Robot Awareness: The Inner Circle

by B. C. Kowalski

  “That one is an original.”

  Porter’s eyes went wide, and the color nearly dropped out of his face. He looked again at the bot, as if seeing it for the first time.

  “One of the original 108? The original 108? But, they’re all, I mean ...”

  Kenpur ignored Porter a moment, looking past him at Joey. “You knew all along, didn’t you, Joey?”

  “Well,” Joey said, twisting his face in thought. “I mean, kind of. I mean I didn't — I didn't think it was that big a deal. The robot is my friend”

  Isellia looked at Joey with surprise. Kenpur’s group looked as if they were used to remaining silent while he spoke. “You brought a 108 on board knowingly? You didn't think it was a big deal?!"

  “Bounty hunters. Company C probably got sick of calling them in," Kenpur said. "If this bot here survived, he probably dispatched quite a few of them, or avoided a good share of them."

  “I let them on the ship,” Porter said, holding his shaking head in his hands. “It was my fault. My crew. I could have killed them all. I couldn’t save the rest of them. I could have killed Isellia. I could have ...”

  Porter began shaking against the torn vinyl of the wheelchair's pads.

  “Hey, hey, snap out of it," Isellia said, grabbing Porter's arms. "What's happening?"

  "He might be going into shock," Wall said, sprinting into the back room where he'd treated Porter earlier.

  “Isellia, I … I —”

  “Don’t even start with that! I’m still here,” Isellia was staring directly into his eyes, bending down and grabbing his arms with her hands, or at least as much of them as she could get ahold of.

  “Couldn’t save them. On Joey’s planet. They all died. We buried them with our own shovels. We buried our crew.”

  Isellia had her arm around him, “You saved me. I’m still here. And Joey is still here. And the robot.”

  Wall returned from the back room, carrying a syringe. He plunged it into Porter's arm, as Isellia backed away to give him room. Porter straightened up in his wheelchair, then relaxed, his eyes growing calm.

  "How are you feeling, Porter?" Wall asked.

  "Like shit," Porter said, in a much calmer voice.

  “What is it you want out of all this?” Kenpur asked after a moment. "What's your desired outcome?"

  Porter looked at Kenpur. “I want to be left alone. I want to run my ship, out of the control of Company C. I want some damn peace.”

  Kenpur nodded. “How about you, pinky?”

  “You know what I want,” Isellia said, crossing her arms. “It’s the Gran de Lix or die.”

  Kenpur turned to Joey. “How about you, kid?”

  “I just want to work on robots and keep this robot running. I want to keep flying through space with my friends.”

  Kenpur stood up, nodding. “This is all I want. This is all we all want. This isn’t your fight. But you’re here. I think we can help each other.”

  “How?” Porter asked, looking more concerned than upset.

  “Well, Isellia, I think you’ll find your entry to the next race already paid for and registered. All you have to do is show up and race.”

  Isellia looked positively dumbfounded. Much like when Kenpur did the same on Farven Point, she was nearly speechless.

  “Yes,” Kenpur continued. “I know what you’re thinking. A top five pretty much guarantees you a sponsor for the next Gran de Lix season. It’s the race where the next top racers are chosen. And yes, you could qualify for the Gran de Lix too, with a strong enough performance. Special invite, I believe it's called.”

  Isellia started to speak, then closed her mouth again. She couldn’t make words come out.

  “Though actually, I’m hoping you’ll do a little better than place in the top five.” Kenpur walked up to her, staring directly up into her eyes. “I’m hoping you’ll win.”

  Finally Isellia snapped out of it. "Win a race? I don't even have a ship right now! How am I going to win a race? And look at Porter! We’re just suppose to go on doing your bidding?"

  “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  She looked at Porter. She wanted it more than anything, that should couldn’t deny. But Porter, getting the ship back, all of those were priorities.

  Kenpur smiled. "We will take care of all of that."

  ***

  Isellia and Joey were given bedding on which to sleep in the medical room, where Porter still lie for monitoring. Joey and Isellia lay on rollout mats, all three lined up in a row in the room. A strange must hung in the air, as it did much of the floor of the building they occupied. That was the only way they would fit. The mats were relatively clean, but worn with age and use, and stuffing spilling out of several worn spots. Isellia managed to grab the cleanest one and was sitting on it, but she seemed much less interested in it than she was Porter’s condition.

  Porter noticed her staring at him, and after glancing back a couple of times, spoke up. “You want something?”

  Isellia continued to stare a moment, then looked at the ground. “Yes. Not really. I —“

  “You sound like Stephen.”

  “I mean, are you OK? It’s not like ... I mean, I’d be pissed right now.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “You looked pretty pissed. Before.”

  “I was. I am. I don’t know. Guess it doesn't change anything, huh?”

  “So what, are we gonna join up with these guys?”

  Porter snorted. “Join up with some revolutionary half-wits? I don’t think so.”

  “But the race...”

  “Hey listen, you don’t have to do that race. Just because they’re setting up what you want, doesn’t mean to have to take it.” Porter sat up on his elbow with some difficulty as Isellia, sitting cross-legged on her mat, looked up to him. “There are other ways. We don’t owe these people a damned thing.”

  “They saved our lives,” Isellia said.

  “They claim they saved our lives. For all we know they planted the damned bomb.”

  “You don’t trust them?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  Porter rolled his eyes. “Even your crew?”

  Isellia looked at Porter, then over at Joey, who’d already fallen asleep on his red, ratty mat half an hour ago. “You know what I mean.”

  “Anyway, don’t think you have to do this, just out of some sense of guilt, or debt. Or whatever.”

  The two sat in silence for a moment. One of the metal pipes lining the concrete wall rattled, and the sounds of rushing water briefly broke the silence.

  “I still want to race,” Isellia said, sitting with her arms around her knees now. "It's my dream. Who cares about these clowns?"

  “Yeah?” Porter asked.

  “Yeah. I mean, I get it, they're using us for something — why don't we use them? I don't know what ‘that will be taken care of’ means, but they must have a ship for me, right? I mean, it's not my XR-13, but I can fly either way. I want to race, Porter. I don’t give two shits about their dumb revolution. I mean, Company C sucks, whatever, but I ain’t gonna fight some dumb war or revolution or whatever. Besides, how do I know whatever they want is better? I just want to race.”

  “Then what?” Porter asked.

  “Then, I win a bunch of races, and get totally famous, and we ditch these losers.” Isellia had a grin on her face for the first time that day. Porter chuckled, also grinning for the first time since the incident.

  “Then we become a race support crew, huh? That's not a bad life." Porter looked down at his legs.

  “Between the kid and the robot, those goofballs can help me keep my ship tip-top. And you — oh yeah, what would you do, exactly?”

  A cross look found Porter’s face. “I’m your manager, of course. What do you mean, ‘What would I do?’”

  “After the way you run this ship? I don’t know ...”

  “Hey, I’ll give you!” Porter threw a pillow at her, it brushin
g just past her bangs.

  “Hey you!” She picked up a pillow to throw back, then remembered Porter’s condition and nearly threatened with it instead.

  “Alright, we do it your way,” Porter said. “We get our ship back and then we race.”

  Chapter 49

  Porter blinked himself awake, squinting into a light that squeezed through the space between the doorway and a hung blanket that was meant to act as a door. He’d forgotten that it’d happened for a moment. He sat up in ignorant bliss, all normal, in a strange place he didn’t immediately recognize.

  Then he did recognize it. Isellia and Joey sprawled out on roll-out mats on the floor, the dingy space that was meant for storage, not sleeping. His own hospital bed, or the closest thing Kenpur’s crew had been able to muster. Then he remembered how they gotten there, and what Kenpur said, and what Isellia and he had talked about the night before.

  Then he remembered his legs didn’t work.

  A wave of melancholy spread through him like black pestilence. He slumped in sparse bedding, felt himself growing angry. He tried to tell himself that the anger would do him no good. That he should accept his situation, that he should look on the bright side, that he was alive, that they all were alive. They were alive, and they had a plan.

  But it didn’t work. Such sentiments were for memes one might see on the Buzz. In real life, sometimes shit happens, and it sucks. And that should make you angry.

  The urge to punch something as hard as he could tugged at Porter, but his reason held him back. The wall was dingy concrete, and would do more damage to his fist than his fist would do to the wall.

  Porter sat and let himself feel his anger, to stay mad, to feel regret.

  Then he nodded to himself and resolved to moving forward. He grabbed the chair at the side of his bedding and started to pull himself up.

  ***

  “Yeah, I’ll do it,” Isellia was saying to Kenpur when Porter wheeled into the room. The others sat around eating breakfast, which consisted of rice and reguns, a type of bean common in the Inner Circle. They were sticky and smelled vaguely foul but tasted much better than their odor would have suggested. Isellia looked up at Porter, examining his face for a clue to how he was feeling, then returned her attention to Kenpur.

  “I thought that you would,” Kenpur said, self-assured.

  “I’m sure your rebellion is really cool or whatever, but I really only care about racing.”

  “I know,” Kenpur nodded, stroking his beard.

  “So it’s mutually beneficial to both of us.”

  “We’re on the same page.”

  Isellia folded her arms, looking crossly at him.

  “Something the matter?” Kenpur asked.

  “Nothing, I just thought — I don’t know, I thought you’d be all like, ‘Hey, you gotta join our cause, and fight for the rebellion, and blah blah blah whatever.’”

  “That sounds like something I would say,” Kenpur chuckled to himself.

  “He would never ask us to join his rebellion,” Porter interjected.

  “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t need to. We’re joining him in this racing thing, we’ve basically joined his cause. Even if we’re just in it for the seed money.”

  “Well why shouldn’t you join?” Nix interjected. “Even pink hair here could probably be some use. Unless you're some kind of Company people...”

  “Watch your tongue!” Porter barked, but Isellia was quicker in grabbing Nix by the shirt.

  “You gotta big mouth, you know that?” Isellia said, her eyes narrowing on the boy she thought couldn’t have been more than 15.

  “Let go!” Nix started to wiggle, then realized what he needed to do to get away. He stopped resisting, and started to flow with the direction Isellia pulled. Isellia felt herself lose balance, just slightly, but it was enough. Nix shifted his weight, and Isellia tumbled to the ground.

  “Hey!” she yelled as she crashed downward.

  “It worked!” Nix exclaimed.

  But Isellia quickly found her feet in order to take his grin away. Nix almost didn’t see the right hook, but he felt it squarely on his jaw as it sent him sprawling to the ground.

  “Isellia!” Porter roared, instinctively trying to rise out of his chair before he realized that was impossible.

  Porter looked at Kenpur, but he only leaned back in his chair, watching the conflict with interest.

  Nix found his feet, his teeth gritted with anger, and he charged at Isellia. Isellia caught him, and the two rolled on the ground, each trying to hit and kick the other. Porter looked at Kenpur with wide eyes that said “we should do something,” but Kenpur merely waved him off.

  Finally Isellia wound up on top of Nix, pinning his arms. “You want to fight? You can’t even take a teenage girl, who are you gonna fight?”

  “Get off me you space brat!”

  “Come on, who are you gonna fight?" Isellia taunted him. "Huh, who are you gonna fight? Come on! Who?”

  “The assholes who killed my parents!” Nix yelled.

  Isellia's expression changed instantly to concern. She let go of his arms, stunned. Nix wiggled out from under her, and he started to take a defensive posture, but seeing the fight had left Isellia, he looked around, then ran out of the room.

  Isellia looked around at everyone, who sat with lowered heads. Her face turned beat red. She suddenly felt the urge to find her XR and fly as far away as possible.

  “Whatever,” she said with no conviction whatsoever, stomping off to the back room they’d slept in.

  Porter waited until she’d left the room to confront Kenpur. “Was that necessary? Couldn’t we have stopped them?”

  “She now has a deeper understanding of why Nix is here. Why he is in this revolution. Why they’re all here. Everyone here has a reason, Porter.”

  “And that’ll bring back his parents?” Porter said. Kenpur raised an eyebrow.

  “Nope, it sure won’t,” said Dirk, who’d been sitting eating his rice during the short fight. “It might just be makin' the galaxy a better place, though.”

  Porter started wheeling toward the breakfast table. “And then what?” Porter asked. “Are you training them to live in peace, or are you teaching them to live in perpetual conflict?”

  Kenpur was about to speak when MaBrown entered.

  "Where have you been?" Porter asked. He’d almost forgotten about MaBrown, given everything that had happened.

  MaBrown grinned. “Reporting.”

  ***

  “What do you mean, reporting?” Isellia asked, leaning with her arms crossed on the doorway to the room she’d just run off too.

  “I mean, I’ve been talking to people, gathering info. Taking notes. And I found some pretty interesting stuff.”

  Porter looked at him, head tilted. “Like what?”

  “Well,” MaBrown began, leaning against a support pillar casually. “It seems a certain pink-haired racer is on the start list for the Xeno 750, for starters.”

  Isellia had peeked out of the doorway after hearing MaBrown and Fran return. Her interest piqued, she walked further into the room. She looked at Kenpur following MaBrown’s report, who shrugged.

  “Oh, but don’t give him all the credit,” MaBrown said. “It seems a certain person we just met paid the entrance fee.” MaBrown made the gesture of a shooting pistol toward Fran.

  Porter looked with surprise at Fran. “You paid for it?”

  Fran shrugged. “I like racing. What can I say? I used to watch all the races on the holovision, well, I mostly watched them, I was also working on some last-minute accounting stuff while I watched, so I guess I mostly listened, but well ... You get the idea.”

  Isellia and Porter were too dumbfounded to cut her off.

  “Well, say thank you, already, ‘sellia.”

  “Jeez I was gonna,” Isellia protested. She turned to Fran, her face slightly flush. She was used to fighting people for what she wanted; it’s rare she found herself in someo
ne’s debt, and it made her embarrassed. “Thanks, Fran.”

  Porter shook his head at her version of heartfelt gratitude, but Fran grinned from ear to ear.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, that’s not all I learned,” MaBrown said after short silence. “So, this is sort of a good news, bad news scenario. Which you want first?”

  Porter’s eyes narrowed. “Regarding what?”

  “Well, you know that ship we came in on?”

  Porter’s eyes narrowed more. “Yes...”

  MaBrown looked around for a moment. “Well, OK, I’ll choose. Good news: The ship is in one piece. Totally fine! Works and everything!”

  Porter sighed as he slumped in his chair with relief. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Isellia’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Well, it’s kind of ... not here.”

  “What — what you do you mean, it’s not here?” Porter growled.

  “It’s been taken, my sources tell me.”

  “Who took the ship?” Joey asked. Porter had his head in his hands as the exchange continued.

  “I’m not entirely sure who at this point, but I have a rough idea where it is.”

  “Wait, how did you find all this out?” Porter asked.

  MaBrown shrugged. “I’m a reporter, I find things out. I talk to people.”

  Isellia’s face turned a pale white. “Wait a minute, that means... My XR... It’s...” Isellia had to sit down, feeling faint.

  “Oh, I have good news on that. They had to remove your XR when they did repairs at the shop, and they hadn’t relaunched it. So it’s still in the hangar, which survived the bombing. So I guess they were hoping to get us specifically.”

  “You seem awfully calm about that fact,” Fran said.

  MaBrown shrugged again. “Haven't had time to think about that,” he said. He looked over at Porter with a grin. “Hmm, so maybe I want a discount on my travel fare?"

  Porter scoffed, predictably.

  Isellia was still staring at the floor. “So it’s ... it’s OK?”

  “Oh yeah, and master Miyagi here has some people watching it.”

  “Miyagi?” Joey asked.