Family of Steel [Exemplary]

[Proto Man]

“Mobs?” Proto Man asked, his eyes tentatively scanning the very open areas that surrounded the front of the structure.

Hiberius furrowed his brow. “Yes, mobs. Some are just gangs of petty criminals or highwaymen trying to score drugs or money. Those are the easy ones to deal with. There are some who remain barely human. They survive through chems and illegal tech implants and make a living smuggling said items through Coruscant. This entire tier survives on black markets, trafficking, and blood.”

“Why doesn’t the Empire do more about it? I’ve been topside--there must be three troopers for every one resident of the top tier.”

Hiberius shrugged his enormous, plated pauldrons. “What giant city uses its resources to fix its ghettos? The only difference is here the ghetto is the size of an entire city.”

“Are you the only soldier?”

“Yes. For what it’s worth, I’m quite confident that I could rip apart a platoon of those stormtroopers with my bare hands, let alone the petty thugs down here. Before I arrived in the Omniverse, I participated in battles that raged for years across entire star systems.”

“So why don’t they have you out there doing real good?”

The massive, armored marine let out a laugh as he pointed to a metal sheet on the wall of his little outpost near the front of the structure. At the top were a string of tally marks. They continued in an orderly fashion for a row or two before they became jumbled and erratic, like someone had too many to make and not enough patience. “There are two hundred and thirty six there,” Proto Man remarked after his processors provided him with the tabulation.

“I gave up after four days… and that was nearly a month ago. You’re looking at the only place here where there are supplies and materiel flowing into the city through credible means. Everyone out there would kill for a piece of we have. This place is the one beacon of light in this dismal place. The people who have to live down here… most of them are genuinely good folk who are just too poor to do any better. They don’t deserve what happens to most of them.

“I’m looking for some machines,” Proto Man remarked as the two sat down near the barred front doors of the facility

“You’re going to have to be more specific. Machine could be a toaster, a cd player, a robot, or anything in between.”

“Androids like me,” the preteen answered. “Humanoid. Probably only two or three colors… they’d probably have arm cannons?”

The space marine nodded. “Yep. We’ve had a few of those. Some are rather nice,” he said, gesturing to the building behind them. “Others have been adding to the general chaos around here,” his metal digit gestured to the panorama of decaying tenaments and high-rises that overlooked the square.

Proto Man turned his attention to the heavy door. “You said you have androids inside?”

“Yes,” Hiberius responded. “Seven of them. They arrived a few days back. Some have pretty oddly specific functions, but those that can help are good at it, especially the girl.”

“The girl?”

“Red dress and blonde pigtails. She--” Hiberius paused to glare out at the roof of a nearby building. Proto Man followed his gaze but neither his eyes nor his system could determine if there was anything out there. After a moment, the space marine relaxed and looked back over at the preteen. “She was some of housekeeper, so I guess she’s been a big help to the staff inside. Apparently she’s the only one in there who can actually keep a home.”

“Roll?” Proto Man asked.

The marine nodded. “Yea, that’s what she called herself. Do you know her?”

A frown spread across the boy’s visage. “Only sort of. I don’t know if she would know me.”

Hiberius furrowed his brow as he entered a code to open the heavy bolts that sealed the front door. “You check out as far as I’m concerned, so you can go ask her yourself. If you hear any alarms just remember to stay calm and avoid windows and thin walls. They rarely throw the heavy ordinance at us, but you don’t want to be smoking out a window when they do.”

“Expecting a riot or something?” Proto Man asked as a reinforced plate, powered by whining, mechanical gears, slide down to the ground to reveal a plain set of brown double doors.

The space marine let out a booming laugh and shook his head as the helmet slid back over his face. It sealed shut with a hiss, and when he spoke again, his now distorted voice came through a speaker somewhere on the helmet. “You’ll learn soon enough, kid.”