Volt stood silently, watching his Operator wander around the ship. Occasionally, the Operator would turn to say something, only to pause and say nothing.
“Operator, what are you thinking?” Ordis would occasionally butt in with his own thoughts. This had been the fourth time, and this time, the Operator actually answered.
“I have a name, you know.”
“Sorry, Operator! It is just… I… I tend to forget…” Ordis had noticed the Operator’s pacing as well, and had been trying to break the tension for ages. Volt admired his persistence. Heck, if Volt could have spoken properly, he would have tried to talk to the Operator too.
“It’s fine, Ordis…” The Operator finally stopped pacing and decided to open up their market console. There were no sales going on, hadn’t been any for a while. The Lotus’s Tenno Nuance Generative group, often known as Tennogen, had created a handful of really nice syandanas, all of which were now available for purchase, but the Operator didn’t have the right currency for any of it. Knowing that the Cephalon would be unable to break through the Operator’s mood, he decided to disappear and do some ship maintenance.
After some browsing around, the Operator restarted their Transferance and took control of Volt. The Warframe blinked its neuroptics, surprised but glad to have regained some movement. That control through was brief, as the Operator once again paused Transferance and reappeared in front of Volt, rather than sitting in his chair in the back of the Orbiter.
“I don’t know how to feel right now…” the Operator sighed. “I feel… guilty. About my Warframes. About you.”
It took a moment for Volt to realise that the Operator was talking about him.
“The Lotus never explained to us how they… we… made Warframes. But I have… an idea… You should know. We’ve been reading about it. And I’ve been doing some study… here in the ship, using my Codex…”
Volt couldn’t move, but if he could, he would have just shrugged. He had never considered how they were built. He just… appeared one day, woken up from a Cryopod.
“You were people once. Living, sentient beings. Now you’re just a puppet that I control… Well, mostly…”
The Operator once again sat at the market console, sighing. Volt noticed that the Operator had left him frozen in place, but in a way that meant he could stare outside. They were orbiting Saturn, and the bright rings were particularly pretty.
“I don’t know where I’m going with this… I just feel bad that people were turned into horrible killing machines, and that I operate a killing machine…”
With a sigh, the Operator walked up to Volt.
“We’ve been through a lot. Maybe one day, there would be a way to make you sentient. Something that can act without me controlling you. Because I know something is alive in there. More than just a shadow of my own personality.”
Volt wanted to nod in agreement, but could not. He was definitely an individual.
“I mean…” the Operator continued his ramble. “You broke Hunhow’s blade. You saved my life…”
The Operator smiled, then disappeared, giving Volt control over his actions again.
“I never thanked you for that, Volt. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome!” Volt beamed. “Can we go kill things now?”
“Yeah, sure, why not?” the Operator smiled. “After all, despite what I just said, there are plenty of things out there that deserve to be killed…”