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"Your coffee, doctor." The competent tone of voice, the poised posture and his smile, with teeth in perfect rows like a military cemetery. All of Stone expressed professionalism, up to the last detail and never faltered.
He was the only human capable to dive into the deepest thoughts that surrounded and isolated Robotnik when he was working, and the only one with an oxygen tank sufficiently wide to bring him back with all the weight that implied.
Sometimes there was struggle and anger, but during the years working together it slowly morphed into annoyance, into shallow bits of noncommittal cruelty, for the sake of custom.
Other times, albeit rarely, his effort was met with equal reciprocity, which usually happened after a massive breakthrough, and was hidden behind a thick layer of degradation. Like sour candy with an especially tender core.
"Stone, what on E arth are you pretending??"
"I'm afraid I don't understand, doctor."
"Obviously. If you were to understand, you would know a person on vacation should not be serving coffee but rather scroll in their little barbarically addictive social media page..." he wiggled his fingers while raising his pitch ironically, mimicking the act of holding a phone. "Oh look! Coffee in a video! Monkey brain does oonga boonga! That's all the caffeine you need to interact with, Stone! I can get my fix elsewhere."
Regardless, the mug was taken off his hands in a quick motion.
"I HATE how delicious your concoctions are!!" He barked, turning back to his computer. "Now let me be! Can't you see how occupied I am with this project??"
"That looks impressive, doctor... may I ask the purpose of the human brain rendition?" He was directly looking at a holographic depiction of a brain, illuminated with countless brilliant dots in perfect distance one another, as if creating a sparkly helmet around it.
"I suppose I stopped working on this before we met." The older man examined his options, but his vanity got the best of him, like it always did, and laid back leisurely. "Several years ago, Stone, I got invaded with a very human emotion I wish to never recall: fear. Fear. For my feeble, saggy sack of carne " he pointed at himself. "The only way to achieve eternity, Stone, is to cheat death. What is life anyway? A compendium of bodily fluids and flesh thrown into a disgusting smog-filled shoebox that we call Earth and roll with the movement of the planetarium system until... what?"
Stone did not make any attempt to respond to it. Despite agreeing with the doctor in matters of work, they rarely got these moments of deep introspection, and therefore any argument he could pose, from his humanly perspective, wasn't going to be worthy of being expressed. Anything Stone could think of, he was certainly sure Robotnik had considered it, pondered on it numerous times, and submitted it to judgement until the indisputable truth was revealed.
"Well, I do not agree, Stone. I never agreed. Agreeing is for sheep, don't you think?"
"Yes, doctor."
"And proved my point, bravo, agent." his words did not have bite in them, just playful banter, if that was something applicable to Robotnik.
Another sip of coffee.
"No, Stone. I will overrun the stars. If I am meant to be the superior mind, I need to be there and I need to be everywhere. To see empires rise and fall when I wish them to. Being conscious and in constant motion is not for the weak, Agent. It is meant for gods, and I will become one.’ Tis not a matter of power, but time. And I will make sure this..." he looked down. "This... expiration date never arrives."
His tone had been matter-of-factly. It had been a speech engraved in every cell of his body.
"So! I am working to dump my superior intelligence, charm, wits and motivations into a transferable device, which can be purged, perfected and polished through eons." he concluded with an anticlimactic simplicity
Far from thinking about the complexity of this task, how many years it could take, or even discussing the moral behind robotics, Agent Stone simply clapped tastefully, as if he had heard the Oscars acceptance from the first row.
"That's amazing, doctor. I know you can do it. And if you let me, I will accompany you until the end."
"Of course you will, sycophant. I have no doubts about it. Now, if I recall correctly, you requested this day off, which coincidentally matches with my need to work in other than government projects. This means no interruptions! Chop chop!"
"Yes, doctor." With a polite bow, the man left.
Ivo sighed in exhaustion, making sure the lab's door was locked as he threw the coffee into the trash under his desk.
It wasn't about the taste, nor the service. It had nothing to do with the creamer, or the caffeine percentage. But one person could only drink so many coffees before it became an issue, and this one sat amongst seven others, served in a span of three hours and fifty-three minutes.
Time was against him. Death had knocked on the door and reminded him about their duel, in the cruelest way possible.
Robotnik thought that the only death worthy of worry was his own. His errors in calculation were his own demise, as he could not see the new added variable until it was too late. His calculations long ago lost, mocked and ridiculed by a piece of debris clashing on Agent Stone's head, knocking him unconscious during a mission.
The change had not been subtle, but rather a full slap in the face, a punch in the gut and the biggest kick in the nuts a human being could sustain in a single day. Within 24 hours from the day of the accident, it was clear that Stone had gotten mentally stuck against his will, jailed by his own human brain to walk the same path, over and over. Sleep, attend to hygiene, dress up, serve coffee... and Robotnik wished to say there was more, but he would be lying to himself. Stone looped between those activities during the day, and he had been for years now.
Agent Stone... Well, former Agent Stone, currently a mere civilian, had nobody to look after him. No family or friends, except his employer. GUN tried many times to move him into a residential facility for retired and disabled soldiers only to be met by an army of badniks pointing bright red lasers to their heads.
If Stone could see himself, he probably wouldn't tolerate his own situation.
It wasn't a matter of "If". Robontik knew this was as intolerable for himself as it was for the overly efficient assistant, reduced to a four-action being, pushing through the nebula of his mind just enough to attend the doctor's needs as best as he could. How could not this devotion be met with equal effort?
Hence, the brain scan he was analyzing day and night, wishing to find the error, the glitch in his sycophant's head. Any system could be hacked and modified; just because Robotnik didn't know the code yet didn't mean he would give up.
Goodhood without his devotee was just...unimpressive, dull. The idea of expanding his universe without Stone in it was unbearable. The missing piece in his plan, the unaccounted variable, had to be added, fixed and reproduced over and over to ensure its permanence. One day, he promised, he would express his adoration through his inventions, making Stone eternally beautiful and inevitable.
But the time used to ponder and grovel in despair, or nursing fantasies would be better used thinking, planning, working. Hopefully his reward would be bountiful, and his assistant could move on by his side. Always by his side.