Meteoric - Chapter Two
Thursday, 9 May 2024 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keaaluTitle (chapter): Meteoric (2)
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: In which "Polly" gets his name! Plus allocates Laine to be his liaison, expresses concerns about where he comes from, and reveals that (for some mystifying reason) he talks to plants.
Plus we make a detour up to Spacehawk, and find out about a little of the chaos that has ensued since 101 got himself shot down.
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With the notable exception of just Tark, who had made copious excuses to avoid having to join in, the rest of the flatmates had gathered in the lounge by half five, in a big circle on the floor that incorporated their unexpected visitor (and his crater). As well as Laine and Jaxon (“the klaxon”, maths; preoccupied with making a sandwich), the little robot was introduced to Mina (nursing), Sanjay (dentistry), and Carrie (classics and business management). The collective unease they’d all expressed in their group chat quickly faded on actually interacting with him.
“So what’s your name?”
“Er.” A very long half-second of thinking passed. “Chalk up one more on the list of useful things I can’t remember. I’m not even sure I have a name?” He looked vaguely deflated by the revelation.
“…and I never even asked you that, did I?” Laine sighed and covered her face with both hands. “Sorry. Guess I was tireder than I thought.”
“I couldn’t have told you anything,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but it would still have been polite to have asked you.”
“You’re still treating me like a person. That feels pretty polite?”
She smiled, ruefully. “Thanks for trying to save my feelings.”
“There’s numbers written on your forehead,” Carrie interrupted. “Maybe that’s your name?”
Mina straightened. “Oh, no way. We can’t call him ‘One-Hundred-and-One’! That’s a number – and a mouthful. He’s a person.”
“There’s a girl called Seven in my practical class?”
“Not helping, Sanjay.”
“If it’s written on me I would think it was intended as an identifying mark,” the robot said, peering up as though trying to see his own brow. “I guess it’s as good as anything else?”
“No. No! You can’t be a number. That’s one step up from calling humans by numbers.”
“Figures that you’d be the one to get upset about that, Mina,” Sanjay said, and coughed into his hand; “keyboardwarrior.”
Carrie glanced up from her nails. “If he wants to be Hundred-and-One, what’s wrong with that? It’s his choice if he wants to go by what’s written on him, surely.”
Mina thrust out an arm in a point. “You have ‘kung po chicken’ tattooed on your back, we don’t insist on calling you it!”
The robot swivelled to look up at Carrie. “Why do you have a food tattooed on your back?”
“Ugh! It says ‘resilient’,” Carrie corrected, waving her nail file in a vaguely threatening manner. “These classless boors just don’t like that I chose something small and stylish, so they mock me for it.”
A little ripple of jeers went up and she made an obscene gesture in response.
Jaxon sprawled out on the beanbag with a sandwich that looked like he’d used half a full-sized loaf to make it. “So, Hundred and One. What is that, like dalmatians? We could call him Pongo. Or Rover. Fido, maybe.”
Mina threw her hands up, exasperated. “We’re not calling him after a dog, either. He’s not a pet! Come on guys.”
“Roly-poly,” Carrie suggested. “Like, you know. Those little beetle-y things that curl up.”
“…tell me you don’t mean a woodlouse…”
“They’re cute! And small, and silver, and they roll along. It’s perfect!”
“Are you going to have any input in this, seeing as it looks like we’ll be calling you it for the foreseeable future?” Laine leaned closer to their visitor. “Do you mind being named after a woodlouse?”
He glanced up at her. “I guess not? I’m not sure what a woodlouse is.”
Carrie thrust out her phone and helpfully furnished him with a picture of a tightly-rolled little silvery insect. “See? Cute.”
“Huh.”
Jaxon leaned over and tapped the top of his casing; apparently annoyed at the uninvited contact, the robot shifted back just out of reach. “Do you have like a sim card in there anywhere?” Jaxon went on.
“No. My antenna is fried. I can sort of see your wifi? But that’s about it.”
“So, do you have apps?”
The robot gave him a flat look. “Do I look like I have apps.”
Jaxon ignored the unimpressed glare. “I meant like something for messaging? That’s fine if you don’t. We’ll set up a new group anyway and figure out if we can add you to it later.” His thumbs flew across his screen. “Then if anyone sees anything that looks like it’s about you, they can message everyone at once.”
A series of chirps pinged up from various phones around the room.
“ ‘Rolly Polly’?” Carrie read out. “Seriously? You couldn’t even spell it right?”
Jaxon gave her beanbag a shove with his foot. “Fuck off, I study maths, I don’t need to spell.”
Laine thought about it for a few seconds. “You know. ‘Polly’ could work?”
Carrie sneered at her. “He’s a boy?”
“So?”
Everyone looked at their guest, expectantly.
‘Polly’ made a little approving noise. “That sounds good. It’s better than ‘Woodlouse’. No offence.”
Carrie grunted, unimpressed, but waved it off.
“So does anyone have any idea what you are?” Sanjay wondered. “I mean… okay it doesn’t explain the roof but could you be like a new model of an Alexa, or something?”
“Polly, turn the lights off,” Jaxon said, loudly, round a mouthful of bread. Nothing happened, except Mina swatting him in the face with a cushion off the couch. “Why are you hitting me for?! That was Sanjay’s dumb idea!”
“Hey, I don’t see you guys having any better ones.” Sanjay folded his arms. “Tarkers will love you, though, man. He’s gonna be so pissed that he wasn’t here this evening.”
“Tarkers?” Polly wondered.
“Tarquin. The resident techno-crypto bullshit expert.” Mina rolled her eyes. “He’s been trying to teach us about AI – or what amazing things it can do for free that we can all make money off, supposedly. Honestly, Sanjay?” She looked at her flatmate. “He’s not going to have the first clue what to think about Polly. That little guy there is nothing like any of what Tark’s been telling us about.”
“Yeah, but if anyone’s gonna know what he is, Tark will.” Sanjay stood and studied Polly. “Stupid question but have we tried just turning you off and on again?”
Polly hastily rolled himself out of the way and took cover behind Laine. “To start with, no-one is turning me off, like some broken washing machine – if you could even figure out how. And secondly, I’m not sure any of us want to find out what I’m like turned on, honey.”
Sanjay sucked in a breath, and went pale. “Okay. That wasn’t what I meant, but-… okay!”
The rest of the flatmates had already dissolved into fits of giggles. Polly actually looked subtly pleased with himself.
Carrie recovered her decorum first. “I don’t know about you guys but I am tired of sitting here in the dirt. Has seriously no-one thought to vacuum up any of this dust yet?” She put both hands up, then stood. “For the good of my beloved flatmates I volunteer to vacuum, before midnight rolls around and there’s still grey shit all over everything in the morning. Now, who wants to be on mop duty?”
A little chorus of groans went up, but they did all get up and pitch in to get it done. Polly fussed about being unable to help even though it was his mess, until Jaxon and Laine bodily picked him up (with no small effort) – damn, man, why are you so HEAVY – and dumped him on their battered old couch, which obediently partially swallowed him and refused to let him escape unaided – this is SO undignified.
Cleanup did take until bordering on midnight. Every time they thought they were done, everything dried out and revealed more grey smears. In spite of the cacophonous braying of their vacuum cleaner close to her ear, Laine dozed off on the couch with Polly twice, whereupon her housemates took an unofficial vote to send her to bed. (She protested, perfunctorily and out of duty not desire, that they still hadn’t told their sixth flatmate, but was overruled, and acquiesced.)
Between them, Jaxon and Sanjay heaved on the back of the couch and tilted it just enough for Polly to roll off. The clunk as he hit the floor made everyone wince, but he didn’t seem bothered by it.
Laine picked up her laptop. “Did you need to like… recharge or anything? Do you sleep?”
“I don’t think so. My batteries feel pretty good.” He rolled behind her into the hallway.
“Why are you following me around? You’ve been doing it all day.”
Polly considered it for several seconds. “I’m not sure. I think it might be programmed in?”
“To… follow people?” Laine stepped back out of his way and let him trundle over her doorstep, anyway.
“To have a human to defer to. Since I don’t have a record of who that normally is, I guess something automatic has adopted you to be that person.” He glanced up at her, spotted her expression, and immediately cringed a little. “Sorry?”
“You want me to be your boss,” she said, flatly.
“If it’s making you uncomfortable I guess I could… try and find someone else?” He peered back out into the rest of the flat, as though evaluating if he thought any of the others would mind.
She sighed and closed the door, and plonked her laptop down on her cluttered desk. “I haven’t really had the opportunity to think about whether I’m comfortable or not, yet? I don’t know if I want to be the boss of someone I only just met, who doesn’t even know who he is. That’s a whole lot of extra responsibility over just helping you figure out where you came from.”
“I won’t ask you to do anything difficult. It feels like it’s a workaround, maybe? I mean I can make decisions myself, but I think I’m not really meant to.”
She considered it for a few moments. “How about I give you blanket pre-authorisation to make your own decisions?”
“Hm.” He perked up. “I feel like no-one’s ever said that before? It could work. Thanks!”
“Yeah! I mean, that can’t possibly come back and bite me on the backside.” She wiped her face with both hands. “Well if you don’t get tired, you can use my laptop while I’m asleep. But not on the floor because I really don’t want to trip over you in the middle of the night.”
“No problem.”
She put her hands on her hips and wondered if she needed to call Jaxon to help out again – only to watch him look up at the clear spot on the desk, swivel slightly left and right as though making a calculation, then jump up all by himself.
Laine startled slightly backwards. “How the hell did you do that?!”
Polly gave her another of those uncertain looks, like he had when he’d asked to use her laptop in the first place. “I’m not sure. I just… knew I could, I guess?”
She plopped down on her mattress. “So what else are we gonna find out you can ‘just do’?”
“I would have to do you a report.”
She glared at him.
“I mean it! I’m not being facetious. Sometimes I just know I can do something and I do it. But since losing my memory I don’t know what those all are, offhand? So I can tell you but I’d have to run a decompile and interrogate it and that might take a while.”
Laine puffed a loud sigh through pursed lips.
“…did you want a formal report?” he prompted, hesitantly. “I can be ready by morning-”
Laine pressed the heel of both hands into her eyes. “No. It’s fine. What would I do with it?” She sagged slowly backwards and let her head thump down on the pillow. “Tomorrow better be less of a mindfuck.”
“…sorry…”
“Do you need the screen on?”
He looked around. Laine had retired to bed, still fully clothed, and was looking for the lightswitch. “No. I can do without it.” The bright rectangle immediately dimmed out, leaving only the eerie scrolling movement of the LEDs in his own eyes – then he closed his shutters, and they too disappeared. “Good night.”
“Yeah.” She sighed and toggled the switch and plunged her room into darkness. She could hear the soft white noise murmur of cooling fans, but couldn’t quite tell if that was him or her laptop. More likely her laptop, she decided – not that she had long to think about it.
Next thing she knew, her phone wakeup alarm was warbling close to her ear, and daylight was creeping under her blackout blinds. She groaned at the thought of dragging her hide all the way to lab practicals, but crawled out of bed anyway. Polly was unfairly chirpy for the hour of the morning, immediately ebullient with good morning!-s.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not that he hadn’t been a hallucination. On the one hand it would have been a lot easier if he had been a fever dream – on the other hand, how bad did things have to be to have such a vivid, detailed, and spectacularly weird dream as this?
It was hard to concentrate in labs. Her plans to finish early and get home quickly ended up totally scuttled by the fact she wasn’t paying attention, screwed up her calculations twice, and finally finished later than everyone else. The postgrad students waiting to get in eventually tired of her still tidying her fume hood and kicked her out with the promise that just this once, they’d finish prepping glassware for the washer for her. She bolted for the bus-stop, yelling thanks over her shoulder.
Then her bus got stuck in traffic.
Fate really had it in for them lately, didn’t it.
She finally got home a whole hour later than planned, unlocked her bedroom door, and heard a greeting chirp before even getting into her room.
“Hi!” Polly looked genuinely excited to see her; he reminded her a little of her parents’ golden retriever. “How was your day?”
“Uh. Not terrible, I guess, thanks?” She felt an unexpected pulse of guilt at having left him on his own the whole time, and longer than she’d planned – and locked in, to boot. “Yours?”
“Fine. Productive!”
“Are you really sure you don’t mind being stuck in here while we’re all out? I could call in sick or something. I only have lectures tomorrow and Asha has already said she can loan me her notes.” She jammed a rubber wedge under the door, pinning it open. “I feel horrible locking you in, too, but-… well, let’s say it wouldn’t be the first time a student flat got broken into. The more layers of defence, the better. I wouldn’t forgive myself if you got stolen.”
“I don’t think anyone would be able to steal me. I’m pretty heavy. But I don’t mind being on my own! I had plenty to do.” Polly considered it for a few seconds. “I guess I was a bit lonely, but you have a plant, and you guys are all back now, so! It’s worked out.”
Laine inspected said plant, at the end of her desk, just behind the laptop screen – a sad little rubber plant she’d struggled to keep alive for the last year, and it looked surprisingly happy. “Huh! What did you do to it?”
“Oh, yeah. I dusted it.”
“You dusted my plant.”
“Yes. And I-…” He was going to say something else but apparently bottled it. “Yeah.”
Laine gave him a funny look. “And you… what?”
He did that odd uncertain left-right shift with his eyes. “I might have talked to it a bit. It felt like the right thing to do.”
“…you talk to plants?”
“I guess?”
“Man. We are literally never gonna work out where you came from, are we? Just as we start to think we have an angle on what you actually do, you strike again from a totally different direction.” She sat heavily on her untidy bed and struggled to take her boots off.
Polly hmm-ed quietly.
“Sorry. I was being hyperbolic, for melodramatic effect. We are gonna figure it out. I promise.” She smiled tiredly for him. “You belong somewhere. We don’t get to keep you, just because you’re not human. You’re not some… lost puppy. There’s probably someone out there missing you, anyway.”
“You think so?” The hope in his voice was a tiny bit heartbreaking. “But what if I’m someone… not good?”
“What brought that on? Why would you be?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “You dusted my plant. I don’t think you can be that ba-” She looked more closely at what he was working on, and straightened. “Although wait, wait. Are you on the dark web on my study laptop?”
Polly sat silent for a second or two, before glancing up, guiltily. “Yes? Is that a bad thing?”
“That’s got all my course work on it and I haven’t backed it up in months! You better not go and fuck it up with a virus or something.” She gave him an annoyed little swat round the back of his globe.
He smiled, patiently. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? I’m not going to infect it – and by extension, possibly me – by being careless.” He turned his attention to the screen, quietly. “If you don’t want me to, I guess I can stick to the regular web. I just… feel like I might be able to make a bit of progress, here? Sure there’s a huge bunch of conspiracy theorists and some seriously crooked transactions going on, but if I don’t exist – and the regular internet is pretty convinced I don’t – that might be the only place I can find anything out.”
“You are going to get me added to so many government watch lists,” she groaned into her palms. “Maybe just let me back everything up before you do anything else.” She blew a tired raspberry into her hands. “Well, fuck it. I’m calling in that favour from Asha. Sorry, Polly, but you’re gonna have to put up with my company tomorrow.”
“…is that just because I’m on the dark web-”
“No. No!” Laine found spirit for a laugh. “Man, you said it yourself – if I can trust anyone on there, it’s the guy with a computer for his brain. I trust you not to download any viruses or get the cops called on me for anything illegal. Well, maybe not immediately, anyway.” Something occurred to her. “Is that why you were asking if you were a bad person? Some numpty on the dark web suggested it?”
“No-o.” He drew the word out into such a long syllable he incriminated himself in the process. “Well maybe.”
“What did they say you were?”
“They didn’t say anything specific. I mean, I’m not so stupid as to say hi guys I’m a little robot ball lost in London, does anyone know where I belong, or hey you can just come steal me if you’d rather, DM for my current address. I mostly just dropped hints, asked about spherical robots, linked that news article – that sort of thing.” He hesitated. “I hope they think I’m another human.”
“It’s the internet. Even if you said you were a robot, I doubt anyone would believe you. So what was the verdict?”
“They implied that the only place with the money to develop something like me, in secret, was something military. Anyone else would be making a huge big deal about me just existing.”
Laine sat quietly and digested it for a few moments. “Military, huh. We had this discussion before, didn’t we.”
“Yeah.” Polly laughed nervously. “Kinda anxious what that’s implying.”
“Lot of hypotheticals being thrown around, here. I guess nothing has substantially changed from yesterday? And just because people are saying it, doesn’t mean it’s true. You said it yourself; the place is full of conspiracy weirdoes. They’re not going to be interested in mundane solutions, like, I don’t know. NASA? Some rich software company?” She found a wary smile for him. “And just being military doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Granted, you might have some work to do keeping Mina onside, but just keep acting cute and it’ll all work in your favour.”
He gave her a very long stare. “Would you still help me? If I was?”
“Military, or a bad person? Well, unless I get proof you’re like, a puppy-eating monster or something, sure; you’re stuck with your new boss for the foreseeable future.” Something new struck her. “Oh, man – don’t let Mina think you’re running away from the military. She’ll never let you go.”
“Oh. Ha ha? Was… that a joke…?”
“Listen. It’ll be fine. Okay? I’m not sure what it is about you but I trust you. Mostly. Ninety percent, maybe. And believe it or not I do think I understand what you’re probably feeling?” She leaned forwards, elbows on her knees. “The six of us living here, we’re all students, right? We all know what it’s like to have our lives upended and wind up somewhere unfamiliar, with unfamiliar people that we might not even be guaranteed to get on with – and we all did it by choice. I can’t even imagine doing it and not knowing why you did. Even if you’re not scared-”
“-well, I might be, a little bit-”
“-it’s no fun being stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. You deserve to be home and safe just like anyone else? Come on, Pols. You’re lost, you have amnesia, and you were lonely enough that you spent the day talking to my fucking rubber plant. Tomorrow’s Friday, right? I can skip one day out a whole year. That gives us three days to evaluate how you’re getting on. If we’re no further forwards on Monday morning, well, we’ll think about going to the cops. Sound okay?” She realised he was looking at her strangely. “What?”
“Pols?” he echoed.
“Oh, um. Sorry. We make up stupid versions of each other’s names all the time, I just assumed you’d be okay with-”
“No, it’s fine.” He smiled. “I like it. It feels…people-y.” He rocked subtly towards her and imparted, quietly; “thanks for having faith in me.”
Remarkably, it felt like some of the alarm bells ringing in the back of her brain actually turned off. Was that a tickle of confidence that she actually was making the right decision?
“Come on. I need some supper.” She stood and stretched her shoulders. “Fancy breaking out of my room for a bit? If you want to hop down, I’ll gather up all my laptop gear and follow you.”
“Yes! I have been waiting all day to get to go talk to your friends.” He tumbled off her desk, breaking the impact on a pile of lecture note, and scurried off out of the door.
Laine listened to the little chorus of cheerful greetings as he emerged, and smiled. Yeah; right decision. She followed with an armful of cables and got him set up before going in search of some pasta.
Just after the kettle had boiled, their previously-absent sixth housemate finally deigned to turn up. A somewhat rattled-looking Tarquin stared at the scene in the lounge for thirty seconds before turning into the kitchen, catching Laine’s arm, and pulling her out of sight.
“Where the hell did that come from?” he whispered, urgently, pointing in Polly’s general direction.
Laine stared at him for several seconds. “…did you… not notice the gaping hole in the roof? Or did you think we were just spectacularly unlucky and had a meteorite hit the flat at the same time a little lost robot rocked up on the doorstep?”
“That thing did it? Bugger me. Are you sure?”
“I was here, thank you, so yes. I am very very sure.”
“Literally when it happened, or was it just here when you got back from work, or-…”
“I was here. How many ways are there of saying it? It’s a pretty basic concept! Frightened the fuck out of me when it happened.” Laine pushed his hand off her arm, annoyed, and went in search of a saucepan. “Just go talk to him, like any other normal person.”
“That’s like… ten centimetres of concrete.” Tark ran his fingers through his untidy hair. “Man. Maybe they blew up the roof and dropped it through-”
“God, Tark. They? Who is they? We’re students.” Laine poured far too much pasta into her boiling water, and sighed. “Are you implying someone’s targeting you or something? I thought you were into crypto, not conspiracies.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Tark put his hands up. “But I know all about AI. There is no way that is real. It’s got to be… remote controlled, or something.”
“Well if it is, I hope they’re paying that voice actor some serious overtime. He’s been alert, responding instantly, and reacting appropriately to our bullshit for hours.” She fetched a jar of pasta sauce out of her cupboard. “Maybe if you’d been here last night, like we kept reminding you, you could have interacted with him a little?”
“That’s Pol…” Tark threw his hands up. “Who names a military robot Polly.”
“You seem to know a lot about him for someone who’s literally never seen him before now.”
“Where else were you thinking it might have come from?” he sniped, exasperated. “Who else has the funds to drop a few million dollars developing something like that? Artificial intelligence, paired with something strong enough to punch through concrete? That’s only got one possible purpose and it’s military. If it isn’t, then it’d be something some rich investor developed for the fun of it, and they would not be keeping something like that a secret. They show off their designs at the drop of a hat, man. Even when they’re still only half-finished and don’t work properly.” His expression brightened, subtly. “Whatever it is, there’ll be a reward for returning it, I can guarantee.”
“You think that’s what he’s worth?” Laine peered out into the lounge; Polly was discussing something with Sanjay, although she couldn’t hear what. She’d overheard him having a high-speed conversation with Mina in (apparently perfect colloquial) Swedish earlier, as well.
“Oh, easily. Fuck, I wouldn’t be surprised if its pricetag ran into the billions.”
Laine pursed her lips. Chatty, chirpy little Polly, who talked to plants, couldn’t pin down his actual purpose, and had expressed concerns over his origin; costing billions in development.
Tark sighed and let his head rest against the kitchen cupboards. “Billions of dollars of military hardware, and you’ve got it sitting there talking about bullshit with the student dentist.”
“We haven’t got him doing anything. He’s talking to Sanjay because he wants to.”
“See? See! You’re making my point! It’s a robot, it won’t be wanting to chat with anyone. You’re anthropomorphising the shit out of it already. It’s interacting the same way that a chatbot convinces you it’s enjoying your conversation.”
“Fine. You go talk to him, then get back to me on the whole doesn’t exist part.”
Tark smiled, in a way that wasn’t echoed in his eyes. “Sure. Just one little job to do first.”
oOoOoOo
Hundreds of miles above in orbit, Spacehawk had lost a critical component of her command structure after an unexpectedly heavy meteor shower.
While the huge vehicle’s shields had incinerated most of them, the deluge of rocks and dust had still punched a whole slew of little holes in Spacehawk’s hull. Lieutenant Hiro had sealed off the damaged compartments to prevent too much atmosphere loss, then it had been all hands (so to speak) on deck to get things repaired. They couldn’t have their defence platform drifting out of action in orbit for too long. Half the small zeroid crew were outside, patching the worst of it, with the other half working just as hard inside.
Space Sergeant 101 had been supervising, as he didn’t need a spacesuit; co-ordinating and directing, sending Hiro a constant visual feed of progress, navigating with little jets from his on-board propellant motors, with a loose tether for security.
Listening into carelessly unguarded communications, Zelda had sent a ZEAF, to test her luck while the big vessel was weakened. Small craft were more likely to slip past undetected, especially when everyone was distracted.
Zelda’s family being Zelda’s family, the pilot couldn’t resist taking a few potshots in passing.
In the scramble to get back aboard, some tethers had got tangled. The (slightly exasperated) command zeroid had tried untangling them but ultimately ended up caught in the mess as well and was forced to cut several lines so his crew could get back aboard.
Including his own.
It was at that point their collective luck ran out.
The ZEAF’s final shot missed by a figurative mile – but it strafed close enough to pepper the ship with shrapnel, slicing through external equipment and knocking things loose, and reopening unfinished patches.
A jet of venting atmosphere had delivered a vigorous shove and kicked 101 clean out of orbit.
In the wrong direction.
…and it was only as he span out of reach that they collectively realised that if any zeroid ended up in the grip of Earth’s gravity, they literally had no way of getting them back. Even if they launched Treehawk as quickly as they physically could, it’d be too late.
Compounding the disaster, Hiro had recognised that they’d never actually investigated what would happen if a zeroid re-entered atmosphere from orbit on his own. And his silence when 101 had asked that very question had been enough to tell the small robot that he was entering some very uncharted territory.
There had followed several traumatic minutes of trying to work out if there was literally anything they could do, while still fending off the marauding ZEAF – screaming recriminations of why did we never think about this until now and why did it have to be me?!, frantic efforts to work out if they could slow him down, target some body of water, break his fall somehow… then finally just talking, guilty reassurance and consolation and comfort – they’d look for him, of course they would, they wouldn’t stop until they’d found him and fixed him or-… knew for definite what had happened… until eventually the dead finality of signal lost.
Hiro felt subtly like he should be mourning the loss of his friend. He couldn’t quite shake off the idea that he’d been trying to comfort 101 in his final moments, and listening helplessly as he went offline for the final time ever.
So he’d really not felt quite up to sifting through endless data, just yet, for some indication someone somewhere had found something, and tasked the job of calculating 101’s likely trajectory and point of impac-… landing location… to the other zeroids aboard, while he found other things to keep himself busy.
“You will just have to cope without him,” he told his Phalaenopsis, quietly, wiping imaginary dust from its leaves. It was probably his imagination but the row of plants did look subtly droopier than normal.
He turned and spotted 17… lurking?... In the doorway, optic LEDs scrolling slowly. A person didn’t have to be familiar with zeroid moods to recognise indecision.
“One-seven? Did you want to say something?” Hiro invited.
“Is now a good time?”
17 had a vaguely Trinidadian accent, and Hiro felt a twinge of guilt; bad news delivered by the soft voice felt like it might hurt less than it would from 101’s often sarcastic twang.
Touched though he was that the zeroid apparently didn’t want to hurt him, he really needed to know what it was 17 was dithering over telling him. Hiro forced a smile. “Please. Your report.”
17 took an unsteady hop to the top of the unoccupied command pillar. “We were doing as you asked, and searching the internet for references to, um.” He cringed slightly. “…remains?”
“And?” Hiro had known it was coming eventually, and braced himself. “You found something.”
“Well, yes, and no. Sir-… we found someone on the dark web asking about spherical robots.”
A sudden bolt of adrenaline shot up Hiro’s spine. “Robots? You’re sure?”
“Ten-ten. And what they were describing sounded a lot like a zeroid.”
“Could you focus on that? Find out more, get a location?”
“43’s already on it. We think they’re in England somewhere. We got a loose trajectory over southern counties, and there were some meteorite reports that back it up. But sure; we’ll try and narrow it down some more. We just wanted you to know.”
Hiro immediately opened a channel to Hawknest; it didn’t take long to get a response. “Doctor Ninestein? We might have a lead. I think 101 might be alive!”
The Terrahawks commander in chief looked warily optimistic at the news. “What sort of lead? Have the police been in contact?”
“No. My team have found evidence of someone on the dark web asking about something that sounds a lot like a zeroid-”
“Oh, great. Of all the things they’re supposed to absolutely get right, absolutely all the time-… Someone’s forgotten he’s meant to be a secret and revealed he exists,” Ninestein interrupted, with a small sigh. “Where is he? We’ll go pick him up before he can do much more damage-”
“Ah. Well, we don’t actually know, yet.”
“You’re not making my damage limitation any easier here, Hiro. The longer he’s out there, the harder this is going to get to cover up.”
“I know. I’m sorry. We’re working on it. To be fair, we were not expecting to find anything except-… debris,” Hiro said, and winced slightly. “We’ve ejected them from great heights and they not only survived but completed any objectives they were set. But this was something we never tested. Honestly, I was not expecting 101 to survive. I thought he’d overheat, hit something, and break apart into pieces too small to find.” Now he knew his friend was alive, and hadn’t exploded into a thousand shards of scalding shrapnel, he found it easier to talk about. “He fell from orbit, Doctor. They’re resilient – unexpectedly, amazingly so, it would appear – but not indestructible. I imagine something broke when he impacted.”
“Didn’t you give them rocket motors?”
Hiro swallowed the urge to sigh. “Yes – to manoeuvre in space, not counter terminal velocity.”
“All right. That’s fair. He’s forgiven for having a big mouth – for now. Keep me updated and let me know the instant you pin things down a little better.”
“Ten-ten, doctor.”
Hiro closed the connection, exhaled shakily, and found a stool to sit on. For the first time in about 36 hours, it felt like there was air on the flight deck again.
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: In which "Polly" gets his name! Plus allocates Laine to be his liaison, expresses concerns about where he comes from, and reveals that (for some mystifying reason) he talks to plants.
Plus we make a detour up to Spacehawk, and find out about a little of the chaos that has ensued since 101 got himself shot down.
-----------
With the notable exception of just Tark, who had made copious excuses to avoid having to join in, the rest of the flatmates had gathered in the lounge by half five, in a big circle on the floor that incorporated their unexpected visitor (and his crater). As well as Laine and Jaxon (“the klaxon”, maths; preoccupied with making a sandwich), the little robot was introduced to Mina (nursing), Sanjay (dentistry), and Carrie (classics and business management). The collective unease they’d all expressed in their group chat quickly faded on actually interacting with him.
“So what’s your name?”
“Er.” A very long half-second of thinking passed. “Chalk up one more on the list of useful things I can’t remember. I’m not even sure I have a name?” He looked vaguely deflated by the revelation.
“…and I never even asked you that, did I?” Laine sighed and covered her face with both hands. “Sorry. Guess I was tireder than I thought.”
“I couldn’t have told you anything,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but it would still have been polite to have asked you.”
“You’re still treating me like a person. That feels pretty polite?”
She smiled, ruefully. “Thanks for trying to save my feelings.”
“There’s numbers written on your forehead,” Carrie interrupted. “Maybe that’s your name?”
Mina straightened. “Oh, no way. We can’t call him ‘One-Hundred-and-One’! That’s a number – and a mouthful. He’s a person.”
“There’s a girl called Seven in my practical class?”
“Not helping, Sanjay.”
“If it’s written on me I would think it was intended as an identifying mark,” the robot said, peering up as though trying to see his own brow. “I guess it’s as good as anything else?”
“No. No! You can’t be a number. That’s one step up from calling humans by numbers.”
“Figures that you’d be the one to get upset about that, Mina,” Sanjay said, and coughed into his hand; “keyboardwarrior.”
Carrie glanced up from her nails. “If he wants to be Hundred-and-One, what’s wrong with that? It’s his choice if he wants to go by what’s written on him, surely.”
Mina thrust out an arm in a point. “You have ‘kung po chicken’ tattooed on your back, we don’t insist on calling you it!”
The robot swivelled to look up at Carrie. “Why do you have a food tattooed on your back?”
“Ugh! It says ‘resilient’,” Carrie corrected, waving her nail file in a vaguely threatening manner. “These classless boors just don’t like that I chose something small and stylish, so they mock me for it.”
A little ripple of jeers went up and she made an obscene gesture in response.
Jaxon sprawled out on the beanbag with a sandwich that looked like he’d used half a full-sized loaf to make it. “So, Hundred and One. What is that, like dalmatians? We could call him Pongo. Or Rover. Fido, maybe.”
Mina threw her hands up, exasperated. “We’re not calling him after a dog, either. He’s not a pet! Come on guys.”
“Roly-poly,” Carrie suggested. “Like, you know. Those little beetle-y things that curl up.”
“…tell me you don’t mean a woodlouse…”
“They’re cute! And small, and silver, and they roll along. It’s perfect!”
“Are you going to have any input in this, seeing as it looks like we’ll be calling you it for the foreseeable future?” Laine leaned closer to their visitor. “Do you mind being named after a woodlouse?”
He glanced up at her. “I guess not? I’m not sure what a woodlouse is.”
Carrie thrust out her phone and helpfully furnished him with a picture of a tightly-rolled little silvery insect. “See? Cute.”
“Huh.”
Jaxon leaned over and tapped the top of his casing; apparently annoyed at the uninvited contact, the robot shifted back just out of reach. “Do you have like a sim card in there anywhere?” Jaxon went on.
“No. My antenna is fried. I can sort of see your wifi? But that’s about it.”
“So, do you have apps?”
The robot gave him a flat look. “Do I look like I have apps.”
Jaxon ignored the unimpressed glare. “I meant like something for messaging? That’s fine if you don’t. We’ll set up a new group anyway and figure out if we can add you to it later.” His thumbs flew across his screen. “Then if anyone sees anything that looks like it’s about you, they can message everyone at once.”
A series of chirps pinged up from various phones around the room.
“ ‘Rolly Polly’?” Carrie read out. “Seriously? You couldn’t even spell it right?”
Jaxon gave her beanbag a shove with his foot. “Fuck off, I study maths, I don’t need to spell.”
Laine thought about it for a few seconds. “You know. ‘Polly’ could work?”
Carrie sneered at her. “He’s a boy?”
“So?”
Everyone looked at their guest, expectantly.
‘Polly’ made a little approving noise. “That sounds good. It’s better than ‘Woodlouse’. No offence.”
Carrie grunted, unimpressed, but waved it off.
“So does anyone have any idea what you are?” Sanjay wondered. “I mean… okay it doesn’t explain the roof but could you be like a new model of an Alexa, or something?”
“Polly, turn the lights off,” Jaxon said, loudly, round a mouthful of bread. Nothing happened, except Mina swatting him in the face with a cushion off the couch. “Why are you hitting me for?! That was Sanjay’s dumb idea!”
“Hey, I don’t see you guys having any better ones.” Sanjay folded his arms. “Tarkers will love you, though, man. He’s gonna be so pissed that he wasn’t here this evening.”
“Tarkers?” Polly wondered.
“Tarquin. The resident techno-crypto bullshit expert.” Mina rolled her eyes. “He’s been trying to teach us about AI – or what amazing things it can do for free that we can all make money off, supposedly. Honestly, Sanjay?” She looked at her flatmate. “He’s not going to have the first clue what to think about Polly. That little guy there is nothing like any of what Tark’s been telling us about.”
“Yeah, but if anyone’s gonna know what he is, Tark will.” Sanjay stood and studied Polly. “Stupid question but have we tried just turning you off and on again?”
Polly hastily rolled himself out of the way and took cover behind Laine. “To start with, no-one is turning me off, like some broken washing machine – if you could even figure out how. And secondly, I’m not sure any of us want to find out what I’m like turned on, honey.”
Sanjay sucked in a breath, and went pale. “Okay. That wasn’t what I meant, but-… okay!”
The rest of the flatmates had already dissolved into fits of giggles. Polly actually looked subtly pleased with himself.
Carrie recovered her decorum first. “I don’t know about you guys but I am tired of sitting here in the dirt. Has seriously no-one thought to vacuum up any of this dust yet?” She put both hands up, then stood. “For the good of my beloved flatmates I volunteer to vacuum, before midnight rolls around and there’s still grey shit all over everything in the morning. Now, who wants to be on mop duty?”
A little chorus of groans went up, but they did all get up and pitch in to get it done. Polly fussed about being unable to help even though it was his mess, until Jaxon and Laine bodily picked him up (with no small effort) – damn, man, why are you so HEAVY – and dumped him on their battered old couch, which obediently partially swallowed him and refused to let him escape unaided – this is SO undignified.
Cleanup did take until bordering on midnight. Every time they thought they were done, everything dried out and revealed more grey smears. In spite of the cacophonous braying of their vacuum cleaner close to her ear, Laine dozed off on the couch with Polly twice, whereupon her housemates took an unofficial vote to send her to bed. (She protested, perfunctorily and out of duty not desire, that they still hadn’t told their sixth flatmate, but was overruled, and acquiesced.)
Between them, Jaxon and Sanjay heaved on the back of the couch and tilted it just enough for Polly to roll off. The clunk as he hit the floor made everyone wince, but he didn’t seem bothered by it.
Laine picked up her laptop. “Did you need to like… recharge or anything? Do you sleep?”
“I don’t think so. My batteries feel pretty good.” He rolled behind her into the hallway.
“Why are you following me around? You’ve been doing it all day.”
Polly considered it for several seconds. “I’m not sure. I think it might be programmed in?”
“To… follow people?” Laine stepped back out of his way and let him trundle over her doorstep, anyway.
“To have a human to defer to. Since I don’t have a record of who that normally is, I guess something automatic has adopted you to be that person.” He glanced up at her, spotted her expression, and immediately cringed a little. “Sorry?”
“You want me to be your boss,” she said, flatly.
“If it’s making you uncomfortable I guess I could… try and find someone else?” He peered back out into the rest of the flat, as though evaluating if he thought any of the others would mind.
She sighed and closed the door, and plonked her laptop down on her cluttered desk. “I haven’t really had the opportunity to think about whether I’m comfortable or not, yet? I don’t know if I want to be the boss of someone I only just met, who doesn’t even know who he is. That’s a whole lot of extra responsibility over just helping you figure out where you came from.”
“I won’t ask you to do anything difficult. It feels like it’s a workaround, maybe? I mean I can make decisions myself, but I think I’m not really meant to.”
She considered it for a few moments. “How about I give you blanket pre-authorisation to make your own decisions?”
“Hm.” He perked up. “I feel like no-one’s ever said that before? It could work. Thanks!”
“Yeah! I mean, that can’t possibly come back and bite me on the backside.” She wiped her face with both hands. “Well if you don’t get tired, you can use my laptop while I’m asleep. But not on the floor because I really don’t want to trip over you in the middle of the night.”
“No problem.”
She put her hands on her hips and wondered if she needed to call Jaxon to help out again – only to watch him look up at the clear spot on the desk, swivel slightly left and right as though making a calculation, then jump up all by himself.
Laine startled slightly backwards. “How the hell did you do that?!”
Polly gave her another of those uncertain looks, like he had when he’d asked to use her laptop in the first place. “I’m not sure. I just… knew I could, I guess?”
She plopped down on her mattress. “So what else are we gonna find out you can ‘just do’?”
“I would have to do you a report.”
She glared at him.
“I mean it! I’m not being facetious. Sometimes I just know I can do something and I do it. But since losing my memory I don’t know what those all are, offhand? So I can tell you but I’d have to run a decompile and interrogate it and that might take a while.”
Laine puffed a loud sigh through pursed lips.
“…did you want a formal report?” he prompted, hesitantly. “I can be ready by morning-”
Laine pressed the heel of both hands into her eyes. “No. It’s fine. What would I do with it?” She sagged slowly backwards and let her head thump down on the pillow. “Tomorrow better be less of a mindfuck.”
“…sorry…”
“Do you need the screen on?”
He looked around. Laine had retired to bed, still fully clothed, and was looking for the lightswitch. “No. I can do without it.” The bright rectangle immediately dimmed out, leaving only the eerie scrolling movement of the LEDs in his own eyes – then he closed his shutters, and they too disappeared. “Good night.”
“Yeah.” She sighed and toggled the switch and plunged her room into darkness. She could hear the soft white noise murmur of cooling fans, but couldn’t quite tell if that was him or her laptop. More likely her laptop, she decided – not that she had long to think about it.
Next thing she knew, her phone wakeup alarm was warbling close to her ear, and daylight was creeping under her blackout blinds. She groaned at the thought of dragging her hide all the way to lab practicals, but crawled out of bed anyway. Polly was unfairly chirpy for the hour of the morning, immediately ebullient with good morning!-s.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not that he hadn’t been a hallucination. On the one hand it would have been a lot easier if he had been a fever dream – on the other hand, how bad did things have to be to have such a vivid, detailed, and spectacularly weird dream as this?
It was hard to concentrate in labs. Her plans to finish early and get home quickly ended up totally scuttled by the fact she wasn’t paying attention, screwed up her calculations twice, and finally finished later than everyone else. The postgrad students waiting to get in eventually tired of her still tidying her fume hood and kicked her out with the promise that just this once, they’d finish prepping glassware for the washer for her. She bolted for the bus-stop, yelling thanks over her shoulder.
Then her bus got stuck in traffic.
Fate really had it in for them lately, didn’t it.
She finally got home a whole hour later than planned, unlocked her bedroom door, and heard a greeting chirp before even getting into her room.
“Hi!” Polly looked genuinely excited to see her; he reminded her a little of her parents’ golden retriever. “How was your day?”
“Uh. Not terrible, I guess, thanks?” She felt an unexpected pulse of guilt at having left him on his own the whole time, and longer than she’d planned – and locked in, to boot. “Yours?”
“Fine. Productive!”
“Are you really sure you don’t mind being stuck in here while we’re all out? I could call in sick or something. I only have lectures tomorrow and Asha has already said she can loan me her notes.” She jammed a rubber wedge under the door, pinning it open. “I feel horrible locking you in, too, but-… well, let’s say it wouldn’t be the first time a student flat got broken into. The more layers of defence, the better. I wouldn’t forgive myself if you got stolen.”
“I don’t think anyone would be able to steal me. I’m pretty heavy. But I don’t mind being on my own! I had plenty to do.” Polly considered it for a few seconds. “I guess I was a bit lonely, but you have a plant, and you guys are all back now, so! It’s worked out.”
Laine inspected said plant, at the end of her desk, just behind the laptop screen – a sad little rubber plant she’d struggled to keep alive for the last year, and it looked surprisingly happy. “Huh! What did you do to it?”
“Oh, yeah. I dusted it.”
“You dusted my plant.”
“Yes. And I-…” He was going to say something else but apparently bottled it. “Yeah.”
Laine gave him a funny look. “And you… what?”
He did that odd uncertain left-right shift with his eyes. “I might have talked to it a bit. It felt like the right thing to do.”
“…you talk to plants?”
“I guess?”
“Man. We are literally never gonna work out where you came from, are we? Just as we start to think we have an angle on what you actually do, you strike again from a totally different direction.” She sat heavily on her untidy bed and struggled to take her boots off.
Polly hmm-ed quietly.
“Sorry. I was being hyperbolic, for melodramatic effect. We are gonna figure it out. I promise.” She smiled tiredly for him. “You belong somewhere. We don’t get to keep you, just because you’re not human. You’re not some… lost puppy. There’s probably someone out there missing you, anyway.”
“You think so?” The hope in his voice was a tiny bit heartbreaking. “But what if I’m someone… not good?”
“What brought that on? Why would you be?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “You dusted my plant. I don’t think you can be that ba-” She looked more closely at what he was working on, and straightened. “Although wait, wait. Are you on the dark web on my study laptop?”
Polly sat silent for a second or two, before glancing up, guiltily. “Yes? Is that a bad thing?”
“That’s got all my course work on it and I haven’t backed it up in months! You better not go and fuck it up with a virus or something.” She gave him an annoyed little swat round the back of his globe.
He smiled, patiently. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? I’m not going to infect it – and by extension, possibly me – by being careless.” He turned his attention to the screen, quietly. “If you don’t want me to, I guess I can stick to the regular web. I just… feel like I might be able to make a bit of progress, here? Sure there’s a huge bunch of conspiracy theorists and some seriously crooked transactions going on, but if I don’t exist – and the regular internet is pretty convinced I don’t – that might be the only place I can find anything out.”
“You are going to get me added to so many government watch lists,” she groaned into her palms. “Maybe just let me back everything up before you do anything else.” She blew a tired raspberry into her hands. “Well, fuck it. I’m calling in that favour from Asha. Sorry, Polly, but you’re gonna have to put up with my company tomorrow.”
“…is that just because I’m on the dark web-”
“No. No!” Laine found spirit for a laugh. “Man, you said it yourself – if I can trust anyone on there, it’s the guy with a computer for his brain. I trust you not to download any viruses or get the cops called on me for anything illegal. Well, maybe not immediately, anyway.” Something occurred to her. “Is that why you were asking if you were a bad person? Some numpty on the dark web suggested it?”
“No-o.” He drew the word out into such a long syllable he incriminated himself in the process. “Well maybe.”
“What did they say you were?”
“They didn’t say anything specific. I mean, I’m not so stupid as to say hi guys I’m a little robot ball lost in London, does anyone know where I belong, or hey you can just come steal me if you’d rather, DM for my current address. I mostly just dropped hints, asked about spherical robots, linked that news article – that sort of thing.” He hesitated. “I hope they think I’m another human.”
“It’s the internet. Even if you said you were a robot, I doubt anyone would believe you. So what was the verdict?”
“They implied that the only place with the money to develop something like me, in secret, was something military. Anyone else would be making a huge big deal about me just existing.”
Laine sat quietly and digested it for a few moments. “Military, huh. We had this discussion before, didn’t we.”
“Yeah.” Polly laughed nervously. “Kinda anxious what that’s implying.”
“Lot of hypotheticals being thrown around, here. I guess nothing has substantially changed from yesterday? And just because people are saying it, doesn’t mean it’s true. You said it yourself; the place is full of conspiracy weirdoes. They’re not going to be interested in mundane solutions, like, I don’t know. NASA? Some rich software company?” She found a wary smile for him. “And just being military doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Granted, you might have some work to do keeping Mina onside, but just keep acting cute and it’ll all work in your favour.”
He gave her a very long stare. “Would you still help me? If I was?”
“Military, or a bad person? Well, unless I get proof you’re like, a puppy-eating monster or something, sure; you’re stuck with your new boss for the foreseeable future.” Something new struck her. “Oh, man – don’t let Mina think you’re running away from the military. She’ll never let you go.”
“Oh. Ha ha? Was… that a joke…?”
“Listen. It’ll be fine. Okay? I’m not sure what it is about you but I trust you. Mostly. Ninety percent, maybe. And believe it or not I do think I understand what you’re probably feeling?” She leaned forwards, elbows on her knees. “The six of us living here, we’re all students, right? We all know what it’s like to have our lives upended and wind up somewhere unfamiliar, with unfamiliar people that we might not even be guaranteed to get on with – and we all did it by choice. I can’t even imagine doing it and not knowing why you did. Even if you’re not scared-”
“-well, I might be, a little bit-”
“-it’s no fun being stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. You deserve to be home and safe just like anyone else? Come on, Pols. You’re lost, you have amnesia, and you were lonely enough that you spent the day talking to my fucking rubber plant. Tomorrow’s Friday, right? I can skip one day out a whole year. That gives us three days to evaluate how you’re getting on. If we’re no further forwards on Monday morning, well, we’ll think about going to the cops. Sound okay?” She realised he was looking at her strangely. “What?”
“Pols?” he echoed.
“Oh, um. Sorry. We make up stupid versions of each other’s names all the time, I just assumed you’d be okay with-”
“No, it’s fine.” He smiled. “I like it. It feels…people-y.” He rocked subtly towards her and imparted, quietly; “thanks for having faith in me.”
Remarkably, it felt like some of the alarm bells ringing in the back of her brain actually turned off. Was that a tickle of confidence that she actually was making the right decision?
“Come on. I need some supper.” She stood and stretched her shoulders. “Fancy breaking out of my room for a bit? If you want to hop down, I’ll gather up all my laptop gear and follow you.”
“Yes! I have been waiting all day to get to go talk to your friends.” He tumbled off her desk, breaking the impact on a pile of lecture note, and scurried off out of the door.
Laine listened to the little chorus of cheerful greetings as he emerged, and smiled. Yeah; right decision. She followed with an armful of cables and got him set up before going in search of some pasta.
Just after the kettle had boiled, their previously-absent sixth housemate finally deigned to turn up. A somewhat rattled-looking Tarquin stared at the scene in the lounge for thirty seconds before turning into the kitchen, catching Laine’s arm, and pulling her out of sight.
“Where the hell did that come from?” he whispered, urgently, pointing in Polly’s general direction.
Laine stared at him for several seconds. “…did you… not notice the gaping hole in the roof? Or did you think we were just spectacularly unlucky and had a meteorite hit the flat at the same time a little lost robot rocked up on the doorstep?”
“That thing did it? Bugger me. Are you sure?”
“I was here, thank you, so yes. I am very very sure.”
“Literally when it happened, or was it just here when you got back from work, or-…”
“I was here. How many ways are there of saying it? It’s a pretty basic concept! Frightened the fuck out of me when it happened.” Laine pushed his hand off her arm, annoyed, and went in search of a saucepan. “Just go talk to him, like any other normal person.”
“That’s like… ten centimetres of concrete.” Tark ran his fingers through his untidy hair. “Man. Maybe they blew up the roof and dropped it through-”
“God, Tark. They? Who is they? We’re students.” Laine poured far too much pasta into her boiling water, and sighed. “Are you implying someone’s targeting you or something? I thought you were into crypto, not conspiracies.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Tark put his hands up. “But I know all about AI. There is no way that is real. It’s got to be… remote controlled, or something.”
“Well if it is, I hope they’re paying that voice actor some serious overtime. He’s been alert, responding instantly, and reacting appropriately to our bullshit for hours.” She fetched a jar of pasta sauce out of her cupboard. “Maybe if you’d been here last night, like we kept reminding you, you could have interacted with him a little?”
“That’s Pol…” Tark threw his hands up. “Who names a military robot Polly.”
“You seem to know a lot about him for someone who’s literally never seen him before now.”
“Where else were you thinking it might have come from?” he sniped, exasperated. “Who else has the funds to drop a few million dollars developing something like that? Artificial intelligence, paired with something strong enough to punch through concrete? That’s only got one possible purpose and it’s military. If it isn’t, then it’d be something some rich investor developed for the fun of it, and they would not be keeping something like that a secret. They show off their designs at the drop of a hat, man. Even when they’re still only half-finished and don’t work properly.” His expression brightened, subtly. “Whatever it is, there’ll be a reward for returning it, I can guarantee.”
“You think that’s what he’s worth?” Laine peered out into the lounge; Polly was discussing something with Sanjay, although she couldn’t hear what. She’d overheard him having a high-speed conversation with Mina in (apparently perfect colloquial) Swedish earlier, as well.
“Oh, easily. Fuck, I wouldn’t be surprised if its pricetag ran into the billions.”
Laine pursed her lips. Chatty, chirpy little Polly, who talked to plants, couldn’t pin down his actual purpose, and had expressed concerns over his origin; costing billions in development.
Tark sighed and let his head rest against the kitchen cupboards. “Billions of dollars of military hardware, and you’ve got it sitting there talking about bullshit with the student dentist.”
“We haven’t got him doing anything. He’s talking to Sanjay because he wants to.”
“See? See! You’re making my point! It’s a robot, it won’t be wanting to chat with anyone. You’re anthropomorphising the shit out of it already. It’s interacting the same way that a chatbot convinces you it’s enjoying your conversation.”
“Fine. You go talk to him, then get back to me on the whole doesn’t exist part.”
Tark smiled, in a way that wasn’t echoed in his eyes. “Sure. Just one little job to do first.”
Hundreds of miles above in orbit, Spacehawk had lost a critical component of her command structure after an unexpectedly heavy meteor shower.
While the huge vehicle’s shields had incinerated most of them, the deluge of rocks and dust had still punched a whole slew of little holes in Spacehawk’s hull. Lieutenant Hiro had sealed off the damaged compartments to prevent too much atmosphere loss, then it had been all hands (so to speak) on deck to get things repaired. They couldn’t have their defence platform drifting out of action in orbit for too long. Half the small zeroid crew were outside, patching the worst of it, with the other half working just as hard inside.
Space Sergeant 101 had been supervising, as he didn’t need a spacesuit; co-ordinating and directing, sending Hiro a constant visual feed of progress, navigating with little jets from his on-board propellant motors, with a loose tether for security.
Listening into carelessly unguarded communications, Zelda had sent a ZEAF, to test her luck while the big vessel was weakened. Small craft were more likely to slip past undetected, especially when everyone was distracted.
Zelda’s family being Zelda’s family, the pilot couldn’t resist taking a few potshots in passing.
In the scramble to get back aboard, some tethers had got tangled. The (slightly exasperated) command zeroid had tried untangling them but ultimately ended up caught in the mess as well and was forced to cut several lines so his crew could get back aboard.
Including his own.
It was at that point their collective luck ran out.
The ZEAF’s final shot missed by a figurative mile – but it strafed close enough to pepper the ship with shrapnel, slicing through external equipment and knocking things loose, and reopening unfinished patches.
A jet of venting atmosphere had delivered a vigorous shove and kicked 101 clean out of orbit.
In the wrong direction.
…and it was only as he span out of reach that they collectively realised that if any zeroid ended up in the grip of Earth’s gravity, they literally had no way of getting them back. Even if they launched Treehawk as quickly as they physically could, it’d be too late.
Compounding the disaster, Hiro had recognised that they’d never actually investigated what would happen if a zeroid re-entered atmosphere from orbit on his own. And his silence when 101 had asked that very question had been enough to tell the small robot that he was entering some very uncharted territory.
There had followed several traumatic minutes of trying to work out if there was literally anything they could do, while still fending off the marauding ZEAF – screaming recriminations of why did we never think about this until now and why did it have to be me?!, frantic efforts to work out if they could slow him down, target some body of water, break his fall somehow… then finally just talking, guilty reassurance and consolation and comfort – they’d look for him, of course they would, they wouldn’t stop until they’d found him and fixed him or-… knew for definite what had happened… until eventually the dead finality of signal lost.
Hiro felt subtly like he should be mourning the loss of his friend. He couldn’t quite shake off the idea that he’d been trying to comfort 101 in his final moments, and listening helplessly as he went offline for the final time ever.
So he’d really not felt quite up to sifting through endless data, just yet, for some indication someone somewhere had found something, and tasked the job of calculating 101’s likely trajectory and point of impac-… landing location… to the other zeroids aboard, while he found other things to keep himself busy.
“You will just have to cope without him,” he told his Phalaenopsis, quietly, wiping imaginary dust from its leaves. It was probably his imagination but the row of plants did look subtly droopier than normal.
He turned and spotted 17… lurking?... In the doorway, optic LEDs scrolling slowly. A person didn’t have to be familiar with zeroid moods to recognise indecision.
“One-seven? Did you want to say something?” Hiro invited.
“Is now a good time?”
17 had a vaguely Trinidadian accent, and Hiro felt a twinge of guilt; bad news delivered by the soft voice felt like it might hurt less than it would from 101’s often sarcastic twang.
Touched though he was that the zeroid apparently didn’t want to hurt him, he really needed to know what it was 17 was dithering over telling him. Hiro forced a smile. “Please. Your report.”
17 took an unsteady hop to the top of the unoccupied command pillar. “We were doing as you asked, and searching the internet for references to, um.” He cringed slightly. “…remains?”
“And?” Hiro had known it was coming eventually, and braced himself. “You found something.”
“Well, yes, and no. Sir-… we found someone on the dark web asking about spherical robots.”
A sudden bolt of adrenaline shot up Hiro’s spine. “Robots? You’re sure?”
“Ten-ten. And what they were describing sounded a lot like a zeroid.”
“Could you focus on that? Find out more, get a location?”
“43’s already on it. We think they’re in England somewhere. We got a loose trajectory over southern counties, and there were some meteorite reports that back it up. But sure; we’ll try and narrow it down some more. We just wanted you to know.”
Hiro immediately opened a channel to Hawknest; it didn’t take long to get a response. “Doctor Ninestein? We might have a lead. I think 101 might be alive!”
The Terrahawks commander in chief looked warily optimistic at the news. “What sort of lead? Have the police been in contact?”
“No. My team have found evidence of someone on the dark web asking about something that sounds a lot like a zeroid-”
“Oh, great. Of all the things they’re supposed to absolutely get right, absolutely all the time-… Someone’s forgotten he’s meant to be a secret and revealed he exists,” Ninestein interrupted, with a small sigh. “Where is he? We’ll go pick him up before he can do much more damage-”
“Ah. Well, we don’t actually know, yet.”
“You’re not making my damage limitation any easier here, Hiro. The longer he’s out there, the harder this is going to get to cover up.”
“I know. I’m sorry. We’re working on it. To be fair, we were not expecting to find anything except-… debris,” Hiro said, and winced slightly. “We’ve ejected them from great heights and they not only survived but completed any objectives they were set. But this was something we never tested. Honestly, I was not expecting 101 to survive. I thought he’d overheat, hit something, and break apart into pieces too small to find.” Now he knew his friend was alive, and hadn’t exploded into a thousand shards of scalding shrapnel, he found it easier to talk about. “He fell from orbit, Doctor. They’re resilient – unexpectedly, amazingly so, it would appear – but not indestructible. I imagine something broke when he impacted.”
“Didn’t you give them rocket motors?”
Hiro swallowed the urge to sigh. “Yes – to manoeuvre in space, not counter terminal velocity.”
“All right. That’s fair. He’s forgiven for having a big mouth – for now. Keep me updated and let me know the instant you pin things down a little better.”
“Ten-ten, doctor.”
Hiro closed the connection, exhaled shakily, and found a stool to sit on. For the first time in about 36 hours, it felt like there was air on the flight deck again.