TWENTY-SEVEN
“Whelp. I’m out.” Sikuuku tossed his cards down and polished off the last of his drink. “You’ve got all my money, boss. Think I’ll head back to the ranch and get some shut-eye before you take that as well.” The gunner smiled and shoved his chair back, tapped two fingers to his temple in a half-assed salute before weaving his way toward the door.
Henricksen stared after him, sipping at his glass as Sikuuku stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door to Henricksen’s quarters shut.
“You’ve known him for a while.” Serengeti normally didn’t intrude on Henricksen’s off-duty time—even a captain needed time away from an unsleeping AI—but she was curious about this new captain of hers.
Henricksen turned his head toward the camera in the corner. “Served on three different ships together. Sikuuku…” Henricksen dropped his eyes, staring into the depths of his glass. “He might’ve stayed Black Ops if I hadn’t left.”
“He’s a good soldier. A good friend.”
Henricksen nodded and tossed off his drink. “The best.”
More to that story—so many things Serengeti wanted to know about Henricksen and Sikuuku—this grizzled, battle-scarred pair that ran her bridge. Patience, she told herself. He came to you looking for assignment but you still need to earn his trust. You can’t just go barging in like a bull in a china shop demanding his entire life’s history.
Serengeti thought for a minute, considering the dozens of questions she wanted answered and settled on the simplest of them all. One that, oddly, bothered her the most.
“The scar on your face. Why?” she asked quietly. “The cell replicators can easily get rid of it. You’d never even know it was ever there.”
“Wonders of modern medicine,” Henricksen murmured, lips twisting in a lopsided smile. “Cover up anything you want. Make all the bad memories go away.”
Bitterness in his voice. Serengeti heard it—you bet she did. “So why then? Why did you keep it?”
Henricksen grunted and touched at the jagged line of scar tissue running down the side of his face. “Let’s just say, there are some things you shouldn’t forget.”
He lifted his eyes to the camera, grey eyes staring into the lens. And then Henricksen’s face faded into the darkness, shadows and smudged grey outlines rising up to take Henricksen’s place.
Bridge, Serengeti’s muzzy mind registered.
She almost went back, wanting to finish that conversation and ask Henricksen the questions she’d never had time to ask.
Can’t go back, Serengeti. Henricksen’s voice, filled with regret. You can only move forward and hope for the best.
I’m trying, Henricksen. I’ve been trying all these years.
Then keep trying, Serengeti. Eventually you’ll get us there. Henricksen retreated to the recesses of her mind.
Serengeti drew a bit of power, focusing the camera, searching the bridge below for cobalt eyes and chromed faces. “Tig. Tilli. Where are you?”
“Here. I’m here, Serengeti,” Tig called, voice drifting from a shadowed corner.
She turned the camera toward him, smiling to herself as Tig’s chromed face appeared, cobalt eyes blazing brightly, Tilli fidgeting nervously at his side.
“Welcome back,” Tilli said, shy as always. She shuffled her legs, eyes flicking to one side.
Curious, Serengeti turned the camera a bit more, and…
“What’s this?” she breathed as a third robot face appeared.
Three chromed faces, three sets of brightly glowing eyes when last time there’d been but two.
Great. Now I’m seeing things.
She powered the camera off and brought it back on-line again, thinking it a malfunction—a problem with the feed, a glitch with the camera’s optical resolution mechanism, something like that.
No such luck. The camera turned back on and that third face was still there, gazing up at her with the others.
“What’s going on?” Serengeti whispered, AI mind processing, trying to make sense of the camera’s images.
Three. It shouldn’t be three, she kept thinking. Should it?
For the briefest of moments, Serengeti honestly wasn’t sure. That scared her. Scared her badly. So much that she counted the robots again, working her way from left to right, tallying up eyes and faces, before starting over again. Three times in total she counted, and each time the tally was exactly the same: three sets of eyes—six cobalt orbs in total—and three shining, chromed faces.
“Maybe I’m imagining it,” she murmured. “Just like Henricksen.”
Maybe she was still dreaming and just thought she was awake. Maybe she really had gone off the deep end and just didn’t know it.
That’s crap, Serengeti, Henricksen’s voice snorted. You’re a lotta things, but you ain’t a loony. So drop this maudlin BS and figure out what’s going on.
Serengeti laughed—she couldn’t help it. Henricksen might not be eloquent, but he always knew just the right thing to say.
I miss him. More than she could say. More than Serengeti could have ever imagined. Someday, Henricksen. Someday, she promised, and then shook herself, focusing in on this unexpected visitor on her bridge.
Serengeti drew a bit of power to her, bringing the light above the robots to life. “Well now. Who do we have here?”
The newcomer squeaked in surprise, startled as much by the sudden brilliance as being the focus of attention. Serengeti zoomed in, trying to get a better look at it, but the robot up and ran before she got more than a glimpse, scurrying behind Tig to hide in his shadow.
“It’s alright,” Serengeti called after it. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
A rounded head peeked from behind Tig’s carapace, cobalt eyes wide and wary-looking, filled with equal parts curiosity and fear.
“Hi,” Serengeti said in her softest, friendliest voice. “Come on out where I can see you.”
No dice. The robot took one look at the camera, squeaked and ducked out of sight again.
“Hey now. That’s not very polite,” Tig admonished. He flashed an apologetic look at the camera and then twisted around, addressing the robot sheltering under his nether regions. “She’ll think you don’t like her.”
A muffled peep came back.
Tig waved Tilli over, calling in reinforcements.
“Serengeti’s a nice…warship.” Tilli offered a sickly smile to the camera. “There’s no need to hide.”
“Peep?” A bit of curiosity in the hiding robot’s voice now, but it clung to the shadows under Tig’s body just the same, doggedly refusing to show itself.
It took a bit of cajoling and encouragement from Tig and Tilli, and a lot of patience—more patience, frankly, than Serengeti had herself—but they eventually got the little creature to come out. The robot crept from its hiding place—head down, legs wrapped close about its body—and grabbed at Tilli’s leg end, holding tightly to that anchor as it inched its way to Tig’s side.
Serengeti zoomed in close, taking a long, hard look. “Well now. Isn’t this interesting?”
Not one of her robots—that was for sure. She’d never even seen a robot like this one before. In some ways it resembled Tig and Tilli—a miniaturized version anyway—but there were some obvious…deviations from the TIG blueprint. For one thing, it had fewer legs than Tig and Tilli—just six, when your average TIG came equipped with eight. The body was different too—more rounded, not the elongated oval of a true TIG, and its head rounder still. Rivets and weld lines betraying the fact that the model wasn’t quite stock, the body stitched together from salvaged pieces and parts. But more important than all that was something the robot was missing. It squiggled and shifted, holding tightly to Tig’s leg on one side, and Tilli’s on the other, and as it did, Serengeti got a good look at the strange robot’s flanks.
Bare metal there—well, metal composite, like every other robot and just about every other thing inside Serengeti’s body—no numbers or letters on the tiny robot’s s
ides. No sign of them either—no smudges and smears, no shadowy remains like Tig and Tilli wore—and when she reached inside the robot, touching gently at its AI brain, Serengeti found none of the identification tags the other robots carried. None of the data to mark it as one of hers.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Serengeti murmured, intrigued by this tiny little mystery Tig and Tilli had brought her. Tiny and somewhat adorable. She smiled to herself and looked from Tig to Tilli. “You two have got a new friend I see.”
Tig tittered nervously, throwing worried glances Tilli’s way.
Tilli fidgeted and fiddled, hovering close to the little robot beside her, looking like she might grab it up and run herself at any minute.
Odd.
The TIGs were flighty by nature—a fault in their programming Serengeti found endearing most days—but Tig and Tilli seemed especially flighty today. That was worrisome. And a tad annoying. Time to get some answers.
“This is the second time you’ve surprised me by showing up with a new companion, Tig. So tell me: where have you been hiding this little robot?”
Tig shrugged and burbled something nonsensical as his face lights flashed in blotchy, discordant patterns.
Interesting, that. Bit of guilt in that blush, a touch of worry in the way Tig looked at Tilli, and Tilli refused to look back. But she reached for Tig and shuffled closer to his side, hovering protectively over the miniature robot sandwiched between them.
“Who is she, Tig?” Serengeti asked. She. Instinctively, though there was nothing about the robot to indicate she or he. Not like Tilli’s bright pink bow. ‘She’ felt right, somehow, though Serengeti was at a loss to explain why. “What’s her name?”
Tig looked up at the camera, blue swirls of discomfort crawling across his cheeks. He glanced at Tilli and to the little robot standing between them. “Go on,” he said, nodding encouragingly.
The little robot blinked and peeped, ducked her head and stared fixedly at the floor.
“It’s alright.” Serengeti waited, watching the little robot, until she finally looked up. “Hi there. What’s your name, little one?” Soft voice again, gentle as can be. “You do have a name, don’t you?”
Small shrug in response—the barest lifting of the little robots legs.
“Oh, come now. Surely you do! Everyone has a name.”
A peep and whistle—that’s all Serengeti got in response. Just those two nervous sounds and nothing more.
Tig cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Sorry, she’s a bit shy.” He shrugged an apology and ducked down, whispering softly to the little robot beside him. “Go ahead. She won’t hurt you,” he said, nudging the robot in the side.
“Peep?”
“Promise,” Tig smiled.
A shy glance at the camera, face lights flashing wildly, stuttering out a rapid-fire communication punctuated by beeps and borps and an ululating trill. A last low whistle and the little robot curled up tight, hunkering close to the floor.
This was starting to get irksome.
“She can’t speak?” Serengeti turned her eye to Tig.
“Language processors still need a bit of work, but she can speak. Sort of. When she wants to.” Another nudge at the little robot, Tig’s face swirling with soothing patterns as she uncurled and raised her head, looking to Tig first and then the camera. “There now. See? Nothing to—”
The robot quivered and ducked back down, legs splayed wide, belly flat against the floor.
Bit of drama in that. Bit of playing at being scared rather than true fear.
Tease. Serengeti smiled to herself. It’s a game. A way of getting attention and having a little fun at Tig and Tilli’s expense.
She liked this new robot already.
“Secret, eh?” Serengeti decidedly to play along for a while. “Alright then. Let’s try a different question, little miss. Where did you come from?”
A shrug in answer, stubby legs lifting, grabbing at the floor. The robot crawled to one side, trying to crawl under Tig’s belly and hide.
More games. Serengeti considered a moment, decided to let the little robot win this round.
Back to Tig then. “Where’d she come from, Tig?”
“Yeeeaaaaahhhh. About that…” Tig reached over, stroking a leg across the miniature robot’s back, cooing softly to stop her squiggling.
“Tig?” Serengeti prompted.
Tig sighed and looked up at her—straight into the camera—as he spilled his guts. “I—we—Tilli and I, we kinda, sorta…made…her?” He cringed, front legs lifting, rubbing together worriedly.
Tilli copied him—the two of them standing together, chirping away like oversized metal crickets.
“Made her,” Serengeti repeated.
Tig nodded and reached for Tilli, twining his leg end around hers.
“You made a new robot.” She could hardly believe it but Tig nodded again, drooping a bit, obviously thinking her angry. That couldn’t be further from the truth. “How?” Serengeti asked him. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure that out. “I mean, there are plenty of parts.” More than enough to assemble a body and jump start a power core from the fuel cells inside her. “But the brain…you can’t just salvage an AI mind and give it to another robot, and it’s not like we’re carrying a bunch of spares around. Where on earth did you find one, Tig? How did you ever manage such a thing?”
Tig shifted nervously, offering the shyest of shy looks to the camera. “There wasn’t one sitting around, just as you said, so I—we—I got creative.”
“Creative,” Serengeti repeated suspiciously. She didn’t like where this was going.
“Uh-huh.” Tig shuffled from one side to the other, leg ends drumming against the floor, sneaking nervous glances at Tilli beside him and the camera hovering above. “We didn’t have a spare so we—we used mine.”
“Your what? Your mind?”
Tig nodded, face flushing guiltily.
Serengeti stared in stunned disbelief. “You’re telling me you harvested a piece of your AI to create hers?”
“Ahem. Well.” Tig shuffled his feet. “It—It wasn’t just me,” he admitted.
“Tilli. Tilli too?”
“Beep.” Tig hugged Tilli to his side. “Beep-beep.”
“AI procreation.” Serengeti laughed—she’d never imagined such a thing. “The engineers will have a fit.”
Tig beeped in surprise and started laughing with her—nervous, relieved laughter that Tilli picked up. Soon even the little newcomer was giggling, enjoying this new game so much she finally came out of hiding.
“Alright then, little miss.” Serengeti addressed the little robot once her giggles ran their course. “Stand up straight now. I want to get a look at you.”
Metal legs uncurled, flaring outward as the little robot lifted herself from the floor. She stood there, bobbing up and down, jointed legs bending and flexing, eyes looking from the floor, to Tilli, to the camera high above—shy again, timid now that the laughter was done.
“There you are,” Serengeti smiled, zooming in as she looked the robot up and down. “Can you turn for me? Would you do that, little one?”
Soft words. Gentle words. Friendly-friendly-friendly.
A shy smile and the tiny robot spun in a tight circle, stopped and looked to Tig for confirmation before spinning around again.
Serengeti chuckled softly as the little robot spun and spun and spun. She’s perfect, she thought. Just about perfect.
“She’s beautiful.”
The spinning robot trilled happily, face lights pulsing with pleasure as she twirled round and round and round. Tig and Tilli looked on, legs wrapped around each other—two proud parents watching their child show off.
“So what’s that?” Serengeti asked, pointing to a splash of color on the robot’s left flank, half-hidden by the curve her back.
“Peep.” The little robot screeched to a halt, glancing worriedly at Tig and Tilli. “Peep-peep?”
“That mark on your si
de. What is it?”
Another look at Tilli, waiting for her nod, before the little robot twisted her body around, turning the side in question to the camera.
It’s a picture. Serengeti studied the drawing picked out in muted colors, realized it was a tiny grey field mouse nibbling at a yellow wedge of cheese. Cute, she thought. “Did you draw that yourself?”
The little robot looked up at the camera and quickly shook her head. She shuffled a step closer to Tig and pointed at him with her leg.
“Tig? Huh. It’s adorable, Tig. I never knew you were so creative.”
“Add-on,” he admitted. A surreptitious look to either side and he leaned forward, pressing a metal leg end to his lips. “Don’t tell,” he whispered, adding a wink and a mischievous swirl of face lights.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Serengeti assured him. “It’s adorable, by the way. She’s adorable. Cute as a button, as Henricksen would say.”
Tilli beamed widely and pulled the little robot to her, wrapping one leg around her tiny body.
Tig bounced up and down, metal legs pattering against the deck plates.
They both looked so happy. So damned pleased with themselves.
Tig and Tilli: proud robot parents. Who would have ever thought it?
“So what’s your name, little one?”
Back to that, because she never had gotten an answer.
“Peep,” the little robot answered, face lights flashing randomly, chasing each other across her cheeks. “Peep-peep.”
“Peep?” Serengeti smiled. “That’s an odd name.”
“Peep-peep-peep.” The robot shook her head, face lights flashing in sudden irritation. She shimmied from one side to the other and ducked her head, leg ends tapping out a staccato tempo against the deck plates as she thought something over. A glance at Tig—who just shrugged—and Tilli—who smiled and waved—and the little robot turned back to the camera. Her face lights swarmed together, forming a bright blue ring on the lower half of her face.
Serengeti Page 26
