Chapter Text
The first thing he notices is that the room is damp and the air smells of sweat and mold. It’s a smell Prompto has gotten used to. With the combination of the humidity and lack of air movement in the Keep, it was a smell that carried through the entire building. Prompto felt that stuffiness stick to the back of his neck uncomfortably. The doctor sitting across the table in front of him looked uncomfortable too. He was constantly shifting in his seat, and a light sheen of sweat shone above his brow.
“Your mobility tests came back with flying colors, 05953234. Congratulations. Your program tests were also very good. You came to the top of your section in accuracy as well. If you do good for the Empire, here--” The doctor pointed to the camera recording them with the end of his pen-- “Then you’ll be able to be a part of Ardyn’s retinue to Lucis. You just have to pass some more tests.”
Prompto nodded. These were questions he’d been given before. Ones that he’d been trained to answer correctly. In the beginning he struggled with them. They didn’t sit right in his mind. Prompto was a machine. He was made to emulate humanity. He looked human, and he could talk and think, and, most importantly, he could feel. He feels the solidness of the concrete under his fingertips when he runs them against a wall. He can feel how hot or cold the generator is on a given day, sometimes so hot that it hurts.
Pain was even worse than any other feeling.
Prompto wasn’t supposed to feel pain. He couldn’t, the doctor’s all said they couldn’t. That’s why they felt justified in their punishment methods for the androids. Shocking them didn’t hurt them because they weren’t thinking, feeling beings. What was he then? Was he not thinking? Did he not feel the overwhelming pain? Or was it his mind--his cybernetics--attempting to ensure that Prompto fell ever deeper into the falsehood that he was something he is not. He is not human. Yet despite that, he will recall the sayings of long-dead scholars as means of comfort.
I think, therefore I am. It was a justification he’d repeated to himself before. If only it were so easy.
It can be easy , a part of himself argues. The world can be easy and full of choices and blue skies and freedoms he longs for so dearly. The world can be so many things, but in order for that to happen, change must be wrought and Prompto is not the force to cause it. He is but one among thousands that share his face, his voice, and nothing else. If he must fall into line to survive, then that is what he will do.
But Prompto is soon to be considered for great things. Despite his ‘past errors’ he has proven to be the best candidate to leave Gralea. He spoke more clearly than other androids, his movements were more seamless and quicker than the others, along with his reaction time, but most importantly, he hadn’t needed to be upgraded. He was one of the few that processed better on the original, albeit ‘outdated’, operating system. That was very important to the doctors for a reason Prompto couldn’t discern. Out of Gralea is freedom. Out of Gralea is a choice. This is the change he had been waiting for, and Prompto will ensure that he makes it there.
“What are you?” The doctor asks very slowly.
He smiles, blinks once in a farce of processing before lying. “I am an android, model N-1P01357, serial 05953234. I am a helper android; I cook, clean, take care of children, and the needs or desires of my owner. I am also equipped with the skills necessary to protect my owner in a multitude of situations.”
The doctor nodded, pleased. “Perfect, and your name?”
This one Prompto falters on, “I-I go by 05953432, or any name given to me by my owner.”
If the doctor noted Prompto’s mistake, he doesn’t write it down on the clipboard that seals his fate. Instead, he is accosted with another nod and a smile, placating and concerning.
“Do you have aspirations, 05953234?”
Trick question. “I want nothing more than to fulfill my primary objective and any secondary objectives given to me by my owner.”
“Perfect.” They’d only been sitting here for two hours, mostly displaying a series of images to gauge Prompto’s reactions, but yes, that was the first perfect response he’d given. Prompto has to hold back his scoff. “Now, this last question is going to be the most difficult to answer, so I am going to give you a few minutes to respond. What are you thinking about right now?”
What was he thinking? Is this something that he was supposed to actually answer? Was this another trick? In a split second, Prompto came to the conclusion that is what the question was. “I do not think. I do, however, have a wide variety of words and phrases, as well as an advanced speech processor programmed, that can convince one that I have the capability to think.”
The doctor grinned widely, and Prompto tried his best to not let the relief show on his face.
“Thank you for your time, 05953234. You’ve successfully passed the requirements necessary to be greenlit by my staff for the transfer. You will be in the presence of King Regis within the week. Your briefing with the Chancellor will be tomorrow, 9 a.m. sharp. Do not be late. You may go back to stasis for the time being.”
Prompto stood, turning and making his way to the door. Just before he could reach for the handle the doctor called for him.
“Please, remember, 05953234. Remember what will happen if you slip up in front of Ardyn. You are the most advanced of your kind. He will fear that you will want humanity. See to it that he has no reason to fear. When you are out of his custody, you will be safe.”
Prompto looked back, “Is this off the record, sir?”
He smiled something familiar and Prompto felt his head overheat with trying to figure out what was so familiar about that smile.
“Of course it is, Prompto. Now hurry, before the guards feel the need to come in.”
The shock of hearing his own name for the first time since waking felt like a drill to his stomach. His head felt dizzy with confusion. “I don’t understand, sir?”
“You won’t. Not yet. Make the right decisions, Prompto. Keep yourself alive this time. We can’t lose what you may be.”
Prompto left after that. The door closing with a soft ‘click’ that seemed like a gunshot in the hallway. He paced down the hall, towards the station for static androids, slowing as he rounded upon the curve in the corridor. He stopped at a point that he knew well. If he stood closest to the curve of the wall just like he was, the cameras would not see him. He leaned into the cold wall, and took a breath.
He didn’t think he was supposed to make it this far. The concept that people who Prompto couldn’t even name were helping him get to effectively the highest position any android or person could reach was startling. How many were there, quietly manipulating things so that Prompto could get where he was going to be very, very soon?
The feeling of pushing and pulling oxygen into his chest cavity felt comforting, it was a pleasure he only let himself have when he was sure that no one could see. The action was innate, but taught out of his daily mannerisms by the doctors.
“They decommission the ones that do that too much,” one whispered after reprimanding Prompto once. “The ones that act too human.”
Decommission was death. 05953335 was decommissioned and when it came back, it couldn’t remember anything. Wiped clean, was what they said it was, wiped clean and never the same. Decommission scared Prompto more than anything. Even if he wasn’t supposed to, he felt. He wanted things. He was some one , rather than some thing . It was more than he could ask for, being able to live this long, but he wanted more. Before decommission, 05953335 once went outside, the sky, it told him, was white and falling. Prompto wanted to see it for himself.
--
Prompto never felt so inadequate before as when he stood surrounded by the Empire’s finest. He felt like that was the purpose of the robes and the constant fronting each man did to the other, to try to make whoever they were threatened by seem lesser. It was working, with how pathetic Prompto looked in comparison to the Chancellor.
Ardyn Izunia was an imposing man, and he wasted no time in letting Prompto know that he held nothing but distaste for the android.
“I’m going to assume that you got here for a reason, and thus aren’t so broken to need me to repeat myself at all, yes?” He didn’t wait for a reply as he turned back to his schematics on the wall behind him, pointing to various rooms with fevered movements. “You are going to be given to the King’s son as a gift of ‘peace’ but what neither know, and they will not know until the penultimate moment, is that on the tenth night of your new ownership, you will initiate your primary objective. After you do so, contact me. After I give you a signal that I’ve arrived, ask to speak with the king, and the last phase will be on my marks as indicated. Understood?”
Prompto nodded, barely processing the information being given to him. This was his primary function, his purpose in being brought into his world. The preservation of the Niflheim Empire, at any and all cost. This was a suicide mission. Prompto would die if he followed this through. Prompto might die if he doesn’t convince them that he can, no will , do this. Even if he doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to?
His head throbbed. The conversation changed focus, over to some menial officers’ duties while they’re on the move. Inconsequential, really. The last thing the Lucians would do is attack unprovoked. Something buzzed just above his eyes.
According to his data, the Kingdom of Lucis is not in the wrong. Even in the hard light that the Niflheim database provides, it is them, not Lucis, who are the aggressors. The politics are quite vitriolic on both sides in terms of trade and relations, yes, but Lucis has never acted in any way other than self-preservation. Reviewing the videos Prompto had of council meetings past, the only aggressors he could see was Niflheim.
Lucis was full of grandeur, yes. It was an opulent country, obviously wealthy, but envy alone is not a good reason to wreak havoc upon an entire country. To plot to overthrow and kill it’s royal family. Lucis was home to seven billion citizens, and all of them were going to be pillaged if The Emperor or Ardyn got what they wanted, something promised by them both numerous times before, lined out in articles and speeches and threats. Babies would be made into more soldiers, children too old to brainwashed would be killed, and those they couldn’t use were to be disposed of. The culture of the Lucians would be lost. They will be wiped from history. Every. Last. One.
This wasn’t right. They weren’t right. If there were sides to be picked, then this one would be the objectively “wrong” one. Prompto was on the wrong side. Niflheim wasn’t something to be protected, it was something to be stopped. He shouldn’t have to exist for--for these monsters . The Emperor, Ardyn, the officials that surrounded him in this room, they were all… monsters.
He refuses to live for them any longer.
It felt like something in his mind cracked, and it took everything Prompto had to not scream in pain. Pain. Horrible, urgent, ungodly pain like he had never felt before. His head felt too hot, like there was something changing, rewiring itself behind his eyes.
Just as abruptly as it started, it stopped. His field of vision flashed a burning red message.
Override primary objective?
No, he can’t. He’s not allowed to, this is wrong. This will get him killed, this will end him . Prompto felt like he was overheating. Like he was on fire. He had to stop this, if anyone in this room found out--
Yet, when Prompto looked past the haze, he saw that no one had their eyes on him. The generals and soldiers and politicians were all watching Ardyn across the room as he waved his arms frantically. They couldn’t see anything that was happening within Prompto.
The ever-increasing panic Prompto had felt crawling up into his vocal chords stopped. Quiet as he dared, he drew in a breath. The pain was becoming tolerable, if not dulling by the second to a low, steady throb. He turned his attention back to the text.
Override primary objective?
Prompto, unsure of what he should do to respond, began to reach into himself and pressed an immaterial finger to the words. A feeling entirely nonexistent and completely there. Almost akin to pressing on a touch screen. There was a click in the back of his hard drive, and the prompt changed.
Please enter passcode:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Seven letters? Digits? Perhaps it was his source code? He input the data.
Access denied.
Please enter passcode.
No, so not his source code. Maybe it was something to the empire? Maybe it was something to his programmers? Yet, each time he attempted to place some sort of key word or phrase into it, the same words would flash.
Access denied.
What could it be? Seven letters or seven digits? Maybe both? Maybe…
Prompto thought back to the doctor, the day prior. Maybe there was more to it. The doctor knew his name . No one knew his name. Prompto didn’t even know how he knew his name. He just…
What? He just what?
Prompto attempted to hide the tremble in his hands by moving them under the table. His decision was apparently wrong as it brought the attention back to him.
Through a red viewfinder, Prompto watched as Ardyn snapped his gaze to him. Watching Prompto with a cynical distaste that sent shivers down his spine. Prompto met his beady eyes with the standard stare, not letting anything slip. Trying to feign normality with every prolonged second. Adryn squinted at him a little harsher, like a predator giving up on trying to catch it prey, and stalked to the board once more to point at maps and yell at officers.
He turned his attention back to the on-screen prompt. Unchanging in its near mockery of him.
Please enter passcode:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
With fear gripping the metal in his chest, Prompto input his own name.
Access granted.
All the pressure built up in his head released, and Prompto almost fell back in his chair with the revelation. The screen changed color, a calm robin’s egg blue, and the text remained white, but less harsh.
Please input primary objective:
//
Slowly, Prompto wrote the one desire that had been etched into his mind since he first heard about the color of the sky. Since he first found out he could breathe. Since he first opened his eyes.
//Live.
>>05953234, code: “Prompto”, primary objective: //Live. Set.
There was a final click in his head, a final chord snapping, and then it all returned. The screen faded to clarity of the scene in front of him, and his attention returned fully to what Ardyn and a general were arguing over. He had to pay attention, for now. He had to convince Ardyn he was playing into his hand, but a new part of Prompto had opened, one that wasn’t subject to the Chancellor’s objectives.
Now, Prompto will live.