There was a considerable crowd in the lodge gift shop today, oohing and aahing over plush owls, bears, and wolves, kitschy precious gemstone necklaces, and shot glasses emblazoned with the logo for the Alfred Gonzala Natural Park. Mid-June was typically when the tourism season really kicked off, with hikers and campers swarming the park with snow-covered mountain peaks only a four hour drive away.
Standing at a small boot washing station at the side of the lodge was a black-haired woman armed with a wooden spatula-like contraption, attempting to scrape off the worst of the mud coating her boots and the lower hem of her pants; it had been unusually rainy and wet so far this year, she'd been told, and based on the daily slog she made from her cabin in to the lodge and back again she could definitely believe it. The extra moisture in the air made her work uniform almost unbearable to wear some afternoons, even if she went with the shorts instead of the pants; there was, she had to admit, the tiny benefit that mud didn't show up as badly on the khaki material and stains were easier to overlook, so she could slide by some when it came to laundry time...
There was a cluster of children watching her, giggling at each splat of cast off mud. She offered them little more than a tired grin before finally grabbing the hose and beginning to wash away the rest of it; she sent them all scattering and shrieking in delight with a few quick squirts from the hose before shutting off the water and stomping around to the back to enter the staff only back room.
The lodge wasn't very big, with the gift shop and front desk taking up the lion's share of building space; a single corner in the front was dedicated to local historic and natural displays, habitually ignored by tourists, and behind the front desk was a window that let one see into the staff break room area behind it with the other rooms blessedly out of view of the public.
The woman spent only a moment ducking into the break room to secure a cup of stale coffee before stepping back out of view and into a small office occupied by a fat, balding, older man who barely glanced up from his paperwork to regard her.
"'nother pleasant day in paradise eh Scholar?"
The woman smiled, swirling her coffee around in its little styrofoam cup. "As pleasant as it can be when you're slogging through mud daily. Speaking of mud, I hauled our missing hikers back to camp, but I've got some bad news for you."
The man sighed heavily and shook his head. "Shit, shit shit shit...well, lay it on me, Annie darling."
She took a drink before continuing. "Seems someone cut the fence up at Cadaver Falls. Again. I even found the snips this time."
He groaned and rubbed his face, his thumbs digging into the rolls beneath his chin. "You're shitting me... God dammit if I won't be happy when that funding gets in and we can put up a damn concrete and steel fence."
"Yeah, and then I can spend three days a week cleaning graffiti off it," she replied with a snort.
"I'd rather have this place covered in paint before corpses," he retorted, jabbing a finger in the air at her with every other word. "Do we have any other reports of anyone else missing? Damn rain is bogging everything down..."
"Not that I know of. Oh, and that reminds me - southern yellow trail got washed out again. When it finally manages to dry up some I'll take Mackey and head up there to pound the ties back into place and get markers back up."
"All right, all right, you do that, just let me know when you're heading out so I don't schedule you for trail riding. Anything else?"
Annie shook her head. "Nah, and if you don't have anything else for me I'm going to wade back home and get into some dry socks."
He held up a finger in a 'wait a moment' gesture before shoving himself to his feet and lumbering over to a multi-pocketed shelf that held staff time cards with a machine to punch them in and out mounted on the wall next to it; she waited silently as he yanked her time card free and read it over.
"Yeah, you take the rest of today off, you're inching toward sixty and I've been told keep everyone at a steady fifty."
"If Bossman thinks we can stay at fifty when we're eight staff shy during rush season, he's got another thing coming."
The fat man snorted as he slid her card into the slot on the punch machine, then stuffed it back into the shelf. "I keep telling him that, same as I keep telling him to push harder for that funding for that damn fence, but it's going to take another body in the river before anything gets done I figure."
She shrugged and drained her coffee, then crumpled the cup into a ball and lobbed it neatly into the trashcan next to his desk. "Do you have change for a fifty back here by chance?"
"I made the bank run yesterday, we sure as shit better."
As he waddled back to his desk she pulled her wallet from her back pocket and removed a rumpled fifty, smoothing it slightly before handing it over. "Thanks, Sandy bitches at me if I give her anything bigger than a twenty and I want a drink for the road."
A moment later she was circling around to the front of the lodge, winding her way through the milling visitors to retrieve a bottle of cream soda from one of the coolers; there was a line to wait in and it was a good fifteen minutes before she'd reached the register and plunked the bottle down in front of a frazzled looking, mousey woman.
"You'd better not-" Sandy began, falling silent when the other waved a ten dollar bill around.
"I planned ahead, you owe me one."
It didn't take long to ring up the one soda and count out change - it actually took longer to ease her way through the crowd toward the door, chatting with and greeting people as she moved; there was always something about seeing the badge on her shirt or the patches on her sleeves that made tourists attach themselves to her and pepper her with inane or outright stupid questions about the park and wildlife.
She was reaching for the doorknob when the door swung open in front of her, and the pit of her stomach plummeted through the floor when through the door walked a man; he was tall and lanky, wearing aviators and a slouch hat, worn boots, a vest with bullets tucked in a neat line into a pocket.
He looked right at her and time seemed to freeze for a moment before his gaze moved on to roam around the crowd; biting on her lower lip until she tasted blood, she stumbled back and away and for a brief moment a cluster of people exiting cut off her view of the man as they moved between the two of them. She took that moment to quickly push her way back to the front desk, almost falling over it as she leaned in toward the mousey woman.
"Evacuate the park," she hissed.
The other woman stared at her blankly. "What-"
They both looked up as the man suddenly appeared behind Annie; she stumbled away, forcibly dragging two very confused customers with arms full of t-shirts with her, shoving them behind her as she squared off against the man.
The man's expression went from warm friendliness to confusion. "You sure have a funny way of greeting old friends, sheila."
She swallowed hard and inhaled slowly. "You're three days early."
He shrugged, crossing his arms and giving her a mildly confused look. "Didn't think you'd mind..."
Annie shifted her gaze back to Sandy behind the desk. "Evacuate this park. NOW," she snarled, hand going for a pocket even as the man lunged for her, lightning-fast.
With a grunt Engineer pushed back from the workbench and stretched arms over his head, fingers splayed and groaning as muscle began unknotting themselves. "This damn thing..."
"Another issue, sir?"
Engineer let his arms drop, scratching at his stomach; his workshop was unusually messy at current - there were various (but organized) piles of wiring, circuitry and boards, palm-sized metal squares of various materials. Engineer himself sat a workbench with wiring and what looked like a partially assembled mechanical leg covering the bench's surface. Not far from him, sitting atop what was probably the only surface in the workshop relatively free of clutter, was a robot body with a detached head, no legs, and only the left arm.
The head itself was sitting near the body, of course, but rather than being connected to the body it was hooked up to a tiny computer with its screen angled to face the man sitting nearby. At the moment the screen was showing a technical readout of the leg the man was working on, specifically with the wiring around the ankle joint highlighted.
Engineer reached over to pull the screen closer. "Not really an issue, just a bit of frustration. Trying to get this wiring in the right place is like trying to thread a needle with a pickup - it's doable, but I don't see how your crazy creator managed it with all the twitching he did."
The robot's eyes flicked a few times, a sign of amusement from the bot that Engineer had grown used to seeing periodically. "Yes, my creator was...something of an eccentric. Do I need to enlarge the area for your viewing clarity?"
Engineer waved a hand. "Nah, I see where everything needs to go, it's just a matter of actually getting it settled."
"I see." The robot's eyes went dark a moment before coming back on. "I would like to possess legs again."
"Yeah, I know," Engineer sighed. "It's not like I'm purposely keeping you hobbled but you'd be surprised at how fragile some bits of you are, or how darn overly complicated he made parts of you." He stretched again and rotated his neck, a few soft pops sounding. "I'd like to repair you as close as I can to your original plans, but I think we're rapidly reaching a point where I'm going to scrap his plans and use a few of my own in their place."
"...I find the thought of having a body that is not my original to be very odd indeed," the robot said after a moment. "I suppose I will become accustomed to it in time, much like I have become accustomed to seeing my head beside my own body."
With a chuckle Engineer stood and used the toe of a boot to shove his stool back under the bench. "I'll get you fixed eventually."
"I do not doubt that, but being able to walk again is a goal I look forward to."
Engineer let out a sound that was halfway between a hum and a grunt as he began disconnecting the head from the tiny computer, its screen going black as the last cords were removed; it didn't take long to reconnect the head to the body and pull the body up into a sitting position, closing the small panel on the back of the neck. "There we go."
The robot rotated its head back and forth, almost a perfect imitation of what Engineer had done only moments before. "Oh, I cannot feel my arm."
"Uh, hang on a second-" Engineer opened the panel again and re-aligned the wires. "How about now?"
The robot responded by lifting its left arm and waggling its fingers. "Much better. I suppose there really is a short in that wire somewhere."
"Yeah, just another problem to track down," Engineer chuckled. "I still think you're in pretty good shape all things considered."
"Indeed I am." The robot's head turned to survey the room. "May I make a request?"
"What's that?"
"Cease attempting to fix what was there before, and simply fix me in whatever manner you can. I can adjust to a new body, but I want to be whole once more."
Engineer raised an eyebrow at that. "You seem to be in a pretty big hurry to get mobile again."
The bot's head turned toward him. "If you lost your legs, would you not dream of having them again?"
"I'm not sure you can dream."
"Figurative speech or not, I do not care for being an invalid. I have persisted as a desk ornament for over a year now. I know you have been trying to fix me and I do not suspect you of ill will toward me, but...a year has passed since I last moved under my own power."
Engineer crossed his arms with a sniff, looking thoughtful. "...yeah, I guess it has been a year, hasn't it?"
"I estimate it to be as such. My internal clock was damaged so I am factoring in for lost time."
"Well howabout that. Guess you've made it to your first birthday then, robot."
"My first what?"
Engineer began straightening a pile of circuit boards. "Birthday - day you made your first appearance in the world. For humans, its the day we were born...not sure what we could call it for you since you were put together rather than bred."
There was a very faint undertone of buzzing from the robot for a moment followed by the bot's eyes flickering rapidly - a sign it had tried accessing blocks of memory that were either damaged or gone entirely. "Interesting. I have no recollection of when I was first activated. I now find myself curious about the exact date of my creation. Are birthdays important milestones for humans?"
"Marks each year we've managed to make it through without dying, yeah, also lets us prove we're old enough to do things like drink or vote."
"Interesting. I find it fascinating to compare what I know of humans to what I learn...it poses the questions of why did my creator create me with this knowledge, but not that knowledge? Why do I know of this but not of this related subject?"
Engineer shook his head with a bit of a grin. "I've told you before, your creator was a bit of a nut job."
The eyes flickered. "Yes, so you have. Now that I know other humans for comparison I can see the inherent differences and also understand what is considered 'normal.'"
"Ah, I wouldn't really consider myself or my team the baseline comparison for 'normal,'" Engineer chuckled. "Remind me to stick you in a room with Soldier for a few hours, you'll get what I mean."
"Am I old enough to partake in human rituals of drinking and voting?"
Engineer laughed. "No, not even close. Humans need to be twenty one to drink and eighteen to vote. There's even laws that set out what age you need to be to learn to drive and run for office."
"...it seems strange to me that age is the basis for law."
"Not all laws, robot, just some of them." He picked up a few useless circuit boards from the pile and walked them over to the trashcan as the robot fell silent for several moments.
"...when do humans receive their names?"
Engineer chuckled, tossing the boards and bending to tie the trash bag shut. "When they're born their parents name them."
"What if the parent never names the child?"
"I can't say I've ever heard of that happening. Whoever serves as a parent, whether that's a person or a government institution, they give the kid a name."
"Should I have a name?"
Engineer glanced over at the bot, shrugging as he lifted the tied bag from the can and sat it near the door. "I guess if you want one, or you're tired of everyone just calling you robot."
The robot's eyes went dark for several minutes, long enough that Engineer began to wonder if there was another shorted wire he wasn't aware of; finally, the lights came back on and the robot looked over at him.
"I think I would like a name."
Now it was Engineer's turn to go quiet, moving back to a bench and picking up a roll of wire, idly patting the palm of a hand with it. "Well, let's see...you have anything in mind?"
"I do not know. How are humans named?"
"Some parents pick the name out before birth, some wait to see the baby before they pick a name. There's folks who name their kids after family members - that's how you get people named William Jr. or Thomas the Third - and then you get the odd ones who pick a name at random or make one up. There's no set way on how names are given out."
"Do names mean anything?"
Engineer scratched the back of his head. "Sometimes, I guess. If you look at it from a literal point of view mine means a small valley, but I guess if you're superstitious you can pick a name based on some archaic meaning or portent. Why?"
"Merely trying to understand the importance of names, if I am to choose one."
Engineer chuckled and as silence fell again he made his rounds in the workshop, putting things back into a semblance of order. When things were finally organized and clean again he wandered to the door, picking up the full trash bag and then reaching for and pausing with his hand over the light switch. "Take the night and think about it, pick something you like."
He flipped the light off, then back on again as the robot quietly replied with "Is Victor a name?"
"Victor?" Engineer turned around and leaned against the door frame.
The robot was looking down at its body - it was of course missing both legs and an arm, and its torso was still scratched and dented in those places Engineer hadn't tended to yet. It gently prodded a finger into the dent that was over a bullet hole the Engineer had patched. "Victor. It refers to someone who has won or triumphed over a challenge. Where you and the others destroyed my brothers, I alone survived. Is victor appropriate for a name?"
Engineer scratched his cheek, mulling that over. "It can be, and I guess if you want to use that train of thought there to justify it..."
"Is it inappropriate?"
"No, just...kind of odd, even for you."
"Ah, I am reminding you that I possess human characteristics?"
"No, you're reminding me that you over-think a lot of things."
The robot's eyes darkened and stayed that way. "Is that not a human characteristic?"
Engineer snorted. "It is one of our endearing habits as a species, yes. Look, I'll be back in the morning - you keep thinking on this name thing and make sure you're sure you want to be called what you pick, all right?" He flipped the light off and shut the door behind him, locking it and then heading down the hallway.
There were conversations that sometimes managed to subtly unnerve him when it came to that damn robot...some days it was like talking to a child and others it was like talking to a man trapped in a metal shell, and considering how the robot had come to be...
He just had to keep reminding himself that it was robot, that was all. Let the thing have a name if it wanted, what could it really hurt?
