by Tom Cheshire
“It is [ERROR] made from the [ERROR] of [ERROR],” he told us.
We still rattled through the questions, trust me. Chloe asked why the food hadn’t been available to us earlier, and Bob told us that it probably took time for the systems to boot up after such a long time in stasis, the same reason the kitchen door was locked and the same reason Bob hadn’t woken up until now. I asked whether or not there would be enough food to last us a long enough time, and Bob responded that it was all ‘self-reproducing’ so we should have enough for several lifetimes. The obvious implication there was that we were eating our own shit, but whatever it was, we didn’t care. We didn’t think about what side effects we may or may not get from eating the bizarre purple stuff. All we knew was, we were finally eating something and we weren’t going to starve. Thank the lord I wasn’t going to have to eat Dom at some point.
We settled back in the common room feeling relieved and oddly satisfied. It’s amazing what a difference that food made, even if it did taste horrible in retrospect. I sat slumped in one of the Travis-chairs and closed my eyes.
There was still so much to learn, and we were still none-the-wiser about how exactly we were going to get home or indeed why we were here in the first place. If only we still had that sofa… that amazing, soft, beautiful sofa! If only we could have restrained Dom for just a few hours, we’d have all of our answers by now…
I became aware of Travis standing next to me.
“What’s up, Travis? You’ve been very quiet today,” I observed. “And yesterday...”
“Mm…”
“You were right…” I started. “About the fridge, I mean. A whole vat of stuff hidden right there, all along.”
“Heh…”
“So that Bob, eh? That thing in your pocket…”
“What?”
“In your pocket. You know? It was Bob all along.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Pretty crazy isn’t it.”
“Mm-hmm…”
“Travis.” I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “Is there something you’re hiding from us?” Travis looked surprised.
“N…no… what do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get my head around things, that’s all. I didn’t mean it.” I gave him a reassuring tap on the arm. I was sincere; I hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything.
“Good.” Travis said bluntly, walking off. I closed my eyes again.
“What do you think, Mr. Joe?” asked Bob. He had been engaged in conversation with Chloe for the past few minutes. She had still been asking about the food.
“I’m sorry?” I rubbed my eyes.
“What shall we do now that we have eaten?”
“Um, I dunno, what would you suggest?”
“Well, we could play some games. I like games. Have you ever heard of the ‘is that thing talking’ game?”
“Actually, I think I’d rather just sit here, Bob.”
“Very well.”
Knock knock...Still waiting. I know they’re coming. Awakened is the fool who refuses to see the truth. The truth that is going to have to be acknowledged at some point. It is only a matter of time.
6
Whether we liked it or not, we were beginning to settle into a routine. After waking up, we’d each spend a good hour or so disorientated, shuffling up and down the corridor waiting for our turn in the bathroom, during which communication was down to a bare minimum. It hadn’t taken long for us to be able to understand each other’s non-verbal gestures and generic grunting sounds through which we’d be conveying such messages as ‘how do you do,’ ‘I’m fine thank you,’ or, more commonly, ‘go away, I’m emptying my bowels.’
Following this, the bell would chime and we’d all saunter across to the kitchen pick up our breakfast: Purple flakes with a side order of purple sauce. To give you some idea of the theme that seemed to be running here – lunch was purple stew and dinner was a perfectly rectangular purple steak. There was never any rush – we were fed three times a day and we weren’t the starving wrecks we once were. Or rather, while we were still hungry to a point, the food was so god-awful none of us were ever in any hurry for seconds. The purple sauce had a bizarre kick to it that made us all experience something along the lines of extreme brain-freeze crossed with an excruciating urge to yell obscenities, yet it was necessary as without it our purple flakes tasted like crayon wax. Not that I’d ever eaten crayon wax. As far as I knew.
Some time after breakfast we’d all gather in the common room where Bob would greet us with his unapologetically jovial tones, at which point we’d generally all continue to ignore each other until one of us, typically Dom or Chloe, would start complaining about something trivial. This would generally lead to a pointless conversation about said triviality during which one of three things would happen: Either we’d all get into an argument, someone would fall asleep from boredom, or Bob would very-nearly get himself into a severe logical contradiction and risk regressing into ‘Suicidal Bob.’
At some point during the day we’d try to ask Bob more questions about our predicament, but he would be unhelpful as usual. For whatever reason all of his ‘corrupted’ data banks seemed to align with all the useful, relevant information we needed to know. It seemed like he had a whole load of pointless knowledge regarding the chemical composition of French cheese, or the discography of Michael Jackson, or the average lifespan of a blowfish (it’s 8 years, by the way). But when it came to asking about where in space we were, or why we were all dressed in casual clothes, or even what year it was, he had no answers. I wondered if the whole ‘ERROR’ act was just that, an act, but Bob’s personality was so disarmingly upbeat I just had to take his word for it. I had to keep reminding myself that he was a robot; an inanimate object running highly sophisticated computer code. For all his weird vocal mannerisms and awkward statements, and despite being smaller than a toothbrush… it was as if he’d become the sixth member of the group. Gang. Posse. I don’t know what you’d call us. Gaggle?
As the hours grew longer we knew we needed to resort to some kind of entertainment to tie us through to the next abhorrently coloured meal. As you’ve probably twigged by now, Bob was always very eager to play games, and these typically included games like I Spy, (not very fun when you can list all the objects in the room in about ten seconds), Charades (which Bob always seemed to win despite lacking in human body parts), and the aforementioned ‘is that thing talking’ game, which required us all to pretend to forget about Bob and act surprised when he introduced himself again. As you can probably imagine, it didn’t take long for these activities to grate, so we tried to find new ways to occupy the time.
One of said methods was to try to stay fit and exercise as much as possible. Chloe and Emma regularly spent their hours running laps of the corridor and coming up with makeshift gym exercises with Travis acting as an oddly convincing fitness instructor. Dom was too flabby and arrogant to even be mildly convinced of the benefits of physical activity, while I did my best – I just wasn’t as motivated as the girls. There just wasn’t a lot that I felt like doing. I couldn’t fathom a reason why I’d need to start building up my muscles in a place like this. To impress the ladies? I still considered myself to be better looking than either of the other guys, for obvious reasons, so that wasn’t a concern. Plus I could probably hold my own in a fight if everything went tits-up. Probably.
You might be wondering how things were clothes-wise. Luckily Bob had managed to locate a crate-full of spare clothing so it wasn’t like we were stinking the whole place down. There wasn’t a lot of variety on offer but I didn’t complain. Dom did, probably because he couldn’t fit into 95% of the shirts. We’d wash our dirty clothes in the sink and dry them by hanging them over the oven – which, by the way, didn’t serve any other purpose as the purple food was always served chilled and wouldn’t even warm up when we tried to cook it for hours on end.
So the days continued to drift on with little to keep
us occupied. It probably sounds like I’m describing the most depressingly mundane life experience ever imagined, and you’d be right, but truthfully, it didn’t bother me so much. There was something oddly reassuring about waking up every day with the same group of people and going through the motions again and again… There was so much to worry about, but I found that the best course of action was not to worry about anything, to just accept everything for what it was. I took solace in the fact that if this had to be my life, at least I wasn’t alone. At least I had Emma, and Chloe, and Travis… heck, even Dom wasn’t as bad as I’ve been making out, sofa-rage incident aside.
Essentially, however, we were all waiting for a sign – something productive to do, to work towards, a new hope. That day came, and it started the same as any other.
Wake up. Uhh… Pacing the corridor. Uhh… Bathroom’s occupied. Uhh… Pacing the corridor. Uhh… Bathroom’s free. Uhh… Brushing my teeth. Uhh… Could have a shower – oh well, can’t be bothered. Uhh… Breakfast. Uhh… Purple flakes. Uhh… Purple sauce. Here comes the urge to swear… BLOODY BASTARD BITCH! There goes the brain freeze again… Uhh… Sit down. Uhh… Maybe I should say hello at this point.
“Hi guys…” I said monotonically.
“Good day to you Mr. Joe, I hope you had a fantastic breakfast!” Bob said, somehow emphasising all the wrong vowels.
“Yum yum yum...” I mumbled.
“How would you rate this breakfast in relation to your previous meal?”
“Oh, top marks, Bob. Truly exquisite. Never been better.”
“I am flattered, Mr. Joe.”
I looked around. Emma was standing by the window, gazing outwards at the black nothingness.
“It’s empty,” she murmured. “It’s so empty. There’s just nothing out there. No planets… No stars… We’re all there is.”
“I do not follow,” said Bob.
“Can’t you see?” Emma asked. “Do you know what it looks like out there?”
“I do not see.”
“You don’t see?” I jumped in.
“I do not have visual sensory output. I do however have advanced radio-nuclear thermal detection sensors. Shall I elaborate?”
“No thanks,” I mumbled hoarsely.
“My point is…” Emma continued. “If you could see what it was like out there, you’d feel the same way.”
“What would I feel?” asked Bob.
“Lost,” whispered Emma.
Travis, Dom and Chloe wandered in. They’d all probably just woken up, though Chloe looked more alert than the other two.
“I do not think I am lost,” Bob stated.
“You might not be… but we are,” Chloe said. “Because you won’t tell us where we are!”
“We are in space,” Bob said.
“Yeah, smartass, we know. But where’s Earth?” Chloe asked.
“In the solar system,” Bob said.
“In relation to us?!” Chloe bellowed.
“ERROR.” Bob said.
“You’re really useless, you know that?” Chloe moaned.
“I apologise for my memory corruption, Miss Chloe. I understand your frustrations,” Bob commented sincerely. “By the way, I have been thinking.”
“Thinking? About blowfishes again?” Dom piped up.
“Negative. I have been thinking about interior design.”
“You what?”
“Interior design, Mr. Dom. It is a hobby of mine.”
“Please tell me this is relevant in some way.”
“I believe I have determined a critical piece of information which has been off-limits to me. Shall I elaborate?” Bob asked.
“Go on.”
“One of my functions as I previously specified involves sub-atomic particle nanotech-driven decorating. I have the ability to slowly and systematically alter the interior design of the ship. I designed a functional early twenty-first century retro-chic interior to accommodate the nostalgic best wishes of the crew.”
“Right, thanks for the stiff doorknobs by the way, just what I always wanted…” Dom said with obvious contempt. I feel like there was a lot of significant information in what Bob said just then but Dom somehow made it seem trivial.
“Thank you, Mr. Dom. As I was saying, I designed the interior of the ship as it stands, but there is one area in particular that perplexes me. There is a metal panel in the corridor, and I do not understand its purpose.”
Almost as soon as Bob had mentioned the metal panel, we’d all rushed out into the corridor, taking Bob with us, to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, there was a silver-coloured, rather inconspicuously placed metallic square panel, positioned about half-way up the wall.
“I am most intrigued by this oddity,” Bob said.
“You have no idea what it’s for? Does it not just lead to an air vent or something?” I asked.
“Mr. Joe, I am only the assistant intelligence module. As I stated before, I do not have complete control over all ship systems. There are many areas which are off limits to me.”
“So you think there’s something behind this? Something useful?” asked Dom.
“That seems possible, Mr. Dom.”
“Well what are we waiting for?” Dom asked, and started kicking the square panel with the same awkwardness previously displayed when he’d been attempting to kick the kitchen door open.
“I am disobeying my internal programming by informing you of this…” Bob warned.
“Great. Fuck your programming.” Dom said, already out of breath.
“I cannot fuck my p… Oh, wait, hold on…“
“Ignore him, Bob!” I ordered. “Bob, are you okay? Are you going to be able to handle this?” Dom was beckoning for me to help him kick the panel, but I was more concerned about Bob having another logic-based meltdown.
“I believe so, Mr. Joe. I am currently exploiting a technical loophole. It allows me to obey your orders while overriding my natural urge to obey my internal programming.”
“Great, now that you’ve fucked your programming, are you gonna help us get through here?” Dom asked. He started kicking even harder.
“Your current method is not advisable,” stated Bob.
“Oh yeah, and what method do you propose?” Dom asked cockily. “Slowly chipping our way through with a scalpel?”
7
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” Dom grumbled, as he slowly chipped away at the metal panel using a scalpel he’d sourced from the kitchen.
“You don’t know that,” Chloe pointed out.
“Alright. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done so far on this spaceship, how’s that?” Dom replied.
Chloe remained silent.
“Alright! Apart from the sofa thing, I thought we said we weren’t gonna mention that again!”
“Your words, not mine.” Chloe shrugged with a smirk.
“Doesn’t change the fact that this… is… a… stupid… idea…” Dom timed his words with his individual stabs with the scalpel.
“It might not be that bad, you know,” I reassured. “Bob said that it’s probably only half an inch thick – the only reason you couldn’t kick it down is because it’s soldered to the wall.”
Dom paused. “I’m trying to chip my way through a god damn piece of SPACE METAL here using a tiny weeny little blade which couldn’t even pass as a self-harming tool.”
“You wanna try a bigger knife, try a bigger knife. There’s a huge one in the kitchen,” I said.
“Don’t be absurd, Joe. That’s way too dangerous, I’d end up slicing my hands off.”
“Yeah, but yours is so small it’s embarrassing. You’ll never be able to stick it all of the way in. ”
“I know, Joe. I know. Wait, if that was supposed to pass as some kind of innuendo-laden pun, I’m not laughing,” Dom huffed. He stabbed at the panel more furiously.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Schlong.”
“AAH! Look at it!” he
yelled. “Not a single part of it’s coming off, this is going to take hours!”
He was probably right, the metal panel was currently covered in several hundred faint scratches where the blade had made contact, but was a long way away from any kind of progress being made.
Chloe clicked her fingers. “Right, I know what we need,” she declared confidently. “We need a rota!”
“A rota?” asked Dom.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Chloe continued. “Every hour, we’ll take turns, so we’ll all get to spend some time working on the panel.”
“That s-sounds like a good idea,” Travis stammered.
“Yeah, so… Travis, you can go next, then Emma, then Joe, then I’ll go, and so on,” Chloe announced.
“Woah, woah, wait a minute… Why do you get to go last?” asked Dom.
“Because the rota is my idea, okay? Okay. That’s sorted then.”
After a good couple of hours of chipping away, Dom plumped himself onto a Travis-chair with an almighty exhale. He’d been to the kitchen and had a glass of water in his hand. As he drew his hand up to take a sip, he tipped his head back and carelessly let the water splash all down his front. It had been a few weeks in ‘Earth time’ since we’d all woken up with no memories, and Dom’s goatee beard had given way to a general mess of unkempt facial hair, though oddly enough it hadn’t seemed to have grown any longer. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him shaving. There were razors in the bathroom I’d been using regularly, but somehow Dom didn’t want to bother, lopsided and disgusting though his beard was. Emma was looking similarly scruffy, though Chloe somehow pulled off the pristine and perfectly coiffured look with no effort whatsoever. Dom tipped his head backwards again and sighed, water dripping from his hairy chin.
“Hello Mr. Dom, how are you feeling?” It was Bob.
“Glad I’m not him,” Dom pointed towards Travis’ empty chair. The rota had dictated it was the old man’s turn for chipping duties.