Project Orpheus: A Tale of Blood and Feathers

Chapter 1: The Genius

Dr. Noh often did not get visitors in her distant lab. This not only didn't bother her, she actually liked it. Visitors meant explanations, and explanations meant problems. Still, every once in a while, someone would find their way to her door, usually through lots of money and a little bit of luck.

And those were, frankly, the worst kind of visitors.

Noh shifted herself in her black leather chair as she tapped away at the light keyboard projected onto her teak wood desk. She had heard one of her colleagues was going to come out with a projector that could be used for actual computer monitor displays, and not just pre-fabricated images. That would make her high tech desk complete.

She was proud of how she had managed to fit the whole master computer for the building into the space of a desk. The only issue was that her desk didn't have have much leg room - not if she also wanted space for the things a desk was supposed to take. She swiped on the touch screen monitor to change the camera she was watching.

There he was. Chester Daniels. A tall man, who looked exactly like you'd expect a very wealthy man to look. In a suit that was probably more expensive than any given piece of equipment in the lab (except the Birthers, even Noh had to admit those were absurd), with his brown hair slicked back in what was obviously a combover even though it was trying so very hard not to be. The most exciting part of the outfit was the plain red tie he wore.

Boring attire, for an annoying man. The door to her office then slid open, allowing him and the android into the room.

From a distance, FC-01 would read as a weirdly tall and cylindrical woman, but as soon as she started walking closer to you the illusion would be broken. Firstly, her movement was...strange. Noh had managed to make it follow the motions of a human, but there was something about the timing of the servos or something that confused the issue. Then, as she got even closer, it was very easy to see that the black and red plastic plates that made up her "clothing" were, in fact, embedded into her 'skin', which actually looked like skin. She was proud of that. The SynthSkin they had developed played the part perfectly well until you either tore it apart or looked at it under a microscope. It also didn't feel like skin, but that was also something she was working on.

"Thank you, FC-01. You can go back to your other duties."

"Yes, Doctor." She plodded out of the room, the sound of her heavy boots hitting the floor no longer the obnoxious clank it was before she replaced the "soles" of her feet with the plastic braces.

"Chester. Welcome back, good to see you. Thank you for your...generous contribution."

Chester had that big, stupid, awful grin on his face as he pulled up out the chair across from her and sat himself down in it, folding his hands in a steeple as he leaned back.

"Oh, oh, of course, Doctor. To business as usual with you. Surely we can have a nice little chat before we get down to that topic? At least a cup of coffee?"

Noh rolled her eyes and pressed the pager button on her desk. "Bittie, please bring my guest some coffee and me a Sprite."

Noh used the switch under the foot hole of the desk to move the monitor closer to her as she opened up one of her lab reports and began typing away into it.

"I'd rather not. You know I'm a very busy woman, and I'd like us to leave with an understanding of each other, today, if possible."

Chester sighed. She could see the tips of his fingers redden as he pressed them together.

"I did not come to the asscrack of Alaska to be spurned away after 15 minutes, Noh. You will hear me out."

Noh rolled her eyes as she pressed her finger on the touch screen again to load up an automatically generated image of the data she had just input.