“That’s it?” asked Goozer.
“That was a pretty big deal to us, pal,” Grog said irritably.
“But it’s only fire.”
“May not be much to you,” Vlak said, “but if we hadn’t discovered it, we wouldn’t be in this ship right now.”
“Yeah,” Grog said with a nod. “Think of that, buddy.”
Goozer wanted to reply, but he honestly didn’t think he really cared all that much. His role here was to help out his pal, Geezer. Whatever the rest of the crew on this ship did wasn’t his concern.
“Anyway,” he said, “red to green and green to red.”
“And you’re sure of that?” Geezer asked again.
“Sure I’m sure,” Goozer replied, feeling a bit hurt that the larger robot would question him thusly. “I built the damn thing, didn’t I?”
Vlak stepped up, giving the battery another once-over. “Not my place, but looking at your layout I’d say red to red and green to green.”
“Say, you’re right,” Goozer said, pretending to study the battery again, before giving Vlak the best sinister glare that a mostly featureless, miniature robot could manage, “it’s not your place.”
“He doesn’t like to be questioned, fellas,” Geezer warned. “Not sure where he gets that from.”
“Whatever,” Grog said with a shrug. “We’re going to hook back up to the Feeder and learn more stuff. Not much else to do.”
“Go ahead,” Geezer replied. “Set the number to 2779 and you should be all set.”
“It’s not my place,” Vlak said, “but shouldn’t we set it to 2780?”
“Say, you’re right,” Geezer replied, holding his chin and looking as though he were thinking things through for a moment. Then he glanced back at Vlak and said, “It’s not your place.”
“Right,” Vlak replied.
Once Grog and Vlak had walked away, Geezer held up the two wires and gave Goozer one more questioning look. Goozer was incapable of rolling his eyes, so instead he crossed his arms and tapped his foot.
“All right, all right,” Geezer said.
Geezer attached the red wire to the green connector. There was a little spark, but that was expected. It was when he touched the green wire to the red one, all hell broke loose.
There was a massive zap, a heavy buzzing, and a flash of light.
Geezer began shuddering while electricity pulsed over his body. Smoke poured from the robot’s chest cavity as the two cavemen raced over to help. But it was too late. Geezer crumpled to the ground, causing the two wires to pull away from the connectors. Everything went silent as Goozer stared down at his motionless friend.
The ship’s lights crackled a moment later and all components powered down.
It was pitch black on the Reluctant.
Fortunately, there was a backup generator to handle things like life-support and also for handling the auto-pilot program that kept them safely in orbit around Fantasy Planet.
Unfortunately, it failed to come on line.
“Shit,” said Goozer.
INTERRUPTING MOON
Harr had decided that it would be better if he interrupted Moon on his own, especially after seeing what the others had done with him in their individual fantasies, not to mention what Middleton and Curr had done to each other in their respective ones.
Commander Sandoo had given him an almost full run-down of Curr’s fantasy, including the bit about Curr naming Middleton a Sub-Ensign. But the commander had refused to share what Curr had set up Fake Harr to be, saying that he’d promised not to divulge that information.
Harr instructed Sandoo, Curr, and Middleton to wait outside. He had a feeling that they wouldn’t budge from their exact spot even slightly.
Moon had always wanted to be a fashion designer. Actually, the android’s skills in this area had been utilized many times over their missions together. So seeing that he had walked into an ongoing fashion show wasn’t surprising in the least.
What was surprising was seeing Brand Jezden standing at the edge of the stage wearing a pair of pink tights that didn’t even try to contain the ensign’s largest asset. Camera flashes were going wild at the outfit that Jezden was wearing. Harr imagined that the photographers were using wide-angle lenses.
Harr spotted Moon standing near the back of the platform. He was working on last-minute touches for the next model to head out onto the stage. If Harr’s eyes weren’t fooling him, that model was Ridly. What confused the captain was that Ridly’s hair was long and flowing, which was a far cry from the cropped, military cut she typically employed.
He walked along the wall until he was standing behind Moon, then he tapped the android on the shoulder.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Harr said.
Moon spun around and looked Harr over. “Why aren’t you in cothtume?”
“Uh, because—”
“No, no, no! I thaid that we needed perfectthion.” Moon began pushing Harr back into the dressing room. “There ith no time for thith!”
Obviously, Moon’s lisp was back in full-force. Harr had noted that this tended to happen whenever Moon was under a great deal of pressure. He’d typically said “thir” instead of “sir,” and there was the occasional slip up of other words, but Harr had thought that the full breadth of Moon’s speech impediment was a thing of the past.
“I had expected thith thort of thing from the otherth, but not from you.”
“Will you quit pushing me, please?” said Harr.
“Those white oneth,” Moon said, pointing at a pair of tights that were hanging over a chair, “put them on.”
“I don’t think so,” Harr replied. He wasn’t about to try and compete with Jezden.
“You don’t think tho?” Moon said with a shocked look. “Get them on now or I’ll give you thomething to think about, mithter!”
This is when Harr noted the fake version of himself walking up behind Moon. He was wearing the stretch pants. Harr couldn’t help but to see how well he executed the look. Actually, were there no Brand Jezden in existence, he wouldn’t have faired poorly at all.
“Excuse me, Fashion Design Lord,” said Fake Harr. “I can’t get the seam straight on these things.”
Moon glanced back and saw Fake Harr standing there. Then he spun again and looked at real Harr. Finally, the android took a step back so that he could see the two men side-by-side.
That’s when it clearly hit him that the real Harr was inside of his fantasy.
“Oh, thit.”
BACK ONLINE
Frexle was feeling more annoyed than usual after finishing his discussion with the Lord Overseer. It was obvious that Veli was trying to hide something over all these years, and Frexle now had an idea of what it was. Partially, anyway.
He was even more agitated, though, because the ship had gone completely dark. It was all he could do to make his way to engineering, though he had suffered a number of bumps and cuts from all of the damn knobs that stuck off the walls of the Reluctant.
“No, that wire,” Goozer could be heard yelling as Frexle turned the corner into the engineering room.
Frexle followed a small beam of light that led to either Grog or Vlak who was working on a panel near the side wall. They had obviously been able to navigate in the dark better than Frexle had.
“I thought you said you could see in the dark,” Goozer yelled.
“No,” Grog replied, “we can see decently in dim lighting because our planet has no artificial light.”
“And we can’t make out colors in this light,” Vlak added.
“Well, I can,” Goozer stated. “The wire you want is in your right hand. Drop the other two and connect that one.”
Grog did as he was told and the Reluctant started to hum again. Almost instantly the glow of emergency lights faded into view.
That’s when Frexle saw that Geezer was sprawled out on the ground, and while the ship’s lights were coming back on, the robot’s were completely out.
“What happened?” he said
as he rushed to Geezer’s aid.
“He put the red wire on the green contact and the green wire on the red contact,” answered Grog.
“Knew that was a bad idea, Goozer,” said Vlak to the miniature robot.
“All right, all right,” Goozer said in a huff. “I already admitted I’d been wrong. Let it go, will ya?”
“Is he destroyed?” said Frexle.
“Shouldn’t be,” Goozer answered, though he didn’t sound all that confident. “Who are you?”
“My name is Frexle and I’m this man’s … erm, robot’s boss.”
“I thought Captain Harr was his boss,” countered Goozer.
“Well, technically, yes,” Frexle said, “but I’m Harr’s boss, so Geezer is definitely under my chain of command. The better question is: who are you?”
“Name’s Goozer.”
“I’ve determined that much already.”
“Geezer created me a long time ago. We’ve been working together on building out new tech and such.”
“Wait,” Frexle said, standing back up. “Are you telling me that there is another ship like the Reluctant floating around in space?”
“Currently, it’s sitting right here,” Goozer said, pointing at the tiny replica of the Reluctant.
“I’ll be damned.” Frexle picked up the little ship and looked at it from all angles. He could hear screams coming from inside. “What’s that noise?”
“My guess would be the yells of all the people inside that ship,” Goozer said, pointing. “You’re essentially flinging them around in there, you know.”
“Oh, my,” Frexle said, gently putting the ship down.
A few moments later, a man walked down the ramp. He crossed the divide purposefully and pointed a stern finger at Frexle.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Uh …”
“He didn’t know you were in there, chief,” Goozer explained.
“Well we were,” the tiny man said, “and now I have about half of my crew in need of the infirmary.”
“Sorry,” said Frexle, looking downcast. “Um, who are you again?”
“My name is Liverbing and I’m the commander of this vessel. Up until about one minute ago, my entire crew was in tip-top shape, as was my ship. Now half of them are banged up and there are panels and knobs broken and battered throughout each level.”
“Honestly, I didn’t know that there was anyone in there.”
“Hmmph,” Liverbing said and then traversed back to the ship. “Goozer, finish up what you have to do here and get back inside. I think it’d be safer if we were out of range of this one and his buffoonery in due course.”
“Buffoonery?”
“Do you have a more befitting description for what you’ve done?”
Frexle didn’t respond. One thing was for certain, he was shocked to learn that there was another Reluctant-like ship zooming around in the universe. It must have been due to its size that the Overseers had not picked it up. For all of Veli’s software engineering prowess, he had a tendency to ignore things that he deemed insignificant. Frexle glanced over at Grog and Vlak, who were both giggling. Most things, anyway.
“Right,” said Frexle, pointing at Geezer. “What do we do about him?”
“We could go back in time and tell him not to put red on green and green on red,” suggested Vlak.
“The little one would only disagree with us again,” Grog said.
“You’re both a couple of—”
“How about we set our focus to resolving this issue instead of trying to find someone to blame?” said Frexle, interrupting Goozer.
“We’re not trying to find someone to blame, are we, Vlak?”
“Not at all. We know who is to blame.”
“Shove it,” said Goozer.
“Enough!” Everyone quieted down. Frexle couldn’t fathom how any crew operated under these circumstances. He may have had to deal with the childish notions of his fellow Overseers from time-to-time, but at least there was some semblance of order among them. “Okay, now who here has the brains to fix this?”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one?” Vlak said.
“Yeah,” agreed Grog. “Word on the street was that Overseers were all knowing and all powerful.”
“Are you patronizing me?” Frexle said with a warning tone of voice.
“Me?” Grog said with his eyebrows raised. “I’m just a simple caveman.”
“Early Evolutionary Humanoid, you mean?”
“Was trying to wind him up, Vlak.”
“Ah, right,” said Vlak. “My bad.”
“Enough with the wisecracks,” Frexle said. “Engineering is not my strong suit.”
Frexle looked again at the fallen Geezer. Chances were there was some kind of reboot switch for instances where a robot got into an odd loop, but this robot had been knocked completely out with an electrical shock. The likelihood of finding a button that would bring him back online was unlikely. It could very well be that his circuits had been completely fried.
“I can fix him,” Goozer stated.
“Looks like you already did,” Grog said in response.
Frexle held up his hands before the arguing began again.
“Will you two please go somewhere else?”
“Like where?” asked Vlak.
“Out the space lock maybe?” suggested Goozer.
Frexle suggested, “Go to your quarters.”
“Don’t have any,” Grog said.
“Then go to the bridge.”
“Oooh,” Vlak said with a big grin. “Okay, yeah, we’ll do that!”
“Don’t touch anything,” Frexle said powerfully. “If you do, I’ll return you to your old planet.”
“Not cool,” said Grog over his shoulder as the two cavemen began to exit engineering.
It was Frexle’s own fault. He was the one who had found The SSMC Reluctant and had conscripted its crew to work for the Overseers. He was the one who had convinced the senate that the HadItWithTheKillingsGroup was gaining in popularity and thus they had to do something to appease their numbers or they’d face being overthrown. Eventually, anyway. And he was the one who had helped the crew by feeding them information that they shouldn’t have been privy to so that they would not be destroyed. But weren’t they the very actions that served to keep the current leaders in power? That could be argued as being a not-so-great thing, too, he supposed.
“Okay, little robot,” Frexle said, feeling mentally drained, “what do we do?”
Goozer pointed at two wires that were lying near the edge of the table. “See those two wires?”
“Yes.”
“Touch the red one to that green connector on Geezer, and then touch the green one to the red connector.”
“I thought you said that connection format is what knocked Geezer out and what took out the power systems on the Reluctant?”
“That’s only because he was holding the wires himself,” Goozer said.
“Really?”
“As far as you know.”
“Hmmm.”
INTERRUPTING RIDLY
Ridly had come back from a meeting with her sales staff. She had affirmed expectations of shipping at the end of the month. That would solidify a 400% profit and put Ridly Enterprises’ stock through the roof.
Her secretary was still not at his desk. She made a mental note to have yet another discussion with him about the importance of being available when she needed him.
“Computer,” she said as she walked into her office, “are there any messages for me?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Segnalian Consolate wishes to thank you for your amazing work on the recent release of Budgetary Crunch.”
Ridly allowed herself a small smile. “It is an amazing piece of software, if I do say so myself.”
“You have, ma’am,” the computer replied. “Many times. Your second message is from the President of the Federation of Advanced Planets For Achieving Persons Fro
m Amazing Pasts.”
“FAP, FAP, FAP?” Ridly affirmed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go on.”
“They have installed the new RoboHandy systems and their productivity is up one hundred percent.”
“Because they’re able to type with both hands now,” said Ridly.
“I assume so, ma’am.”
“Anything else?” she said as she looked up to find that her secretary was walking in to her office.
“Yes, there—”
“Hold that thought, computer,” Ridly interrupted. She raised an eyebrow at her secretary. “Where have you been?”
“Uh … I was in the hallway.”
“Lollygag on your own time, my secretary. I have an important conglomeration to run here.”
“Oh boy,” he replied. “Here we go again. What am I this time?”
“Excuse me?” Ridly said sternly, shocked that he would even consider speaking to her in such a flippant manner. “You’re constantly late, you can’t keep a schedule to save your life, and you’re almost never at your desk.”
“Stop,” he said.
“What?” Ridly was incensed. “What did you just—”
“Before you go any further, Lieutenant Ridly, you should know that I’m the actual Captain Harr.”
“What?” she said, more subdued.
If there were any blood in her android system, it would have drained from her face.
“I’m here because we have a mission, Lieutenant,” Harr replied. “I’m the real Captain Harr. I am not your …”—he looked around for a moment—“secretary.”
“Shit.”
ARISE
Frexle’s head felt foggy and his eyes were burning.
He was obviously lying on the floor because he knew he wasn’t standing, and because the tiles were cold. Plus, he could see three sets of feet, one of which were metallic. He peered up to find that Geezer, Goozer, Grog, and Vlak were looking down at him. Geezer turned and walked out of the room.
“What happened?” Frexle asked as he watched the departing robot.
“Apparently,” said Vlak, “you demonstrated how much smarter Overseers are when compared to others.”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 32