Rather than some kind of big reveal that silenced them from the weight of it. It was more like they were just looking at me strangely.
Some manner of 'Why the fuck do you want something like that?' sort of deal.
Maybe my request was out there for them.
I suppose my trotting over here and just bluntly asking them about those things must come off as rather strange, all things considered.
Roman was the first to speak up. "Alright, so I got some questions."
"Sure." I answered easily enough.
He raised his finger up. "First, why?"
"Uh…it's for a, um…territory that doesn't have them?"
"Right, because that doesn't sound like a made-up excuse." He rolled his eyes. "Second…" He paused, taking a cigar out of his pocket and snipping off the end before lighting it. "You're not, like, trying to make an army of combat robots, right?"
"No?" I blinked. "Why would you think that?"
They all shared a look. "Why else would you want the schematics of Atlas's combat robots?"
"Couldn't they be used for menial labor tasks? Farming, construction, etc.?" I asked.
Roman looked like he wanted to say something but tilted his head back and forth. "Well, you're not wrong. Junior, you're probably more articulate about that sort of thing as to why it's dumb."
"Do I look like an economist, Roman?" Junior shot back.
"You're a business owner; it's basically the same thing."
Junior let out a sigh. "Alright, let me spell it out for you, kid. How expensive do you think one of those robots is?"
I rubbed my chin, giving it some thought. "I would say, expensive enough to not be able to roll out tens of thousands at a time, but not expensive enough that they're a reasonable military tool."
"And using that, how expensive do you think it is to teach some random schmuck in the city how to farm?"
I clicked my tongue. "Yeah, I get where you're going. It's probably only financially reasonable when compared to the costs of training military personnel compared to menial labor."
"Bingo." Roman pointed at me. "And it's only barely better when taking into account death tolls and whatnot. I vaguely recall reading the files somewhere at some point, but I didn't really care that much."
I understood the economics of it.
You can grab any random person and teach them to farm or be a construction worker. But a proper military agent like Winter? That takes time and effort, things hard to put a price tag on. It's probably better in their eyes to lose money from tens of units like those robots to ensure one of her survives in operations.
Though my needs were a bit different than their normal ones. "Cost isn't really a problem." I waved it off.
This was only step one of the whole plan of mine. Just taking the schematics and dropping them on Yasaka's desk was not what I had in mind. If anything, that was worse than not doing anything at all and would just add more work to her plate.
And frankly, the Youkai didn't really have anyone that could handle this kind of job as it was.
Thankfully, I had some friends with a lot of government resources at their disposal.
I had a pretty good feeling that if I approached Coulson and Shield for help—with some form of payment and offering to 'share' the technology—they'd happily work on reverse engineering the technology to be made using more mundane technologies or be more user-friendly.
Roman just shrugged. "Hey, if you're paying, I don't care if you would be using them for toilet paper."
"And the other things." I asked.
"Well…there may be some problems." Roman admitted.
"The CCTS Towers." I nodded.
"Surprisingly, no."
"Come again?" I was taken aback by his answer.
Roman looked rather smug. "Actually, I already have the stuff on the CCTS Towers."
"The Cross-Continental Transmit System." I spelled it out rather than using the acronym. "We're talking about the same thing, right? The system that Remnant uses to keep up communications across the globe?"
Well, it was more than that.
If it was only that, I wouldn't care about them. While it would be a nice boon to have the youkai have their own internal systems that didn't rely on devils or humans, it wasn't something necessary and could just be more work than needed.
And the infrastructure would be a hassle to keep up if it provided no reasonable benefit other than that as well.
But it was more than that. Scrolls got charged from the CCTS Towers. Just that facet alone meant that I wanted to get my hands on the schematics to see how that worked. Imagine if cell phones could be charged via radio waves.
I wasn't entirely sure how the CCTS worked, but without the schematics, it would make having Scrolls kind of pointless as it stands without it.
Not only that, either; from what I understand, the robots also work based off the CCTS in some regards.
Altogether, it made each part sort of mandatory, so they all worked together.
My plan was still there.
If Shield could lower the construction costs of the robots to make non-combat units, then it would alleviate a lot of menial work on the youkai's part. They're almost entirely self-sufficient when it comes to basic necessities.
Youkai Kyoto is about the size of a prefecture, meaning they have a lot of room to do things like farm for their own foodstuffs.
The only reason Yasaka needed significant outside help previously was because of the war effort.
One CCTS tower could cover all of Youkai Kyoto and would be enough to support all its infrastructure and future projects.
I want the Youkai to be completely self-reliant, not just mostly, and with enough room that if something happens again, they can handle it without outside help.
If robots took over all the menial work, it would free up a substantial portion of their population to pursue other goals.
Imagine if 20-30% of the Youkai population suddenly no longer 'needed' jobs like farming or construction. If even a tiny fraction of that decided they wanted to train or get stronger, how much would that increase the overall strength of the population as a whole?
How many talents had been buried because they were born into a life of mediocrity?
It's a cascading effect.
Well, even if that's just hopeful optimism from me, it would significantly alleviate a lot of Yasaka's worries if she had an automated workforce that could do a lot of annoying jobs around the place to keep everything running.
And that was my goal in the end, to help Yasaka.
That's what you do for your partners, right? You share their burdens and try to help alleviate them if you can. After everything she's done for me, she deserves at least this much in return.
As far as getting Coulson and Shield's help. Well, could it be said they owe me a bit for helping with the Frost Giants? Though, that may have been partially my fault.
Hmm.
If they're building up a Magic division, I could help there.
Evil-Warding Talismans would be hugely helpful. I could get a few hundred of the wands that Medea made for the youkai. I could also set up wards and bounded fields around their headquarters.
I'm sure we could come to some kind of arrangement.
"Contrary to what the public may think, the Towers aren't really top-secret knowledge." Roman found an ashtray as he tapped his cigar over it. "Look at how many villages or towns have their own miniature towers set up."
I actually didn't know they were rolled out into smaller towns or villages.
"Wouldn't it still be protected information?"
"It's not like you can just pull up the details online." Roman rolled his eyes. "But you're not going to need to break into Atlas's top-secret vault and find it stored away there."
Neo nodded along, pointing at herself and at him, looking very proud of herself.
"Something tells me that's exactly what you've done in the past."
"Look, we're not here to talk about past crimes that may or may not have happened and can't be proven in a court of law." Roman bit down on his cigar. "We're here to talk about future crimes that hopefully can't be proven in a court of law."
I rolled my eyes. "But you said you already stole it…?"
"Ah, yes. I was so young and naive back then." He looked nostalgic. "Neo and I had only been partners for about a year at that point."
Neo sat up on the bar and looked at Roman like she was reminiscing with him.
Roman wrapped his arm around my shoulder while waving his other hand in front of me. "Picture it, kid. The two of us, young and wide-eyed, taking our first steps into the world of acquiring items through dubious means. I had a brilliant idea; can you guess what it was?"
"Was it stealing the schematics for the CCTS Towers?"
"It was stealing the schematics for the CCTS towers!" He responded as if ignoring me completely. "It was a thrilling and masterful heist. The type of thing you would see on the big screen."
Neo nodded vigorously, agreeing with him at every word.
"I have the distinct feeling that you basically walked into wherever it was being held, stole it, and walked right out." I deadpanned.
"Listen, Watermelon, don't ruin the vibe." He looked up. "That's what the kids say these days, right, Junior? You're the expert on the kids, right?"
"Fuck off, Roman."
"Noted." He grinned. "But you're not wrong. It was just in the records under Vale's patent office."
"How thrilling," I said flatly.
"Yeah, yeah." Roman tapped his cigar on the ashtray again. "I wanted to sell it to Menagerie. You know they don't even have a CCTS Tower? I did and thought, "Hey, they'd probably pay a lot to build their own, right!"
"That admittedly doesn't sound like a bad idea."
"Neo, tell him what went wrong."
Neo used her Semblance to make an illusion of her holding her purse upside down, with nothing coming out.
"That's right! They had no money!" Roman slammed his hand onto the bar. "Damn animals! All that effort—"
"You literally walked into a building, probably sorted through some files, and walked out."
"-- and they didn't even have any money to buy the damn things from me!"
I shook my head. "Were they really that poor?"
Junior let out a sigh. "They weren't that poor, but they also didn't have the infrastructure to set up their own CCTS without outside help. All the kingdoms coordinated to set up each of their towers, but none of them wanted to help out Menagerie, so they'd have to shoulder all of the costs, and well…"
"Yeah, I can see the picture being painted."
Menagerie really got fucked over at every turn from what I keep hearing about them. I'm tempted to help them build a CCTS tower just to give a middle finger to everyone else.
Racism really annoys me; it's just so...stupid.
"It seems…I don't know, too important to be something stashed in a patent office." I mulled over everything he said. "Am I the weird one?"
Junior shrugged, as did the others. He found an empty glass and used a towel to clean it. "It was a coordinated effort from start to finish. I'm sure every kingdom has the same thing somewhere, easily accessible. Who's going to steal it? Who's going to need it? You would need help from the nearest kingdom to even access the network."
Right.
Despite how 'important' it is, it's one of those things that's like, what idiot would even want to steal this?
Well, one idiot is next to me.
And I suppose that makes me an idiot as well.
I clapped my hands. "Well, if you already have the schematics for the CCTS, then it's one-third of the way done."
"Hold your horses, my dear child." Roman had an insufferable grin as he said that. "Schematics for Atlas's toy soldiers—I can get those. Though, they're going to be a couple generations out of date. Funnily enough, they keep some records of them in the patent office too. Not any of the important software information within reach, but if you want the bones of it, that shouldn't be an issue."
That made sense as well.
It would be weird if they just had anyone able to access the internal software. But the actual physical components, how they work and what-not—that's an entirely different story.
Who else would build robots like that? Who else would have the free time and money to waste doing something like that?
Regardless, that should be enough. I don't care about the combat programs or anything like that; I just want them operable to be able to perform basic tasks.
"I'm sensing there's a but coming along here rather quickly."
"But," Roman enunciated. "Scrolls are a whole different matter."
"How so?"
"Those toy soldiers, the CCTS, they're…" He paused for a moment, as if to find the right words. "Public projects."
"Scrolls are owned by a corporation. That means they're proprietary information and are going to be heavily under lock and key." I got what he was saying immediately.
"Nailed it in one go." Roman snapped his fingers. "There's only one scroll maker, and they have dozens of contracts across all the kingdoms that make them basically a monopoly."
"And the Kingdom let that happen?" Scrolls were a rather important part of their infrastructure and worldwide communication.
Back home, there were plenty of companies that made cell phones, which made it strange to me.
"It's in the Kingdom's favor. With how much Scrolls are relied on by people every day, do you think the Kingdoms would let the technology slip from their fingers? Artisans Inc.—the company that created them years ago—made a deal with the kingdoms where they shared the technology, but in return, they pushed out any competition."
"At this point, no start up would happen because of how Scrolls are so heavily integrated into the infrastructure, is that right?"
Roman nodded again. "Pretty much. If no one else can get a foot in the door when it comes to the government contracts, what's the point in even trying?"
"Logically, it wouldn't be some top-secret product either. Wouldn't the patent office also hold them if they were operating as a 'normal' company?" I asked.
"Kinda." Roman pushed his cigar into the ashtray, putting the stub of it out. "While they're registered with the patent office, they're not going to be housed at the patent office. You're going to probably have to find it at the Royal Archives."
"I'm not a Vale native; what's the Royal Archives?"
Roman snapped his fingers at Junior.
"I'm not your mouthpiece to call on whenever you want something explained, Roman." Junior scowled.
"Oh, come on, Junior. You love the random trivia questions. You're always winning trivia nights when they're hosted here."
Junior let out another long sigh. "The Royal Archives are under the Vale Royal Library. Both were created by the last king of Vale, and when he gave up the throne in favor of a ruling council, he donated both to the kingdom. They kept the names in a show of respect."
"There you have it." Roman clapped his hand.
"So, we rob a library."
Roman snorted. "Sure, the top is the Library, open to the public. But the underground is a secure facility. They have a lot of historical artifacts down there that are worth…quite a bit of money." He seemed to trail off, looking a bit more interested by his own words.
"Are you saying you're not up to the task?" I crossed my arms.
"Oh, my sweet little boy." Roman ran his fingers along his hat before picking up his cane. "Who do you think I am?"
"Weren't you just talking about laying low while Atlas was here?" Junior asked.
"I can't help it; the kid's a bad influence on me." Roman said dramatically. "Isn't that right, Neo?"
The world around her shattered in illusions as she hopped to his side. She held her umbrella in hand, twirling it around, giving me a look.
"Well, let's get going."
I blinked. "Right now?"
"No time like the present." Roman chirped cheerfully.
"...Don't you need to plan things out? Scout the building, all that stuff?"
Roman gave a much deeper look at me. "Kid, do you think I don't know the layouts of every important building in the city in case I find myself there for whatever reason? Who do you think I am?"
"An idiot," I offered."
A flamboyant idiot," Junior added.
Neo waved her hands as if to agree.
Roman scoffed. "I'm goddamn Roman Torchwick. The best thief in the world."
"That's debatable." Junior grunted.
"You know what." Roman glared at Junior, taking out his wallet and slapping some money on the counter. "No tip for you."
"You don't tip anyways."
"Tipping is for suckers." Roman smirked. "Well, come along, kid; we're going to rob a library!"
[Line Break]
I admit, I didn't think Roman would just waltz over to the target building in broad daylight.
Sunset?
The sun had just gone down, but it wasn't like super late yet.
From what Roman said, the library is open all day every day.
Well, he's the expert here, so I'll trust him.
The building itself was…extravagant.
Definitely earning the 'Royal' in its name. Compared to the architecture around, it was much more opulent in appearance.
No doubt it was a relic of a previous era.
The building was probably bigger than a city block just in itself. Rounded, from what I could see at this angle.
How many floors did it have at a glance? Six?
In hindsight, maybe I should have asked Jinn about this. I would say it would have been an amazing place to take her, but I remembered that she knows every bit of information within here.
Well, I don't want to bother her with something that's… not quite legal.
She's a sweet girl; no need to drag her into my trouble-making.
"So, what's the plan? Sneak in with Neo's Semblance?" Because I knew they weren't counting on my particular brand of 'skills,' considering they were still ignorant about it.
They had their own means and professional pride.
"Places like this? At least down below, they're going to have cameras that pick up heat signatures. Stealthy Semblances aren't exactly uncommon, you know. Unfortunately, they also can pick up on Neo's Semblance." Roman informed me.
Neo pouted a little, as if to show that she was annoyed by it.
Smart, though.
"We're going to go in through the front door." Roman said as if it were obvious.
I shrugged and followed along as we quite literally walked up the large stone staircase that led to the front doors.
They were grandiose, if altered to be more modern in application.
Revolving glass doors and whatnot.
As soon as we stepped inside, I admit I was momentarily stunned.
The full breadth of the inside couldn't be given justice by just seeing it from the outside. I'm someone who always appreciates libraries, museums, or anything that's meant to contain books or artifacts to preserve.
A library like this was utterly breathtaking to me.
"Impressed" would be an understatement.
This place puts plenty of national libraries back home to shame.
Absolutely gorgeous. It seemed to be an internal mix of Gothic and Victorian-era decor as well, which overall just enhanced the aesthetic of the place.
I wish I knew about this place sooner; I would have spent plenty of time here.
But I digress.
Roman was nudging me impatiently as he led me forward.
There was a front desk and a security checkpoint.
And considering what was below this place, I didn't find it odd. Hell, even if it was just the library portion, I think this wouldn't be remiss considering the value of everything. You wouldn't want just anyone coming in and causing trouble.
And the irony wasn't lost on me there.
At least I had a healthy respect for it and would make sure, even in our illegal escapades, that no harm would come to the place.
I quietly watched a woman in front of us give her name to a woman behind a desk. The woman behind the desk apparently looked up her name, as her picture appeared on an overhead screen, and then she was given some sort of visitor's pass before being let inside.
It all seemed rather standard for this type of security check. So…..why were Roman and Neo giving me such shit-eating grins?
"Next." The woman at the desk called out.
"Go ahead, son." Roman gestured, as if he were being polite.
I furrowed my brow but stepped forward.
"Name."
As soon as she said that, everything just clicked into place.
I turned to look at them, and they were very clearly holding back laughs.
I now understood.
The entire reason they wanted to go through the front door was just for this. They probably had other means to get inside, but they specifically chose the front entrance.
I took a deep breath, and every ounce of me dreaded the next words that came out of my mouth. "Watermelon Torchwick."
They fell over laughing.
[Line Break]
A/N
Just a bit of father-son bonding through theft, you know, normal family things.
If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / astoryforone
I also have a boosty if you can't use the above under the same name.