###Alto's New Weapon - Part 1 of 3

_Darn._ Alto thought happily as he brought another handful of popcorn to his mouth. He opened wide as the mass of popcorn disappeared, his teeth grinding them into digestible pieces and his tongue savouring the rich buttery taste. His ears relished the soft crunch of the popcorn was crushed by his teeth, his right hand savouring the heat of yet another handful of popcorn. _I love popcorn._ He thought.

He was currently in the StuCorp cafeteria, gleefully shovelling popcorn into his mouth from a commercial grade ice cream tub/bin thing. He was sure that the ice cream tub/bin wasn’t really meant for popcorn, but there weren’t really any kitchen staff around to tell him off as he abused the popcorn machine so it was probably fine.

He was in StuCorp for the conference, seeing as he was also hired for the raid on Avalon, but he’d missed lunch because he was going to go have lunch after the conference. He hadn’t known it would take so long, and he hadn’t thought the sort-of FBI side of the conference would get cut off early leaving them sort of stranded a little.

He’d stayed around a bit to listen to Gary’s talk about the hole in Avalon’s armour, which he thought wasn’t a bad idea, but Alto was reminded rather abruptly by his stomach that he needed food. He’d made his excuses and ran off to find some.

It was as he was wandering about one of the cafeteria, that he stumbled upon the popcorn machine, and no kitchen staff in sight. Looking through the cupboards, he grabbed the biggest ice cream tub he could; looking through the pantry he grabbed a sizeable half full sack of corn kernels; and finally, from the fridge he grabbed a sizeable slab of butter for flavouring and set to work.

Some amount of time had passed between his first use of the popcorn machine and now, and a few trial batches and a full tub of popcorn later he was sure he’d perfected the ratio of butter to kernels. He emptied the rest of the repurposed ice cream tub/bin into his eager mouth and then he went to pour more kernels into the machine.

It was then that he heard the sound that would completely change his life. He heard sparks fly from the popcorn machine, and he heard a large bang as the popcorn machine’s lights flickered and turned off as if breathing its last.

**”NO.”** Alto said aloud, as his ice cream tub fell from his hand.

He peered closely at the machine, unflinching even as it gave off dangerous sparks. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes, as he tried to pry open the back of the machine to see what was wrong. 

**”I’m an engineer, I can fix this!”** He shouted in vain.

But alas, it was not to be. As he saw the blackened mess that the internal machinery had become, he knew there was no hope. He could practically hear a piano playing in the background, a mournful requiem heralding the loss of an invaluable friend, an ally, a treasure.

Why did it have to happen to him? Why had the world decided he of all people had to be alone? His only friend was gone. As the realization sunk in, he threw back his head to cry out in anguish and despair, for all the injustice the world had wrought upon him.

Until he saw the other popcorn machine, that is.

**”Oh, cool.”** Alto said as he tore the popcorn machine’s power plug from the wall and threw it into an empty corner of the kitchen with his left arm. He jumped up and skipped over to the new popcorn machine as the old one crashed noisily into the corner of the kitchen.

He plugged the new machine in, poured some more corn kernels and soon the merry sounds of popping popcorn could be heard as Alto happily started to pour butter into the machine.

Then he heard the other sound that would change his life forever.

_**”Boot sequence initialized.”**_

The voice was sounded like it was speaking directly into his mind, as if there was another mind inside of his head that only just started thinking.

_**”Unknown species detected, adapting defensive protocols, adapting personality sequence, adapting…”**_

_Is a computer booting up in my head?_ He thought. _Wait! My popcorn!_ Looking back at his popcorn quickly, he saw that it was still in the midst of popping.

_**”Establishing organism uplink, ERROR, no other organisms detected…”**_

_Hold up,_ Alto thought, _What is starting up here and why aren’t there any others?_ Then he looked down at his left arm, currently clutching his ice cream tub, and saw that the glowing blue circle thing on the back of his hand was glowing brighter for some reason.

Then he remembered, the message he had received a year and a half ago, when he’d gotten the Bio-Weapon. It had been the same voice, telling him he’d gone into hibernation. Now it seems, he’d waken up.

_**”Boot sequence complete. Greetings, Emperor.”**_ The voice finished.

Many questions quickly shot into Alto’s mind, such as, _I’m an Emperor? The Bio-Weapon woke up? The Bio-Weapon thinks like a robot? Is my popcorn done?_ But ultimately, Alto’s ‘business mode’ took over and all of the questions where overwritten by one realization.

_Finally, some answers._

((TL;DR, Alto misses lunch, then finds a popcorn machine, breaks the popcorn machine, gets emotional over the popcorn machine, and then the Bio-Weapon wakes up.))