Astro stood, stunned, for several minutes, as students, wrapped in their own subjects, hurried by.
She didn't remember him. What had they done to her? What had they done to her?
He finally noticed that he was in the way, so he wandered over to a nearby garden and sat down on the low wall that contained it.
Scratching his head, he wondered what he could do now. She had turned off the only means he had of tracking her, so he would simply have to wait until she might turn it back on. He would come back to this spot maybe a couple of times a day and check until she did. Since he had tripped over the link quite suddenly, her signal was obviously being partially shielded, so once it was active again, he might be able to plot out the reception area and get a rough bead on her location.
Her signal had been weak, so either she was some distance off campus or in the depths of one of these buildings. Lovely.
He stood up and stretched, then poked around the rest of the campus just for something to do.
It had taken him a couple of days to get to the capital from Creekhollow, since he didn't dare to fly, and super-speed running was safe only when the highway was deserted—usually at night—and there was no fog to obscure his vision.
Luna. That shattered moment of contact had hit him hard, but he was surprised that he was feeling more than just shock. Some of his thoughts were coated in anger at her abrupt rejection of him, but that wasn't right, since she wasn't herself right now. There was also a vague sense of hatred, but that clearly came from Toby's memories.
Puzzled, he dropped his backpack on a bench in front of the E. George Smith Department of Horticulture building, sat down, put his right foot on his left knee and stretched his arms out along the back of the bench—he'd seen a student do it, and thought he'd try it.
Digging into his archives, he discovered that the memory was from when Toby was about three. The child could tell that the nanny-bot that was carrying him wasn't what it should be—that is, human. He was instinctively wanting a mother.
A light went on. That's why Toby had always been so mean to O_rrin: he unconsciously disliked domestic robots because of his experiences with his nanny-bot, and as a result was attracted to robot weapons, things that had nothing to do with warm feelings.
Astro wondered if Toby might have ended up not been a very nice man if he had had the chance to grow up.
He got up and started walking again, this time off of the campus and toward the downtown.
Apparently he was being affected by Toby's feelings. Toby had yearned for human warmth, which he got none of from the 'bot and precious little from his workaholic father. Now he, Astro, was yearning for warmth from Luna. Yes, he missed her something awful, but he didn't want to carry this extra burden when it had nothing to do with either of them.
After carefully studying Toby's entire history, he moved the troubled parts to a folder where they couldn't affect him any more. If nothing weird happened from his doing that, he would eventually delete them.
Evening was starting to fall when he got to the shopping district, and light was pouring out a warm welcome from the windows of the cafes and restaurants.
Music drifted out onto the street from one of them, and he peeked into the place. Over in a corner sat some men playing instruments, and the dark-skinned one with the stringed instrument—a ... guitar—was strumming its strings and singing. The words of his song grabbed Astro by the heart:
"She's so gone and I'm so blue
This is true blue pain
My soul is torn apart
And I cry so the world will know
She's so gone and I'm so blue"
Astro quickly ducked inside, took his backpack off, and sat at a table close to the door.
"She's so gone and I'm so blue
I never thought she'd go
My sun is dark
And moon's grey hue
She's so gone and I'm so blue"
Sadness welled up inside him, and he couldn't believe that something like this could stir his emotions so deeply.
A man appeared beside him and said, "You going to buy something, kid? If not, then get lost, okay?"
The singer abruptly stopped, and told his comrades to 'take five'. "Hey Mac," he said in his deep velvety voice to the man who had talked to Astro. "Cut the kid some slack, will ya? Can't you see he's got the blues? Besides, it ain't busy yet."
"Okay, Evo; whatever you say. But when it picks up, he goes."
"That's cool." He beckoned to Astro. "Come here, you." When Astro had sat on the offered stool, Evo said, "You know my name, I'm guessing. What's yours?"
"I'm Astro. Thanks for speaking up for me."
"No prob, Astro. What's got you crying on a nice night like tonight?"
Astro shrugged. "My girlfriend got kidnapped, and now she doesn't remember who I am. And I still don't know where they're holding her."
Evo winced. "Ooh, that is sad. What's her name?"
"Luna."
"'Astro', 'Luna'; that's so sweet. She must be a nice girl if she can make you cry."
"... Oh yeah."
Several couples walked into the place, and Mac showed them to their tables.
"Well, Astro," Evo said. "It looks like I've got to get to work here." He pointed to one side. "If you sit over there by the wall, you're free to stay as long as you like."
"Thanks. I'll do that."
"Enjoy the show."
Astro did, closely watching every move the musicians made as they played, and listening to every note, even as the music tugged at his heart.
He checked for the link the next morning in front of the Pratt T. Middleton Building, and, when he came up empty after over an hour, he headed to the university library to do some research on music.
He tried for the link again late in the afternoon without success, then headed back to Mac's Place to sit in on Evo and his band.
Half way through the second set, the man playing keyboard (they called him Skim) suddenly dashed to the washroom. Evo followed him, returning a couple of minutes later to apologize to the patrons that the man had got the 'flu.
Astro quickly stepped forward. "You want me to fill in for him?" he asked.
"You can play?" Evo said.
"Yes, sir. I should be okay."
The man hesitated, then said, "Well, you catch me at a bad moment, so yeah, please take his place and show me what you can do."
Evo and Astro sat at a table as the last customers paid their tabs and cleared out.
"Thank you so much for covering for Skim like that," said Evo with feeling. "You know, for a kid, you're damn good. You may have been a little rough at the start, but you caught on real quick."
"You're welcome, sir. It was fun." He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "I've never done something like that before."
Evo frowned. "What did I just hear you say?"
"Hm? Oh, I've never played the keyboard before till tonight."
"But ... but you played like a pro up there. I don't understand."
"Like I said earlier, I memorized what he did last night and did like him. It was pretty easy actually."
Evo shook his head. "Kid, you ain't human!"
"I know: I'm an android."
The man's jaw dropped. "For real?" He sat back and chuckled. "Well, if that don't beat all—me fooled by a robot. So all this about losing your girlfriend was just a story to pull the wool over these old eyes?"
Astro shook his head earnestly. "No, sir, not at all. She's an android too. And, yeah, I really do miss her. ... I think I love her."
Evo stared intently at him and drummed his fingers on the table for some time. "You know," he said finally, "there was a man in here a few nights ago. He was braggin' big time that he was studying a real special robot that he'd just gotten." Astro perked up at that. "Yeah. Sounds like your girl, doesn't it?"
"Do you know anything about him?"
"Nope, except that he likes to come in here on Friday nights pretty regular-like." He leaned forward confidentially and said in a low voice, "Be here the day after tomorrow, and I'll point him out to you." He picked at the linen tablecloth for a moment. "And if Skim's still sick tomorrow ..." He nodded.
"You got it."
"Don't that beat all: a robot that plays the blues. Heh-heh."
Astro leaned back and stared off into space as his mannerism program forced him to take a break from all the music study he's been doing. Still nothing on the link, but he would be at Mac's Place that evening in Evo's band. The man had actually paid him the night before: said it was only fair for the work he was putting in, robot or not.
Was this man that Evo had mentioned really holding Luna? And if so, what had he been doing to her?
He stretched and massaged his neck, then got back to the sheet music in front of him. It was written by a man named Amadeus Mozart, and it moved him when he played it in his head.
When the band took its break after the first set, Evo leaned over toward Astro and whispered, "That's the man over there, alone by the wall. He looks like he's had a bit to drink, so I'll go over and start a conversation. Maybe I can learn something useful."
Astro, still seated at the keyboard, nodded. "I'll listen in."
Evo raised his eyebrows in surprise, then nodded and stood up.
The man was indeed rather drunk, and Evo gently asked him if he was upset about anything.
"Yeah," said the man, named Dostovy. "You remember that special robot I tol' you about las ... last week?" Evo nodded. "Okay, well, I thought that it might have been somebody's s-s-sex toy, you know, because it's m-made up like a girl—you know, boobs and all." He emptied his shot glass and signalled for a refill. "But when I sug-suggested, you know, that we do some time ..." He knocked back his drink again. "Man, I mean, it would've torn me apart if it could've gotten at me. Talk about a crazy robot!"
"You mean you've got it caged?" Evo asked, with a glance toward Astro.
"Oh yeah. When we got it in the lab and it f-first came to, it started trashing the place. We ... we had to knock it out before we could do anything with it."
Go Luna, thought Astro grimly.
"Knock it out?" said Evo. "How do you knock out a robot?"
"Oh that. Well, they brought me a cus ... custom-built thing they'd found in Ante ... Antemom ... you know, up north. It shuts the robot down quite eff-effectively. It's still out now."
Astro groaned: poor Luna. He hung his head, and caught sight of his hands resting on his knees: bright blue.