You quickly take notice of this and decide to ask Tessa, “Can we put another tarp over that one?” You nod over to the dissected drone.
     She seems to put together what you're implying when she sees the look on V’s face. She stands up and goes into her closet again and pulls out another tarp. You go over to assist her with covering the drone. The two of you exchange a high five for a job well done on this very quick and impossible to fail task.
     With the distraction at least covered up, V at least looks more comfortable entering the room and closing the door behind her. She walks over to N and J who are still watching the video. N very enthusiastically shows her the video. V tries and fails to stifle her laughter as she makes her way to N’s side and takes a seat next to him. You notice that both N and V have lines on their screens just below their eyes. You’ve not seen a drone do that so you’re not entirely sure what that means.
     You don't have a lot of time to ponder the topic before Tessa raises an arm in the air like she’s rallying an army and declares, “Who’s up for a little game day?!”
     N cheers, “Woohoo!”
     You can’t help but smile at his antics. It makes you feel more grown up by comparison. You look at Tessa, “What did you have in mind?”
    

     You sit, glaring at those around you. You hold 3 cards in your hand, Tessa has 6, J and N both have 5, and poor V has 9, being on the receiving end of far too many draw 2’s to get back into the game. This wasn’t a game. It was card based warfare. It was your turn. You play a red draw 2 on top of a red 7. Tessa glares over her cards at you before a sinister smile graces her face.
     “Not so fast,” she gives a big ‘HA’ as she slams down a yellow draw 2.
     “I got this boss,” J says as she too throws down a yellow draw 2.
     You look at N, the only other dude in this room. It’s so sad to see a brother fall in this godless game. Almost brings a tear to your eye. Almost. You notice that he’s hesitating a bit while looking at his hand.
     “I’ll just…,” he says while reaching for the deck.
     “Don’t have a card to play?,” Tessa questions.
     “I do, I’ll just draw the cards though,” he continues for the deck before Tessa stops him.
     “If you’ve got a card, you have to play it. It’s in the rules,” Tessa retorts.
     “Even if I don’t want to?,” he looks guiltily at V.
     “Oh, I see how it is… You’ve got another draw 2, don’t you?,” you look at him knowingly.
     “How did you…,” N’s eyes hollow as he’s been found out.
     V pats his shoulder, “It’s ok, N. Really.”
     N plays down a blue draw 2 while looking guilty, “Sorry.”
     “It’s ok,” V plays down a blue draw 2 of her own, “Right (Y/N)?”
     You look down in horror at your hand, no way out in sight. You look at V who’s giving you a smug look, “Et tu, V?”
     The game goes on for much longer afterwards.