"Verry well Mr. castle you've had your chance to introduce yourself" the professor said solemnly "now it's time to vote." To no one's surprise it was landslide vote for Steve which is good for me because I already put the business plan for the next five years and Hermes is already handling the logistics he only needs to follow the plan, and handle any issues that crop up and all the shareholders will start making more money than we already are from dividends. I stand to gain the most out of this because I sold my patents to planet express for 15% of the gross of each cyberware sale per year. A pair of gorilla arms without the mantis blade attachment sells for 1500$ so I'm making 225$ on each sale the warehouses and factories are already built the equipment should arrive in a week, and then all that we have to do is finish the hiring. The earth military has already sent an order in for us to arm 5000 troops with the basic combat package. Which is a multibillion-dollar contract. One thing I love about the future is it feels like America with a runaway defense budget even with the military belonging to all of earth. This is actually a result of one president of the United States using the U.S military superiority to launch a world conquering campaign and being successful. He didn't even wipe out the culture of the conquered areas just forced the government to answer to the newly created world government which ran on the principals the us has prided itself on, and because the earth is so much like 21st century America Planet express inc. has already grown so much. Seriously it will take only a few months to finish the government contract and once they see the performance of those soldiers on the front lines they're going to want more, perhaps even doop will order cyberware for their humanoid races. Of course, I'll tell them to fuck off. My goal from the beginning has been to make money, but I'm now pulling in enough to be self-sufficient. So, I can afford to be a human supremacist. Speaking of human supremacy, I might as well start on the office worker package. I quickly pull up my mental to do lost and put the anti-carpal tunnel, work stimulant injector, cosmetic enhancement cyberware, bio monitor, and intelligence booster on the to do list. Right above remaking the smart phone which is under project agent. Then underneath that is A.I creation, and under that is VR console creation. After all, if you have nuero-tech there's no reason to have the limited VR we have for browsing the internet right now. We could create entire digital worlds with the help of A.I.
"Fry, are you paying attention" I hear Hermes ask.
"No, not really I'm busy planning our next expansion after cyberware" I answer completely honestly and Hermes looks like he's about to have a mental break down.
"I know were pulling in more money than we've ever pulled in in the history of the company thanks to your plotting, but don't you think you can stop and smell the roses? I'm tired and expanding into another market right now could really damage us. We still haven't set up the training for ripperdoc clinics." Hermes complains
"Hire some underlings to handle the minutiae its worked wonders for me" I give a cheeky look at Steve and he winks back. He's pretty cool when he's not screwing you over. Amy looks at me like she's done with my nonsense.
"Have I ever steered this company wrong?" I ask, and Hermes sighs
"No, you've never steered the company wrong yet and you've been masterminding this place for three months." Hermes admits "I'll put in a requisition for a couple new bureaucrats." under my guidance planet express has reached the point that unless we hemorrhage money in a really stupid way, we won't ever have to worry about going under. We have enough contracts with factories for the delivery side of the business, we've got a massive military contract for the cyberware part of the business on top of prepping cyberware clinics for people common people to get non-military grade implants like no civilian will have access to mantis arms, or a Sandevistan but everything else is fair game.
"Now since everyone's already here," started Hermes "We'll go over today's delivery. We have a delivery for Chapek 9. The planet of the robots."
Wait weren't we supposed to go to a blurnsball game today. Huh I guess everyone has been so busy lately we just haven't had time to screw around. I wonder how this will affect benders mood during this delivery.
"Now humans aren't allowed on Chapek 9, as it was formed by an extremist group of robot separatist. So, bender you will have to make the delivery on your own."
Bender looks a bit annoyed at this, but instead of claiming it's a robot holiday he just sighs and accepts the mission. Recently I've noticed a pretty big change in Bender he tends to take things at work more seriously than he used to. Sure, he still makes some inappropriate jokes, and he'll slack of if given the opportunity, but when work needs to be done, he gets it done.
Soon the meeting is called to a close, and we head over to the planet express flag ship. I go and do the pre-takeoff checks while bender puts the package in his compartment since its pretty small. Amy decides to come see me off while Leela is doing the flight control checks, and measuring the fuel gage. She calls out that were topped up so we won't have to stop for dark matter, or raid nibblers litter box. Best thing about having a group of engineers to handle things with the ships is that our checks are mostly just for formality's sake. They usually have everything pretty well in hand.
Amy comes up to me and hugs me close. "I know your pretty used to this stuff by now, but that planet is pretty dangerous. So, promise me you'll be safe and don't do anything dangerous." She says I can tell how worried she is. To use a 21st century equivalent this is like sending your boyfriend off to be part of a mission to north sentinel island. Even if you're not part of the contact party, there is still a risk with being associated.
"I'll do my best to come back to you I promise." I tell her kissing her forehead. "Now I have to go. Someone has to make sure this mission goes according to plan." I give her a smirk and she swats my shoulder. Just as I turn away to board the ship, I hear something. so quiet if the room were any louder, I would have missed it.
"I love you" Amy damn near whispers, and for a moment I'm shocked, but I don't let it show on my face. It's a bit early to say something like that. Our relationship had been progressing pretty slowly neither of us wanting to mess this up but when I searched my feelings. I knew how I felt.
"I love you too." I don't wait to board the ship. I head over to my station and take my seat Leela starts launch procedures and within moments were in space. I can't help but think back to everything that's happened lately. Just three months ago I died, I went from a dead end nobody to one of the richest and most powerful people in New York. I went from dying, freezing and homeless. To owning a luxury apartment in the best part of New York, and most importantly I went from alone and unloved to having friends I can count on and a beautiful girlfriend who loves me I don't think I'll ever regret giving up like I did, because it brought me here. Into this amazing new world of endless possibilities. Sure, the people of the future are more like caricatures of the people from the 21st century, but in the real moments, when it matters people are there for me, and that's more than I could say for my old life. Looking out into the void as stars pass us by, I can't help but smile. This is where I've always belonged.
Welp enough sappy shit time to grind, and with that I pull up my design software at my work station and started to put together the office worker cyberware package.
It didn't take us long to arrive at Chapek 9. Leela took us into low orbit and we went to the cargo hull together, bender with the package in his compartment was preparing to be lowered down on the winch, and Leela was briefing him
"Now remember when you get down there, you don't know humans, you don't work for humans, and above all you don't like humans."
Bender rolled his eyes at her. "I think I know how to handle a planet of extremist robots. After all I am one!" I roll my eyes at him for a person who mutters kill all robots in his sleep most of benders close friends are humans.
Bender is slowly lowered down on the winch, while Leela and I wait in the cargo hold. I can't help but worry because I don't know if I have the idiot savant luck fry had. Would I be able to survive going down to this planet dressed in garbage and pretending to be a robot…probably not. This world is a lot less cartoony the best me and Leela could hope for is to die quickly and without pain.
Two hours pass with me and Leela worried because there's been no contact from Bender, and I can't help but have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Has he been captured. What if they find out he works for humans. What if they torture our location out of him, in a world as advanced as this I'm positive they have some sort of anti-spacecraft weapons, and were sitting sucks in low orbit. Most of our weapons are designed for low and zero atmosphere conditions.
Another 3 hours go by with no communication from bender and at this point me and Leela are in the cockpit desperately searching for benders location with modified mining scanners.
"I've got his position" Leela says but her voice sounds grim. "he's a out 20 feet underground, and he's surrounded by 5 other robots." Shit they brought him to the council. Hopefully not for a trail.
"The only thing we can do is monitor his location, and try to get a clearer image with the mining scanners." I sigh out. I really hope he's okay. We can't launch a rescue mission right now. Not on this planet. With nothing left to do I started modifying the mining scanners further to try to get a clearer image of bender, its difficult to get around the steel box he's trapped in but 31st century tech is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I think if I added a micro sonar component to the scanner beam, I might be able to get a clearer picture of what's going in down there. With nothing else to do I start the modification.
It took about 20 minutes to modify the scanner beam to send out micro sonar waves along with the magnetic waves it was made to emit and get any real quality out if it, the make a program capable of interpreting the data it returned I did it, but once I was done Leela gasped yet again. God this woman was incapable of giving me good news. I looked over to the screen that should show bender and I see what had her so shocked. Bender is in chains on his knees in front of the robot council. There was nothing to use as a listening device but the package of lug nuts was in the hands of the council. It seemed they were inspecting it, bender looked like he was pleading, and 2 more people walked into the room it looked like they were carrying sticks but those sticks were putting off heavy magnetic fields, I knew what they were they were banned on earth do to the work of some robots that called them inhumane and barbaric, they were basically used to fry a robots brain and ensure the backup unit didn't function properly. Colloquially known as death sticks, they were used to kill robots and ensure they never came back.
"Leela take us above the site." I said in a cold steely voice that left no room for argument.
"Fry there's nothing we can do, he's underneath 30 feet of rock. Even if we somehow got through the rock, there's no way we could pierce the steel and titanium box they're holding the trial in!"
"just go there and keep us in high orbit!" she sighed at me, but in the end did as I said it took us 3 seconds to arrive over the false courtroom. I quickly fired up the cyberdeck implant and hacked into a nearby street camera in front of the fake courthouse. Using that I hacked into a robot judges voice box and gave a simple message. "The courthouse is about to be bombed by humans run for your lives!"
It didn't take long until civilians and lawbots alike vacated the premises. I looked over to the screen focused on bender he was still pleading and the executioner bots were getting closer.
When I confirmed the civilians and lawbots were a good distance away I fired a torpedo, it removed the courthouse from existence and 20 feet of rock. My calculations were wrong I just hope the steel titanium alloy can hold up to another. With a silent prayer I launched the second torpedo. It smashed through the remaining 10 feet of rock and blasted a hole in the metal cube revealing the actual court. no time to ready the winch I just have to hope and pray my cyber legs and enhanced joints and spine can neutralize the force of the landing
"Leela prepare the winch to get me and bender the hell out of there as soon as I free him." With that I took off to the cargo bay opened the winch hole, and jumped.