by Joe Zieja
“Part of my memory is corrupted,” D-24 said. “I am unable to recall a significant time period between my arrival on this ship and my abandonment in the trash chute. I assume it has something to do with the unbelievably stupid MATERNAL FORNICATION in the maintenance bay who don’t know their ANATOMICAL REFERENCE from their wrenches!”
Rogers could relate—and that kind of scared him.
“But what I don’t understand is—”
“What the hell are you still doing down here?” someone called from behind him. “Does Klein want you to hem all his pants before you throw them out too?”
Rogers leapt to his feet to find both Mailn and the Viking walking toward him. Rogers swore under his breath. Why had they come back? Why hadn’t they just gone away?
They stopped short of him, looking at him curiously. Both of them were frowning. A heavy moment of silence built up around the exit of the trash chute as
“Why are you wearing a VMU?” Mailn said.
“It’s, um, a safety precaution,” Rogers said brilliantly. “In case someone vents the chute while I’m down here folding Klein’s clothes, I’ll be able to get back into the ship.”
Ha! Rogers thought. Well done!
“And the giant pile of Sewer rats sticking out of the laundry cart encased in cryo-wrap?”
“Klein is on a diet,” Rogers said quickly, “but he doesn’t want anyone else to know, so he orders food and then throws it away.” He pointed at his own stomach, which wasn’t exactly washboard-flat, either. “He’s very sensitive about his image.”
Ha, ha! Rogers thought. I am a genius!
“These explanations are confusing given your original assertion that you were trying to escape,” D-24 said.
Rogers and the two marines turned slowly to face the droid.
“That,” Rogers said, “was not funny.”
“Escape?” Mailn said slowly. “You were trying to run away?”
“What kind of yellow-bellied miscreant are you?” the Viking said.
Rogers whirled around, hands up in defense of what he was certain would be another vicious beating. “No,” he said. “It’s not like that. I was just going to go clean the space bugs—”
“We’re at war, Rogers!” Mailn said, her face red and scary-looking. “You’re deserting in the face of the enemy! You do realize that’s punishable by death, don’t you?”
“Deserting in the face of what enemy?” Rogers shouted back, suddenly angry. “There is no enemy! We’re in the middle of the greatest interlocking treaty-created peace in intergalactic history! If the Thelicosans so much as fart wrong, they’ll have every system in Fortuna Stultus tearing their fleet to shreds!” He threw his hands up in the air. “You’ve all been addled by stupid posters and morons and droids!”
“My programming suggests that I should take offense at this,” D-24 said.
“Shut up!” Rogers said.
The Viking pointed a long, sausage-like finger at him. “You know, when you spaced all those droids in the training room, I thought, maybe he’s not such a piece-of-shit metalhead after all. When you got promoted to lieutenant and made Klein’s exec, I thought, hey, maybe this guy’s alright. But I was wrong. You’ve always been a piece-of-shit metalhead, and you always will be.”
She made a motion to Mailn. “Come on, Corporal. Let’s leave this guy in the trash where he belongs. I hope the door gets stuck and you get vented with the rest of the garbage, Rogers.”
“Wait!” Rogers cried as the two women turned their backs on him and started to walk out of the chute. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to deliberately and carefully plot my escape! I still hate droids!”
“My programming also suggests that I should take offense at this,” D-24 said.
Rogers turned around, ready to grab the nearest piece of wieldable metal and bash the droid over the head. Behind him, he heard Mailn yell something unintelligible but clearly offensive before the chute door closed, leaving him alone.
“You moron!” Rogers said. “Do you have any idea what you just did? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get with that beautiful specimen of the female sex?”
“Don’t blame me for your stupid EXPLETIVE romantic life!” D-24 said. “You were the one standing in the garbage chute with your ANATOMICAL REFERENCE half out the door!
“I had it under control,” Rogers said through clenched teeth. “I could have explained . . . Wait, why am I explaining myself to a droid? I should just finish what the maintainers started and press that red button. That’ll teach you to ruin my life.”
“If you’d like to find out what it would feel like to have your whole body sucked out of a small tear in your VMU,” the droid said, “go ahead.”
Rogers stood there for a moment, seething, wondering how to best hurt a droid. He wanted to take out all the frustrations of the last few weeks on this one half-broken piece of metal with a strange computer in its brain. The droid was right—it wasn’t his fault that Rogers’ life had gotten so screwed up—but smashing a partially inanimate object seemed like just the catharsis that Rogers needed.
But he couldn’t summon the strength to do it. His arm was just too tired from saluting.
“If I may,” D-24 said, “I’m curious as to why the most powerful man on the ship is attempting to escape.”
Rogers looked up. “What?”
“The large one said that you were the executive officer to Admiral Klein; isn’t that correct?”
“I don’t see how that makes me powerful. So far, it’s just made me want to kill myself and jump out into open space wearing a thin protective suit and become an intergalactically wanted outlaw. Thanks again for screwing that up, by the way.”
D-24 made another computation noise. “But Admiral Klein is widely known to be vastly incompetent. Logic dictates, therefore, that either his deputy or his executive officer would make all of the decisions. Since he has no deputy, that would make you the most powerful man in the fleet, if not directly.”
Rogers thought about that for a second. Maybe the droid was right. If he could convince a helmsman that there were space bugs outside the ship, he could certainly convince the stupidest man he’d ever met to do . . . well, anything. How had he missed that opportunity before? He could have had every water bladder in the ship stocked with Jasker 120 by now.
“Hang on a second,” Rogers said. “What do you mean, Klein is incompetent? He’s the admiral of the whole fleet. He has to be competent at something . . .”
Speaking, Rogers thought. Public speaking. He has charisma. That’s how he got there.
“Oh my god,” Rogers said. “He really is an idiot. I knew it! I knew there had to be some reason why he was asking me for my opinion on battle tactics. He’s been hiding the fact that he has no idea what he’s doing for years.”
Rogers felt betrayed, used, violated. Inadequate. He finally found someone that was a better con man than he was. And that was scary, because he was Rogers’ boss.
“But how did you know that?” Rogers asked. “Nobody else in the Meridan system knows that, apparently, and I barely had my suspicions.”
“I am unable to answer that question,” D-24 said. “It is part of the initial situation report I was given when I was transferred to the Flagship as a prototype. The original author is unknown.”
Rogers frowned. Why in the world would a droid know about Klein, but nobody else on the ship did? Something that should have been obvious to humans was instead known only to droids. Even scarier, what else did this droid know that Rogers didn’t?
Reaching over into the laundry cart, Rogers pulled out the small toolbox that contained some of the necessities that every engineer should have. Lopez had been happy to supply an extra kit, and now Rogers set it next to D-24.
“What are you doing?” the droid asked.
“I’m taking you with me,” Rogers said. “There are plenty of spare parts to get you moving again. I want to know what else is in that brain of yours, and since y
ou just very neatly turned two of my only allies against me, I could use someone on my side.”
“Side?” the droid said. “What sides are there?”
Rogers was silent for a moment as he combed through the parts, trying to find suitable replacements.
“I’m not sure,” Rogers said. “But I’m going to find out.”
Report: A-267FR-02147-E
Serial: A-267FR-02147-E
Distribution: DBS//DSS//DAK//DFR//BB//CLOSED NETWORK A66
Classification: Special Protocol Required
Summary: Human 2552 has come into contact with prototype droid PFC-D-24.
Details: Human 2552, previously in charge of the AIGCS, has recovered the remains of prototype droid PFC-D-24 on the refuse deck of the MPS Flagship. The lack of sensor arrays in this particular section of the ship prevents an understanding of how exactly this relationship was formed. However, the supplies that Human 2552 was gathering prior to the meeting suggest cleaning of space bugs from the targeting computer. We are unable to assess how Human 2552 discovered the presence of these listening devices, nor how he planned on removing them.
Periphery: Human 2552 attempted to destroy BAR-BR 116, though the reasons are not clear.
Assessment: The reemergence of the unintegrated PFC-D-24 is problematic and must be observed and dealt with carefully. Conclusions about Human 2552 are still ambiguous, but it is possible that he presents a threat.
Report Submitted By: F-GC-001
A Man and His Droid
They made for a very strange pair walking down the command deck of the Flagship. Rogers, walking with a limp, his uniform wrinkled beyond recognition, and Frankenrobot, pulled from the brink of death by being fused with the old parts from deceased droids. Deet, as Rogers decided to call him, didn’t seem to mind being pieced together. If anything, he seemed to be happy he wasn’t still sitting in the garbage dump. Rogers wondered how long he’d been there, or if droids had any real concept of the passage of time.
“I have to ask,” Rogers said, “what’s up with all of that EXPLETIVE stuff ?”
“My Profanity Generator is broken,” Deet said. “It has never worked properly, despite me asking every EXPLETIVE, DISPARAGING REFERENCE in the maintenance bay to fix it. I don’t know how the EXPLETIVE I am supposed to communicate with humans if I can’t EXPLETIVE talk like them.”
“Boy,” Rogers said, “you really don’t like the guys in maintenance, do you?”
“I can’t stand those CANINE OFFSPRING.”
“Well, it’s not so bad,” Rogers said. “All humans don’t talk like that, anyway.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, almost none of them do. Just Hart, and that’s because he’s old and grumpy.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know that? It’s a little hard for me to observe them when I’m sitting in an EXPLETIVE garbage dump for most of my life, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Rogers said, eyeing the robot. He seemed to be developing more of a personality every moment. He also seemed very concerned with very un-droidlike things, like expressing himself and interacting with humans. At least he wasn’t concerned with trimming Rogers’ beard.
They passed a trio of standard droids wheeling themselves down the hallway. As Rogers and Deet approached, however, they stopped and stared.
“What’s your problem?” Rogers said. Normally, he would have just walked right by them, but today, all things considered, he was feeling a little irritable. And maybe a tiny bit like he needed to prove himself after being flung around the garbage chute like a balloon with a hole in it.
“CALL FUNCTION [GET DATA].”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Why would you follow them?” Deet asked. “They’re not even going anywhere.”
“It’s an expression,” Rogers said. He turned back to the droid that had called the ambiguous function. For the first time, he wished droids had real faces; at least then he might have some idea what the damn thing was thinking.
“CALL FUNCTION [GET DATA].”
“Yeah,” Rogers said, “you were just getting data a second ago. How much data do you need?”
It was starting to become a strange, awkward gathering. They had barely exited the up-line to the command deck, and so they were still quite a ways away from all of the saluting and pomp, making for an empty hallway. The two droids that weren’t currently “getting data” stood completely and totally motionless.
“CALL FUNCTION [STALL FOR TIME TO ALLOW THE GETTING OF MORE DATA].”
“There’s a function for that?”
“There’s a function for everything,” Deet explained.
“OUTPUT STRING: THE ATMOSPHERICS ARE AMICABLE.”
Rogers frowned, squinting. “Are you trying to say that we’re having nice weather?”
“OUTPUT STRING: SPORTS TEAM REFERENCE.”
“You’re not even really trying. Look, I don’t know what data you’re getting or why you stopped to stare at us in the middle of the hallway, but why don’t you find something useful to do like go jump out the trash chutes.”
“CALL FUNCTION [ILLUMINATE IGNORANCE]. OUTPUT STRING: THIS COMMAND WOULD RESULT IN LITTLE TO NO BENEFIT.”
“I beg to differ,” Rogers muttered.
“CLOSE FUNCTION [GET DATA.] CALL FUNCTION [PERSUADE]. TARGET [LIEUTENANT ROGERS]. OUTPUT STRING: YOU APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN BURDENED BY UNNECESSARY COMPANIONSHIP. PLEASE ALLOW US TO RELIEVE YOU OF THIS BURDEN.”
“Jeez,” Rogers said, “where were you guys that time in the bar in Aaskerdal?”
“OUTPUT STRING: WE ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THIS LOCATION. IF YOU WISH US TO ACCOMPANY YOU TO THIS LOCATION, PLEASE FILE A FORMAL REQUEST WITH—”
“Let’s not talk about bringing droids to bars,” Rogers said. “And anyway, I’m fine with my new companion here.”
“Hey,” Deet said, “does that mean you like me?”
“No.”
“EXPLETIVE.”
The three droids, however, wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded.
“CALL FUNCTION [GIVE UP].”
Well, maybe they would. They abruptly ceased all communication with Rogers and went on their merry metal way. Rogers turned to watch them board the in-line, feeling something itching at the back of his brain that he couldn’t quite scratch.
“What was that all about?” Rogers asked.
“The other droids never liked me very much,” Deet said. He beeped a couple of times, his head twitching in a way that made Rogers wonder if he was going to last very long. Everything about the poor robot looked broken, the fact that he looked like a walking, multi-attachment kitchen utensil notwithstanding. “I used to tell them jokes.”
“If they’re anything like the ones you’ve told me so far,” Rogers said, “I can’t say I blame them.”
“That was also a joke, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
They made their way down the hallway, thankfully not becoming involved in any more strange conversations with droids, and soon Rogers became so embroiled in saluting everyone he passed that he forgot Deet existed. Only the pain in his shoulder kept him company now, and the weight of the rank on his uniform. It had been like this every day he’d been on the command deck, and this brief revisit to his pain reminded him why he’d decided to run away. The worst part was, at the end of this torture, someone would be there to tell him to polish boots while he wrote the next Gettysburg Address.
“What the AFTERLIFE LOCALE are you doing?”
“My job,” Rogers said. Though he meant it as a joke, he realized that it was mostly true.
“Your job is to wave at people all day? You’re not even doing it very well.”
“It’s not waving,” Rogers said, his teeth clenched, sweat running down his face. “It’s saluting.”
“Well, you should stop,” Deet said as another starman first class jumped in the back of what was becoming a very long line to salute Rogers. All movement in the hallway had completely stopped, everyone waiting their
turn to salute everyone else. A pair of very confused corporals saluted each other on accident.
“It’s not that easy,” Rogers said.
“Well,” Deet said, “what would happen if you were to break your arm? If you couldn’t physically salute, nobody could blame you for it, right?”
“I think I’d rather keep my bones intact, thanks,” Rogers said, breathing heavily. Who had invited the entire enlisted corps of the Meridan Marines to the command deck? Where did all of these people come from? Why wouldn’t they just go away? He should have hung himself. Hanged himself ? It didn’t matter. He should have just pressed the big red button in the garbage chute, holes in his suit or no holes in his suit.
“So, fake it,” Deet said.
Rogers stopped, his arm falling to his side. He turned, slowly, staring at the little droid with all of the rusty parts sticking out of him at strange angles. The command deck was completely frozen now, especially since Rogers had stopped saluting people. People were crowding in the doorways, practically climbing on top of each other just to prepare to salute Rogers. A group of three troops—a major, an ensign, and a master sergeant—had gotten caught in what Rogers had named “the grind” and were walking in a small circle, each saluting the other as they passed. You couldn’t get out of the grind unless someone bumped into you or one of you broke down crying.
“Fake it,” Rogers said. “Fake it!” Why hadn’t he thought of that before? What had happened to him that he couldn’t even come up with the most basic of cons: pretending to be sick? He’d learned that when he was four years old—thermometers in space heaters, swallowing kitchen cleaners to induce tremors for a few minutes.
“Give me that,” Rogers snapped. Deet had been carrying the tattered remains of the VMU that McSchmidt had lent him. Tearing a strip off the soft interior liner, he hurriedly created a sling that he looped around his right arm and his neck. In truth, it actually felt kind of good; his arm was so tired that it was practically broken anyway. Rogers secured the sling in place and looked up at the crowd, daring them to salute an injured man.
There was a brief moment of silence, followed by loud pattering noises as the entire hallway emptied in a matter of seconds. Rogers and Deet stood alone near the entrance to Rogers’ stateroom. He hadn’t even realized how close he’d been.