by Lee Bond
Five feet from where he sat, tears drying on his cheeks, was a tiny recessed cubicle he would’ve missed had he not been wallowing in his own grief like a moody teenager.
Inside that cubicle was a tiny little robot.
Tomas loved robots. He’d been quite sad over Chairwoman Doans’ sudden and irrevocable decision to remove virtually every single robot from service throughout the entire solar system; one of the very first things he’d cut his teeth on after successfully lobbying to become a Latelian citizen –tech-wise, anyways- had been the construction of and programming of robotic machines. It'd been his ready facility with 'bots that'd turned the Latelian Army's eyes in his direction, so it was fitting that here, now, that same skill would spell freedom for a second time.
Tomas Kamagana’s mind popped and fizzed with ideas burbling forth from some long-untapped reservoir.
“I love me some robots.” He said, crawling eagerly towards the slumbering cleaner-bot…
***
The act of dismantling the small cleanerbot was very nearly cathartic for Tomas, a gift that was very much welcome under these incredibly pressing times; at first, his hands trembled, were the same old clumsy things he'd been watching grow slowly more wrinkled and parchment-like down through the years, but as they worked to disconnect the primary CPU board from the main battery, they grew more confident, almost as if the very act itself was returning some of those lost years.
Humming softly under his breath, Tomas continued on until he worked at the same speeds he had in his younger years, quickly building up a stockpile of parts that would be integral to his departure from these darkened corridors and out into the 'real' world.
Latelian scientists had long been keen to merge their own particular, AI-less brand of high technology to that belonging to Trinity.
It was, to say the least, on the bucket list for every single person of a technical nature that turned their hand to creation, but everywhere they turned, they ran into the stubborn, pigheaded rules and regulations laid down by ancient politicians so terrified of artificial intelligence that it was almost laughable.
Naturally, with Herrig DuPont as Chairman, a noble man heavily influenced by Garth Nickels and Huey, those regulations were being overturned as quickly as possible, much to the heartfelt thanks of the entire scientific community.
Just as naturally, though, there were the naysayers, men and women packing enough political clout to re-overturn some of those decisions, either willfully hampering proper technological progress for their own profit -however that might work- or because they were genuinely mired in the past and couldn't -wouldn't- see reason.
Progress for Latelian scientists attempting to understand how Trinity machines operated wasn't precisely Herculean, but close enough as it made no never mind; with each successful campaign against Trinity forces came a sizeable amount of hardware that furthered their attempts at comprehension, but it wasn't and would almost certainly never be enough, and for one good reason.
No matter how willing, how intelligent, how devoted those Latelian scientists were, they were attempting to work against their own education and training. Unlike those political detractors who slapped them down, the technicians and scientists trying to understand their enemy's equipment weren't necessarily mired in the past, it was that the focus of their training hadn't done them any favors.
Tomas Kamagana had no such gaps. He'd always been crafty when it came down to electronics, even as a small child, and much to his Father's chagrin, he'd never really stopped poking into the hows and whys of the inner workings of anything he could get his hands on.
So while he worked on actually creating the first proper avatar/AI bridge in near total darkness, humming softly to himself, hands almost a blur as they separated the robot into it's component pieces, that theoretical Latelian engineer would begin insisting it wasn't possible, all while being confronted with irrevocable proof that such a thing could exist.
As he continued stripping the ‘bot of all the important components, Tomas reflected that this was the most amount of fun –realistically speaking- since the time he’d had to construct those next-level avatars to assist then OverCommander Tizhen with that whole Historical Museum fiasco.
Strictly speaking, that entire situation wasn’t something that was supposed to be associated with 'fun', especially in light of the body count, the sheer amount of physical destruction wrought on the downtown core and because that was also the night that his daughter had been kidnapped by Jordan Bishop, but Tomas was pragmatic.
Working to discover anything was always quite a bit of fun, regardless of the situation.
The last thing to come loose from the robot chassis was the power supply, which Tomas tucked off to one side; he had plans for the additional source of power, and needed to be mindful of it until then. It wouldn’t do to accidentally electrocute himself or anything.
“Now.” Tomas read over the sketched out blueprints he’d worked on before committing completely to stripping the cleanerbot of it’s assets, nodding to himself. “Time for some data cables…”
***
Maintenance Engineer Phyllic pursed his lips. “Hm.”
Toorel, off to one side and definitely not engaging in a spot of willful workplace dogfuckery, looked up from the cigarette he was quietly smoking, making certain to blow the smoke in his lungs down into the air-con shaft. Just because you worked on Tarterus –a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of control no matter what anyone said on the subject- didn’t mean you had to be a complete asshole about it.
“What’s ‘hm’?” He stubbed the cigarette out on the inside of the shaft, then stuck the remainder into a pocket. Toorel knew damn well that everyone knew he smoked, and that he did as little as humanly possible while he was on shift, but that was the state of affairs for basically the entirety of Trinity’s forces at the moment; the damned AI mind Itself was missing in action and had been that way for quite some time, and with Innit running the show these days, you were looking at equal portions of complete and utter dogfuckery mixed in with heart-pounding, sweat-inducing martial law the likes of which would have entire solar systems rising up in revolt.
Until the situation resolved itself –one way or the other, Toorel didn’t care which- he was damned well going to make certain he had as close to perfect a balance as possible.
Phyllic rapped the screen in front of him with gloved knuckles. “One of the maintenance bots has gone down.”
“Down where?” Toorel quipped, adopting an odd smile and a weird gleam in his eyes. When Phyllic didn’t take the bait, he grumped for a moment before getting serious. “So what? These things break all the time. Probably overworked or something. Have you seen it out there?”
Phyllic had indeed ‘seen it out there’ and had to admit, he really liked what he saw. Which was precisely the problem. He was Army. Not one of those lowlife SpecSer lunatics who lived life with such ridiculous passion it was a continual miracle that they didn’t simply burst into flames from all the excitement and mayhem.
Whenever he wasn’t working –something he generally tried to ensure he did more often than not, all to avoid temptation- the Maintenance Engineer found himself wandering through the wilder corridors of the strange lash-up that was officially known as ‘Space Station Tarterus’.
There was so much to see! Strange Offworld lifeforms that would never be allowed to participate in Trinity’s official Military Services, standing cheek by jowl by … flapper by … weird diaphanous breathing thing, all of them drunk or stoned or whatever off their … whatever passed for an ass, all of them having a good time.
Phyllic wanted that for himself, and hated himself for it because he, like every other male in the family since time immemorial, was career Army. You didn’t destroy hundreds of years of storied family tradition all because you wanted to wear whatever you wanted, wanted to have your hair different, and dreamed of being something as bad-ass as a Specter.
The Maintenance Engineer coul
d feel successive echelons of dead family members rolling over in their graves at the thoughts running through his mind.
If he actually did it…
Toorel snapped his fingers loudly until his workmate came out of whatever ocean he’d flung his brain. “What’s the problem, Phyllic? Like I said, one of those idiots or other probably stepped on it or something. Or stripped it for parts. Remember last week when I had to answer that call down in Astrolagus-side of Tarterus? One whole HVAC system went all kinds of fucked? Yeah. Specters. They were building themselves fighting robots…”
“Battlebots.” Phyllic supplied absentmindedly, reading through the raw data lifted from the cleanerbots’ memory before it’d gone fully offline. “Killer Krang was …”
Toorel plugged his ears with fingertips, refusing to listen to Phyllic for even a second.
It was plain to see that they were all struggling, some more than others, and while he was content with the occasional bout of time-theft or sneaking cigarettes in an area where no smoking was the rule, Phyllic was one more illicit drink or visit to Shady Hallways away from joining the Dark Side.
“My point is,” Toorel continued the moment his friend was reabsorbed in whatever he was looking at, “is that someone probably broke it on purpose.”
“Ordinarily I’d agree with you, Toorel.” Phyllic adjusted the collar of his uniform. “But …”
“But nothing. Put in a req for a new one and relax.” Ironically, Toorel wanted nothing more than for his friend to leave; he wanted to finish his cigarette in peace and quiet and quite honestly, if the idiot wanted to wander around the space station getting into trouble, all the better.
“This particular cleanerbot is in one of the service corridors, Toorel, and if those idiots are wandering around there, we’re all going to get into the kind of shit you only ever read about.” Phyllic looked sideways at Toorel when he got to the door. “Do you want to be court-martialed? Or worse, do you want Kaptan Innit to know who you are? I bumped into him once when I was … I ran into him. It was … memorable.”
Toorel sank down into his uncomfortable plastic, puffy chair, waving a hand over his head. “Fine, fine, whatever. If you want to pretend like you care for a few more minutes, knock yourself out. I’m gonna stay here and look busy for the cameras.”
Phyllic shook his head. Pathetic attitude. The whole Army was suffering while only Specter seemed to thrive. “I won’t be long. Try not to stink the place up with your smoke.”
Toorel waited for the doors to shut before flipping the man who was technically his supervisor a double-barreled bird. Then, when he was definitely certain Phyllic wasn’t going to burst back into the cramped control room, he leaned back in his chair as far as it’d go, fished the cigarette loose from his pocket, lit up and sighed.
This was the life.
***
Tomas decided to risk flashing the prote-light long enough to get a complete look at the machine he’d created in near total darkness and with only a basic conceptualized idea of what it was he’d wanted; those very same spark-bulbs flashing behind his eyes, filling him with creativity, had seemed to drive his hands the whole time, so he wasn’t entirely … certain … he was going to like what he saw.
“Well, you sure aren’t pretty, are you?” Tomas shook his head, awkwardly embarrassed at the clumsiness of the new interface. Even though he was the only one who’d ever see it, even though it was entirely likely that he’d have to spend a few moments destroying the darn thing once he was done, a master craftsman of his caliber would never willingly associate his name and reputation to this thing comprised of wires, exposed circuit boards and crudely soldered connections.
“I think you’ll do the trick, though.” Tomas dropped to a cross-legged sitting position and, once his knees and hips were done complaining about the rough treatment, popped his prote off.
The relatively cool air of the service corridor brought goosebumps to the old man’s exposed skin, and for a long, odd moment, Tomas tried recalling the last time he’d actually removed his proteus, eventually deciding that it’d been so long ago he was lucky the skin beneath the duronium device hadn’t just mouldered away into nothingness. Running wizened fingertips over the smoother –and noticeably paler- skin absentmindedly for a moment, the Latelian sighed.
There was a time in his life when he’d had to take his proteus off nightly. Such a wonderful time that’d been.
“I don’t know what it is about this place,” Tomas scolded the darkness, “but I am getting sick and tired of all these old thoughts running to the surface. I had my time with Maurna, more time than I ever deserved, and being reminded of my happiness does nothing at all to help me with the infinitely more important task of getting out of this fucking corridor.”
Service corridor’s darkened recesses put firmly in place, Tomas Kamagana reached out and took possession of the crude hacking rig he’d built from the corpse of a robot and began the finicky task of connecting it to his proteus; slender, properly constructed dataLINKs –for those times when you really did need the blistering, screaming fast transferral speeds that came from direct connection to another machine as opposed to the ridiculously speedy paring from a wireless netLINK- built into the sides of his prote were easily popped loose and clamped into the appropriate connectors on the hacking device.
“Naoko could have undoubtedly built this in the dark, asleep, with one hand tied behind her back while having a conversation with Garth about the fundamental nature of the Universe.” Tomas held his breath as he waited for the prote’s primary avatars to accept or reject the additional hardware. He also kept an eye on the prote-to-hacker bridge, keenly ready for sparks and -more worrisomely- fire.
The old man wasn’t entirely pleased with the connections he’d fabricated and was genuinely upset at having to use the cleanerbot’s power source as a slipshod spot welder because in all things electronically designed, cleaner was better, and there was nothing clean about those ports; they were loose, his dataLINK cables were just barely sitting inside them, and at any moment they could fall away.
Tomas figured there was just enough juice in his prote to fry him all the way through to the middle should one of those dLINKs hit the metal deckplate.
The prote was running sluggish, no doubt working overtime to process the additional layer of foreign Trinity-based programming code into something a little more understandable, but so far –at least according to the hardware check on the small screen- all the various components of the utility device were coming online and passing all the functionality tests.
An inexplicable sense of urgency wanted Tomas to find some way to speed things along, yet experience and the fact that this was a one-shot deal was enough to remind the man that no matter how worried he was, if he lost this chance, there'd be no hope for him at all.
"I have to wait." He'd come this far, risked so much, that a few minutes more wouldn't be too difficult to bear. The reinvigorated Latelian settled in for the wait, hopefully checking the prote-feed every few seconds, all on the off chance that his avatars performed a small bit of magic.
***
Phyllic stood just outside the access panel leading into the service corridor, not entirely sure what he actually thought he was doing; technically speaking, as a Maintenance Engineer, he was absolutely responsible for checking on the downed cleanerbot, but at the same time, he was definitely not keen on wandering unprotected into a section of service corridor rarely visited by human -or Offworlder- soldiers.
"Should I call for Security?" Phyllic felt equally stupid talking to himself, but as was becoming increasingly apparent, there were very few people in his department capable of maintaining a single rational thought, let alone having a serious idea.
That idiot Toorel, doubly so.
Calling someone from Security to escort him into the service corridor was a good idea. Especially since -from what he'd heard through his walkie en route to the panel- the situation taking place in the loading bay hadn�
�t gone very well at all, for any of the Heavies involved. It was highly unlikely that the mayhem happening on the other side of the lashup had -or even would- spiral out of control to the point where their ship was at risk, but you couldn't always count on things happening the way you thought they might.
On the other hand, doing the wise and sensible thing opened him up for all sorts of ridicule, regardless of whether there was someone or something on the other side of the panel that'd caused the destruction of the cleanerbot; Army boys hated having their time wasted on anything that wasn't strictly related to combat, and wandering around semi-dark corridors in search of a scoundrel that might or might not even be real would skyrocket right to the very top of their 'Are You Fucking Kidding Me Right Now?' list.
From there, it'd be flashlights in his bathroom, artfully laid down bogus footprints, anything and everything bored and irritated security officers -who were in fact regular soldiers that had, for one reason or another, pulled the short stick- looking for low key revenge.
Phyllic danced from foot to foot, foolishness growing with every step.
It was probably nothing more than a faulty battery. Those high-voltage deals went wonky all the time. You could practically set your watch by them, they were so twitchy.
"You're being an idiot." Phyllic told himself sternly, much to the vast amusement of a wandering private who just happened to stroll by right at that moment.
The Maintenance Engineer considered calling the smirking woman back to stand there while he popped the service hatch open to get a peek inside then changed his mind almost as quickly: he'd already come across as an idiot for talking to himself. Adding fuel to the fire that was his embarrassment would be too much to bear.
"You're being an idiot." Phyllic said once more. Then he reached out and began keying in the password…
***
Tomas, accustomed to both the silence and the darkness of the service corridor he’d spent an eternity in, was slow in reacting to the sudden presence of both a sliver of light that too quickly resolved itself into a solid beam of radiance and the sounds of every day ship’s operations. Rather than readying himself for the possible –which, even as he reacted how he did, the foolish old man realized he should have done- arrival of an unknown, he’d kept his head down and focused on the task at hand.
