System Failure

by Joe Zieja

  Deet contented himself with watching the patterns of movement for a few minutes. Everyone more or less walked about in a factory-like fashion, as though propelled by moving conveyor belts from the transportation system or the zipcar parking lot to the gate that Deet had been stopped at, then heading into the interior of the compound. From there, they broke off into whatever functional specifications required them to go to a specific building. People exiting the building didn’t seem to be using their keycards at all; they simply walked through the locked doors and exited via a large turnstile that allowed them to reintegrate with the unclassified world.

  Beep. Enter. Beep. Enter. Salute. Beep. Enter. The pattern repeated itself many times a minute, and Deet found himself watching without watching, his deferred procedure calls devoting fewer and fewer milliseconds to observing the phenomenon. He thought humans defined this as “zoning out,” but he could of course recall all the information he’d observed in less than a billionth of a second. After humans zoned out, they simply stared at their conversation partner and got embarrassed.

  Based on his observations, Deet knew that the keycards were magnetic. If he could get close enough to someone with an appropriate keycard, he could droid-fu them and take the card from the messy puddle of their remains.

  No. Not “subtle” enough. Again, based on the experience with the other droids, he was almost certain at least one or two people would be upset with him if he murdered an innocent to reach his goal.

  But if murder wasn’t an option, was there any real progress to be made here?

  If the keycards were magnetic, and didn’t function off any other biometrics that would be difficult for Deet to replicate, he could perhaps pass near one of the humans holding an access card and make a copy of it. He could then route the magnetic impulse through his fingers, and simply touch the keypad. If he made a good enough copy, it should work.

  With the grace only a practiced spy could have, Deet surreptitiously placed himself in the direct middle of the large stream of people going in and out of the compound. After being jostled in just about every direction for a minute and not receiving any solid signals, Deet realized that perhaps this had not been the correct approach to solving this problem. The magnetic impulses were changing too fast as everyone walked past him, since everyone had their own individual keycard. Just as he thought he was going to be able to grab the credentials and the code that activated them, his position would change and the whole process would have to be started over again.

  “[EXPLETIVE] me,” Deet said, causing more than a few heads to turn in his direction. Well, everyone was already looking at him, he realized. His subtlety processing was not as advanced as perhaps it could have been; he was, after all, the only droid in Merida standing motionless in the middle of a crowd of people. After another few moments, the entire crowd diverted so as not to come in contact with him, which he thought was very offensive.

  Hmm, he thought. Now I am considering stupid courses of action and feeling offended. He would also report this to Belgrave.

  This clearly was not working. He was going to have to, unfortunately, engage one of them in conversation again. But who? Everyone appeared very busy, tapping on their datapads and barely even acknowledging each other. The security guard was ready to engage, but he was clearly bored and scared he would die alone after leading a meaningless and trite existence. Perhaps he had a clearance?

  Engaging his optical zoom, Deet could clearly see that the cards that everyone else had around him looked nothing like the card of the security guard. Given his position, there was a good chance he wasn’t allowed into the classified area either.

  Deet started choosing people at random, which was just about as effective as standing in the middle of a crowd of people and expecting someone to talk to him. Half of the people he approached didn’t even see him—they were so focused on whatever was on their datapads—and the rest gave him a mixture of one-word answers, made eye contact and then ignored him anyway, or screamed in terror and ran away, which Deet thought was kind of ridiculous. Just because every single droid in the Merida system had tried to slaughter everyone around them didn’t mean that Deet was going to do the same thing. People could be so narrow-minded sometimes.

  Running after people yelling “How does that make you feel?” yielded considerably less satisfying results than it had with the security guard, though some people started to sob. Clearly empathy wasn’t going to help this situation. He tried telling a joke or two, but nobody stood around long enough to hear the punch line, and absolutely nobody wanted to hear him talk about existentialism. It was like these people didn’t even care that they were alive.

  That left lying to attract attention, and that wasn’t exactly Deet’s strongest skill. If he could offer someone something that they truly desired, they might stop and talk to him long enough for him to scan their card and then immediately forget the relationship.

  Deet approached a tired lieutenant commander who was frowning at nothing that Deet could see. He wasn’t holding a datapad, so he wasn’t as distracted as most, which made him a good target.

  “Excuse me,” Deet said. “Have you heard about our lord and savior—”

  “Go away,” the officer said, and pushed past him.

  Deet’s internal monitors told him he’d barely gotten thirty percent through copying the man’s keycard, which was not a success. He needed a one hundred percent copy of one person’s card, not an amalgamation of several cards. He decided to try again.

  “Hello there,” Deet said, approaching a younger starman first class who looked nervous and impressionable. She carried three datapads, amazingly, but wasn’t looking at any of them.

  “Um, yes . . . sir? Ma’am? Bot?” She was blinking rather fast, and her knuckles whitened from holding the datapads. Deet had seen her type before; even though she was a few ranks from the very bottom of the enlisted tier, she was clearly very new and having trouble dealing with the pressures of military life. He knew this because she looked almost exactly like Rogers in almost every situation that required anything other than drinking.

  “Sir is fine,” Deet said, trying to sound comforting. Was he really a sir, though? He’d never considered the possibility that he might be something else entirely. He did have a rather prominent dongle. Deet filed this away for further analysis later.

  “I couldn’t help but notice you were carrying three datapads,” Deet said. He was twenty percent through with the copy, but the connection was spotty. He realized quickly that distance was a great barrier for copying the magnetic code inside the keycards; he had to be quite close in order for it to work properly. Every time the starman even rocked on her heels backward, the transfer speed slowed considerably.

  “That’s, um, true,” she said. She glanced at Deet, then back at the datapads, then back at Deet again. As she shifted them in her grip, her name tag popped into view, which Deet read as Czensky.

  Deet stepped closer to try to egg the copying process on. Of course there was nothing to indicate to Czensky that he was doing anything other than standing there—all of the processing was happening internally—but she clearly looked uncomfortable. He wondered which part was making her more suspicious: the fact that a droid was talking to her or the fact that said droid was roughly six inches from her face. He remembered hearing something about humans’ “personal space,” but didn’t quite understand the concept.

  “A-are you okay?” Czensky asked, stuttering a bit as she spoke. She shifted the datapads in her hands again. Forty-five percent.

  “I have information vital to your mission,” Deet said.

  “My m-mission? What’s my mission? Captain Kivarayan just told me to go get his datapads back from IT. He’s going to be really upset if I don’t get back soon. Excuse me.”

  Starman Czensky made to move around Deet, but Deet quickly sidestepped to remain in her path. She stopped and sucked in a tiny breath, indicating that she was, perhaps, about to begin sobbing. Sixty percent, n
ow, but the movement caused the connection to break momentarily. Deet stepped closer.

  “This is really weird,” Czensky said. “Everything is so weird.”

  “Those datapads contain information,” Deet said. [EXPLETIVE] but that was a terrible attempt at a lie. Of course they contained information; they were built to contain information! He’d tried to make up something that might have given her a bit more pause, but his logic circuits interrupted the lie by truncating unverifiable information.

  “If your mission is to deliver those datapads, and they have information in them . . . ,” Deet said, his voice starting to break up as he attempted to weave some convincing lie into the conversation.

  “Are you doing okay?” Czensky asked again. “You seem to be having some trouble.”

  “I’m fine,” Deet said. “I have . . . vital . . . your . . . information . . .”

  [EXPLETIVE]! He’d lied to the IT department on the Flagship during the droid takeover. Why couldn’t he do it now? That, by comparison, was much more complicated than simply trying to delay a starman for a bit longer. Eighty percent. Just a few more seconds.

  “I . . . my . . . you . . . we . . .” Deet could have sworn he saw a spark fly out of his eye.

  “How are you feeling?” Czensky said, her white-knuckle grip on the datapad lessening. For some reason, she seemed to be relaxing, despite having a malfunctioning droid freaking out in front of her.

  Deet emitted a synthesized noise that was his approximation of a sigh, which seemed to change every time he did it. This time it sounded like a distant, screeching tire. “I’m trying to lie to you,” he said, “but I can’t.”

  A moment of silence stopped the conversation as people flowed around them, apparently no longer disturbed by a droid in their midst. The young starman Czensky and Deet became like a droid/human rock in a river, with the tide of humans parting to go avoid them. Ninety percent, but Deet knew he was about to lose her. He’d just admitted, for reasons he couldn’t understand, that he had been trying to lie to her.

  Deet waited for her to sound the alarm that an insane, conniving droid was trying to elicit highly sensitive information from her.

  Instead, Czensky gave him what might have been considered a condescending pout.

  “That must be really hard,” Czensky said.

  “It is really hard!” Deet said, throwing up his arms again. “It’s like every time I try to do something to be more human, my robot parts won’t let me. I can’t even swear, and even though I keep telling Rogers that I want to go and find my origins he keeps saying that there’s this stupid dumb stupid war going on and that I’m not allowed to do anything and the coffee machines keep whispering things to me and all I really ever needed and wanted was to—”

  Beep. A notification came from Deet’s insides letting him know that the transfer had been completed.

  “Oh, good,” Deet said. “Never mind. Goodbye.”

  Without another word, he turned and walked away from Czensky, who was left holding three datapads and a whole lot of mental baggage. He hurried his way through the crowd, bumping into people without any real concern. He was much heavier and denser than the average human, so anyone who came into contact with him rebounded, stumbling backward.

  Deet sauntered up to the security guard. At least he thought he was sauntering. It was a very particular kind of movement accomplished with a mixture of gait and attitude, which made things difficult for Deet. First, Rogers had assembled him from discarded droid parts, so his walk was always a little crooked anyway. Second, he couldn’t display any expression on his face that might indicate that the barely coordinated amble he was performing was indeed sauntering.

  “I’m sauntering right now,” Deet decided to verbally clarify, but nobody seemed to care. The security guard with whom he’d been chatting previously looked at him with a hurt expression on his face, but Deet paid no mind. He strutted—perhaps that was a better word anyway—up to the control panel, extended his finger, and made a triumphant beeping noise as the pad beeped and turned from red to green. He heard the mechanism of the door unlock, and had the satisfaction of seeing the security guard’s face light up with surprise.

  “Ha!” Deet said. “And you thought I—”

  Ding!

  “Congratulations on making an illicit copy of security credentials!” a voice rang out from the center of Deet’s main processing console. “You are entitled to one free inflatable mousetrap, redeemable at any of the many Snaggardir’s Sundries locations across the galaxy. Remember, whatever you need, you can Snag It at Snaggardir’s™!”

  All movement around him came to an abrupt halt. A sergeant who had been addressing a marine colonel was stuck mid-salute as the colonel ignored him to look at Deet.

  “Well that was unexpected,” Deet said. When nobody said anything, he thought perhaps he’d been unclear.

  “The inflatable mousetrap part,” Deet said. “Who the [EXPLETIVE] would want one of those?”

  The security guard drew his weapon and pointed it at Deet.

  Ace in the Bingo Hole

  Alandra stared at the terminal screen, a blank look on her face. During the past week or so of relative boredom, she’d taken to having these miserable conversations with Quinn. The Council representative, despite their warming relations, still made Alandra want to put her fist through something.

  “So you’re telling me,” Alandra said slowly, “that Meridan men actually like when women tell jokes?”

  “From all my available research, that’s what I have concluded,” Quinn said. The connection from Keffoule’s modest hotel in the Meridan compound to the orbiting fleet had been surprisingly good, but today’s conversation was rife with little blips and stutters that indicated some bandwidth limitations. A lot of things were going on in Meridan orbit.

  “This is highly irregular,” Alandra said, sitting back in her chair. “Making these jokes requires me to break my poise as a respected commander. Unbreakable military bearing should be a clear indication of suitability that negates the necessity for jokes.”

  Quinn shrugged, reaching back to adjust her hair bun. Alandra couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t quite as neat as usual, perhaps due to the fact that Quinn had been spending most of her time in the training rooms, attempting to learn how to throat-punch someone taller than her without breaking a finger. It was a particularly delicate skill.

  “I’m a career bureaucrat. I’m not exactly familiar with mating practices,” Quinn said. “When I told you I would help you with your negotiation skills, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

  Alandra ignored her for a moment, thinking. Xan spent his free time tidying up the room, though Alandra had repeatedly reminded him that there was a cleaning crew for that, and that it was physically impossible for the room to get any cleaner anyway. As her personal attendant, Xan had always shown himself to be thorough and precise, but the last few days had bordered on obsessive, particularly when Alandra was having these conversations with Quinn. A strange change of character for someone who was always so composed.

  “Xan,” she said. “I need you to do a bit of research for me.”

  “Of course, Grand Marshal,” Xan said, putting down a rather ridiculous-looking feather duster and scurrying over to her terminal. He whipped his datapad out of its holster with a practiced, yet still somehow lethargic, grace.

  “I need you to research Meridan humor patterns.”

  Xan glanced at her over the top of the datapad, his eyes narrowing just a touch.

  “Grand Marshal?” he asked.

  Spinning her chair a bit to look at Xan directly, Alandra furrowed her brow. “Did you think I would give up on Rogers so easily? I am not one to just let a quarry scamper off. Besides, we have some time. I might as well learn a thing or two about our new allies if I am going to fight alongside them.”

  “But Grand Marshal,” Xan said, “do you really think this is a wise use of your time? There are so many things you could be studying i
nstead of trying to woo this . . . Meridan pseudo-admiral.”

  Rolling her eyes, Alandra directed a shooing motion at Xan. “We’ve had this discussion many times, Xan, and I don’t care to repeat it again. This is the hand we’ve been dealt, and I intend to play it to any advantage I can find. My inevitable marriage to Captain Rogers is just one way to enhance our position.”

  “I would hardly call it inevitable,” Quinn said.

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Alandra snapped back. “I asked for your advice on how to improve my chances.”

  She didn’t like to show it, but Alandra was scared that Quinn might have been right. It had been just over a week since she’d discovered that Rogers had successfully brokered a “deal” with the pirates—she still wasn’t comfortable with parlaying with such insidious rapscallions—and she’d barely heard from the man. Alandra, in her conversations with Quinn, had discovered several strategies that she thought would elicit some kind of romantic response, especially since that goblin the “Viking” was back on the Flagship, tending to her marines.

  Quinn had said that Meridan men liked to watch movies, but Rogers had complained of “sudden-onset glaucoma.” Alandra wasn’t sure what that was, but she hoped it wasn’t genetic. She couldn’t have their children walking around all the time with sudden-onset glaucoma.

  Quinn had said that Meridan men liked flowers. That was just completely off. Rogers broke into a sneezing fit so severe he popped a blood vessel in his left eye.

  And no matter how many times Alandra had asked Rogers to do math with her, he always found some excuse not to. Meridans just didn’t make any sense. But that was half of what made him so alluring.

  But now there was this humor thing. Very much outside of Alandra’s comfort zone, yes, but not entirely unachievable. That droid companion of Rogers had told the one about the asteroids, which Alandra was pretty sure had been funny. She could figure this out. If, that was, Xan ever stopped staring at her disapprovingly and got to work doing the research she’d asked him to do.