Robot Awareness: The Inner Circle

by B. C. Kowalski

  “Hey, the pink one is waking up,” a young voice said.

  Isellia craned her neck, shifted in her seat, to see who had spoken.

  “Hello?” Isellia said. “Who is that? Let me outta here!”

  Nix stepped out of the shadows, walking toward her slowly. He stepped in front of her, looking her up and down.

  Isellia glared at him with gritted her teeth as she waited to see what the young man — she guessed around her age — would do next.

  “Well?” Isellia asked impatiently.

  “I thought you would be prettier,” Nix said.

  “Prettier? I’ll kill you, you little twerp! Just let me outta here...” Isellia struggled, twisting against the pole. The others had started to awaken, slowly realizing their bonds as Isellia did.

  Nix shook his head. “Now, that’s not much of an incentive, is it? Maybe we’ll just leave you like this.”

  Isellia fumed. “Oh, when I get this loose...” she muttered.

  “You won’t be able to,” said a much older voice. A man stepped from behind Nix. He wore cargo pants, a black tight T-shirt showing off a muscled physique, and a shock of black, curled hair that hung in his face. His face wore the look of someone affable but who had seen a lot of trouble. “But don’t worry, we’ll be letting you out of those soon enough.”

  Isellia looked the new man up and down. She paused a second — his looks were enough to take her breath away a moment, but she soon found herself.

  “You sure you want to?” Isellia asked with a dangerous grin.

  “I don't be worrying about it,” the man said, a warm smile on his face. Isellia tried to sustain her anger but couldn’t help but find his grin and odd way of speaking disarming.

  “What is this all about?” Isellia demanded. “Why did you try to blow us up? And why are we tied up? And, where are —“

  “Easy," the man said, putting his hand up in a calming gesture. "I’ll be telling you everything you be wanting to know. First off, wasn't us who been blowing you up. Seems you’ve been making some ‘friends’ on your journey here ...”

  Isellia snorted at this.

  “We didn’t get to the repair shop in time to warn you. Best we could do, this, bringing you here. You be safe, and you be among friends.”

  “Oh yeah?” Isellia asked. “Then why are we tied up?”

  “For safety,” the man said, crouching down to her level. “I had to make sure you weren’t going to try anything... unwise.”

  “Afraid I’ll hurt ya?” Isellia said, a mean grin crossing her face.

  “Well, we wouldn't be wanting any hurting, now would we?” he said. Isellia snorted again and rolled her eyes, but she couldn't hide her blush. “Anyhoo, I’m Dirk. This is Nix. We’re here to help you. And you’re here to help us.”

  “Help you?” Isellia looked at him incredulously.

  “That’s right,” Dirk said. "Kenpur has brought you to us."

  "Kenpur," Isellia muttered under her breath, with no small amount of disdain. “Of course.”

  ***

  Isellia sat on a large pillow, rubbing her newly freed wrists. The others had awoken and were being untied, after some explanation. Her wrists didn’t hurt, exactly. It was more the feeling of having been tied that cause Isellia to unconsciously rub her wrists.

  Dirk brought her a mug, filled with a steaming brown liquid. “It’s Jama Java. Best coffee you can be buying around these parts. You’ll love it.”

  Isellia took the mug in both hands, unable to muster any sarcasm. “Thanks,” was all she said, meekly.

  She took a sip of the brown liquid, and instantly took another. It was awfully good, she thought. She was still a little foggy from the explosion, but the warm brew brought a fresh wave of alertness. Dirk smiled to see her enjoy the brew. She tempered her enthusiasm — she didn’t trust these new folks — but it didn’t stop her from taking another sip.

  Soon everyone sat in a circle of pillows, coffee in their hands. Everyone save for Porter, Isellia noticed.

  “Porter?!” she said suddenly.

  “He’ll be fine, but ...” said a voice behind her.

  She turned to see a man in a green medical suit, wearing latex gloves. He had short, gray hair and penetrating blue eyes.

  Isellia recovered momentarily. “But what?” she demanded.

  “You can come see him now,” the man said, motioning them to follow as he disappeared back into the doorway.

  Isellia set her cup down on the wooden floor and rushed after him. The others were still recovering from their shock, but they all left their mugs on the floor and followed Isellia.

  Chapter 47

  Porter blinked his eyes awake. He stared straight up at the ceiling; a ceiling he didn’t recognize. He looked up at the cracked, grey tiles, at the squashed remains of what had once been a spider, or so it appeared. A dead fly lay trapped in a web, a meal the spider would never realize.

  After a moment, his eyes started making their way around the rest of the room. The walls were a dark green; tables with boxes on them lined the walls; a few posters, faded yellow with age, hung on the cracked walls. Stainless steel cabinets labeled with medical equipment sat to his right. Next to that, a person. He nearly did a double take as he craned his neck to see who it was, the effort causing him to wince in pain.

  “Oh, hey now, don’t try to get up,” said a woman in a shaky, nasally voice. “You’ll only hurt yerself, now. Just lay back.”

  Porter obliged, resting his head back into what he now recognized as a pillow. It was old, stiff from years of storage in a cold climate. Its casing had the crusty feeling of not having been washed in years.

  He thought he should answer, say something to respond, but it was as if he’d forgotten how. He muttered something, the only sounds he could seem to manage under the circumstances.

  “There, that’s better. You been through a lot, honey. Just relax and heal, wouldja?”

  The woman walked in front of him, peering down at him with concern. She appeared to be about 25, had large curls and large hoop earring in her hair. She had a pink spandex top under a denim jacket, and wore biker gloves. “What’s your name, there, sugar?”

  Porter’s brain once again told him it was an appropriate moment for speech, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. He nearly managed to utter his name when the door opened.

  “His name is Porter,” Isellia said in a huff, rushing to his side. “Are you OK?” She looked down at him with genuine concern.

  The gray-haired man in the medical garb followed through the doors. Joey and Stephen followed her in, standing a few steps back from Porter’s bed.

  Porter looked up at her and tried to speak, but nothing came out. Isellia’s worried expression turned to a frown. “What’s with him? Why can’t he talk?”

  “He’ll be talking in a moment,” the man said. His green medical scrubs brushed against Isellia as he checked a couple of gauges on a machine hooked up to Porter.

  “Porter, is it?” he asked. “I’m Wall. Kind of the doctor around here.”

  Porter looked up at the man, but could say nothing.

  “Right. Well listen, I have some good news and bad news. There was an explosion. You took the brunt of the blast. You’ll survive, all your vital organs will be fine but... I’m afraid your legs...”

  Porters eyes went wide.

  “What do you mean, his legs?” Isellia demanded, grabbing at Wall’s arm. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Wall ignored her, but put his hand on Porter’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your legs just aren’t working. I can’t find a reason — everything seems to be in order. They just — there’s no response.”

  Porter had been staring at Wall with wide eyes, but shut them at the news. He sharply took in lungful of air, then let it out. He looked back at Wall, and nodded that he understood.

  “Hey, whattya mean, he can’t walk?” Isellia demanded. “Fix him!”

  “I have no idea what to do — th
ere doesn’t actually seem to be anything wrong with him, other than the fact that he took a lot of blunt force trauma. Maybe with some therapy or just time, they’ll work again.”

  “You fix him, you quack! We need to get a new ship so we can get the heck out of this dump!” Isellia grabbed his green jumpsuit and shook him. Tears began streaming down her cheek. The others looked down at their feet. “He’s gotta be OK! He’s just gotta be. Our ship is gone. We need him.”

  Porter’s eyes went wide. He sat up, wincing in the pain.

  “Porter?” Isellia said, wiping away a tear.

  “My ship!?” he roared, looking around the room in shock. “What happened to my ship?”

  ***

  “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” Porter asked wearily, rubbing his forehead. He sat in a wheelchair one of these strangers had found for him, slumped in it like a man drunk and tired. Every so often he looked up, tried to catch his bearings, but was overwhelmed by dizziness and dropped his head into his hand again.

  By now everyone in this building — Porter’s crew and their rescuers/captors — had migrated back to the room where they’d first woken up. Isellia looked around at what seemed to extend to a kitchen area and some more space beyond it. The medical area where they’d kept Porter in was cordoned off by plastic curtains. Junk lined the walls, old posters hung from the brick surface and cobwebs grew in the corner.

  “Yeah, what the heck is this place?” Isellia said, looking with a wrinkled nose at her surroundings. A scent smelling vaguely of garbage clung in the air, and now that the excitement had died down, she started to notice it.

  “The girl sure asks a lot of questions,” Nix said.

  “Listen here you little pint bucket, I’ll ask all the questions I want!”

  “Pint bucket? Who the hell do you think you are, pink head!?”

  “Pink head?!”

  “Guys,” Dirk said. “Cool out a minute, and I’ll be explaining your situation, K? I know we probably look like the bad guys here, but...”

  “How do we know you’re not?” Isellia demanded. “We were going along fine, then bam, we get blowed up, then there you are.”

  Isellia looked at Dirk, Nix and Jeanna, the woman in spandex and a jean jacket, then paused for a moment. “Just who are you people anyway? And where’s Fran?”

  “I’m here,” Fran said, pushing open the door with a creak. Kenpur walked at her side, and she leaned on him for balance.

  Porter looked up from his chair, saw Fran a moment and looked back down, his head overwhelmed with the sensation of dizziness.

  “Sorry we got you into this, Fran,” Porter muttered. “Whatever this is.”

  “I can explain,” Kenpur said, stepping forward.

  “Yes, this man can explain everything,” Fran said, her glasses bent from the explosion. They sat crooked on her face in a way that almost made Isellia and Joey crack a smile for the first time since they’d arrived at the compound.

  “The explosion sent me sailing across the street, and I landed on Porter, I hope I didn’t hurt you too much, you look a little broken down, are you alright? Well anyway I realized that I could actually still look around and move a little, and I thought, that’s weird, you’d think with an explosion like that you would just be knocked out —“

  “Fran!” Isellia began, then caught herself. “Fran, what did you see?”

  “Well, I was getting to that. So I looked up, and I saw a few soldiers, they looked like Company C soldiers, from what I recall from my time with the company — you know it’s been almost 19 years? Doesn't time just fly away from you? — well, these folks here were running toward us, and they helped us and brought us here, they’re friends of this man Kenpur, who says he’s your friend, and I don’t know why he would lie about such a thing, he’s such a charming man.”

  “Charming?” Isellia said, her mouth dropping open in surprise.

  Kenpur stuck his tongue out at her. “Someone appreciates me.”

  “Suck it, old man!” Isellia said, sticking out her tongue.

  “Master Kenpur!” Nix exclaimed, sticking his pinky finger up in the air. The others joined suit, with a smile on their face. Kenpur looked at them, smiled, and followed suit.

  Porter looked up from his chair. The fogginess began the wane, and he could look up for longer periods of time.

  “Oh god,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “What have you gotten us involved in, some kind of cult?”

  “This is no cult sir,” Dirk said through a grin. “This here be a revolution.”

  Porter shook his head. “Oh god. Even worse.”

  ***

  Rex and Celia stood arm-in-arm in the lobby of an office building, pretending to admire a painting. It was done in ink blot, Rorschach style — such art often looks like it was clawed more than painted. Despite being all black, deep strokes lent it a certain texture. The more one looked at it, the more its shape suggested, but the viewer was usually at a loss to describe what that shape actually was.

  The painting seemed out of place in the otherwise dull, plain lobby. Besides a checkered flag patterned stripe that separated the top of the walls from the ceiling, it was beige and fairly lifeless. The painting was the most interesting thing in the entire room, not counting Rex and Celia themselves, who drew more than one sidelong glance from a few other people waiting in the room. Compared to the other handful of visitors in the waiting room, they were much taller and quite a bit more athletic. And Celia, beautiful as she was, never failed to attract attention, unless she decided not to. The two would have stood out anywhere, and this waiting room scattered with a few promotional staff and managers was no exception.

  “We should get one of these someday,” Celia mused, ignoring the stares.

  “For what?” Rex snorted.

  “To hang in the ship?” Celia shrugged innocently.

  Rex snorted again. “We’re staying on then?”

  “Well, why think about it now?” Celia laughed to herself.

  Rex stood a moment in silence staring at the painting. “I like it.”

  “An artiste? Well, I never imagined...” Celia said playfully.

  “Shaddup.”

  A woman stepped out from behind the counter. “Here’s your credit slip. Everything turned out OK, as you said it would, Ms. Celia.”

  “Please, Celia is fine.”

  The woman, whose dark, thin hair was tied back in a ponytail and who wore rectangular, dark-rimmed glasses, giggled a little. Celia stared at her and smiled, which made her pause for a moment while she forgot herself.

  “Is there anything else?” Celia asked as Rex rolled his eyes.

  The woman seemed to find herself again. “Ah, yes. I mean, no. That is ... everything should be all set. One Isellia Antoinette is registered for the race. But it’s strange. I didn’t see her on the qualifying list before. I follow these things, you see, and ... I saw she qualified at the Farven 400 but she hadn’t listed the necessary sponsors—“

  “Which you now understand was an oversight, of course...”

  “Oh yes, ma’am — not that I should be calling you ma’am, you’re certainly not ... I mean, you are ...”

  Celia smiled and patted her arm. She was used to being able to get even women to do what she wanted with the right smile, but it did get bothersome.

  “Anyway, if you need anything else, please contact me. My name is Elsa. I’m happy to assist.”

  “Thank you Elsa. Well, Rexikins, we have one more stop to make I think.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Rex said.

  “Ooo, grumpy,” Celia said, making a mock pouty expression. She turned to Elsa. “Bye Elsa.”

  “Oh yes. Bye Elsa ... Uh, I mean, bye Ms. Celia!”

  Elsa stood smiling as she watched them leave through the glass doors.

  “Elsa!”

  Elsa jumped a little, turning around to look behind the counter. “Am I paying you to stand around?” asked a gruff voice behind the counter. “Your
orders are piling up. Get back to work!”

  “Yes boss,” Elsa said, hopping back behind the counter.

  Chapter 48

  Kenpur sat down in a chair across from Porter. Porter looked up at the old man. Kenpur's mischievous grin was gone. He stared dead ahead at Porter, who sat with his arms folded in front of him, returning the glare.

  “I’ve had about enough of this, old man,” Porter said.

  “There is little I need you to do,” Kenpur said.

  “How about getting blown up? How about losing my ship? How about not walking? Were those all things you ‘needed?’” Porter asked, his voice growing louder. Everyone else — Nix, Jeanna, Dirk, Isellia, Joey, MaBrown, Fran, Stephen — was intent on the conversation. They'd backed off at the potential confrontation, but still couldn't help leaning in to catch any details they could.

  “There are people trying to kill you,” Kenpur said, without reaction to Porter’s outburst.

  “No kidding,” Porter said, glancing sidelong. “That because of your band of thugs, too?”

  “You only just met them.”

  “I’m talking about the whole lot of you!”

  Kenpur took a deep breath before continuing. “We have nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh really?” Porter asked, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “Then why, exactly, are we on Company C’s radar? They haven’t bothered us for years. We’re small time. Long as we stay out of certain bounds, their goons didn't bother us. But ever since you've been on board, we've been attacked and blown up, and now my ship's gone. Now I can't walk! So I’ll ask you again: Why?”

  “We’re not the only new passengers on your ship,” Kenpur muttered, looking off to some distant — they didn’t know what.

  “The robot,” Joey said, the realization dawning on him. Porter turned to look at him, wincing in pain as he twisted his body. His anger softened as he looked at Joey, who stared at the ground.

  “It’s not the robot, Joey,” he said in a reassuring voice.

  “You think so?” Kenpur asked rhetorically.

  “The robot? Seriously?” Porter looked at the bot a moment, as if considering something, then shook his head. “I know it’s not exactly company regulations, but...”