Artie (Prey)

RTPL54777 (also known as Artie) was a war droid.

Biography
Vienna Salvatori was directed to RTPL54777, who was in a freezer, so that he might help her in her attempted assassination of. Unable to remember his name, she decided to call him "Artie". He led her to a weapons cache in a sewer in Limehouse and informed her that their target resided at Ludgate Citadel where she attempted to kill him with a bazooka. When that failed and Artie informed her that the Master would likely survive his crashing flier, they headed to Notting Hill.

Upon entering Notting Hill, Artie used an electroshock ram to incapacitate the locals who surrounded him and Vienna. He detected the Master's ID tag and tracked him and Lila Kreeg down to the court of King Muggy. There, Artie pretended to be a menial bot for Vienna to present to King Muggy as a way of gaining access to the Master; he also placed a timed limpet mine on a gas tank which forced King Muggy and his people to flee.

Artie and Vienna tracked the Master and Lila to a tube station where Artie detected Trogs, which he was able to warn Vienna of thanks to his thermal imaging. He risked his own destruction in releasing a electroshock ram against them to save Vienna and his systems began to fail. However, he had enough power to tell Vienna to take his cranial unit and to guide her to Lancaster Gate. (AUDIO: Prey)

Weapons
Artie's weapons included rapid fire plasma guns, timed limpet mines, EMP charges and electroshock rams. Should his contract be vacated, he was programmed to explode to cover up the evidence. (AUDIO: Prey)

Behind the scenes
Having been writing a lot of glib lines for Liv Chenka in The Sentient, Robert Whitelock initially gave Artie a number of wise-cracking remarks which were removed to emphasise the seriousness of the story. (BFX: Prey)