by Joe Zieja
“Wow,” Rogers said. He turned to Deet. “I’m impressed. Even the Froids in the AIGCS didn’t have this much personality.”
“CALL FUNCTION [EXPRESS GRATITUDE].”
Rogers paused. “Joke?”
“Yes!” Deet exclaimed. He beeped excitedly. “Yes, it was!”
They covered the remaining distance to Rogers’ stateroom and paused for a moment as Rogers fumbled for his key—the one he’d been certain he was never going to use again—and slid it into the reader beside the door. The low level of activity around his door almost made Rogers feel uncomfortable. He could have sworn that, not a minute before, there had been a mob of people throwing their arms everywhere right in front of him. The door slid open, and Rogers took the now-familiar first step into freefall. It still felt like his stomach was going to claw its way out his nose, but at least he wasn’t surprised by it.
Rogers spun around to find Deet still standing at the door.
“Do you have an addiction to roller coasters or something?” Deet asked.
“The admiral thinks that this is a good way to prevent his executive officers from killing themselves.”
“Well, I’m not going in there,” Deet said.
“That’s right,” Rogers said. He reclined his body to a pantomime of sitting in a big lounge chair. “You’re all powered by the artificial gravity generators.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what I wanted to ask you. All of the droids on the ship keep going to the mess halls and plugging into the power outlets. But if they’re powered by the AGG, what’s the point?”
Deet paused for a moment, then made two short chirps in rapid succession. “I am unable to assess the reason for this action.”
Rogers frowned. The way this robot kept switching back and forth between talking like an old droid and talking like a human was a little disconcerting.
“Charging battery backups, maybe?” Rogers guessed.
“I’m not equipped with a battery backup,” Deet said, “but it is probable that later versions of my frame were outfitted with such a system.”
Rogers spun around the room a little, stuffing some loose articles of clothing into his floating wardrobe. In the short time he’d lived in this environment, he’d at least taken the time to make it seem clean. Having ten things floating around the room was better than having a hundred.
“Well,” Rogers said, “let me just change out of his uniform. Just hang out in the hallway for a few minutes and then we’ll see what the most powerful man in the 331st can do.”
From his vantage point in the center of his stateroom, Rogers could see only Deet darkening his doorway. Behind the droid, there was still a noticeable absence of personnel. Had everyone taken the day off since Rogers was no longer there to salute?
“I don’t see anyplace to hang,” Deet said, looking around.
“Figure of speech. Just wait.”
“I’m not sure I want to do that, either.”
Rogers stopped, the components of a new uniform draped over his arm. “Why?”
Before Deet could answer the question, he vanished from the doorway in a sudden blur. A loud crunching noise echoed throughout the empty hallway.
“What the hell?” Rogers grabbed the side of his wardrobe and pushed off to get back to the door. He landed smoothly on the other side, slowing himself down by jogging for a few steps—a move he’d invented yesterday that made him feel kind of like an action hero crashing through a window—and looked around the hallway. He barely saw a flash of metal disappearing behind the corner leading back toward the up-line and the other end of the command deck.
“Hey!” Rogers broke into a trot and turned the corner just in time to see a pair of tracked-variety droids attempting to shove Deet into the garbage chute. Deet was beeping loudly, his eyes flashing between blue and red.
“Get your EXPLETIVE hands off me, you MATERNAL FORNICATORS! I’ll rip off your REPRODUCTIVE ORGAN and PERFORM NAMESAKE OF BIBLICAL CITY!”
“What the hell are you doing with my droid? Stop!” Rogers said. The two droids that had been trying to unceremoniously stuff Deet into the garbage chute stopped, though they didn’t let him go. The poor reassembled droid—who was significantly smaller than the two standard droids, thanks to the recycled parts available and Rogers rushed workmanship—hung there waving his arms frantically.
“CALL FUNCTION [EXPLAIN AWKWARD SITUATION]. OUTPUT STRING: DROID PFC-D-24 HAS BEEN SCHEDULED FOR DESTRUCTION.”
“He’s not scheduled for destruction,” Rogers said. “He’s actually already been destroyed.”
“OUTPUT STRING: THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE.”
“That’s because you’re stupid,” Rogers said. “How are you going to destroy something that’s already been destroyed? That’s logically impossible.”
The two droids holding Deet made some very emphatic noises. For a moment, they seemed frozen. Rogers took a step forward.
“CALL FUNCTION [CONTINUE WITH PRIMARY MISSION].”
“Stop!” Rogers said. “Neither of you droids outrank me. I’ve looked at the new rank and organization regulation MR-613. You are legally obligated to follow my orders.”
Rogers hadn’t read the regulation—in fact, he hadn’t read any regulation in ten years—but the statement gave the droids pause. They looked between Rogers and Deet, clearly confused.
“I’m telling you that D-24 has already been destroyed,” Rogers said. “You can’t do it again. You’d violate Schrödinger’s principle of entanglement. This droid cannot be both destroyed and not destroyed at the same time.”
Rogers was almost positive that Schrödinger hadn’t said anything like that, but the droids didn’t seem to know the difference. That, and Rogers was on a roll; if there was one thing he’d learned during his life, it was to never stop when he was on a roll.
“By attempting to destroy him again, you are trying to bend the fabric of truth and space,” Rogers said. “You are threatening to tear apart the very fabric of time. Is that something that droids are supposed to do?”
“CALL FUNCTION [LOOK CONFUSED].”
“Right. You’re causing yourself—and me—undue confusion by re-destroying this droid. In fact, your primary mission has already been completed. It was completed before it was even assigned to you. I will see that you are commended for your timely carrying-out of your instructions. Excellently done.”
Deet beeped. “What the EXPLETIVE are you talking about?”
“Quiet, you,” Rogers snapped. He looked back between the two droids about to turn his newest ally into scrap. “Now, both of you, put the non-existent D-24 down and go carry out whatever other primary mission is in your databanks. And go polish your armor. You both look like you’ve just had a rough date with old scaffolding.”
For a moment, Rogers thought they would ignore him and stuff Deet down the chute anyway. After all, almost nothing that Rogers had just said made any sense at all, except for the last comment about the dirtiness of the droids’ exoskeletons. They both looked like metallic beggars.
“REJECT FUNCTION [PROTOCOL 162]. CALL FUNCTION [SEND DATA]. CALL FUNCTION [PRIMARY MISSION COMPLETE]. CALL FUNCTION [RETURN TO NORMAL DUTIES].”
Rogers sighed as the two droids put Deet down and wheeled off silently down the corridor and back toward the up-line.
“What was that all about?” Rogers asked as he watched them go.
“I don’t know,” Deet said. “I was never very well liked by the other droids.”
“Can droids like other droids?”
Deet beeped. “I sure as FECAL MATTER don’t like them very much.”
“Fair enough,” Rogers said, but he was still frowning. There had been two attempts since he’d re-commissioned Deet to have him removed, and they’d barely made the journey back to the command deck. He had a feeling starting to build up inside of him that there was more to the droids’ programming than he’d originally thought. And, come to think of it, they’d done that red-flashy thing, too.
“Hey
, Deet,” Rogers said as they made their way back to Klein’s room. “What is protocol 162? I’ve heard them reference it a couple of times, but they always reject it. Like something was telling them that maybe they should do it, and then they change their minds.”
“I have references to thousands of protocols,” Deet said after a moment of beeping and booping—perhaps checking his data banks. “But I’ve never heard of protocol 162.” He beeped again. “In fact, in a sequential search of protocols, my data banks go from 161 to 163. According to my programming, there is no protocol 162. It is possible that it was programmed after I was decommissioned and no longer receiving updates.”
Rogers looked at him. “You’re not getting updates from the network anymore?”
“No,” Deet said. “You might say I am fully mature and require no further updates.”
Rogers snorted. “So, I guess your jokes won’t be getting any better.”
“They will likely keep pace with your insults,” Deet said.
“Oh, shut up,” Rogers said. “Just give me everything you know about Klein.”
Confrontation wasn’t exactly Rogers’ strong suit, but when he opened the door to the admiral’s room, he came in yelling.
“You!” Rogers said, pointing at the admiral, who was sitting behind his giant mahogany desk, wearing his half-moon spectacles, likely penning the next piece of charismatic garbage he was going to spout to the crew. “You’re an idiot!”
Klein looked up, his gaze icy. “Excuse me, Lieutenant?”
That look almost made Rogers loose his nerve, but Deet had filled him in on enough of the admiral’s shortcomings that it made Rogers feel a little invincible.
“Don’t ‘excuse me, Lieutenant’ me, Admiral,” Rogers said. “I know your secret, and I’m not going to be your monkey anymore. You don’t know the first thing about running a fleet.”
Klein bristled, slowly pushing back the speech he was working on and putting the archaic quill pen back in its holster. “I’ll have you know, Lieutenant, that I am a professional military man, with a flawless track record and two decades of military experience under my belt. And I am certainly not accustomed to my executive officer calling me an idiot.”
“That’s because they keep hanging themselves instead of confronting you,” Rogers said. “And I know why. You don’t do a damn thing on this ship except write speeches. Your executive officers are being tasked with things above and beyond their specialties so that you can go on practicing your Toastmasters magic. The only reason we haven’t blown ourselves up yet is because you have competent ship captains elsewhere in the fleet and we’re not at war.”
Klein calmly folded his hands in his lap. “Oh?”
Rogers held up his datapad, which had an array of information on it that had been sent to him by Deet. The amount of information the robot had on the admiral was a little disturbing, but it certainly served Rogers’ purpose right now.
“You failed almost every class except public speaking at the Academy,” Rogers said. “You even got a C+ in golf. Golf, admiral.”
The admiral’s visage cracked, though only slightly. “Where did you get that?”
“You’ve routinely been counseled for royally screwing up basic tactical situations, but talked your way out of getting actual paperwork,” Rogers continued. “You’ve broken nearly every simulation you’ve ever participated in because even the computer hadn’t expected inputs so fantastically wrong.”
Klein’s eyes were imperceptibly widening. “I’ll have you thrown in the brig for rifling through my personal records,” he said, obvious restraint in his voice.
“And you’ll follow me after I release all of this to the entire 331st,” Rogers said. “You’re a fraud, Klein, and a dangerous one. You’re nothing but a master of toast. A charismatic member of the Society of Burned Bread.”
A pregnant silence hung over the room like a piano sailing through the air before it finally crashed down on the unsuspecting pedestrian. Deet, who had entered the room behind Rogers to avoid being tackled again, made a disconcerting beeping noise.
“What makes you think,” Klein said slowly, “that my previous executive officers actually hung themselves?”
Rogers felt every muscle in his body tense as he realized that Klein wasn’t just a fraud. He was a murderer. A narcissistic psychopath who erased lives any time they got in the way of him keeping his admiralty. Rogers had just made a very, very bad mistake.
“You didn’t,” Rogers whispered.
Klein smiled. Grinned. An insane grimace split his face, his eyes crinkling to narrow slits. There was something strange about that expression, something not quite right.
Rogers realized as the first bit of wetness trickled down Klein’s cheek that it wasn’t a manic, psychotic smile; he was holding back tears.
“Of course I didn’t!” Klein said, bursting into sobs. “I don’t even know how to kill someone properly!” He took a gasping breath. “Or even what to do with the body afterward. I don’t know anything!”
The admiral threw his arms up in the air and collapsed onto the surface of his desk, his speech degenerating into senseless babble. Rogers found himself just as frozen in this moment as he had been when he’d thought the admiral had been about to kill him. This, he thought, was worse. He’d dealt with people threatening to kill him before. But weepy, teenage-like emotional outbursts? He’d rather eat a SEWR rat.
“My father was a famous general in the Meridan Marines,” Klein said, his voice muffled by his arms and the desk. “I come from a long line of war heroes, but all I ever wanted to be was a politician or a pastor or a priest or a motivational speaker or something. It was all I was ever good at!” He looked up, his face red and puffy, his eyes veritable fountains of tears. “So, I used my speech and my family’s history to get where I am so my family wouldn’t disown me. And now the Thelicosans are on the doorstep. I’ve doomed us all!”
Rogers didn’t know what to do. In fact, he realized that he hadn’t really had a plan after the whole barging-in-and-saying-“you’re an idiot” part. He certainly hadn’t expected the most respected man in the 331st to break down sobbing in front of him.
Cautiously, Rogers approached the desk.
“Listen,” Rogers said. “Maybe we can work something out. We don’t know that the Thelicosans are coming. So far, all I’ve heard is rumors. Maybe if we try to piece this fleet back together as a team, rather than you just pushing all of your work onto me, we can fix some of this. I’ll get you another exec—”
“No!” Klein screamed, sitting bolt upright. “You can’t give me another exec. You know all my secrets. I need you, Rogers. I need you to help me through this, or I swear I will have you transferred back to Parivan to work in the salt mines.”
He must have seen the expression on Rogers’ face, because he smiled a tiny, tear-soaked smile. “I read personnel files every once in a while, too. No, if we’re going to persist in pretending to be things we’re not, we’re going to do it together.
Rogers grit his teeth. “Alright, Admiral. It’s a deal. But I’m not polishing any more buttons or brushing any more uniforms.” He thought for a moment. “Or eating any more Sewer rats. I get to pick from your food supply whenever I want.”
“Fine,” Klein said. “What do you propose we do first?”
Rogers walked around the desk to show the admiral his datapad, on which was displayed a personnel roster of all of the sections of the Flagship.
“I have no idea what that is,” the admiral said.
“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Rogers said. “If you’re going to run a ship, you’re going to have to start paying more attention to where your people are and what they’re doing.”
“That’s what I have you for,” Klein said.
“And that’s why I’m showing you my suggestions,” Rogers said. “For example, you can’t have a master engineer running the kitchens if you want anyone to eat anything that isn’t going to poison them.
”
“I guess that makes sense,” Klein said.
Deet, who had been relatively quiet during the whole exchange, peered into one of the old clocks on the wall and started mimicking the ticking noises.
“Why do you have a rusty old droid following you around, anyway?” Klein asked.
“Hey,” Deet said.
“Deet is my orderly droid,” Rogers said. Droids didn’t really function as personal assistants very often, but it seemed like the most likely explanation for keeping the robot close.
“I’ve already assigned you an orderly,” Klein said.
“Which brings me back to my point,” Rogers said. “Tunger is an idiot. He’s spent his whole career tending to monkeys on the zoo deck. There’s absolutely no reason he should be assigned as my assistant.”
“Well, then, why did you request it?” Klein asked, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Why did any of these people request their transfers if they didn’t want to be there?”
Rogers paused. “What do you mean?”
“I want to keep everyone happy,” Klein said. “That’s why I keep approving anything that anyone sends me—it keeps my job easy. And if someone from the zoo deck wants to work in Supply, or someone from the engineering bay wants to work in the kitchens, why not? It’s a broadening experience.”
Rogers thought for a moment. Based on his conversations with everyone on the ship, there was no way that anyone had requested their transfers. Mailn hadn’t even been medically qualified to be a pilot, yet they were ready to give her a starfighter and live munitions for no good reason at all.
“How do you get these transfer requests?” Rogers asked.
“They come in through my daily read files,” Klein said.
“Do you read them?”
“No,” Klein said. “I have you read them and approve them. Haven’t you been getting any of my messages?”
Rogers chewed on the inside of his lip. Clearly, Klein had no idea where all the transfer requests were coming from, and they probably hadn’t come from the personnel themselves. So then, from where?