Point of Origin, Chapter three - Pocket lint and Cracker Crumbs

By the time I got up to the Port, the evening light was only just disappearing behind far, exhausted rain-clouds on the horizon. The nonexistent birds had quieted, and the steady, stale tasting breeze had died down into a soundless, senseless whisper as it drifted like a ghost through the buildings on Surface Side.

The Port was far from dead or quiet, which brought me conflicting emotions–it could simultaneously make my task easier and harder.

I readjusted the bag across my shoulders, and subconsciously checked the off-white bandages at my wrist and made sure it was tight.

No use in drawing attention to myself up here. It wasn’t worth the insults.

I set off across the street, ducking into a side alley that was blocked by a huge metal tube.

The Port, or more commonly referred to as the Tri-Dock, was an integral part of Lisk. As its name suggested, it offered three forms of transportation.

First, the shuttles that zipped up and down and in and out of the mountain settlement. They parked out in the Ports' very own shuttle bays.

They also lumbered across the Hollow Wastes to the other scarce towns and settlements. It was a kind of travel that made moving around easy for the locals. It wasn’t the greatest mode of transport if you didn’t have any money, though.

Secondly, it was the Vien system's only Intersystem Port, meaning, if you wanted to get to Operis–Coviens only inhabitable moon–or Nemo and Stiltch–Covien's sister planets–then you had to use this port and find a ship that could take you, or pay the tax to fly there, yourself.

I didn't really know why you couldn't just fly there, but Lewis had told me it had something to do with Interplanetary Laws and the Blue Fringe Alliance, and who did and didn’t sign it. Anyway, not on my list of things to figure out.

Thirdly, there was the Railtube. When the Scelirian Order left Covien, they left them with a hollow planet. Sounds bad, and quite frankly, it really was–but, a hollow planet meant a planet filled with tunnels, and tunnels meant a faster way to travel, I guess.

Of course, someone's transport fell onto an important Railtube section out in the Hollow Wastes, and it was still out of order. The only thing that the Railtube tunnel was good for, now, was sneaking into the Port.

I got to the base of the metal tube, using the large bolts as hand and foot holds. Hoisting myself onto the top, I was now in reach of the service stairs that clung to the side of Tri-Dock 61 like a deranged snake.

Now, the service stairs could be used for several things: cleaning the glass that randomly panelled the side of building getting to the very top of the Tri-Dock building–

–or if you were a special mixture of desperate and stupid, climbing into one of the high Port windows and dropping in.

Pulling myself onto the railing, I flicked the hood of my poncho up to hide my face, and tried to look inside the Port to get a good grasp of where I should drop in. As I said before–thankfully–it looked pretty busy. But I didn’t see the Bot anywhere.

I ducked under the windowsill, out of sight from anyone on the other side.

Still bending down, I skirted around the edge of the Port and came to where the service ramp turned into stairs and changed direction into the next flight.

I took a deep breath, poking my eyes above the windowsill and checking that the coast was clear. At this side of the Port there were shelves filled with mail, and there wasn’t anyone back here.

Good.

I dashed up the rusty steps, carefully placing my feet on the places I knew were safe, and avoiding the ones that were too rusty to hold any weight.

Up on the next level of ramp, I was now on par with the high windows of the Tri Dock. They were barely a few feet wide, but they were big enough for someone to wiggle through. The real problem lay with how high they were–about two metres from the ground.

I ran my fingers along the bottom of one of the windows, finding it pressed shut, but unlatched. Ha. Lewis always forgot to close this one.

After a quick survey of the empty mail shelves, I pushed the window open and dove inside, holding onto the windowsill for dear life. The trick was to hold onto the windowsill and let your feet dangle until you were the closest you could be to the floor, and then drop.

Unfortunately, my poncho had other ideas. It wrapped around my arm, and my hand slipped from the windowsill before my feet had a chance to lower from the ledge.

As graceful as a Hauler Bot at a Royal Entrillian ball, me, my poncho, and my dumb sense of optimism fell to the floor in one big heap and a muffled yell.

It took a moment for my head to clear and figure out what went wrong.

I think I might have hit my wrist again. I rolled onto my back, biting my lip to keep myself from crying like a baby.

My little pity-party was swiftly cancelled as I heard footsteps close by. I jumped to my haunches, crouching behind one of the shelves for mail and holding my breath. I could hear two Covienians passed, heading towards the departure bays to my right.

I poked my head out from behind the high, parcel laden shelf, watching as the two travellers signed easily to each other.

I could only make out a few signs.

That Fast? one of them signed. Them–Not even planetside yet!

The other shrugged, his signs flowing seamlessly into each other. Imperial Guilds–Screw around–Don’t.

The broken grammar that Motion usually used was fascinating to me. So much of what people said relied heavily on what context it was put in.

Of course, usually context and inflection flew straight over my head, but I was getting better. I could tell by the body language of the two travellers that they were both mad, so that was something. I watched them leave, happy to see only a few stragglers racing to catch a shuttle that was just about to pull away.

Taking another unnecessarily deep breath, I padded down to the end of the long mail shelf, peeking out from behind the dusty wood. From my extremely open hiding place, I squinted across the Port. In the distance was the entire reason I was here.

Tucked away between two information consoles, was a machine older than time, itself.

It was a glorious, marvellous miracle; a unique and utterly amazing machine. It was a Vending Unit, but not just any Vending Unit. Yeah, sure, there were other Vending Units scattered all throughout the Lower Levels, but there was something that set this one apart from all the others–and it was that this one was about a hundred years old, and that meant it was a hundred times easier to steal from.

A group of people were just leaving from one of the three shuttle bays. That was it! My ticket across the Port.

As they disembarked, they meandered easily towards the doors. Head down, eyes on the floor, and mind only on one thing, I stalked briskly across the Port–filing into the group of people and popping out on the other side.

I give a quick, unsuspicious check around the Port, pretending to scratch my head as my eyes scanned the few stragglers that we’re just leaving.

Satisfied no one had seen me, I tried my best to ‘saunter’ to the Vending Unit tucked behind the information consoles. I didn't really know how to saunter, but I heard someone say it a few phases ago, and I interpreted it something like this:

Placing one foot casually in front of the other, pretending to be so unworried about the crime I was about to commit that I didn’t even bother to look behind me.

I arrived at the Vending Unit, quickly sliding between it and the wall, dropping to the floor as I searched along its base for the thick cord. Finding it, I wrapped my fingers around the greasy, old electrical cable and hesitated. The hum of electricity inside the unit purred away–and it gave me pause.

I shook the feeling away with an annoyed sound, and pulled the cable out.

I felt the Vending Unit power down.

I licked my dry and parched lips, smiling. Sure, it was petty theft, but it was nice to have a win sometimes.

Sliding out from behind the Unit and running my fingers along the glass window, I found myself staring at the rows and rows of cracker-like food.

Crisp’a’snac–Lewis had said that's what they were called.

Nutrition, and minerals, and whatever the hell else they had lying around, it was marketed as Miner's food, back when Covien was still a mining planet.

It hadn’t been a mining planet for over fifty years.

My fingers caught on the hinges to the Unit, and as I lifted gently, the entire side of the glass panel came free. With my right hand, I held the door up, careful to not let it sag. If that happened, the weight of the glass might break the lock on the other side, and that would probably not end this day on a good note.

With my free hand, I started grabbing bars from the shelves and stuffing them discreetly into the bag under my poncho. It was good that this Vending Unit was behind an information console, as it did well to hide my crimes from the people that might be passing from the shuttles to the door.

Before too long, I had everything I needed. Pushing the door back into place, I slid the glass back onto its hinges. I even gave it a pat.

“Good job.”

This was so much better than no dinner. And it was fast, too. Now, all I had to do was get back down to Kovals' and make sure I didn’t lose my job. I was in no mood to face Lou Koval again.

Satisfied, I turned away–but something stopped me, jerking me back towards the Vending Unit.

Lurching in an off-balanced motion, I turned to see what had thrown me. Lead filled the pit of my stomach as I saw what it was–a corner of my poncho had caught in the corner of the glass door. I mustn't have seen it when I locked the glass back into place.

“Scriking Poncho-” I muttered, pulling on the piece of fabric stubbornly. “Not again.”

In a brutal game of tug-of-war, I quickly became the loser. The Vending Unit would not yield the corner of my poncho, and I would not yield to the universe’s borderline sociopathic obsession with ruining my life.

After one firm resolve to break free, I put every morsel of my strength into pulling the article of clothing loose, and of course, that’s when the corner of my poncho decided to rip free with the sickening melody of tearing fabric.

No longer supporting my weight, the Vending Unit watched as I flew onto the floor, landing on the concrete to stare up at the roof in shock.

I laid there for a moment, then lifted up the edge of my poncho to survey the damage. The torn-out chunk was decent enough, but the hem of the poncho was already so frayed and torn, one could hardly tell anything was missing.

For some reason, this didn’t make me feel better.

I looked up at the Port ceiling again and sighed, eyes tracing the familiar pipes and fans with a faint feeling of guilt.

“I don’t see you for four weeks,” interrupted a monotone voice above me, “and then all of a sudden you’re climbing trough the windows–which you are not allowed to do–stealing from the Vending Unit–which you are not allowed to do–and laying on the Port floor, which you–”

I interrupted him, finishing his words in a habitual tone. "–Are also, not allowed to do.”

A tall Bot stared down at me with a hand on his hip, and a disappointed expression on his faceplate.

His left shoulder socket had been laid bare and empty, where an arm had rested only a few weeks before. Now, loose wires had been knotted hurriedly, and they hung down in a haphazard bundle.

I blew some of the hair from my face. “Hey, Lewis,” I said. “Those Mechanics still haven’t given back your arm?”

His vision sensors contracted a few times before he spoke, the vibrant blue studying me with a static, unreadable curiosity. He shifted, leaning down to look at me further until he was nearly bent over double. “What in Ethreal…” he started, tilting his head as he looked at me, “... happened to you?”

I blew the air out of my mouth in an attempt to dismiss his scrutiny. “Well, I fell out of an Astrogate.” I made a motion with my hand like a ship was flying through the air, and then my hand raced down and I made a sound like an explosion. “And then it all went down from there.”

Lewis didn’t seem amused.

“Hilarious,” he said, still leaning over and studying me. “Comedy based off of your near death and freak survival of an Astrostorm. Truly, peak humour. But no, I wasn’t referring to that.”

I rolled to my feet, straightening out my abused poncho.

I bit my tongue as Lewis talked, eyeing the door and trying to measure how fast I could run to it. The consoles around me hummed with electricity, and I tried my best to ignore their presence in the back of my mind.

“You’re up here,” –Lewis was saying as I tried to look past him at the exit– "pestering me, begging me, and bothering me for months about transports, and planets, and worlds–all in preparation for when the Astrostorm ended.” Lewis pointed a long, elegant metal finger at me.

“Well, I don’t know if you've heard, Evren” –he put more stress on the name then I wanted him too, and I looked up from the exit, frowning– “but the Astrostorm broke up around four weeks ago.”

I squinted up at him and nodded in a small, thoughtful way. I was never happy with how Lewis said my name.

“It did?” I asked, scratching the back of my neck. “Are they sure?” I added as Lewis looked down at me coldly.

“I mean–” I hurried to say, holding up my hands defensively, “I mean have they checked? Like, is it gone-gone?”

Lewis put a hand on his hip. “Yes, it is,” he said flatly. “They’ve checked.”

“Oh.” I looked down. “That's good, I guess.”

“‘Good’?” echoed Lewis. “No, it’s amazing.” He gestured around the port. “I was expecting you to come up here and book a transport like you said you would, but you…” He dropped his arm. “... didn’t come.”

I put my hands in my pockets, shrugging slowly. “I guess, I missed a lot? Being down in the Lower Districts, you know?”

Lewis’s blue eyes studied me with an unreadable expression. He held no evident anger, or even contempt at my reappearance. Instead there was this insufferable, quiet knowing air that he projected around him.

“Right,” he said. “How about I catch you up, then?” he asked suddenly, grabbing my shoulder and pushing me towards the news-screen connected to one of the pillars. “As your friend, and a Servant Bot, why,”—Lewis assumed a tone of someone who was being helpful to prove a point—"isn’t it my responsibility to educate you about the world?”

“No,” I said, trying to fight Lewis’s arm on my shoulder as he propelled me across the Port. “No, it really isn’t.”

“Oh, I think it is,” replied Lewis, still pushing me across the floor.

We arrived at the news-screen, and Lewis reached up and turned it back on. The shiny new knob squeaked noisily as he did so.

“Here we go,” he said, flicking to a video of clear skies as a narrator explained why the Astrostorms took so long to clear up. “This one says–”

He stopped himself, looking back at me with raised lenses–it was as close as he could come to raising his eyebrows. “Wait, after all those learning files I put on your Data Tab, you should be able to read this one, right?”

I gave him a look, walking to the news-screen and staring up at it. It really wasn’t installed for people my height.

I pointed up at a word stubbornly. “This one says 'Evren'.”

Next to me, Lewis inclined his head. “What about the other ones?”

My glare at the Bot deepened, and I looked back at the screen.

The lines and symbols, the shapes and curves–they wanted to move about in my brain and wiggle on the screen, making it impossible for me to focus. I decided to guess, pointing to another word as the video changed to the Hollow Wastes. “This one says storm.”

“No, that says Gray Raven,” Lewis responded flatly, looking from the screen to me. “Haven’t you been looking through the learning files I found for you?” Without letting me speak, he continued, looking around the Port in agitation, “Really, Evren, I cannot help you if you are unwilling to even try learning how to read.”

“I am trying!” I protested. “It's just–really hard for some reason, and I’ve been really busy.”

Lewis dismissed the excuse, going back to the screen. “Well, since you still refuse to learn M-Script, I will read them for you.”

The knob squeaked as he changed channels, and a few ships appeared on the screen. “This one says Freighters and Merchants are inbound for Covien after Astrostorm Evren passes, bringing much needed supplies AND reopening passage offworld.”

Lewis looked back at me, searching my face which had lost all expression. He seemed surprised.

“Oh right, this wasn’t what I was looking for.” He turned the knob again, and an ad for a pink beverage came up. “No, not that one,” he muttered absently. “I saved one especially to show you.”

Finally, a video came up of a rusty Hauler Bot, slumped to one side as a Covienian Ranger poked at it thoughtfully. It looked to be down in the low, Low Levels of Lisk, where alleys were dark and roofs were constantly caving in.

Lewis paused the video, making a thoughtful noise. “Hm.”

He put his finger up to each word as he read it out. “It says Rogue Hauler Bot from Del’s Workshop Gets Powered On by Local Mechscrubber. Authorities Start to Re-Evaluate Bot Safety.” He turned around slowly, wearing an innocent, slightly ridiculous expression as he stared at the finger he had been using to point at the words.

“If I remember correctly–which, being a Bot, I always do–the mechscrubber at Del’s Workshops was…” He lifted his eyes from his hand, and pointed both his gaze, and the finger, at me.

“...you.”

I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose painfully under Lewis’s silent gaze.

I knew he wasn’t going to say anything. He never had to when he had made a point.

Under my poncho, I shoved my hands inside my pants pockets, blowing out a breath. “Okay,” I said, staring at the floor. “I might have been responsible for… that.”

Lewis placed a hand over his vision sensors. “Evren, I thought we talked about this. What are you doing?” He became more aggravated and unsettled with each of his every word. “You were supposed to stay out of trouble, fly under the radar until you could leave. You were supposed to earn enough money to leave Covien, and then go when the storm ended.” He looked back at me. “What are you doing, trying to power on old Hauler Bots, and drawing unwanted attention to yourself?”

“I didn’t mean to!” I protested. “It was an accident!”

Lewis threw up a hand and turned away. “Of course you didn’t mean to. You never mean to do anything.” The Bot went to a mop and a bucket, and picked the mop up. “You just rush so blindly through life you forget that your actions have consequences on other people, too.” Lewis’s mop seemed to be trying to scrub away the very essence of the Port floor. “Like Zero.”

I took a step forward, frowning. “What do you mean?”

Lewis wouldn’t look at me.

“Covien's new Bot Evaluation Act states that any Bot that can no longer fulfil its base programming is to be decommissioned.” Lewis tilted his head as he looked up at me, his voice tinted with anger. “Gray Raven is backing it up, too. So it’s inevitable. Zero had been working at the Dock for over seventy three years–and he was gone in an instant because–” Lewis broke off what he was going to say, and instead, continued to try to scrub the poor floor out of existence.

The action was awkward and ungraceful, seeing as the Port Bot only had one hand. As Lewis tried to push and pull the long, slender mop back and forth, my gaze drifted up to where the wires that previously attached his arm hung limply from their socket. His words echoed in my head.

A small pulse of fear went through my bones. What if Zero hadn’t been the only Tri-Dock Bot decommissioned?

What if it had been someone else?

“Lewis–” I began. “I’m so sorry.” I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think–”

Lewis rested the mop in the bucket, placing a hand over his vision sensors again. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter.”

He dropped his hand, looking back at me.

“How do you even accidentally turn on a Hauler Bot, of all things?” He grabbed his mop again, returning to the imminent hole which I was sure he was trying to worry into the floor.

Wordless, I gripped both of my hands. I started to rock back and forth on my feet, watching the mop’s repetitive actions.

After a moment, the mop froze. Lewis finally looked up at me, his head moving slowly.

“Wait-” he said, straightening. “‘It was an accident?’” he echoed, perplexed.

“Yes,” I said, letting the word hang in the air. I turned around, trying desperately to find the words I knew I didn’t have.

I heard him behind me. “How does one accidently power on a Hauler Bot?”

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the buzzing of the consoles in my head. “Something is happening to me, Lewis.”

I looked over the empty, normal Port.

“Or, something has been happening, and I’ve just been too busy to care. I… notice things. Little sounds, or words, as I walk through the streets. They're like memories”–I gestured to myself–“except they're not mine. I can feel when someone is about to get mad before they even say anything about it. The Bots, down in the Lower docks? They look at me like they know something about me is different. Sometimes, I don't like how Lower Lisk’s Power Relay Units hum with electricity–but when I asked Loose about it, she said they were silent–that they don’t make noise.” I looked back at the Bot, turning to face him. “So what am I hearing?”

Lewis was silent–holding his mop limply as he processed my words.

“Well, I wouldn’t give two grains of salt to what that crazy woman says-- But are you saying you can… hear voices? And… electricity?” He still didn’t move, and he also didn’t really seem to understand. “Is that how you… powered on the Hauler Bot? Is that what you’re saying?”

I let go a breath, hanging my head. “It's not just that, it's…” I stopped myself. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Lewis rested his mop back in his bucket.

“There is little to no research on Astrogate survivors, Evren–” He explained this like it was his first time telling me this information. It wasn’t. “-as many perish before they can be studied. These things that you’ve described only sound like a hyper-awareness of some kind, which we have discussed before. It might pass.” He seemed unsure. “I feel that you have no real need to be concerned.”

I looked at Lewis to make sure he was serious.

“Lewis,” I said, spreading my hands, “did you not just hear what I said?” I forced out a laugh. “This isn’t just picking up on Zero’s information signals, anymore. This is dangerous. That Bot could have hurt people!”

“Did it hurt you?” asked Lewis.

I looked at the ground, putting my hands into my empty pockets. “Not directly.”

Lewis was somehow annoyed by the answer. “Well, what does that mean?”

Looking back up at Lewis, anger tinted my words, making them louder. “What do you think it means?” I shouted at the Bot, taking a step towards him. “Do you think that a Covienian is just going to let an Offworlder get away scotch-free when they ruin their entire workshop?! No! I’ll tell you why I’m still here–I’m still here because every single morsel of what I’ve earned so that I could leave this horrible place was taken off of me to ‘compensate for what I did’.”

Lewis blinked, unsure of what to do with my angry words. His mop was clutched in his hand.

I threw my hand towards him, angrily. “But what do you care, right?” I turned towards a window and looked at my angry reflection. “All you care about is transport and making sure that I leave. Well, here’s some bad news for you, Port Bot-” I didn’t use his name. If he wasn’t going to say mine seriously, I wasn’t going to say his. I directed my eyes at Lewis's reflection. “-It looks like it’s gonna be a while till I can go anywhere.”

The Bot hesitated. He looked down at his bucket of water, and then to me again. He almost seemed understanding.

“So all this time, you just had nothing left to pay for transport?” He paused again as he thought about what he wanted to say.

“That’s the reason why you left the Port, right?”

I gave him a confused look, shrugging as I turned from the window. “Of-of course it was, Lewis.”

Again, there was a pause. “There were… no other reasons?”

I had no answer to give the Bot except my unhappy silence.

How did he know? How did Lewis always know?

In the distance, I could hear the evening bells toll miserably, a sign that the evening break was over.

“I have to go,” I said, turning towards the doors. “I’ve got work to do.” I threw the words over my shoulder as I walked. “If I can keep this job, maybe I can be gone in a few months, and then you don’t have to worry about me ever again.”

Lewis caught me before I could go, his large metal hand on my shoulder. “Evren. I just want you to be able to leave.”

His glowing eyes looked down at me again, in an unreadable expression, his voice almost pleading. “And I don’t understand what’s going on–with you, or with what the Astrostorm did to you–but it is my advice that if you want to get off-world…”

I looked out of the Port as Lewis spoke.

In my heart, I knew that the Bot only wanted to make sure I could leave. It was only what he was programmed to do as a Servant Bot–serve Organic life, and aid in its endless troubles.

“… you need to stay out of trouble. Especially–”

I nodded, brushing his hand off my shoulder.

"–especially with Mechanics. I know. I-I promise, Lewis. ”

Kovals' was just how I had left it.

I stepped into the shop, slightly out of breath from running, yet again.

Weaving in and out of the shop felt a little bit like habit now, but it still didn’t stop my now newly frayed poncho from getting caught on bolts and screws that overhung their shelves just a little too much.

It didn’t help that I was distracted–that my mind kept on wandering to Zero and Lewis. And how the Evaluation Act might be Lewis’s end now that he only had one arm. I tried to tell myself that Lewis’s programming was still functional, and that he was safe from any such Evaluation. But the truth was, I didn’t know enough about these things to give myself the reassurance that I desperately wanted.

I shook my head as I trudged through the shop, muttering to myself. Lewis was going to be okay. I just needed to find a way to fix this. And when I found that way to fix this, by Eth, I would.

Arriving at the back of the shop, there were no crates next to my stool. I frowned, turning to one of the Mechanics that had been previously working on the Humider. The same machine sat at her workstation, only now it seemed more like a freaky skeleton. She was busy attaching a cylindrical device to its base.

I cleared my throat, about to get the attention of the Mechanic when she spoke.

“You need to cough–or do ya’ want something, Offworlder?”

I swallowed, only realising at this moment that I was slightly terrified of this woman. It's amazing to discover new things about yourself.

“Kan said she had crates for me to clean–” I looked back to the place I usually cleaned the parts at to make sure nothing was there. “But–”

Before I could finish, the woman shouted across the workshop. “Hey, Gary!”

We both watched as a head appeared from behind a bench with a thousand different wires on it, and presumably, Gary, with a tin cup in his hand.

“Wot?” he shouted back, mouth full of some unseen snack.

“Did you ever bring out the crates for the mechscrubber?”

Gary looked like someone who had been in agony all day over something they knew they had forgotten, but couldn’t remember what. He smacked his forehead. “That’s what I was supposed to do!”

The woman rolled her eyes visibly, turning to me. “You know what kid, you’ve been here long enough. Just go in the back, that's where we keep ’em.” She gestured to the door that led into the back of the workshop.

The sacred door.

The door I wasn’t allowed to touch.

“Bring em’ out when you’re done,” the woman said, and went back to screwing on the cylindrical pipe.

I nodded slowly. “Do you know-”

The Mechanic cursed at her work, throwing one of the tools she was using over her shoulder.

I dodged it easily.

“Gary!” she shouted again, “did you take my Pulse driver?!”

There was a thud behind Gary’s workstation. “Crap-!” the other Mechanic exclaimed.

Thinking that it might be best to leave the Mechanics to scrap over their own missing equipment, I picked up my brush and headed to the door at the back of the shop quickly. The door wasn’t that much different than any other door in Lisk; covered in rust, probably needed its hinges replaced, and really hard to unlatch.

I pushed it open, expecting a dark, greasy workshop much like the front one.

Instead, I blinked away the brightness of a well lit warehouse, filled with Bots and workstations of a hundred variations. They lined the edges of the warehouse, and any space in between. Workbenches and pulleys held half-finished Bots in place where Mechanics worked on them. Some people I recognized from the front of the shop, but some, I had never seen before in my life.

The door shut behind me, and I was left gawking at the warehouse/workshop in stupid amazement. I could see that the very far, back wall, actually had a space cut out where small ships and shuttles could land.

I saw a bunch of workers loading up three tall Bots I didn’t have a name for into the back of a small vessel.

“This is huge,” I muttered, looking up to the silver stairs that lead to offices or backrooms cut further into the walls. “I thought I worked for some greasy Mech Mechanics.”

Right, then.

I walked to the left of the door for a few paces, eyes still glued to the Bots and people around me. Sparks flew overhead as someone ground through the tough casing of what I recognized to be a Labour Bot–their small, sturdy and squat frames making them excellent workers meant for steady, manual labour.

But–I tilted my head. They were doing something weird to this one. This looked more like it had a blaster in one arm. Weird.

The thing I was most worried about became nothing as I lingered by the door–no one seemed to care about me being back here, so I took it as a good sign.

Looking around, I found a stack of boxes to my right, every one of them with my name on it. Well, not really–I mean, even if they had my name on it, I probably wouldn’t even have known, but anyway–figuratively.

Kneeling next to the boxes, I lifted off the top box, peering into the bottom crate sceptically. It was filled with small, incredibly fiddly bits.

Oh joy.

I placed the other box down on the ground with a thud, and brandished my wire brush. “Right, Evren–” I said, picking up the first piece and starting the long process of scraping the rust off. “Let’s get to work.”

A Mechanic shuffled past–the blond one who didn’t know he was talking about me this afternoon–carrying a huge box that appeared to be quite heavy. The edge of the box nicked my shoulder as the Mechanic overestimated how low to the ground the box was.

I lurched awkwardly to the side, and the part I had in my hand flew out and under a bench, sliding in between two crates, a few metres away.

“Watch it, mechscrubber.” Lev threw the words over his shoulder, awkwardly opening up the door into the other part of the shop and disappearing.

I rubbed my shoulder, watching him leave.

I could never understand Covien courtesy. It’s almost like it had been surgically removed with all the other remotely valuable things from this planet.

Grumbling, I scrambled across to the bench, where I crouched down and stretched my hand in between the two large crates, searching unhappily for the missing piece. After a few seconds of struggling, I had to resort to practically dropping onto the ground, and reaching even further in.

A normal person might have thought, man, I hope this doesn’t put me behind, or I hope I don’t lose my job, but my only thought was I really, really hope Kan doesn’t come around the corner right now because that would be embarrassing. What a great image that would have been–the mechscrubber literally laying down on the job.

Finally, my fingers were rewarded with the feeling of rusty metal, and I pulled the piece out triumphantly, accidentally disturbing the covers of the nearby crates as I did so.

“Oh, sorry,” I muttered, hurriedly trying to right the boxes. As I reached up to pull the lid back over the crate, I caught a glimpse of what was inside.

Slowly, I pushed the lid back off the crate.

What had caught my eye was a Bot part, one in such good condition, it didn’t look like it belonged anywhere in this workshop at all. It was a Bot arm, and not just any Bot arm, but a Servant Bot arm. And not just any Servant Bot arm

…an incredibly familiar Servant Bot arm.

My shoulders dropped as I stared at the limb.

I hated breaking promises.