Once Upon a Pet Show (A Redpoint One Romance)

by Marlow, J. A.

  His bot. Would it pair off with someone else after he died? He couldn't recall one doing so, but that didn't mean anything. Considering the estimated age of the station, humans had been with it a very short time. Would the station miss him?

  Damien jerked awake with a start. He struggled to calm his gasping as he tried to pull more air into his starved lungs. It would only use more of the limited oxygen remaining in the room.

  His eyes started to droop again right away. Yep, it wouldn't be long now.

  Vallory yawned, her exhale brushing against his upper arm. "I'll miss my daubpups. I hope someone else will take good care of them. Maybe Ignacio?"

  She went limp in his arms. He tried to work up the energy to shake her awake, but he could hardly keep his own eyes open. Already, one arm hung limp to the side, his left hand laying in her lap.

  Come on, Arthur. And Zane. The station loved Zane. If it would allow anyone into the area, it should be him. Break down a wall already.

  His hand slipped off Vallory's lap to land hard on the floor. When she slipped off his shoulder to lay partially on the floor, he could do nothing about it. Not with him feeling himself sliding along the wall to lay sideways against it.

  Could do nothing to stop it. All his remaining strength went to keeping his eyes open, hoping to see the first hint of light as someone came through a wall.

  He blinked. Shouldn't the light be white or yellow? A strong point from the eyes of one of the bots? The big glowing blue blob didn't fit.

  Yep, he was fading out. Seeing things, and even feeling things. Like that tug on the back collar of his shirt...

  ***

  The bots stood back. If they broadcast any emotion, Arthur would say it was nervousness.

  He didn't doubt they were. The humans among them wielded tools and torches. Removing pipes even as the station moved them into place. Going at the hard wall behind in an effort to get to the small cavity beyond from which Damien's transmitter continued to broadcast from.

  So far no bad reaction from the station, other than pipes and conduits moving into place with more and more speed, as if it were getting impatient with the interruption.

  Shay stepped back from the small area he'd taken as his own to try the welding on, giving the undamaged spot a look of disgust. "This isn't working at all. All I've done is put a black mark on the surface. What is this stuff made of?"

  Arthur clicked off his own torch. For all of Tish's efforts to keep the moving station infrastructure out of his way, he'd been able to hold their most powerful portable laser torch in one spot for more than a several minutes. A smudgy black ghost on the wall gave away the only sign of the hard work. "This isn't working."

  Tish rubbed the back of her hand across a sweaty forehead. "We can't give up."

  "It's not a matter of giving up," Zane said, walking back from the spot he'd tried working on a short distance away. "This looks like the same material that protects the private areas of the space station. If the people before us couldn't get through with military-grade blunt force, it's doubtful we can."

  Vasiliy handed his torch to his bot which zipped it over to a cart to put away. As if it couldn't wait to get the torch away from the crazy humans. "Or try a ceiling or floor to get in? Hope the coating over the area hasn't spread everywhere?"

  Maybe they were crazy. The last thing they needed was to anger the station at the people who worked to maintain it. Arthur gestured his bot forward and set the bulky torch to the floor. Two of Tish's bots came over to help wrestle it away. To the others along the corridor, he called out, "Stop the torches!"

  With the work stopped, the station moved in to do what it tried before. The solid walls behind started to disappear under the utility infrastructure of the station. Arthur could do nothing to stop it, and he knew it. They all knew it. With grim, and sometimes teary faces, the crew watched the last small part get swallowed up.

  "Isn't there any way you can simply ask the station?" Izabela asked. No bot following the woman yet, but she'd set to moving pipes as if she'd been at it for years, with miscellaneous bots helping to move freed pipes and fittings out of her way. A good sign. Hopefully a bot would soon start looking towards her. Sometimes an attachment was delayed.

  But, would she want to stick around after seeing this?

  No, he wasn't giving up. Their connection to the station had to mean something, or they needed to start asking why were they even here.

  Arthur turned away from the wall. "This is one of the best crews this station has ever had working with infrastructure. The strongest connections." A good crew, even though they were small. One he was proud of. "And now we have you here. I say we ask again. I will not lose one of our people."

  Zane frowned, stepping back with one foot before standing firm again. "What are you asking of me?"

  "Something you haven't given us since you arrived here," Arthur said, even while internally cringing at his bluntness. Also wishing he was the one who could provide it himself. "Your full connection to this station. Complete and unfettered, with no reservations. Asking for help."

  "What else can he do?" Simon asked. "What can any of us do that we haven't already done."

  Zane shook his head at Arthur, lips pressed together.

  "I would do it myself if I had the reach you did," Arthur said, not shifting his stare a bit. "Right now I'm still boss, and I'm giving an order. Call the station."

  Voice strained, Zane muttered, "Damn you."

  He might be. They all might be if they failed at this.

  In the quiet of the corridor, Zane stepped away from the wall and turned towards the small group of waiting bots. All of them stared at only Zane, and not even to those they belonged.

  Envy sliced through Arthur at the sight of it. How he'd wished he would eventually grow to be able to do this. Seeing it in action only fed the growing realization he may need to change the structure of the maintenance department.

  Zane's eyes closed as he took a deep breath in. His head tilted back as he exhaled.

  A curious chirp arose from a bot in the back of the group. Another echoed the question, only for another bot to answer it with a matter-of-fact beep.

  Silence. One not broke by either human or bot. Zane remained frozen in place, eyes still closed.

  Another questioning chirp echoed through the silence, but this one coming from the other end of the corridor. Another, and then another. Noises from bots of all shapes, sizes, and colors erupted in the air as they appeared from the corridors, all converging on Zane, filling every surface. The floor, the walls, the ceilings.

  All of it filled with waiting bots.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  VALLORY REMEMBERED THE suffocating feeling of the air, only to be offset by being held in Damien's arms. Did Vallory dream what he whispered back at her? Did he really say he loved her?

  And where was that stink coming from?

  A stink that wouldn't go away. Instead, it built in strength, filling her nose with its putridness. Someone change a filter or open a window somewhere!

  If she didn't still feel so weak, with the air pressing down on her chest as it became unbreathable, she would be doing everything she could to get away from it.

  Heavy? Wait…

  Vallory coughed, forcing open her eyes.

  Penny looked straight back, cocking her head and yipping from her sitting position on top of Vallory's chest.

  "Where have you been?" Vallory demanded. And then coughed violently. She clapped a hand over her mouth and nose as more of the vile smell hit her senses, sitting up fast.

  Penny hopped down to her lap, yipping before settling again. Vallory would pick her up and hug her if she dared move her hand. Not that it helped any. The smell easily moved around her hand to fill her nose and lungs.

  Light? The gray wall in front of her reflected a soft light. A wall with only a few conduits running along it.

  A pair of dark-clad legs bent into the air. She put a hand on Damien's knee as she partiall
y turned towards the room. He groaned at her touch. She managed to turn with Penny still on her lap, refusing to let a hand rise from Damien's leg. As Penny's weight reassured her, so did the feel of him.

  His eyes cracked open. "What happened."

  "We're not in the corridor anymore," she said, unable to take her eyes off the vista in front of her.

  She'd known the hidden part of the station must have been large, considering how long they walked alongside it in an effort to get to Penny, but this? The room faded into the distance, and even further from side to side, the far ends of it disappearing as the room curved away from them.

  Seeing any distance was difficult because of the twisted and winding shapes rising like trees from the floor, only to meet up at the top in another tangle of roots as if from a tree growing out from the ceiling. The trees ranged from mottled browns to dark grays, with a few sporting sections of neon blue and frosted ivory. Light glowed from the few places spotted with the neon blue.

  Branches and twigs arced away from the trees, drooping and lifeless, without a leaf on them. A few of the trees had detached from the ceiling and had curled over themselves as the top slumped to the floor. A bizarre forest unlike any she'd ever seen before.

  "What is this place?" Damien whispered as he struggled to sit up.

  "If you don't know, then we're in trouble."

  "Next question, how did we get in here?"

  From the ceiling a dark liquid containing heavy blobs poured over a tree. The tree quivered even as the smell in the air grew worse.

  Penny shook herself, chittering her annoyance. Damien's eyes narrowed at the sight of the daubpup, demanding, "Do they by any chance glow in the dark?"

  Penny jumped out of Vallory's lap, bounced off Damien's legs, and took off into the stinky strange forest.

  "Penny, get back here!" Vallory took off after her, with Damien close behind.

  Hard to run with any speed with the trees so close together, not to mention because she didn't want to breath. Fortunately, Penny wasn't traveling at full speed. She moved slow, sometimes stopping to look back at them, as she wanted them to follow.

  Damien grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side just before blobs and thick liquid showered a tree. Vallory stumbled and nearly fell into the thin layer of goop on the floor.

  "I think we were lucky we came out where we did," Damien said, lifting a shoe. The gunk clung to the sole, releasing with an audible slurping noise. The goo also meant no more running. It may be sticky, but with her luck, she would skid and go face-first into the stuff.

  Somehow, they'd entered the room at one of the few clean areas of floor. It made her miss her little room at the Bed and Breakfast even more.

  Penny chittered at them from the top of a tree root, completely unbothered by anything around her.

  "She's clean," Damien said as he guided her forward at a slower pace. More goo. Some of the neon blue and frosted trees looked clean, but some of the darker ones even had piles of stuff at their base.

  "Do you mean Penny? I'm not surprised. I've seen them go through a mud bog and come out the other side clean." Something she wished she could do. How could she enjoy holding Damien's hand with this smell in the air and waiting for something to drop on them from above?

  Less light in the area, as almost none of the trees around them sported the neon blue that provided the only light source in the forest. Her nose went from affronted to growing accustomed to the sewer and sulfur smell, to back again at regular intervals.

  "The wall behind us was solid." Damien stopped to look down at her. "I saw a glowing just before I lost consciousness, and it was the shape of a daubpup."

  "Yes, they can glow, when they want to. They aren't like Mr. Milby's cats that way. It something they control consciously." Penny chittered at them, clearly informing them to keep following. Vallory bit at her lower lip as they continued after her. "I've seen them take objects bigger than themselves through a tree before, but we're a lot larger than that."

  Damien fingered the back of his shirt. "I think she did. It's the only thing I can think of."

  Penny's chittering grew more imperious, making Vallory laugh. "She probably left the baby behind to come after us. We shouldn't keep her waiting."

  Damien wrinkled his nose. "Not that I want to wait around here. I think the bad smell is coming from the darker trees."

  "And not the goop stuff?" They circled around a tree that had a pile of the blobs and shapes piled up at its base so high they couldn't see the gnarled roots."That, too, but mostly the trees. Or, whatever they are."

  She didn't like the fact that he didn't know. Shouldn't he know about things like this with that instinct he mentioned before? Did that mean he didn't know something else?

  "Do you know how to get out of here?" she finally asked, not sure she wanted the answer.

  She hated seeing him shake his head. Great, now what would they do? Being trapped in here in the long-run wouldn't be any better of being trapped in the small bit of corridor.

  "Maybe Penny can drag us through another wall?" Vallory offered. "Maybe?"

  He squeezed her hand. "Maybe we can talk her into it."

  They'd shown amazing intelligence in the past. Penny found them and somehow wrestled them through a solid wall and then waited for them to wake up. She was now leading them somewhere. Maybe to somewhere they could get out?

  A glow of light increased from behind a stand of stinky dark gray and brown trees. The glimpse of a gray wall to the right reminded her of their entrapment in a way she didn't like. From ahead, Penny yipped and chittered, accompanied by a younger and higher-pitched voice, one that she instantly recognized.

  "Yep, she's bringing us to where she left her baby," Vallory said as they circled around a clump of the trees.

  The floor at their feet ran smooth despite a texture of curving lines and tendrils marking the floor. The sticky remnants of the smelly goo disappeared from the bottom of her shoe.

  Before them rose another tree, but this one of pure blues and ivory frost all the way from the roots to the thickly-textured bark of the trunk. It extended strong and solid from floor to ceiling. Branches grew from the main body, thick and robust, angling out strongly, unlike the branches of the dark trees around them. On top of one them, Penny nuzzled her baby.

  Even better, the air cleared. For the first time since waking up, Vallory took a deep breath.

  ***

  Damien kept her hand in his as he moved closer to the strange tree. Anything to get further away from the stink of the dark trees, before he lost whatever contents still remained in his stomach.

  He wanted to reach out to the tree, to see what the texture in the frosted lighter color felt like. Would it feel anything like a normal tree? Would it feel warm, or cold like the surface of a computer like the neon blue color indicated?

  So many questions, including what it was in the first place. What did it do?

  The baby chirped, looking up towards the ceiling. Penny put her head over it protectively just before the dark lumpy goo poured over the bright colors of the tree.

  Both he and Vallory took a hasty step backwards, even as it flowed through the daubpups without touching them.

  The tree flexed, some of the deeper lines and textures dimming under the fluid. But, hardly any of it reached the ground. It disappeared into the surface of the tree.

  Absorbed?

  "What is this place?" He looked up at the ceiling. Not a figment of his imagination. Some of the blobs in the fluid were ragged electronic parts and bits of metal. "Garbage processing?"

  "Shouldn't there be stuff from the houses here, then?"

  "I think there was. Ground up." The more he thought about it, the more he thought he was right. What the fluid was, he didn't want to think.

  The tree glowed brighter, the last of the fluid and parts disappeared from the surface.

  "It's doing something with the stuff." Vallory hugged close to his arm, pressing herself to his side. "So, we fo
und a place where we can breath. Good step. Now what?"

  "You sweet-talk your daubpups into finding a way out," Damien said with a wry smile.

  She pointed to the communicator on his wrist. "Or hope your crew gets to us?"

  Not the right communicator. He checked the battery reading on the communication pack. Still juice, but the level now read below half. It wouldn't last much longer. "Still broadcasting, but if they didn't get to us in the other room, they won't be able to get to us in here." He shook his head, giving a rueful laugh. "I'm sorry. I don't intend to sound so depressing. I'm not giving up."

  She hugged his arm. "You're being honest. It's something I appreciate."

  She didn't sound scared. No hysteria, either. If anything, only worry infused her voice. His esteem of her rose to a whole new level.

  "We're together, and we're both reasonably smart people," he said, smiling down at her, kissing her on the forehead. "We'll figure it out."

  Vallory leaned into the kiss. "I would kiss you right now, but it's hard to properly kiss when one wants to throw up." And then her face grew stormy and stern, but with still a bright twinkle in her eyes. "And you aren't allowed to take it back. I won't let you!"

  "Take back the kiss? I wouldn't want to." In fact, he wanted to do a much more proper kiss, but like Vallory, his stomach still roiled from the stench before.

  "No, I mean about the "I love you" thing. I heard you. Can't take it back."

  He should shy away from such plain words. Blame their situation or the lack of oxygen for what he said. Saying the words out loud meant dealing with them. Dealing with Vallory. Dealing with their uncertain future.

  For once all the voices inside him said the same thing.

  He slowly smiled, releasing her hand to pull her into a full embrace. No kiss, but he could still give her a proper hug. Against her forehead, he whispered, "I'm not taking it back. I meant every word."

  A chorus of daubpups voiced their support. Or cries for attention? Hard to tell, really.

  Damien released Vallory with a sudden movement, realizing something important. "I hear more than two daubpups."