Meteoric - Chapter Four

[keaalu]

Title (chapter): Meteoric (4)
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: In which Polly is busy making an accidental mortal enemy, learning that his temporary new family sometimes ask highly inappropriate questions, and having... dancing lessons? Watching Silent Witness? (Oh god so gross.) Getting asked questions that leave him realising he has even less of a damn freaking clue what the hell he even is? (Was he running away? Is someone looking for him? Why are humans so slow? Should he really be taking time off to watch TV with his friend if he's meant to be finding his way home, isn't this just being lazy? What did that mean about the balls touching? And why does Tark have to be such a shithead.)

(But having all this undivided attention is 100% acceptable. Well apart from the bit that freaked him out. Maybe 95%?)

(I hope the Terrahawks realise that when they finally get Spacehawk’s command zeroid back, he is going to have picked up so many additional bad habits… (and that’s additional to the likely PTSD and everything else.)

(They’re handbrake turns, Hiro. It’s not dancing. Get with the program.)

-----------

Most of her flatmates had already left, by the time Laine finally pinned her room door back, although she could hear Jaxon still rattling around next door.

…and Tark was doing something noisy in the kitchen with a coffee grinder. Laine felt a flash of annoyance; the guy was never there, especially not so early in the morning, so it was obvious he was only there for information on Polly (and she sorely doubted it was out of any actual concern for the little bot). And would probably corner her while she organised breakfast, whether she wanted to talk or not.

Apparently oblivious, Polly happily took himself off into the lounge, and Laine followed with “his” laptop. After getting him set up, she drew in a long breath through her nose, let it out slowly through her mouth, unclenched her fists, and went into the kitchen to hopefully not face too major an argument.

She found Tark attempting to work out how to make coffee using the old cafetiere that had been abandoned in the back of a cupboard ever since they first moved in.

“Oh, hey. Morning. How’s Polly,” he asked, although it sounded more like a polite conversation-opener than any actual interest in their visitor’s health.

Laine fetched the plastic tub of cornflakes down off the fridge and tried hard to look like a conversation was the last thing she wanted right now. “Fine.”

“All charged up and happy and ready to go?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you tell it what we talked about last night? And I don’t mean the sex part.”

“Yes.” Laine had to bite down on an irritated snarl. “He let me look, and there’s no way we can fix him. So don’t ask again.”

“Easy, Lainey.” Tark put his hands up. “I was just making conversation.”

“Well, I’d rather just get my breakfast, if it’s all the same with you-”

“Why are you being so obstructive?” He clucked his tongue. “You locked it away last night, as well. You’re not its guardian, you know? You should at least give it a choice in whose advice it takes.”

“Ha!” She banged the box down hard enough to throw cornflake confetti out of the opening in the top. “I’ve been telling you to go talk to him for like, two days, and every single time, you’ve had some excuse for why you can’t. You’d rather use me as your secretary, ferrying messages around for you. And now you’re accusing me of gatekeeping?”

“That wasn’t-”

“Even now, he is right there, literally not even four metres away from you,” Laine stabbed a finger at the lounge, “and you’re still talking to me! You’d just go ask him yourself if you were actually interested. I’m sure he’d be happy to discuss it in detail with you.” She shot him a glare and added, pithily; “‘Not the sex part’.”

Tark sighed. “Stop acting like I’m the enemy here. We both want to help it. Difference is, you’re all treating it like a lost puppy. I’m actually trying to take practical steps to figure out where it belongs and how to get it back there.”

“Better treat him like a puppy than property.”

“Actually, puppies are both.” At Laine’s funny look, he added; “You know what I mean.” He flapped a dismissive hand, but lowered his voice before continuing. “You might not like being reminded, but no-one gave birth to the little guy. That means it belongs to someone. Acting like it’s some small spherical human being, with agency and autonomy and everything else? We’re all gonna end up pissed off and frustrated. Polly included.”

“What’s your point, Tark?”

“Yes, we should be helping it. Absolutely. You got no argument from me on that. But we shouldn’t be trying to do it alone either. We’re students. We’re not even students in the right fields! The hell is a dentist meant to do to help it? Aside from my connections, we’re all totally in the dark, here.” He threw his hands up. “All we’ve done is give it a comfy seat and some free electricity while it struggles to interact with the world. How’s that good for it?”

Laine took the milk out of the fridge and studied her breakfast.

Tark leaned subtly closer. “You know I’m right. We have to tell someone about it. Someone who will have the power and connections to find out where it belongs.”

“If he wants to? Fine.” She looked up at him. “But he’s lost, and scared, and hurt, and needs some friends, and you’re still calling him it,” she pointed out, quietly. “If you can’t even get something that basic right, I don’t know how much I trust your sincerity about the rest of it.”

Tark laughed; a slightly exasperated and not particularly kind sound. “What exactly are you trying to do here, Laine?” he oiled, quietly. “What’s your actual end goal? Ensure you’re the only one he trusts, so you can… I don’t know, polish up that halo and feel good about yourself for looking after the poor broken little poppet? Keep him aaalll to yourself by making sure he doesn’t like me?”

“Oh, I don’t think you need any help with that, honey,” a familiar voice drawled, and they turned to find Polly watching from the doorway. “My memory might be shot, but my hearing is juust fine.”

Tark actually took a step back, surprised.

“You wanna talk to me? Fine. Treat me with just the teeniest smidgen of dignity and respect and I’ll talk all you like. And honestly I’d like to be able to, because you sound like you know useful things! We could probably help each other a lot.” Polly’s voice softened. “I don’t like that we seem to be accidentally becoming enemies, right now. Please can we at least be civil to each other, even if you’re making it hard for us to be friends? And I guess I’d like to be able to trust you, too.”

“Of course you can trust me.”

“Good!” Polly flashed him a smile. “I knew I could.” He swivelled away, although he held Tark’s gaze for just a fraction longer. “I’ll be in the lounge, whenever you’re ready to come chat.”

Laine picked up her cereal bowl and the milk, and followed him. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay Polly’s contribution to the electric bill.”

The emergency dining chair was getting somewhat in the way, so Laine took a few moments to reconfigure the lounge so the couch wasn’t quite so predatory, sliding a selection of boards and mats under the cushions at one end to give Polly a little more support. After initially eyeing the adapted chair with deep suspicion, the small robot finally caved and tried it out, and was pleased to find he could at last escape it on his own, so happily took up a position next to Laine while she ate breakfast.

“Guess I’ll just have to learn to live without having Tarquin’s help, if it comes with strings attached,” Polly said, watching as the tall man disappeared off through the front door with his coffee in a travel mug, without taking the invitation to talk, or even saying goodbye.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have squabbled with him.” Laine dropped her spoon into her empty bowl and pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’s just… rubbing me up the wrong way, right now, with all this bullshit about having to hand you over to, to… I don’t even know who. I think he’s acting out because he’s annoyed, after he put off coming to meet you, and by that time you’d already picked me to be your… liaison?”

“Boss.”

“I’m not your boss, for cripe’s sake.”

“Oh yeah. Blanket pre-authorisation. Fine. I guess ‘liaison’ works. Does that make you my PA?”

She gave him a little shove and he giggled quietly. “Perhaps we just need to make sure I’m not in earshot, when Tark’s around next,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of him getting you on your own while you’re vulnerable, because god only knows what he’ll tell you, but I don’t want you held back because he’s keeping useful information to himself, either. He’ll never come talk to you while I’m nearby.”

“Do you think he’ll get over himself eventually?”

“I hope he will. Just needs time to think on what he wants, I guess.” Laine looked down and met Polly’s anxious stare. She summoned a small smile. “I’ll talk to him. Apologise. Try and smooth things over. It’s me he’s pissed off with, anyway. If I act suitably ingratiating, perhaps he’ll forgive you for being my friend.”

Polly examined the laptop screen. A single webpage glowed back at him; some sort of message board. It didn’t look like he was actually focusing on it, though. “Why do you think he wants to help me? When it feels like he doesn’t want to be friends,” he said, at last – quiet and anxious. “Worst case scenario?”

Laine blew a sigh out from pursed lips and considered it for a long time. Truthfully, Tark’s behaviour was worrying her – moreso than normal – but she didn’t really want to dump than anxiety straight on to her small companion when she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just her own prejudice coming to the fore.

“And please don’t worry about my feelings,” Polly added, quietly. “I know technically I’m a thing, so I’m going to have to get used to people treating me like one.”

She gave him another little shove. “Will you stop talking like that?”

“I said worst case scenario! I don’t know about you, but that feels pretty ‘worst case’ to me!”

She glared, but he just looked back, guileless. “Fine.” A sigh. “I think I said before that Tark is very money-oriented, remember? So I don’t know if he wants to get to know you, or who he thinks developed you. Whatever the reason, there’ll be something financial underlying it. Whenever he talks about AI? It’s not about how it might have the power to solve a humanitarian crisis, it’s about how it’ll make him rich through crypto, so he’ll be a billionaire before the rest of us even finish uni.”

Polly mulled it over for several seconds, letting the idea circulate. “I don’t know how I can make him any money. You said something last night about a reward, but I haven’t found anything like that.”

“Exactly. So… absolute worst case scenario? He thinks he can steal you and sell you.”

Polly sat quietly for a few seconds, before finally managing a quiet huh.

“We won’t let him, of course!” Laine hastily reassured. “And that’s the absolute worst case I can imagine! But we have to keep a close eye on him anyway, and can’t let your batteries go flat or you’ll be even more defenceless. If he knows we’re onto him, he might move on whatever he’s doing faster. He won’t want to miss his chance to get rich because you were faster at making contact with your friends and escaped him.”

“So… we’ve just gotta be intensely suspicious of anything he does or asks, and faster about it.” Polly made an annoyed little electronic raspberry noise. “…I’m not enjoying this very much.”

“Me either, Pols. But you’ve got the rest of us on your side. That’s got to swing the odds in our favour a little bit.”

With Polly monopolising her study laptop, Laine was forced to go analogue. She spent the morning scribbling the bones of yesterday’s lab report in her notebook, juggling her phone for bibliographic databases and a heavy textbook that was already copiously annotated, and adding more lines of highlighter and sticky flags to everything she could.

She occasionally glanced sidelong to try and see what progress Polly was making, but the pages flashed past faster than she could have ever hoped to follow – faster than the laptop could really cope with either, if she was being honest. (She spotted task manager pop up every so often and windows disappear from the screen.)

“Anything?” she finally prompted, midmorning, when her need for coffee finally won out over any more highlighting.

“Not much. A few minor things.” He made an unintelligible noise of disappointment. “No offence because you’re… mostly… all lovely, but interacting with humans in real time is so slow.”

“Patience not one of your virtues, huh? Well done for keeping going for as long as you have done.”

Polly made another of those disgruntled raspberries.

“It’s a big internet, and you’re just one small guy all on your own. There’ll be people out there looking for you as well. You just haven’t managed to make contact with them yet.”

He made a gloomy noise. “I’m a pedantic, officious little ball. I proved it last night. Why would there be?”

Laine actually laughed out loud. “Why are you so determined to convince me people shouldn’t like you?” She stroked his top curve, above his brow. “I like you just fine. So what if you’re bossy? Have you met Carrie?”

He sounded puzzled for a few seconds. “Is that the same Carrie as-”

“-And we all knew her before we all chose to move in together. Might be handbags at dawn between you at some point, if you end up staying more than a few days, but bossy is not a dealbreaker.”

“…okay fine I get it.”

She lowered her voice. “I hate to say it, but Tark does have a point too.” At his subtle flinch, she hastily added. “N-not that part about us needing to hand you over! I mean… even if you were just a smart speaker, you’d be expensive. Someone as obviously advanced as you? Yeah, there’s definitely gonna be people looking for you. Maybe even other you-s. Maybe they’re as fast as you, too? But the internet’s a big place to look, and you haven’t been going that long.”

“Two days feels like a very long time, at my processor’s speed,” he said, glumly “I guess I feel like I should be making so much more progress than this.”

“Please don’t forget I’m still open to helping out. Just because there’s only one laptop and I’m not as fast as you, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do. I could bop on down the uni library and ask around the computer science folks, see if they know anything?” She considered it for an instant and clarified; “The ones who actually know about robotics because they’re studying it, not ‘self-educated’ knowitalls like Tark.”

“I might have to take you up on it…”

She stretched her shoulders. “Plus I’ve been sat here for so long my legs have gone to sleep, and I could do with a walk.”

“…although it’d be nice if I could come along, too, and didn’t need to stay in your room, for safety.”

Laine studied him for a few seconds. “While I’d love that… I don’t know how we’d do it without giving the game away? ‘Hi guys, could you help me identify the origin of this really expensive piece of hardware that I just happen to have acquired through mysterious circumstances that I can’t divulge? Oh no I can’t go to the police because the hardware asked me not to.’ Because none of that will raise any suspicion.”

“Hm.”

“We’ve got the weekend to figure something out. I’m sure we can come up with a convincing cover story by Monday.”

oOoOoOo

Investment opportunity!

Recently-deceased paternal great-uncle with background of private robotics development left some exciting tech to me in his will.

Heavy-duty sophisticated autonomous drone build. Advanced AI capabilities, convincingly bordering on AGI. Potential for military or law enforcement activities.

Looking for a technological or financial backer to help me take this forwards. Happy also to consider full sale – for the right price!

Serious enquiries only!!

oOoOoOo

The other housemates returned home in dribs and drabs by early afternoon. Laine resigned herself to it being too noisy for her to concentrate on any more coursework, and joined Jaxon in the kitchen to make toasted sandwiches instead.

While Laine was busy, Mina stole her seat. She leaped over the back of the couch and landed with such a whump on the cushions, it almost bounced Polly straight onto the floor. “So!” she said, grabbing one of the heaped toasties off Jaxon’s plate as her flatmate passed; he made an indignant noise, but let her keep it. “What do we do if we figure out where you come from, and you don’t want to go back?”

Polly sat quietly for a few seconds, trying to parse it. “…what?”

“Would you be allowed to refuse to go, I mean? Or would we have to, like, rescue you somehow?” Mina took a bite of her sandwich. “Or hide you? Keep you secret from them.”

He looked somewhat alarmed at the concept. “Why would I not want to go back where I belong? And what would I do if I didn’t?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking; what if you ended up here because you were running away from something?”

Laine covered her face with one hand. “I wondered when you’d get around to this idea, Mina.”

“What? It’s a fair hypothesis! Our roof is hardly a top holiday destination for anyone. Polly can’t have chosen to come here on purpose. Nobody would have sent him here, on purpose. Even if they dropped him out an aeroplane, for… I don’t even know why… it wasn’t on purpose, to come here.” Mina waved the part-eaten sandwich, underlining her thesis with strands of melted cheese.

“I agree but I’m not following you.” Polly leaned out of the way of her wayward fingers. “And please don’t get grease on me.”

“Whoops; sorry.” Mina hastily wound the cheese back onto the toastie and gave him a cautious wipe with a tissue. “What I mean is, what if you needed to escape from somewhere, and took your chances when no-one was watching, and here is just… where you ended up?”

“Why-… why would I do that? Who would I be running away from?”

“I-… okay, I don’t know. But. We figured out that you’re programmed to give orders. You yourself said you’re ‘over-engineered’. You think there’s even the possibility you could be dangerous. So even though we don’t know for definite where you came from, we can make educated guesses about the sort of organisation it might be. Right?”

Polly had rocked backwards to return her gaze and was now teetering on the edge of the couch. He looked very deeply uneasy, and his voice was unfamiliarly soft, as though reluctant to confront the idea she was proposing. “…right. What’s your point.”

“Wherever you came from, you don’t seem all that likely to fit that mould very well. You’re too friendly, and chatty, and smart. We all like you. You have the ability to make decisions, and you don’t strike me as someone who’d choose to be violent, or dangerous, or unkind for the sake of it.”

“You only know the me that has amnesia, though!”

“Bullshit. If you were a mean person, you still would be, whether you had your memory or not. That’s not a behaviour you just forget. Ergo, you aren’t unkind.” Mina wagged a finger. “The fact you can’t remember it doesn’t mean they weren’t making you do stuff you didn’t want to do, and you chose to get the hell out of there.”

“But how-how would I know that?” Still perilously close to the edge of the couch, Polly was looking more alarmed by the second. “Are you saying I should stop looking, so they can’t find me?!”

“Well I didn’t specifically say tha-”

“If I was running away from somewhere, how do I know that I had been? And-and what if you help me go back there and I end up in a much worse situation than I had been in before because now I’m back where I don’t want to be and they decide I also need to be punished for running away--!?”

“Thanks, Minnie.” Carrie gave her flatmate a tug on her ponytail before carefully steering their guest back onto the cushions before he could finally topple off the edge. “Well done for scaring him – again. He’s not found anything at all anywhere to suggest he’s anything more than a happy little ball when he’s at home, and this is all just some huge accident.”

“He’s not found anything at all anywhere, full stop,” Mina corrected, waving the crust of her purloined toastie in a vaguely threatening way. “Look I’m not saying I definitely think that’s what happened to him! I just thought it was irresponsible if I didn’t say I was worried it might be. So we have time to try to work out what we can do to help him, before someone rocks up and demands we hand him over and we haven’t even thought about it.” She glanced down at the optics watching her, still scrolling uneasily. “I couldn’t – wouldn’t – just sit aside and send you back somewhere you were actively trying to get away from.”

“So what are we going to do about fixing him?” Carrie cut in.

“I-… what?” Mina visibly deflated, shoulders rounding. “…fuck. I forgot about that.”

Polly just stared at them all, for a few seconds. “…I don’t know what to do, now.”

Mina bit her lip, sighed, and put out a hand to pet him, apologetically, but took it back at the last instant. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It didn’t occur to me that I might.”

He looked at her fingers, and quietly said hm, before turning away.

“Please don’t stop doing things just because I explained things badly. Just know that if you find out anything you don’t like, and need help hiding, or wanted us to protect you, I would absolutely be on your side. All right?” Mina wiped her fingers on a tissue and let her arms flop at her sides. “This all made a lot more sense in my head when I was trying to cannulate a fake arm.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Jaxon put his plate to one side. “You’ve got a… homing instinct, right, Polly? Kind of?” he said, carefully.

“…I guess? After a fashion?”

“I mean as soon as you got here, you started looking for where you came from, so you could get back there?”

“That’s right. I had a… feeling? That I should be contacting someone? For them to come and collect me? And I don’t like being lost, it feels like I’m doing something wrong. Like I’m not making enough effort to get un-lost.”

“Right! So I woulda assumed that if you really had escaped somewhere, and didn’t want to go back, you’d have figured out some way of turning that off before you ran away?”

“I… guess?” Polly cocked subtly to one side. “It… sounds logical.”

“I mean presumably you’d have known you’d constantly have this uncomfortable niggly thought that demands you try to get back to the place you just escaped from. So the fact you do want to go home makes me think you didn’t turn it off on purpose. Or rather, it never crossed your mind that you might need to.”

Polly responded with another little hm, but this time it sounded like it was at least bordering on reassured.

“We know they can’t find you or they’d have come here already. So… for now, it sounds like you’re mostly safe? And we can still take what Mina says on board, and help hide you if you need it, I just don’t think it’s the most likely scenario. What do you guys think?”

A little collection of nods greeted Jaxon’s statement.

“He’s one of us, now,” Carrie spoke up, firmly. “If worst comes to the absolute worst, and he is trying to get away from some evil mastermind? I am absolutely on board with running interference or rescue missions or whatever. But otherwise, we carry on as we have been.”

Mina raised a cautionary finger. “Just no-one mention it to Tark…”

oOoOoOo

Somewhere many miles above the student flat, Doctor Ninestein had been pacing for some time, alternating between re-reading the data on the pad in his hand, and making hypotheses.

Often basically the same hypotheses as he’d had a few minutes previously, Hiro privately acknowledged, and they weren’t getting much further forwards, but it was good to have both the company and the extra brains to work on the problem. And at least he wasn’t the only human working on it up here, any more; Kate Kestrel – currently doing battle with Spacehawk’s eternally-disobedient drinks machine – had accompanied Ninestein. (Hiro hoped that meant he’d actually feel comfortable enough to get a few minutes sleep, at some point.)

That wasn’t to say the zeroids weren’t helping – without them doing so much heavy lifting, tracking down and monitoring and analysing conversations across all different parts of the internet, infinitely faster than any human would ever manage, it’d probably take them literal years to find their missing officer… But sometimes it took a human’s imagination to make a breakthrough.

Sometimes. Because even with it, they hadn’t had a breakthrough.

Yet.

“He’s meant to have a homing beacon, Hiro. Why is it now two whole days since we dropped him, and 101 is still missing?”

Hiro watched his commander stride up and down the length of the flight deck. “We’ve been trying to raise him on a variety of channels since he went missing, but haven’t had a response,” he replied. “All I can surmise is that his antenna is damaged.”

Ninestein tapped the pad to his lips. “And that person the zeroids spotted talking about spherical robots? Have you heard anything more from them? Have you managed to make contact?”

“Our zeroids have been monitoring, but after no-one responded with any useful information it went rather quiet. They’ve tried raising them, but no response yet.”

“Can we be certain that no malicious forces have got their hands on him?”

That was a concept Hiro was trying to avoid dwelling too hard on. While he was confident that no zeroid would willingly co-operate with the enemy, it didn’t mean that ‘malicious force’ would try and get what they wanted some other way, like brute force. For 101 to survive that incredible fall only to be taken apart by some criminal megalomaniac? Didn’t bear thinking about.

“On balance of probability, I think we would have picked up on some discussion by now,” Hiro said, carefully. “The fact we haven’t feels like I can be cautiously optimistic – about that part, at least.” He didn’t quite manage to swallow his sigh.

A gentle hand tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned; Kate smiled and slotted a green tea into his hands.

“Don’t worry, Hiro. We’ll find him. It’s only been two days.”

Hiro wrapped his hands around the hot ceramic and inhaled deeply of the fragrant steam. “…thank you.”

Kate set her own coffee down on the terminal and pulled up the research. “What else have you got that we could work with?”

“There’s been other discussions. We’re monitoring various robotics forums and there’s… hints. We’re fairly confident now that he’s in London.” Hiro measured his words for quite some time before finally giving voice to them. “I don’t think one of them is just discussing him,” he said, slowly. “I think one of them is 101.”

Kate pursed her lips, thoughtfully. “Why do you think he hasn’t come forwards?”

“I’m not sure.” Hiro leaned into the console and drummed his fingers against it. “I suspect – make that, I’m fairly sure – he has broken something more than just his antenna. An uncontrolled orbital insertion would have caused a lot of heat, and he probably impacted very hard. It might have disrupted any of a dozen databases. He’s trying to get in contact with us but can’t do it the conventional way, because…” He spread his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe he can’t remember who we are?”

“And we’re not the easiest to get in contact with at the best of times,” Kate agreed. She waited until Ninestein’s attention was back on the data 43 had provided before resting her elbows on the command console and glancing over to 101’s unoccupied perch. “You don’t think maybe he’s, ah. Running dark on purpose for a little while?”

Hiro matched her volume, speaking softly. “I’m not sure I understand you.”

“You know how sometimes if you let a dog off its leash, it doesn’t come straight back when you call it because it’s enjoying its freedom too much?”

Hiro narrowed his eyes. “I’m still not sure I understand your metaphor.”

“How often does he leave Spacehawk?”

“Not often. He’s not really designed to?”

“Exactly. He gets left in charge up here all the time when we’re away doing interesting things on Earth, and then we wonder why he gets bored and grumpy. Carpe diem. He’s just taking this once-in-a-lifetime chance to do his own thing.”

Hiro considered it for a little while. “Surely he would tell us if he was unhappy.”

“Oh, 101 would definitely tell us if he was unhappy. But maybe he’s only just discovered what Earth outside Terrahawks is like, and is taking advantage of a day or two downtime.”

Overhearing the quiet conversation, Ninestein interrupted, glaring very slightly; “He better not be. One of our top secret military robots, ‘living his best zeroid life’ in central London.”

Kate smiled and spread her hands. “Just putting the idea out there. If Hiro’s right and he’s lost his memory? Who knows what he’s up to.”

Ninestein sighed into his palm. “Someone better keep an eye on the news, just in case he disgraces himself…”

“I suppose I can at least take some comfort in the idea this means he is probably not trying somehow to do all this alone,” Hiro said, quietly, once Ninestein had moved out of earshot. “If his own antenna is broken, but he’s accessing the internet, then someone has provided him the facilities to do so.”

“Or he’s broken into a library and stolen a public hire tablet.”

Hiro gave her a gentle glare. “Not funny.”

Kate smiled. “Maybe we need to be more forward, Hiro. That person you thought was him? Just come out with it and ask them. Are you our missing zeroid? If it isn’t him? It won’t mean anything. If it is? Then we’ve found him.”

“Did you hear that, One-seven?”

“I’ll do my best.” 17 took up position on 101’s perch. “I hope Space Sergeant 101 comes back soon.”

“Me too.” Hiro smiled, but looked tired. “But you are doing a good job.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings, sir. I know he does a better one.”

“No, you are doing a good job, and I appreciate it.” Hiro patted the zeroid on the head. “You saved me having to do some very emotionally taxing work, at the start. I know I would have struggled. We would not be anywhere near as far forwards as we are now without you and 43. Thank you, both of you.”

Zeroid expressions weren’t always the easiest to interpret, with their limited facial features, but 17 fairly puffed up with glee at getting genuine praise from his human. “Thank you, sir! I’ll do my best to make you proud.”

oOoOoOo

Friday evening rolled around, and the flatmates were getting ready for an evening out; Mina was already happily tipsy and Jaxon wasn’t far behind. Laine, not planning on going out, was at least planning on getting a little drunk.

Impatient Mina had been ready to go for some time, her hair piled up in a mountain of ringlets and wearing something short, lilac, and particularly sparkly. “Hey, cuteness.” She leaned down over the back of the couch and planted a sloppy kiss on Polly’s top curve, leaving a smear of bright lipstick behind. “How’s your search going.”

“Cute?” Polly echoed. “I’m a ball.”

Mina climbed over the back of the chair and slid down it, getting between him and the cushions, so he fetched up between her legs. Her long, sheer-tights-covered but otherwise pretty naked legs. “No, you are cute. And funny! I will fight anyone who says otherwise.”

Polly looked somewhat alarmed at the attention. “Oh! Um. You’re quite close. Haha. Help?”

“It’d be fun if you could come out with us but I guess that’s not on the cards.”

“Uhhhm. Probably not. I think I would draw attencould you maybe not be so close?!”

“It’s a real shame because there’s so many people who I know would love to meet you!” She let her arms drape around him.

“Okay um I don’t think hugs is really what I was built for?” He leaned forwards in an attempt to roll free but the couch had turned back into a robot-trapping monster. “Oh gosh. Anyone?”

“Wha-at? Aw man, that’s criminal. You deserve all the hugs, tiny dude.” She wrapped herself around him in a sort of four-limbed embrace and rested her chin on him.

“A-aa-… help!”

Jaxon snickered into his bottle. “Pretty sure sexy attention from the half-naked chick is not what the gay robot is interested in, Mins.”

Mina propped her elbows against the top of Polly’s casing and laced her fingers under her chin. “A lot of women have a queer bestie. What does it matter if mine if a robot?”

“You’ve known him two days, I think bestie is kinda presumptuous.”

“Just get off the poor guy, Minnie,” Carrie said, waving her curling iron in a subtly scolding way. “He doesn’t want your vadge that close to his face. I don’t think I would, either.”

“I’ve got shorts on!” Mina threw her hands up. “Ugh. You people are no fun, seriously.” She tried to get up but every time she leaned too hard in one direction, the cushions made a spirited attempt to swallow her. She flailed her arms for an instant. “…guys, I’m stuck. Help me!”

“Push me off the front,” Polly instructed, tiredly, unplugging from the laptop.

“But you’ll bang your poor head again.” Mina feathered her fingers over the little dent his impact with the roof had left.

“I’ve clearly survived worse.”

“Oh, fine.” Mina dropped a pillow over the front edge, just in case, before getting both arms behind him and heeaving. The seat cushions didn’t give him much purchase but between them they managed to roll him off the couch; there was a muffled whump as he hit the pillow, and the low rattle as he rolled off out of the way.

“Could someone please move the laptop for me? The dining table will be fine.”

“You seriously going to work on that all night?” Carrie challenged. “Take the evening off. Do something fun. Dance with us!”

“Dance?” Polly cocked over to one side. “I really think that’s not what I’m meant to be doing.”

“I think your temporary boss has said you can do precisely whatever the fuck you like.”

Polly looked around for confirmation from Laine; she just offered a grin and saluted him with her wineglass.

Impatient, Carrie grabbed him in both hands and span him aggressively on his axis; he gave a little squeak of alarm and rolled drunkenly halfway across the room before managing to catch himself.

“This might just be another of those things that you don’t know you can do. So maybe, just do it.”

“I don’t know how to!”

“Oh, psh. Anyone can dance. Even birds can dance. You only need a sense of rhythm.” Carrie waggled a threatening finger at him. “Maybe you’re just too embarrassed to admit you don’t have one.”

“Oh-ho; I see how it is. Fine! Challenge very accepted.”

Back when Polly had first joined them, they’d all quickly got over the surprise of seeing him bounce from a standing start, and after that not very much seemed unusual or questionable, any more – and the idea of dancing didn’t raise so much as a single eyebrow.

“Day three in the Big Brother house,” Sanjay intoned, mimicking the announcer from the old television series. “And the housemates are trying to teach Polly to dance. With limited success, on account of he has no legs. Or arms. And is basically just a head.”

Laine snickered and gave him a shove.

Although, for a sphere that could politely have been called “not the most athletic”, Polly was actually doing surprisingly well; studying Carrie’s moves and trying to copy her, pivoting on his axis, little sort of motor hops, and what could generously have been called handbrake turns. Normally he navigated the world with his shutters closed so he could roll smoothly; now, he was trying very hard to remain mostly vertical, eyes open, keeping time with the music. Carrie and Mina were both excitedly egging him on, daring him to (albeit not always terribly successfully) try ever more elaborate moves.

Laine snorted. “Yeah; fuck you and the high horse you came in on, Tark. Military tech, my ass. Teaching himself to dance.”

Finally everyone decided they were ready to leave; Polly bounced up to his usual spot on the couch beside Laine, close to where the laptop was still parked – although he made no attempt to access it, for once.

“Nice moves,” Laine said, gesturing with the bottle before refilling her glass. “Never knew a ball could do that.”

“Aw, thank you!” He beamed, as though his smile had got stuck. “I’m not sure I knew I could, either.”

“Another one to add to the list, huh?”

“Actually I don’t think that would have ever been on my list in the first place.”

“Oh! So, Carrie has discovered her place in the universe! Dance tutor to small spherical mechanical lifeforms. Well done, Caz!”

Carrie stuck her tongue out at them, hopping on one leg and trying to get her shoes on. “Come on folks. The clubs will all be closing before we even get out of the flat…”

“Bye Polly!” Mina called over her shoulder as the collective bundled her through the door. “Come with us next time!”

They both watched the front door slam, and listened as the loud voices faded down the long hallway stairs.

“Not your thing?” Polly prompted.

“Not tonight it isn’t.”

“I hope you’re not just staying on my account.”

“No. I like a good night on the town like the next girl, but after this week? I could do with a quiet night in.” Laine grinned. “Given the chance, you would absolutely have gone with them, right, you little glitterball?”

He made a little disgruntled noise and glanced away. “It might have been fun.”

“Maybe next time, eh?” She snickered into her glass. “You never answered Minnie earlier. How is your search going?”

Polly made a long electronic sigh-h-h-ing noise. “It’s not.” He sagged unexpectedly sideways into her.

Surprised but not displeased, Laine moved her arm out of the way and let him lean.

“I thought I had a lead, but they’re not talking to me any more,” he went on. “At least, not since I didn’t respond positively to them saying something about money. Or… well, I admitted to not having any. Do you think I put them off?”

“Naah. Just because you’re awake and functional at all hours, don’t forget they’re people-… Uh, probably people. People do have to sleep, you know.”

He made a little doubtful noise. “I don’t even know how much I should be searching, any more. What if Mina’s right?”

“Please don’t put too much stock in what Mina says. She’s got a good honest heart but she really doesn’t like the military and sometimes overreacts a bit? The idea of rescuing a poor little sentient robot from some kind of… armed-forces-slavery… I’m not going to say it excites her because that makes it sound like she’s only in it for herself and would enjoy your suffering, but if you were scared and needed help and support, she would absolutely be there right at the front, fighting for you.” Laine patted the flat of her palm against him. “I mean, so would all of us, but Mina’s the one with the connections to make it work.”

“…I understand. And thank you,” Polly said, quietly. “I’m glad it was your roof I fell through.”

“Me too, Pols.” Laine tightened her arm across him. “And I really hope we do manage to get you back where you want to be soon, even if it does mean you leave us.”

He hmm’ed quietly.

“…watch TV?” She waved the remote.

“Sure.” He sighed, beaten. “Why not. Not like there’s much else I can do right now.”

“What do you fancy?” She cued up the listings.

He watched her scroll through. “I don’t think I have a preference. I don’t know what any of these ar- wait. What’s Silent Witness? How can you be a witness if you’re silent?”

“Figures you’d pick that one, chatterbox.” Laine cued it up. “Oh, wow. This is old telly. They don’t cut them up like this any more.” She slouched more comfortably into the cushions and stuck her feet up on the table.

“Cut… cut what up?!”

Laine just smiled and pressed play.

Polly soon got his answer.

Not many minutes in, after the discovery of a crime scene and recovery of a body, the sounds of crunching bones and squishing viscera came from the television.

“Oh, ew, gross!” he squeaked, and turned his face against her, trying to squirm behind her arm. “Why did we decide to watch this?!”

“Hey, you were reading the summaries along with me, it was your choice, and you have metal eyelids, you squeamish little drama queen.” She chuckled and lifted her arm for him anyway. “You know none of that is real, right? They didn’t cut up actual bodies for a TV drama.”

“It looks real!” Pause. “It sounds real! Oh, ew, ew. You could have warned me it was about post mortems!” But he was still peering out from behind her arm anyway, morbidly fascinated. “Gross. Who comes up with this.”

They watched in companionable silence for a while. Even though the more intensely visceral bits had ended and the scientists were instead running around in a clean lab, talking to the police, Polly seemed content to stay behind her arm. Just in case, perhaps.

…orrr, perhaps he’d decided she was a friend, and since he was sad and lost and lonely, that little bit of affection freely given was nice, even though he didn’t really have the physiology to be the snuggliest.

Aware that she was probably a bit drunk, so might have been reading more into it than was necessarily there, Laine mulled it around in her head. Mina was right – he really didn’t seem to fit the mould all that well for a military robot? Not for the first time, she wondered what all this meant his ‘home life’ was like – all work and no play? All regulations and orders and strict regimes? Did robots even get the opportunity to watch TV and snuggle? And who with?

But this time, the alcohol had loosened her inhibitions, just a little. “Listen, I don’t mean any offence with this, but. Do you think the way you speak is more than just an affect?”

“What do you mean?”

She weighed her words, carefully. “Is it… just programming?”

“Reading between the lines, I think you’re asking if I’m actually gay.”

Laine felt her cheeks get hot. “Um. I suppose, yeah.”

Polly watched the scientists doing something involving white Tyvek suits and respirators and copious rummaging through dirt and rubble on a building site. “I guess that depends if you think everything else about me is genuine, as well. Can I be queer if my emotions aren’t real in the first place?”

She pondered it for a little while. “So I think I answered my own question, maybe.”

He nudged just a fraction closer, grateful. “Why’d you bring this up anyway. Just to distract me from gross drippy prosthetic bodies being cut up?”

“Aw, damn, he caught me.” She smiled. “We can just watch something else, you know.”

“No, no. I wanna know how it ends, now.” He waited a second or two. “So-?”

Yeah, Laine. You don’t get out of sticking your big clumsy foot in your mouth that easily. She exhaled. “I don’t know. You’re always worrying about not being able to find out where you belong, and… I guess it all feels very one-sided. Like you already convinced yourself you’re the only one looking? And there might be, I don’t know. Someone out there, who’s worried about you, for you. Because Minnie’s right, you are cute. I’d be worried, if you were my friend.”

“Based on your first question, and taking the logical route here,” he surmised, gently, “you’re wondering if I have a boyfriend.”

Laine hadn’t quite recovered from the last time but he caught her unexpectedly off-guard and she inhaled a sip of wine down the wrong tube. She coughed and felt the heat rise further in her face. “Uh. I guess.” She wheezed for a second or two. “Sorry. That was totally inappropriate of me. I don’t even know why I would assume that was a thing. I mean sure okay you totally behave like a person and I guess I extrapolated but you’re still a robot and I guess-… I’m not making this any better, am I?” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I need to shut up. We’ve only known each other two days. The hell do I think I’m entitled to know something like that-”

He laughed. “You’ve also been drinking quite a lot of alcohol. And it’s fine. I don’t mind. I’d rather it was you asking, instead of like, everyone in the whole flat at once. Your friends can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.”

“Oh, tell me about it.” She glanced down; Polly was still tucked under her arm so couldn’t have been that offended – and he was still smiling. He angled subtly upwards to meet her gaze.

“You’re human. You anthropomorphise,” he went on. “The last couple days have taught me you all like to think I’m a person when I’m clearly not-”

“Um excuse me, there is no clearly not about it.” She gave him a little gently scolding rap on his brow with her knuckles. “You’re just a different flavour of person.”

“Ok, fine!” He snickered softly and tried to squirm away from her tapping fingers. “You like to treat me as a human person. So it stands to reason you’d ask me… human questions. I can’t even say they’re not relevant because who even knows, any more? The more questions you all ask me, about things I don’t think I’d have ever considered, the less certain I am about what I actually am. Not that I had a good grasp of that to begin with.”

“You’re allowed to tell us to shut the hell up.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. And honestly?” He dropped his voice to a slightly conspiratorial whisper. “I like the attention.” Beat. “I’d even like Tark’s, if he was nicer, because he is quite easy on the eye, if you know what I mean.”

Laine snorted and gave him a shove. “You’re such a little gremlin!” she told him, while he cackled gleefully. “Of all the things I thought I’d be having a drunken conversation with you about, this was absolutely not it. And you haven’t answered my question, either.”

“There’s… I don’t know. A tickle, if you like? Which I’ve been trying to pin down,” Polly mused. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not a memory, it’s not hardcoded, it’s not a directive. It’s just… there… and feels important. I hadn’t really thought about it from that angle until now but maybe it’s someone not something?”

“…oo-ooh. That feels like a maybe you do, then?”

They giggled together for a few seconds.

“Is there someone out there looking for me because they care about me, and not just because I’m an expensive smart speaker,” he pondered. “Even if it’s pretty unlikely, it’s a nice idea. I might save it.”

“Why unlikely?”

He gave her a gently chastising look that said -reeally?- before returning to Silent Witness.

“There’s nothing to say it’s a human. I mean, you have a number on your forehead. Stands to reason there’s probably at least a couple of other little round guys like you rolling around out there somewhere. Why couldn’t it be one of them?” Something flashed into her tipsy thoughts. “That answers one thing, at least.” She knew it was inappropriate but couldn’t quite suck it back in before it escaped. “I heard it’s only gay if the balls touch.”

A further riot of laughter ensued – but it was only after a second or two, when Polly said, round the giggles; “…I don’t get it?” that Laine managed to laugh herself into a crying fit.

It took a good few minutes for Laine to finally recover her composure. “God, Polly. Do we have to let you go? You’re adorable.”

“Adorably broken.”

She tightened her arms in a hug and felt his weight increase subtly as he leaned against her. “Aw, man. I promise we’ll figure this out. And I don’t care about Tark; as our honorary housemate, we’re gonna look after you until we do. If it means we have to steal you and flee to some remote Scottish island where no-one can find us, so be it.”

“There’s probably better places for us to hide than islands we can’t quickly escape from, but I appreciate the thought.”

A ripple of haunting music drew their attention back to the television, and they found the end credits already rolling up the screen.

“Aw, look. We missed the ending, now. Want me to go back?”

“Please--”

But before Laine could hit the remote, the front door rattled, and their effervescent mood instantly flattened. There was only one person it could realistically be – if anyone else had come back after forgetting something, they’d have been loud about it.

“Oh, hey.” Tark juggled a paper-wrapped takeaway and hung his coat inside the door. “Thought you guys were going out tonight.”

“Nah. Me and Pols have been educating ourselves on forensic science.”

Tark snorted and sprawled out on the other couch with his supper. “What, CSI? You know how hard that got slated for giving people unrealistic ideas of how the police work.”

“Silent Witness, actually,” Polly corrected. He seemed very subdued, all of a sudden.

“That’s not exactly a whole universe better.” Tark, of course, noticed nothing. “Anyway. As promised, I spent the day asking around for you. I’m on a whole bunch of AI channels, and like you probably imagine there’s a tonne of folk on there from all different kinds of jobs, including like, military, security services, space agencies, all that good stuff. Obviously they’re all super involved in developing autonomous robotics, so who better to ask?”

“Going to get to the point some day soon? You better not have told them about Polly.”

Tark had a mouthful of kebab so was momentarily restricted to just giving Laine a hard look. He swallowed with difficulty. “Because I’m not a total mouth-breather, obviously not. It’s not like I said, oh by the way we seem to have accidentally kidnapped some dude’s property, and we’re struggling to work out where the send the ransom demand.”

“Seriously? D’ya have to?” Laine returned the scowl. “He’s right here.”

“Sorry, sorry. Just making a little joke.” He put his hands up. “Friendly tip for you, Polly, for free. When picking your human helper? Try not to go for the raging drunkard.”

Laine’s glare deepened, but Polly cut in before she could fire off an insult. “Please, guys. I know you don’t get on, but please don’t fight because of me.” He directed his attention onto Tark. “I’d like to hear what you found out. I haven’t made a lot of progress myself.”

“I’ve been in contact with someone who says they might know something. I mean, not to get all conspiracy theory about it, but he thinks some… secret security organisation or something might have developed hardware like you. That’d explain why you can’t find out a lot, right?” Tark grimaced at the mound of tomato slices all up one end of his kebab, and piled them all up on the table. “I didn’t give much away because I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, but. Would you be amenable to talking to them, if I put you in contact? I think you’d get more out of talking directly to them than me being like, your secretary.”

Polly considered it for a very long time. “Perhaps. But I’d like more information first. Who are they and how do they know that? And do you think they’re genuine?”

Tark smiled, and was pleased to see Polly smile back. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

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[tossup on whether the music was Belinda Carlisle, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, or Caravan Palace *pondering*]