RATCHET & CLANK: Of MICE and MAYHEM

[Tangent]

​

---

> Power restored...
> Primary systems online.
> Optics... OK.
> Audio receptors... OK.
> Locomotion servos... OK.
> Tail-Link interface... Ready.
> Observation suite... Online.
> Office Utility compatibility package... Loaded.
> MOU-513 Mousoid Observation Unit
> Boot sequence complete.
>
> Good morning!

---

My first fully realised memories of this strange new life were literally of me booting up for the first time to the oddly happy face of Alonzo Drek. Which was odd enough that I just kind of let the whole boot sequence and initial routine just run themselves before it even registered to me that I had somehow woken up as some sort of mechanical mouse.

Specifically as a MOU-513 Mousoid Observation Unit (model 513).

I passively let my new body do whatever its startup routine had planned, which mostly amounted to exploring the top of the desk I'd found myself on. I did, however, notice that Drek had already swept my packaging off the desk - along with the small datapad that served as my remote user manual - presumably into a waste bin.

My remote user manual and registration terminal that had never been activated.

According to my factory onboarding protocols, that meant that I had yet to be registered to an owner or linked to a Gadgetron account.

Okay, so I get to be a free agent - or at least choose my own owner - just so long as nobody turns my user manual on.

"Link to my desktop and sync to my personal calendar," Drek commanded confidently, and I obeyed immediately even as the specific protocols for the requested process popped up. Along with a number of other protocols that made me very glad Drek had neglected to claim me properly.

I plugged my tail connector into what my processor indicated was the proper port and began to perform the requested task.

I also took the opportunity to slip in a small deviation into the maintenance schedule that would prompt one of the facility's multitude of innocuous cleaning bots to come by and empty Drek's waste bin and promptly dispose of the contents in the nearest incinerator.

The best part was that I didn't even have to touch the corporate espionage counters. The anti-intrusion programs already regarded me as an authorized device because Chairman Alonzo Drek himself had plugged me into his workstation. As far as Blargtech's security was concerned, Gadgetron's ownership registry was Gadgetron's problem.

And, beautifully, destroying anything classified as waste from a Blargtech executive office was part of their own security protocols. That included any waste coming from Chairman Alonzo Drek's office.

In short order, a small cleaning bot had come in, collected the trash, and immediately left.

Drek didn't even acknowledge that it had happened at all. Why would he? It was just a building maintenance bot performing a routine task that it did several times throughout the day.

I was still collating Drek's personal itinerary when I noticed that the bot had reached the incinerator and offloaded the trash into it. My remote registration terminal was rendered into slag moments later.

I was a free bot.

Technically speaking.

I just had to figure out how to stay that way…

---

One thing I did not do - even though it was very tempting - was immediately start poking around Blargtech's systems.

In fact, I kept all interactions between myself and any other computer, bot, or device strictly filtered through my Mousoid Office Utility subsystems. I did not want to flag myself as anything other than a moderately useful office toy.

The big thing was to not be seen doing anything that a MOU-53E, the actual Gadgetron office buddy that the MOU-513 was designed to resemble, wasn't likely to do. This was especially important as being linked to Drek's calendar itinerary and task manager incidentally gave me access to Blargtech's internal organization chart.

Victor Von Ion alone was alarming enough. The warbot's role in Blargtech's was basically as a military commander, bodyguard, and free roaming trouble shooter. As in someone who tends to resolve trouble by literally shooting it. As an office toy, I was currently beneath his notice other than the fact that I was Drek's personal property as far as anyone knew. And I was not about to disabuse him of that notion either - the longer he thought that he'd get on Drek's bad side if he crushed me, the safer I would be.

Zed was a whole different issue, as the hovering bot actually was Drek's personal attendant, butler, and general office assistant. Meaning that he actually knew Drek's calendar and personal itinerary and would likely spot if I tried to change anything on either of those without Drek actually telling me to do so. I'm very lucky that he wasn't present when Drek unboxed me or he would have likely reminded his boss to register me to his Gadgetron account before I could arrange for my remote user pad to be destroyed.

Granted, Zed was a pretty chill bot when Drek was not around. He occasionally popped into Drek's office on his own while Drek was away to do various things. Sometimes just to run me through my office buddy routines.

It was very apparent that Zed thought I was basically a glorified MOU-53 - a gilded office toy that happened to have some useful functions. Sure, I could do some of the things he did as Drek's personal assistant. Well, far more than he realized, but I was still carefully running through the buffer of my Office Utility routines as I didn't want Zed to think I was a threat to his job.

Much more alarming was the presence of Dr. Iam Nefarious, who had been recently hired to be the Head of Blargtech R&D. While I had yet to even be in the same room as him, I was extremely worried that he might see through my social deception routines and realize that I was actually an espionage & reconnaissance device instead of an office toy.

And just those three told me that events in this universe were at least a bit more like the 2016 movie or remake than the original 2002 game.

No sign that Clank's body had even been built yet, but the robot army was currently being assembled. And the Deplanetizer was still in the early stages of construction and testing. Neither of which told me anything other than when I was in the probable timeline. And that's even assuming that I'm in any of the canonical timelines that I'm aware of. For all I knew, I was in Rivet's dimension, or some other analogue timeline that I wasn't even aware of.

With not much else to do to while I anxiously awaited for any sign of Clank's arrival or Drek complaining about a Lombax - any Lombax, because I still didn't know if I was going to be dealing with Ratchet or Rivet - I started to discreetly gather and collate any data I could grab without raising suspicion.

Which, oddly enough, was also a subroutine that I had. One specifically for the MOU-513 model I was rather than the MOU-53E that Drek still thought I was.

Which led me to discovering that Drek had ordered me by mistake. Okay, strike that - revise - I had already guessed that Drek had ordered me by mistake. What I had come across was a series of office security files that, when assembled together in sequence, showed Drek being intrigued by a desk toy that he had happened to spot on a midlevel manager's desk, him looking up what he had seen later in the privacy of his own office, and then ordering a more expensive version for himself.

A seriously more expensive version.

The base MOU-53 was a similar, if lower quality, office companion that cost only fifty Bolts. That's what Drek had seen on the desk. The actual executive version was the MOU-53E, and cost five hundred Bolts. The MOU-513 which, to be fair, could actually do everything the other two models could (and so much more), cost five thousand Bolts.

Still pocket change for someone like Alonzo Drek, but I could see the logic. He had either noticed the higher price and had assumed that I was an even more exclusive model, or he had mis-clicked on the ordering form and simply hadn't paid attention to the invoice.

Oh well. Drek had failed to register me properly to his Gadgetron account (not that I had wanted him to), so it was literally not my job to inform him of his error. Let him think I was his little office buddy.

I would let the subroutine run while I quietly accumulated more data and waited for my opportunity to escape…

Spoiler: MOU-513

Spoiler: Gadgetron Mousoid series Office Buddy ad

Spoiler: Gadgetron Mousoid series Office Buddy ad

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