Liv leans up against the elevator side, the pleasant jostling of its hull reverberating through her bones. It hadn’t taken her too long to find her target. A few questions to the front desk receptionist had gotten her most of the information she needed, and a few inquiries from some strangers had gotten her the rest of the way there.

  In the corner of the elevator, huddled like a child hiding from their parents, was the mousy man who led her to George’s office. His tie was different, though the rest of his ensemble was entirely the same. Liv had learned his name was “Topo Milani”. She probably should’ve asked when they first met, but her hand was occupied tearing her hair follicles, so her time to give him a firm handshake was scarce.

  “S-So,” Topo starts, sweat leaking across his mousy face. He looked like a wreck. Liv thought about asking, but ultimately decided against it. It might be rude to pry. Or was it rude to not pry? People liked being asked about their days, didn’t they? Would asking something like “whats wrong” fall under that general umbrella. Liv groans internally, her head slumping back. It was like playing chess all over again.

  “Are ya dere?” Topo says, cutting Liv out of her stupor. She curses. She was too busy thinking to pay attention.

  “Yeah, I’m ‘ere.” Liv says, her arms crossing tighter across the fridge caught in her grasp. This only seemed to fuel the unease on Topo’s face. “What’re ya sayin’?”

  “Was just sayin’ congrats on da promotion.” Topo murmurs softly, barely audible. If there had been any other noise, she might’ve missed it.

  Ding!

  The mesh door slides open, light cascading on Liv’s skin once more. She shrugs, trotting into a small foyer. The floor is a bright red carpet worn out by use, the walls a complementary orange wallpaper. The ceiling hangs lower than Liv would’ve expected; then again, she really didn’t know what to expect of Hellfire’s engineers. A door sits before her, a simple push that seems awfully flimsy. She supposed it wasn’t her place to judge, she wasn’t an architect… Or whoever designed this stuff.

  Liv turns her head to Topo, giving him a simple wave. He gulps, giving her one back as he spams the button to leave. The mesh door closes behind Liv, the elevator sliding down floor by floor. She found the mousy man odd. Not in a bad way, just a generally odd fellow. Granted, she wasn’t normal herself: but wasn’t normalcy subjective?

  Pushing onward, Liv elbows through the doors, temporarily blinded by the bright lights that greet her. When she adjusts, it takes all her self control to keep from gawking, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates at the sight before her.

  The room was towering to say the least, a few hundred feet of various machines in different stages of completion hung from their surfaces. Most of the walls were shelves, though Liv could see more than one desk affixed to the shelves at regular intervals. The scent of the place could only be described as stupifying: a mix of old wood, melted metal, and oil permeating the entire space. Chairs seemed to spire up taller than Liv would’ve believed possible, sparks flinging from the top, raining down like red hot snow. Each is at a different level. The question of how they go there is quickly answered as one of the seat's inhabitants fiddles with their arm rests, rocketing further into the sky. The floor caves in the middle, the Initiatives emblem emblazoned in its center mass.

  Her inner workings are interrupted by a small nudging against her leg. Liv reluctantly tears her eyes away from the mesmerizing room, her jaw dropping further as she sees the person… Or thing that did it.

  Standing below Liv is a small toy elephant, only about the size of her shin. Its body is made of a shining white plastic, beady black eyes adorning its face. Though it lacks the tusks most elephants have, the large ears and long trunk are a dead give away. Its chibi in nature, large eyes accentuated by nub ended arms and legs without elbows or knees, a rosy hue staining each of its tiny cheeks. Around its neck sits a small plaid bowtie stained with reds, pinks, and whites. A small latch circles its belly, though that's the only line Liv can clearly see from her vantage. If she had to describe it in one word, cute would be the first that came to mind– adorable, even.

  “...’Ello there.” Liv says slowly, her eyes darting around. She could feel the Synth radiating off the damn thing, but she couldn’t feel another source that matched the noise coming off it.

  For a long moment, the small toy seems to watch her, its black eyes assessing her every feature. Then, out of nowhere, its trunk expands, a loud trumpeting sound roaring from its tiny body. Liv has to cover her ears, disorienting pain clouding her brain, her grey matter rattling around her skull with the force of the sound washing over her. Her minifridge clatters to the ground. If she didn’t cover her ears in time, she would’ve followed it.

  The sound finally stops, though Liv can only tell once her skull stops shaking. The damn thing blew her eardrums out! Luckily, Bruno was already patching up the wounds, her senses flooding back. Liv glares down at the tiny beast with contempt. Behind that cute exterior was the devil in disguise. She takes a stumbling step forward, only stopping when she notices the damn thing charging another one of those trills.

  “Quiet, Zuri.” A voice suddenly echoes out from above. One of the chairs from above begins to descend in short bursts, quickly descending to the floor below. The small elephant’s trunk seems to deflate, its tiny body turning to the voice that called it. With hobbling steps, it treks its way to the now floored chair, its arms swinging rhythmically as it does. Liv watches it suspiciously. It could play cute all it wanted, but a monster was still a monster. Her focus is rapidly stolen, however, as the one who backed it down stands from their chair.

  Their head is draped with a robe, a welding mask affixed to their face. They’re not too tall, a head and a half taller than Liv with a fuller build than most. It’s hard to tell under their baggy clothing, almost their entire set a loose, dusty brown leather. The most captivating part about them was their eyes; at least, where their eyes should be. Two lights seemed to be affixed to the mask, bright ones that straddle her eyes threshold to stare. Luckily, they shut off as they reach up, the mask falling from their face.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  What stares at her now is a slightly familiar face. She leans towards a mid to late twenties, though she could see early if he just aged far poorer than most others. He leaned toward the slim side, his low cheekbones only slightly sunken into his face. The small elephant stands beside him, their beady eyes staring up expectantly. He stares down in kind, shaking his head once. The elephant known as Zuri hangs its head.

  “I apologize. Zuri is a newer creation of mine, so she doesn’t quite understand the concept of new faces. She naturally assumed you were an enemy of some kind.”

  Liv slowly relaxes her posture, still ready to spring away from the damned thing at a moment's notice. She didn’t entirely trust the tiny toy at the current moment, but she had enough faith to go with the flow… For now.

  “It’s aight, ain’t the worst I’ve been through.” Liv says, observing the two. On instinct, Liv closes the distance between them, her hand springing out to clasp his. She gives their conjoined hands a single pump, her face impassive. “Liv Boss.”

  The man stares at her for a moment, his free hand depositing his mask on his seat. “Newton.” He responds respectfully, already tugging his hand away. Liv lets go, allowing some space to return between the two once more.

  Liv tilts her head back down to the small elephant, a question brewing in her mind. “Ya said ya made that thing. Is that yer weapon or somethin’?”

  Newton turns his own gaze toward the toy elephant at his side. He simply shakes his head to the negative. “No, not nearly. I don’t use Synth Weapons myself in such a manner.”

  “Then who’s is it?” Liv questions, her curiosity genuinely piqued. At this, a small smile begins to creep its way on his face.

  “Would you like to see?”

  Liv nods her head in response, her interest only growing. Newton only nods, ducking down to pick up Zuri under their armpits. Zuri accepts the gesture happily, their arms raising to make the transition smoother. With a flick of his wrist, Newton swings the small hatch on its stomach open, revealing the contents inside. Its innards are filled with complex wires, all branching out from a singular fixed point.

  A single lemon.

  Liv blinks in surprise, transfixed by the sight before her. For a single moment, she’s completely and utterly dumbfounded. She tries to rub her eyes, convinced she was seeing things. She wasn’t. That’s when the questions flood her mind like a broken dam. How the hell did it move? Didn’t they need some sort of sentience? How did it even move itself? Why a toy? She supposed that was a stupid question when compared to some of the other weapons she’s seen.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Newton muses, closing the latch with a single motion. “It was hard work getting it to function, but I managed to get it working fairly recently.”

  Liv snaps out of her stupor, her eyes darting back up to Newton. He seemed genuinely excited, a spark of joy behind his eyes. “Huh.” Liv mutters, her arms crossing over his chest. “How’s it movin’?”

  “That's quite fascinating, actually.” Newton starts, his smile ever growing. “The lemon sort of acts as the brain of the entire device. You can see the wires as nerves of sorts, interpreting the electrical impulses into usable movements.I had to affix a battery to boost the electrical output, but that’s neither here nor there. Since the weapon absorbs most of the ambient Synth of the lemon, they almost act as one autonomous creature. I don’t think it's quite intelligent yet, but I would say it’s at least sentient.”

  “...Uh huh.” Liv mutters slowly. She understood around half of that, but that half gave her the general jist of the idea. The lemon was like a brain that piloted the toy like a mech. That left her with another question. “Why didja make it?”

  To this, he tilts his head, folding to a knee. Zuri escapes his grasp, regaining its footing with hobbling steps. Once he stands once more, he shrugs. “Why not?”

  “Well,” Liv says, eyeing the little bastard. Zuri waddles away slowly, care free as could be. She squints her eyes at it. Evil bastard. “Whaddya gain from makin’ it?”

  “Experience, obviously.” Newton responds, unabashed by the topic at hand. “The applications of Synth have only been scratched at, and most of it has been purely combative. Anything noncombative has remained… Well, ideas brewing in the minds of those who wish they could experiment with it while examining weapons over and over. I wish to be an exception to that. I know, deep in my heart, that I can find something more. I wish to be the exception, and Zuri is my first step in my journey there.”

  Liv cocks her head, her hands falling to her hips. He sounded serious about that– as serious as Liv could tell. She supposed she didn’t know enough about Synth to credit– or discredit– his ideas. Her knowledge was painfully lacking.

  “Yer pretty interestin’, ya know that?” Liv says genuinely, her compliment eliciting a chuckle from Newton.

  “I’ve gotten similar comments before.” He claps his hands together, the leather rubbing together. “Now, what can I help you with? You didn’t just come here for fun, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Liv mutters, her mind bouncing back to the task at hand. Slowly, she reaches down, plucking the baby blue minifridge from the floor. A new dent mars its already scuffed hull, the paint chipping from Liv’s attempts to scrub any residue of mud off. She extends it to him, a nervous smile spreading across her face. “I was wonderin’ if any of y’all could help me fix this up. Florence told me y’all would be up to it since I’ve been usin’ it on missions ‘n junk.”

  Newton stares at the small fridge, accepting it into his grasp. He bows down a bit once Liv pulls back, the weight more than he expected, though not nearly enough to knock him to the floor. A flurry of emotions play across his face, more than one of them conflicting. Eventually, he settles on mild amusement, a small smile gracing his lips.

  “I haven’t worked on an ancient piece of tech like this in years.” He mutters, a discontented note entering his voice. “Where did you even get this?’

  “Err… I bought it.” Liv admits slowly, purposely skipping over the price she paid. “From an antique store.”

  “Oh?” Newton says, his eyes scanning over the hull for any catastrophic damage. There isn’t much to find. “Do tell. I might know the name.”

  Liv rubs the back of her neck, trying to recall the name. She could recall it slightly, though the exact details were a bit fuzzy. After a moment, the light bulb flickers above her head, the name springing to the forefront of her mind.

  “I think it was called the ‘Treasure Trove Turnabout’. Somethin’ like that.”

  The drop in Newton’s face is immediate, his eyes widening as he turns his head to her. His demeanor has fundamentally changed, that spark of amusement and curiosity replaced by a smoldering hate. Slowly, he speaks, his voice practically dripping with contempt.

  “You purchased this machine from my brother?”