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“621… what is this?” walter asks, holding the tablet his hound had handed him.
on the screen, the shop 621 usually uses for parts is open. there’s the normal order in the cart- a new generator, more rounds for its machine guns, an FCS- but buried between them all, like it was trying to hide it, is an order for one of the games the redguns had at the meetup after the ICE WORM mission. cornhole, was it? walter didnt remember- all he remembered was watching 621 learn to play from afar.
621 blinks at the redgun next to it. number five, was it? across from the two, at the other board, stands the fourth vesper and michigan.
“okay- now you throw it.”
621 winds up.
“no! no- not like that! underhand- do you want to hit rusty in the head??” at his name, he looks up from where he’s been rocking on his heels in the snow.
“huh?”
“not talking to you!!”
“G5 hurry it up! we got a timer on the grill and your sewing club meeting is cutting in!”
“i’m teaching it to play the damn game!”
“you’re teachin’ too damn slow!”
iguazu grumbles about it, then turns back to the hound.
“just. throw the damn bag.”
with a nod, it winds up and throws as hard as it can, nailing rusty directly in the chest and making him double over.
10 point? it taps out.
“... no. thats zero.”
it nods. after thinking for a moment, it winds back up, aiming for michigan instead this time.
“no!”’
it’s then that walter turns away.
why would 621 want this now?
training. it taps out in morse.
“... training for..?”
winning. useful.
“i can assure you, cornhole won’t be useful to piloting 621.” he watches at its expression falls.
wordlessly (well. it was always wordless. morsecodelessly?) it takes the tablet back and deletes the game from the cart before handing it back to its handler, shoulders slumped further than usual.
well. he certainly hadn’t seen a reaction like this from it before. it looks like a kicked puppy.
while it slinks away back to its quarters to run its nightly simulations, walter turns back to the tablet.
maybe…
it doesn't take long for the shipments to get in, and the hound takes no time ripping into it to get its hands on the new parts and rounds for testing-
it stops, hands full of bubble wrap. is that…
the bubble wrap is tossed across the room, and 621 holds up a wooden board with two holes cut into it. beneath it, still in a plastic bag, is a handful of small beanbags. he really did…
it smiles underneath its mask and hugs the board close to its chest. it’ll have to thank its handler later.
it tosses the beanbag, landing through the furthest hole while knocking into one of its handler's, sending it sliding off the edge onto the steel floor of the hangar.
walter sighs.
“i think you’ve trained too much.”
not enough. your turn.
he cant bring himself to say no when it looks so happy with this, so he picks up another beanbag for their 6th game.
“fine. but this is the last one.”
said four games ago.
"hush."
lost all four.
"what did i just say?"