Once he got talking to Shannon, the rest of the afternoon went by quickly. With little more to manage except the collapsing of the snack tables and the final counting of today's earnings (even though Socks had managed the register, Robot took it upon himself to count the money, since it was an instantaneous process for him, and it relieved his friend to go home early), it was too soon that Robot found himself putting the key in the door and locking it from the outside, one last time.
The automaton was the last one to leave the arcade, with Shannon of all people being the second to last. Cubey and Mitch had left with Socks, and the last remaining customers-a five year old kid with his high school brother, asked to leave over a half hour ago. Robot's friends may have just spent their day making little kids and their parents happy, but the automaton had never seen them look so miserable. Like Robot, they must have realized Nob's was a goner if James hadn't even shown. And they couldn't even enjoy its last day open because they were busy playing adults and running the event. Robot decided he'd have to find a way to make it up to them for all they'd done, but he was too tired to think of what.
Due to the strange relief of having finally started talking to each other again, Shannon couldn't find it in herself to just get up and leave Robot at the arcade alone. Likewise, Robot couldn't find it in himself to let her know that he could manage the shutting down by himself. So, Shannon had made herself useful and swept the floor of popcorn and dirt with an infrequently used broom she found in James' tiny office while Robot went down the final checklist. When the movers came to take the remaining working games for storage, at least they'd have a clean floor to walk across.
Robot was so exhausted that all he could think about while taking care of the last things was getting home and going into dreamless sleep mode. He didn't even care that this would set his sleep routine back three hours too early.
Once the key was turned, however, Robot couldn't step more than a foot away. Closing the doors on the arcade felt like he was closing a chapter of his life, and suddenly, he almost understood why James couldn't bring himself to come.
It was seven thirty, and even colder out now, with the sun having set hours earlier. Even with his systems working overtime to keep his body warm, Robot didn't want to leave. He lingered with the arcade, and thus Shannon lingered with him. It took Shannon quietly commenting on the temperature outside for Robot to snap out of his daze and turn away from the door. He was still a robot, and he had a job to to: Escorting Shannon home, now that dark had fallen.
In the days before things got weird between them-well, weirder, maybe-Shannon would have insisted that she would be fine walking home by herself. But this time, it had been she who had suggested that they walk home together. The suggestion had come up so naturally, like all the anger and frustration they'd had for each other had finally just died, and they were just two random schoolmates again. And Robot had accepted, neither excited nor reluctant. Just fulfilling a simple human request, like a good robot.
They were taking a different route than the one Robot had taken to get to the center of town that morning. As Shannon had explained, it was faster to get to her house if they cut through the park, and the connected cemetery. Robot had no outward objections to this, since he wanted to put this confusing day behind him, but though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little nervous about taking this unfamiliar route in the dark. He pushed it off as fear for the human, trying to think of himself as manlier than that. It wasn't because he was afraid of zombies rising from the graves, or even ghosts-he'd done all but scream his opinion on the existence of ghosts to the planet. But that didn't mean that being around the humans had allowed him to develop a strange feeling, being so close to so many of the deceased.
But Shannon seemed more concerned with getting home before she could see her breath in puffs of air in front of her face. She seemed remarkably unnerved about a lot of things normal teenagers were bothered by-whether it was bees, random spiders in the classroom, or Robot's own awkward moments, Shannon was only ever annoyed. Not scared-a distinct difference Robot had only ever thought about recently. And now here she was, walking head-first into the wind as she entered the boneyard, having asked Robot to come with her. And he knew darn well based on her body language that it wasn't because she felt safer with him around. It was easy to see that Shannon had taken this route a dozen or more times, probably even came this way walking here today. If the rest of the school was like Shannon, Andy Fields, the ghost of Polyneux, would be rather unpopular, daresay as irrelevant as Mikey Schmitt-and that was tough.
Did anything scare this girl?
Robot and Shannon had started talking again once they got a little further down the cobblestone path. Closer to the park, the trees became denser and the path rose and dipped with small hills, the flora being allowed to grow freely instead of being cleared for graves. The path weaved in between the widest natural spaces of trees, and Robot turned on the backlight behind his eyes to flood the space on the path in front of them.
What they talked about ended up being more simple subjects that had taken far too long to discuss between the two of them. Shannon wanted to know what Robot's life before school was like. Likewise, Robot had never been to an elementary school, and he'd never really asked his friends what the difference was between that, and junior high school.
And Shannon explained that the only real differences between Jagger Elementary and Polyneux Middle School was that at Jagger, everybody wore uniforms-red plaid skirts, like Shannon's, or blue pants, with white polo shirts. And in elementary school, you stayed with one teacher the whole day, as opposed to switching classes every hour.
"Was it difficult?" Robot asked. "Mathematics, I mean."
Shannon shrugged, fists dug deep into her coat pockets. "Not that I remember." She slowed her pace, suddenly looking like she was thinking hard. "In fact... I don't think I was that bad at school back then. I remember my teacher in fourth grade telling my parents she wanted me to skip ahead a grade."
Robot came to a dramatic halt, looking at Shannon in disbelief. "You?! Skip an educational level?"
Shannon held her breath, stopping with him. "Two, actually," she admitted, shyly, her breath coming out as a gray cloud now. "Yeah, uh, they wanted me to start Polyneux early."
The temperature was still dropping and the both of them really needed to get home, but this was too important for Robot to just brush off like it was nothing. "But... " Robot said, his head spinning. "You're... being tutored. You don't even do the extra credit."
Shannon rolled her eyes. "Thanks for reminding me."
"But, what happened?" Robot asked, pleading for a single answer like it would solve half of the world's problems. "What changed between then and now?"
"I don't know, Robot," she said, starting to walk ahead and sounding impatient. "Some things just change, alright? Like the arcade shutting down, and me getting dumber. Some things just happen."
"Humans do not just get dumber, Shannon," Robot told her, carefully articulating every word so that she heard the emphasis. "Some units like Mr. McMcMc live under the impression that they are more intelligent than they really are, but there has never been a single recorded incident of a person gradually becoming less smart-not without a brain injury, anyway."
"Well, you're looking at an incident!" Shannon said, turning around to face him and starting to raise her voice. "So there you go. Can we please just keep moving?"
Robot just stared at her for a moment before sighing, closing his eyes and tilting his face towards the ground. Why did he ever try to get this girl to see things differently? If he didn't know by now that that no human on earth was more stubborn than Shannon Westerburg, he really hadn't learned anything about her at all. And besides, until he got the guts to open up her permanent record, which still sat in his wall at home, he would never know the full context of what she was talking about. For all he knew, she was lying about having almost skipped two grades. But then again, what did she have to gain by lying to him? It wasn't like she was trying to impress him of all people. And after their intimate conversation today, Robot didn't think he'd ever be distant enough from this girl to look at her file now. Unlike Finkman, he still had to look at her face every day, for as long as they went to school together. "Fine," Robot said at last. "I'll drop it."
Shannon just nodded, but her face took on a queer look, and her head whipped behind her. "Did... you hear that?"
Robot looked puzzled, looking to his left and right. He'd been thinking so hard, he'd heard nothing. But Shannon looked positively certain, her face pointed in the direction of the large, old oak tree, about three feet wide, pressing onto the right of the path.
With no stimulant to tell him what he was facing, the automaton's flicked on defense mode, narrowing his eyes and stepping in between Shannon and whatever was behind that tree. Girlfriend or not, he wasn't doing his job right if he didn't protect this human child from whatever man-sized threat seemed the most likely. But then, Shannon just stepped around his outstretched arms, heading for the tree herself.
Robot didn't know where the line was between brave, and stupid, but Shannon was walking the fence right now. Or at least he thought, until his sensitive hearing kicked on, picking up what he'd missed earlier.
A faint, pitiful meow.
Robot's head was so overworked that he couldn't even bring the image of the creature that made it to his head. He ran up to the tree and ran around it's enormous base in the spot behind it, illuminating the ground with his eye's backlight.
Two tiny, miserable green eyes were staring up at them from a metal cage on the frosty grass, squinting in the sudden emergence of light. It was mostly black, making it nearly invisible at night, but anybody old enough to talk could identify the telltale shape of the ears and know what it was.
"It's a kitten!" Shannon said, bending down on the ground. "Where did it come from?"
Robot assumed that Shannon was referring more to the cage than the creature it held, but specifically answering her question, a low growl started up from not too far away, and Robot yanked Shannon back onto her feet and pulled her away before a bigger, meaner looking creature with the same feline ears came into Robot's floodlight.
"From a mother cat," Robot answered, rationally.
The mother cat glared at up at the human and robot that had gotten so close to her baby as she marched back to the cage and sat on the ground, leaning her body against the cage and against the kitten, as if trying to give it body heat.
Robot flicked on his infared vision behind his eyes and saw that while the mother cat was very pink, the kitten nuzzled up against her on the other side of the cage was just barely green. The kitten was significantly smaller, and didn't have a lot of mass with which to hold body heat, which is why, Robot figured, small mammals were known for curling up against their mother. Even human babies, Robot understood, looking at Shannon and expecting her to come to the same conclusion. "The kitten's gotta be freezing," she said.
"What is a trap doing out here?" Robot asked. "They don't belong a public park."
Shannon shivered herself, the cold starting to bite through her thin jacket. "I dunno, some idiot was probably trying to catch something like a raccoon and ended up getting the wrong animal. They have some of these in the alleys behind the businesses out here to catch rats and skunks."
Robot turned off his infared and took a step closer to the cage, trying to get a good look at the silver door on its one side. "Do you suppose there is a number to call when the trap is set off?"
"Forget that!" Shannon said. "By the time anybody's got out here, the cat'll have frozen to death! Or starve." She gestured again to the mother cat, who was flipping over on it's side to give the kitten some milk, but the kitten just kept pressing itself as hard against the metal bars of the case as it could. It was too cold to think about eating. And the mother cat wouldn't forage for scraps as long as her baby was stuck.
"You're right," Robot said, looking her in the eyes. "What we should do is dial animal control and-Shannon, what are you doing?"
"Shuuush!" Shannon said, pressing a finger to her lips. She was inching closer back to the cage, the mother cat glaring at her, but otherwise not taking any action-not willing to deny the kitten her warmth. Exactly what Shannon had been hoping, Robot realized. On tip toe, movements almost as slow as a tortoise, Shannon had gotten within a yard of the cage again before dropping to her knees, and crawling forward on the cold, muddy ground. Robot wanted to speak, to tell her this didn't look like a good idea, but he was too mesmerized by her movements. The gritty concentration on her face-that razor sharp focus he didn't see on dull-minded humans very often. She was very determined about this. Robot almost wondered if she actually knew what she was doing.
But the answer to that question was near immediate. Shannon only had a foot of distance between herself and the cage when she dared to take her hands off of the dirty ground, gingerly reaching them forward in the direction of the cage door. That must have been when the mother cat decided she wasn't going to take any chances, and launched, without warning, on Shannon's arm. But Shannon had been quicker than regular human reflexes should have warranted. By the time the mother cat's claws dug into the sleeve of her jacket, Shannon had the cage by both hands, yanking it forward as she stood up, kitten inside. But she couldn't finish opening the door, and had to drop the cage, because the mother cat was crawling up her arm, furious at the human for interfering. "ROBOT, QUICK!" Shannon shouted. "OPEN THE TRAP!"
Robot felt numb when ran for the cage, prying it open in what felt like slow motion for him-but especially for Shannon. Robot had expected the tiny feline to launch from its tiny prison, but it just sat there. The kitten had been so startled by the first fall that it clung to the back of the cage with wide, untrusting eyes. Knowing better than to shake the cage or something else that would hurt it, Robot held the cage up to his head and thrust his hand inside to pull the kitten out. It was at this point, with the large, metallic claw coming for it that the kitten bounced for the opening, soaring passed Robot's shoulder and out into the air, like a tiny bird without wings.
As cats do, the kitten landed without harm on its four paws, two yards away from where Robot had let it out. The mother cat realized this just after taking a failed swipe at Shannon's face, and ran down Shannon's jacketed arm like a ramp and after her baby, stopping only a fraction of a second to match pace with its shorter-legged kitten before both ran out of the range of Robot's eye's floodlight, and into the darkness.
It had all happened so fast that it took both teenagers a minute to process it. Shannon was exhaling loudly, having just stopped a wild animal from clawing her eyes out. Robot was still standing there, holding the cage, as if something else needed to get out. At least five seconds had gone by before Robot had retracted his arm and let the cage door shut again with a cold 'clank', as if it were angry that it had lost its prisoner.
Hearing Shannon's voice again seemed to normalize time, bringing Robot out of the dream like state he was in. "Well... that could have been much worse."
Robot, who had been half concentrated on the now-empty cage, and Shannon herself, shook his head. "Shannon..."
"What?" Shannon asked, sounding angry. After having successfully gotten the kitten free, she wasn't in the mood to get lectured.
"Shannon," he said again, more firmly, as he returned to Shannon's side, reached with his empty hand to Shannon's right hand, and turned it over. While the jacket had protected Shannon's arm from the cat's claws, it offered no protection below the wrists. Hence the long scratch marks that were bleeding down to the tips of her fingers.
"Oh..." Shannon said, turning red. "Crap."
As it turned out, the adrenaline from the incident had prevented the human from even realizing she'd been cut until after Robot had showed her. Thankfully it was just claw cuts, no visible bites on the dermis. No threat of rabies from claw cuts, and Shannon wasn't in any mood to get a rabies shot, at this hour. But there was still a risk of infection-Shannon's skin was seriously cut up. Maybe even needed stitches.
But Shannon didn't feel like telling her mother that she had just released a wild kitten from a trap, and face the wrath of its mother. So, there was only one option, and it didn't make her any happier. She would have to clean and dress it herself. But the problem was that Shannon didn't really know how to properly treat a wound more serious than maybe a paper cut. And her leading hand was the one that had taken the blow, so her left hand would be left shaking and dropping gauze all over the place. And worst of all was the pain she actually got from touching it. She didn't feel anything left alone, but touching it was an entirely different story. She didn't think she could sit still enough to even blot the blood, let alone wrap it.
This was where she needed Robot. Not only did he inform her that he was programmed for basic first aid for humans-most versatile domestic robots were-but specifically that he was going to tattle on her if she did not permit him to work on her hand. He wasn't about to keep a secret like this for a friend, especially if her health was at risk. And at that point, Shannon had had no other choice.
When they had arrived at her house, Robot had reached for they key and opened the door for her, while Shannon kept her torn up hand free of anything that could graze it and cause her pain.
The kids were in luck that they had a warm, empty house with which to do this. Shannon's mother was still at work, and wouldn't be back until late, whereas her grandfather was out with war buddies again. Mrs. Westerburg had agreed to pick up some Saturday shifts in exchange for the extra wages that she could put away for savings. If not for that, they would be doing this operation probably in the woods, where nobody could question them. Even Robot, taking off his jacket when he entered, appreciated the warmth of the waiting home and its gentle night lights, for when Shannon had decided to come home that evening.
Shannon slammed the door shut with her back and locked it with her one good hand. "Let's just get this over with," she breathed.
Upon hearing this, Robot frowned. That sounded exactly like the way she'd spoken to him that first time he had arrived at her house to tutor her. Only back then, he brushed off her annoyance at the thought of trying to learn math, which was difficult for her. Not at the thought that maybe him being in her home annoyed her. He wondered if being here now was just as annoying. After all, he kind of gave her no choice on the matter.
For the treatment of her hand, Robot had already been supplied with some basic, light medical supplies-1 ounce of antibiotic spray, three large band aids, and a strip of gauze only two yards long. All of this packed tightly into a tiny compartment inside Robot's chest cavity, so light it was easy to forget it was even there. But perfect for on-the-spot medical care.
However, seeing that Shannon's cuts bordered on hospital-level severe, and the fact that they at her home made Robot felt comfortable enough to search the upstairs closet for a proper first aid kit. Shannon explained that she vaguely remembered her mother talking about building one in case of emergencies, but she wasn't sure if she ever completed it. However, Robot's search came up negative, only finding spare throw blankets, a hair dryer, and a few box of strange, large, plush adhesive cotton pads that Robot had to think about for a minute before realizing that they were not for first aid.
Robot shut the closet door, blush on his face, deciding the kit probably wasn't in there, if it was ever made yet. He turned his search to the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink. Jackpot! There, tucked behind cold medicine and aspirin bottles was antibiotic ointment-an entire tube-an entire roll of gauze, and packets of germ-sealed cotton wipes. Robot closed the cabinet and carried his findings downstairs, where Shannon was waiting on the same couch where Robot had tried to teach her basic algebra, two years ago. It should have been painful for Robot, being here after all this time, with Shannon, but it just felt distantly familiar. And even when Shannon lent her hand to him this time, for applying medicine instead of trying to teach her the nines times tables on her fingers, there was no hesitation. Shannon may have preferred to try and do this herself, but she trusted Robot to do it just the same.
Antiseptic, however, caused some problems. Robot had mentioned something about bracing herself, but Shannon wasn't paying terribly close attention, her mind on other things. Not until Robot had moved on from applying the pain ointment to the true, cutting antiseptic he kept stored in a tiny vile in his chest. He dumped some onto a cleaning cloth, and from the minute it touched her skin, she felt something very cold trickle from the cotton to her skin. And that coolness quickly turned to fire, sending her reeling back against her arm of the couch, shouting in pain.
Now, the arguing started. "I told you it was going to hurt!" Robot said.
"Yeah!" Shannon shouted back, "But you didn't tell me you were going to just slam it against my hand like that!"
"What are you talking about? I barely touched you!" Robot defended himself. "But you weren't paying attention!"
"Maybe you're not using the right stuff." Shannon told him, holding her shredded hand in the other, now in constant pain. "I didn't ask for any antiseptic!"
Robot was too tired to carry on defending himself in a meager and kind and sweet disposition, like he always did when humans treated him like an idiot. "I know what I am doing, Shannon," he said, his voice as deep and factual as he could make it.
"Oh, right," Shannon said sarcastically, "Like you know how to save the arcade, right? You're just programmed to know how to make everything better? You have to always have the answers-you have to always be right. Mister Never-Wrong. But you're not! You're just as clueless as the rest of us!"
Robot's emotional gauge was maxing out, in particular the one that monitored his anger was pressing the needle all the way flat against the red zone. The kind he hadn't felt since last speaking with Grampz about the Gala, and the JNZ/Lightoller merger. The kind that made him want to burn holes into her face. "I may not have all the answers, but I have the kind of answers that say not to go launching myself at a wild animal! Zombies, Shannon, that may have been the stupidest thing I've ever seen someone do!" he said earnestly. "Robot or human. I mean, what were you thinking?"
"It worked, though," Shannon said, her voice dropping a little. She was just starting to sound like a child, shown that their logic made no sense, but pressing the argument anyway, refusing to admit that they're wrong.
"Affirmative," Robot told her. "But look at you!" He gestured again to her injured hand. "Gosh, Shannon, you can be so bullheaded sometimes! I really have to wonder if you were ever advanced enough to skip two grades, when heaven only knows what you did to lose your leg!"
The world, as the young automaton knew it, came to a screeching, unforgiving halt.
The words had flown out of his mouth like that caged kitten, soaring without grace, without wings, just needing out. After all this time, Robot had finally had broached the unforgivable topic always sitting in the back of his mind.
Shannon's eyes popped so wide, Robot almost thought they were going to pop right out of her skull. She had been glaring at the carpet while Robot had lectured her, but upon hearing that last remark, her chin tilted back up, slack jawed face in pure disbelief.
There was just silence now. Not even cars passing or crickets outside-they'd retired for the season. Words were beginning to swarm in Robot's head like a swam of bees, non-distinguishable and deaf to his understanding, but dizzying all the same. Only one word kept bobbing up. The only one he trusted right now. "Shannon... Shannon... oh," he said, trying to get a hold of his brain and tell it to calm down. "I'm so sorry-I-I-I don't k-know where that came from, I was, it's just-"
"Stop," Shannon spoke at last. She was holding up her injured hand, which began to weep blood a little again. The antiseptic had helped a little, but it still needed to be wrapped.
He waited for total silence to fall again before speaking. "Shannon, please, do not hold that remark against my people," Robot said, standing up from the couch. "I-I can understand if you never want to see me again, but don't think that all robots really believe all human injuries are a result of their own stupidi-I MEAN-miscalcuation."
"I said, 'shut up'!" Shannon shouted at him. "Listen to me!"
Robot slowly sat back down on the couch, afraid to disobey her. "I am listening," he said.
Shannon sighed, breaking gaze from him to look, not at her hand, but at her metal kneecap. Like a dozen times that day, the entire prosthetic limb ached a little, even though it shouldn't have, since all the nerve endings were long gone, and even the skin around the amputation had healed years ago. Right now, its throbbing particularly bad may have something to do with the fact that now she was thinking about how it happened, and worst of all, having to explain it. Brain connections were weird. "The thing is," she began, "the... accident... what happened to me," she told him, carefully looking away from the leg to Robot, as if looking away from it, not forcing her brain to remember that it was just metal now, made the pain worse. "Was my fault." She swallowed a mouthful of saliva. "It was because of something stupid I did. I screwed up really, really bad, once."
Robot's eyes wobbled. He could hardly believe she was telling him this. Could hardly believe this had started off as an argument over Shannon's bull headed thinking. "You did?" he asked softly.
"Yeah," Shannon replied, resting her injured arm on the side of the couch, hand carefully angled off the fabric.
Robot waited for her to go on, but it was apparent she wasn't about to offer anymore so easily. Well... he was already in deep for bringing up the unspeakable. What would it hurt to pry a little more? "What happened?"
She looked at him with surprise. "H-how it happened?"
"Yes."
The fingers on Shannon's injured hand began twitching. She was still in pain, but by this point, the most severe was in her leg. The burning of her hand was almost numb in comparison, but she didn't plan on explaining to Robot that just thinking about talking about the story gave her physical pain as well as memory related. "I don't know if I-"
"Shannon," Robot interrupted, "I don't understand how you could overcome so much, and still be afraid of a story."
That did it. "I'm not afraid!" Shannon shouted defensively. "I was there!"
Robot nodded. And then Shannon realized what Robot had done. He'd made her hot temper work against her. Damn. He did know her well by now. "Alright... I'll explain."
Robot dared to break the careful perimeter of personal space he put between himself and all humans, and inched closer to her, as if it would allow him to hear better.
Shannon bit her lip and waited for the story to come. But Shannon had never explained any part of the story to anybody else who'd never heard it before, and here she was, about ready to tell all to Robot Jones, the last person on earth she wanted to know.
Whatever story she went with, it could never include Benji. "You see... um... I used to ride a bike, you know, like most of the other kids do."
Robot nodded. He himself didn't own a bike, his skateboard being all he needed if he was in a hurry. Bikes were cumbersome for robots, especially those with limited range of motion. "But, you don't anymore," Robot said carefully.
"Right," Shannon said. "Well, that's because that's kind of how it happened."
Robot blinked, eyes widening a little more. After having spent most of sixth and seventh grade intensely studying this girl, he couldn't believe that a detail so simple, so seemingly irrelevant as never seeing her ride a bike, could have been a clue to one of the most massive details of her life. "Oh." was all he said.
Shannon was already saying far more than she meant to. There was no stopping now. She gave herself just long enough pauses for her brain to create details. "It was like a normal day. I was riding my bike into town," she paused. "To get candy, I think." She paused again, looking up at Robot, tapping the wire to her braces. "Before this, I mean. And, I was kind of bullheaded, even back then. I followed the cross-lights and everything, I mean, I wasn't a total idiot. But sometimes I guess I forgot to check and see if someone was turning before I went ahead and crossed. Y-you know that intersection before the liquor store and-what's there-the J-mart?"
Robot looked as if he took in a sharp breath-which made no sense, because robots didn't breathe. But gosh, was he expressive. "It happened there?"
"Yes..." Shannon said, carefully. "There was... a big car-no a truck. And it was making a turn when I was getting ready to cross. Only I guess I forgot to look."
"But how do you miss a truck?" Robot asked.
Shannon just sighed again. "I told you. I was careless. Well, that semi just kept going and when it couldn't stop, it chewed my bike, and well... part of me, as well."
"But..." Robot started. "It was alright. I mean, they put you back together," he tried to smile, gesturing to her prosthetic. "They made you better, even."
Shannon met Robot's gaze now, her eyes glossy. "Robot, it's not the same," she explained, calmly. "When a robot gets damaged, they can just build you all over again. But with a human, it's more complicated. There's nerve endings, and blood, and-aagh!" She groaned, another ghost pain stabbing right where her stump ended, this one particularly bad. Both hands, including the one that was still burning, instinctively few to her thigh right beneath the bottom of her skirt, trying to soothe it. Shannon thought that the ghost pains were finally starting to go away these past few months. Why were they suddenly worse than ever?
"What is going on?" Robot asked, looking from her hands back up to her face. Once or twice before, he'd noticed Shannon would touch the area where her prosthetic and her real thigh were attached, but he thought she was just making sure the prosthetic was secure, or that she was even reminding herself how great it was that she was different. But the metal leg seemed to be causing her pain.
"It hurts, stupid!" She yelled at him. As fast as it had come, the pain in her leg was fizzing out. Although her cut up hand was still throbbing from contact with the fabric of her skirt, she immediately felt guilty for lashing out at him, her hands finally pulling away. "Sorry... it's not... I don't mean to do that. It's just that these pains suddenly got worse."
"The metal leg... it hurts you?" Now it was Robot's turn to recoil to his side of the couch, looking horrified as he realized that all this time, that accessory he thought was so admirable was actually a source of pain for her.
"It's not really the prosthetic, it's the amputation," Shannon explained. "They told me-it goes something like my body doesn't really know that the leg is gone, and that I'm all healed now. Part of my brain doesn't understand that the nerve endings in my leg are all dead and gone, it still thinks there's something wrong with me."
Robot could only slowly shake his head. She might as well have been trying to explain to him that she was an alien, and her braces were really antennae. "But that's illogical. It-it doesn't make sense."
"I know it doesn't, but that's... me." She sighed, shrugging. "It's just the way it is."
"How do you stop it?" Robot asked. "The hurting?"
"I can't stop it."
"No!" Robot shouted, dissatisfied with the answer. A girl assisted by metal couldn't just be left to hurt! "Surely there must be a pill, or an operation-"
"Robot, don't you understand? It's in my head, there is nothing I can do about it. I'm broken!"
The word hung in the air, cutting off every possible response the automaton could have made. Out of nowhere, Robot's mental dictionary popped to the forefront of his vision, trying to assist him with how to process this information. It did so, by defining 'broken.'
To break: To inflict physical harm caused to something to make it less valuable, less useful, or unable to perform its normal function. See: Damage.
Never in a million years had he considered Shannon's condition to be a form of damage. And yet... what else was it? Robot thought of that three wheeled teenage automaton who was with that group that had confronted him after the Gala. He had to be carted around by his friends in order to move.
That was what Robot considered a damage. Not this. Not a girl who could still walk around, who could still run faster than most humans he'd ever seen down a flight of stairs, trying to get her bus. Try as he might, Robot couldn't wrap his head around a disability like the kind Shannon was describing-a mental extension of her physical injury. Not when she seemed so...
Normal.
There had been a time, maybe the first few months that Robot had set his sights on her, that he seriously considered the thought Shannon's metal leg and braces together could have a sign of her superiority among the hundreds of teenagers of Polyneux Middle School. It made her unique, that was indisputable. And it caught his attention all right. But as his process of integration with the humans began, the moments of superiority he felt among his peers slowly stopped coming, and instead were replaced with more moments were Robot felt inferior, or foolish at the very least. It was so gradual that he hadn't really noticed this change about himself until having spoken with Grampz the night of the Gala, and feeling the crushing weight of defeat as Grampz resolved to do nothing about the merger, and whatever negative impact it would have on the robots.
Robot shook his head, tears forming in the back of his eyes. It felt like one of the last slivers of his innocence was being crushed by this flash of reality. He couldn't deal with it. Not after losing Nob's today. He couldn't make himself suddenly adult enough to know how to react to his. He didn't want to see the world the way the humans did: The world where Shannon wasn't really normal.
"I simply cannot understand this," came his voice, cracked, which was very rare for him, but very new, too. It was a string of words he hated to use, only when something a human was trying to relay was truly out of his comprehension. "How can someone repaired with metal still... be broken?"
Shannon shrugged. Between her aching thigh and searing hand, she looked more exhausted than Robot felt, and that was saying a lot. "It's not a repair. It's a replacement for what can't be."
Robot and Shannon sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before Robot slid closer to Shannon's side, and Shannon slowly outstretched her bloodied hand back to him. He finished his work on her hand in silence, not even meeting her gaze. She was just another foolish human he was helping out, as robots had to do. When he reapplied the antiseptic, she did flinch, but she was better prepared for it, and Robot was able to keep a hold on her arm this time. His movements were slow, cautious, but well calculated. Her's were involuntary twitches at pain, and jerks, even though she was trying so hard to remain still. Had she gone to a hospital, Robot realized, she might have been given her a shot of pain killer, but as they were doing right now, she'd have to put up with the pain. She had ghost pains, so she was sort of used to it. And as Robot got closer to completion, she relaxed.
He may not have had a medical license, but Robot Jones did not do shotty work. Shannon's hand look professionally treated, her pain even subsiding now, after the re-application of pain ointment finally seemed to be working. Shannon even remarked about Robot's good work on her now-bandaged hand as he went for the door. His tank rumbled, and it occurred to Robot that he hadn't had anything to eat in over ten hours, and neither had Shannon. If she was hungry, she didn't say anything about it. Then again, her and Robot consumed two different kinds of fuel. Another reminder that they were just too different.
It wasn't until well after 12 hours since he left the house that morning that Robot finally stumbled up to his own doorstep. But with everything he'd just learned, his mind was buzzing. For some reason he considered logging about today, and he opening up his mental Data Entry book, but immediately closed it before moving the blinking mouse one letter to the right. He needed a rested mind to properly process all that he learned today.
Even though they were fortunate that Shannon's mother was out until late, he wasn't so lucky about his own parents, neither of which worked that day. His mother in particular had a way of letting him know right off the bat that she wasn't happy.
"Robot Electro Jones!" she shouted from the next room. "Where have you been? It's an hour to midnight!"
The young automaton groaned, the door slamming cold from the ceiling to the floor as soon as he crossed the threshold, as if it, too, was mad at Robot for being out for so long. He had a feeling that he was going to be chewed out, he just didn't have the energy to face it. "I can explain everything, Mom unit," he said, coming into the living room.
The television was on, muted, and a fat woman in a too-tight dress was giving the report of the weather for Sunday and the upcoming week-ice cold, straight through the 31st. Between her plastic-happy voice and his mother and father, two laser-toting robots who were staring him down, Robot wished he could jump into the television and away from whatever was going to go down here.
"You had better supply an explanation," his mother replied, rolling over to look over him, as if she almost didn't believe he was finally home. "Because your father and I were a few minutes away from calling the police."
"Wha-really?" Robot asked, his eyes widening. His mom and dad already knew about what he had to do at Nob's that day, and he'd been expecting a lecture from his mother about being out longer than he'd promised, but for his mother to actually think to dial the authorities and report him missing? That was... awfully human of her. Robot looked down at his jacket and wondered if his own extended time with the humans had rubbed off on his parents. "Listen, I wasn't goofing off. I was following protocol-escorting a human to her home and then tending to an injury. You should have seen the size of the gashes in her-"
"Wait," Robot's father suddenly interrupted. During Robot's talk, Mr. Jones had shifted his angry eyes towards that appliance the humans called the 'idiot box', pointing dramatically. "Television!"
Robot and his mother both gave each other confused looks before moving their gaze to the silent screen. Normally, Mrs. Jones would scold her husband for interrupting Robot's reprimanding for something as insignificant as television, but she didn't dare say anything, because the face that was flashing on the screen was that of her son.
"It's me!" Robot shouted. "Turn it on!"
On his order, Mr. Jones zoomed up to the TV and flicked the volume knob. The sound echoed back into the metallic room in an almost deafening. But as soon as Robot saw his own face on the TV, it had cut to a commercial. The three robots sat in awed silence throughout the commercials for dish soap and all-beef fast food restaurant patties. Finally, the leading news anchor's face appeared on the screen again, his wise middle-aged smile front and center for all nighttime viewers to be comforted by.
"And this week on our 'Can Kids Change the World?' segment, WBM2 News has come across an effort to preserve a beloved local entertainment venue from its untimely demise. Reporter Rebecca White has the story."
The male anchor's face was cut to a zoomed in photograph of Nob's Arkaid's entrance sign. "Good evening, Todd. This morning I came to you live from Center and Diversity where an event was taking place to raise funds for one of the towns most famous after school hangouts for middle schoolers. The 23rd was the first day the arcade went without operation in over three years. But today, between 7am and 7pm, Nob's Arkaid opened its doors to the public once more after being closed for a solid week."
The screen cut from Becky White's satisfied smile to that of an unflattering still frame of video of Robot Jones, looking not unlike the photograph of Dr. Harris Jones, sitting in the hallway of JNZ Robotics-total deer in the headlights. "The event was being run by none other than one of its own young patrons-8th grader Robot Jones. A surprising feat of organization for someone who is both a middle schooler, and a robot."
"Robot Jones!" his mother exclaimed, exchanging glances with Robot's father. "You didn't inform us that you were going to be on the news broadcast!"
"I... guess I forgot," Robot explained, looking dumbfounded now in his own living room. He was being honest. Other things like the arcade's unstoppable end and Shannon having finally spilled the truth about her accident took far more precedent in his thoughts than some smug reporter getting her income on his story.
"Even more fascinating," Becky reported, reading off of the tele-prompter, "is that the building that Nob's Arkaid had used to house its over fifty gaming consoles has a rich history."
The screen flipped again to a sepia toned photograph of a very different looking building that looked like it was in a very familiar spot. This building, where Nob's should have been, was very large-much too large, and the buildings on each side were different as well. The walls of not-Nob's were covered in windows that would have ruined the digital-screen-based arcade experience, and missing its trademark outer artwork, instead being a plain brick brown color. To top it off, Nob's Arkaid's massive sign at the top was gone, and in its place on the front of the building was a fancy cursive font bore the name Rocky's.
"Established in 1963 as "Rocky's Club of Fun, this same building was once home to the town's most popular after school hang out for senior high schoolers, hosing a small diner, a candy store, an indoor pool, and a variety of wholesome games at affordable prices-all that was required to play most games was a single nickle. The business saw success all the way up to 1971, when business owner Pop Newhart," the reporter said, as a photograph of a fat man with balding black hair and a grin flashed on screen, "Was forced to sell part of his property on either side of the street to the city council to allow elbow room for more businesses, and subsequently more traffic for the city. This decision meant that Rocky's had to be completely demolished, and rebuilt into a building only a third of it's original size. Many teens were deeply unhappy with the changes made to Rocky's due to the new limited size, including the deconstruction of the pool. Nearly as soon as Rocky's was reopened, it was closed down again for lack of business, and sold back to the city. The stripped building than sat as an abandoned, simple white block in the middle of Center for about three years until a man by the the name of Joseph Hamilton leased the property. Joseph had seen the rise of electronic games, AKA, video games, in arcades across the United States, and decided to outfit the new teen hangout with only electronic games. The newly named Nob's Arkaid," she said, as the footage of the Arkaid from only this morning appeared on screen, "has had success over the past twelve years, but a drastically declining turnout this year has caused the current and third manager overall, James Saitō, to decide to terminate his lease and close Nob's Arkaid, bringing a symbolic end to yet another generation's escape from the real world."
The TV then cut back to Becky White as she rattled on. "Robot Jones' noteworthy actions come at quite a coincidental time, given the controversy over the recent merger between East Coasts technical corporations JNZ Robotics and Lightoller Cybornetics-a corporate decision that has Anti-Trust activists up in arms."
"Wait a second!" Robot said, cutting through more of the reporter's rattling and turning to his father. "I didn't know JNZ was getting outside criticism for the merger!"
Mr. Jones was flexing his hand and looking nervously from his wife to his son. Mrs. Jones, as she did often, took up the explaining for him. "We did not want you to worry, but some newspapers have written up some very negative articles concerning the merger."
"Like... what?" Robot asked. Worker's rights was the core issue at hand concerning the merger, at least for anybody who didn't agree with it on the JNZ side-particularly the rights of its robotic workers, and he knew the newspapers couldn't possibly care about that, unless the articles were being written up by robots themselves.
"Well," Mrs. Jones started, "Many business investigators think both JNZ and Lightoller are large enough to consider the merger illegal, and they are proposing not only to break up the merger before the conditions for both sides are finalized, but if they don't break up before the courts step in and recognize it as a trust, that both sides should pay for having agreed to knowingly break the law."
"Pay... how?" Robot asked. He knew he should be afraid of the answer, but he couldn't resist asking anyway.
"By compartmentalizing," Mr. Jones said, finally speaking up. "They wish to break up the separate companies, and terminate staff as a result."
Robot gulped. Terminating staff in a robotics company did not mean the same thing as terminating staff in a regular company. Especially when a large percentage of the actual staff were robots. Robots who were laid off from a company couldn't be promised things like worker's comp-if they were even laid off, that is. Termination could prove to be a very literal word.
"Now don't worry, Robot," Mrs. Jones told him. "Our family is not in jeopardy. As a supervisor, your father's job is not at risk, even if they did carry out layoffs. That said, my best estimation is that the merger is not going to stop based on press threats, so carry on as I said: Do not associate yourself with the Lightoller units, but don't carry out arguments with them either."
Robot nodded. He hadn't told his mother about his acquaintanceship with the Crystal unit yet, and he didn't plan on it. His mom was too no-nonsense sometimes, and she wouldn't understand why he felt like he needed to. Crystal knew about Lightoller Cybornetics better than any unit at JNZ, and working together, they might just figure out why the merger was happening-at least, what was in it for Claymore. (Crowe's motivation was obviously money, or at least there didn't seem to need to be another reason.)
And besides that, Robot found something comforting in finally having a friend who was also another robot. For once in his life, he had someone to talk to who understood what it was like to be a machine, and didn't despise him for the fact that his only other real friends in the world were human. Of course, Crystal didn't seem to have too many friends of her own, so it didn't behoove her to be picky. It was very illogical, for an android so attractive and appealing to have no friends. At least if Finkman was example number one, Crystal should have been flocked by admirers just because she was beautiful. But robots either hated her outright-mostly the shebots, or muttered very rude, very ungentlemanly things about they way they could abuse her their breath-mostly the males. Neither of which tried to talk to her directly, at least from what Robot had saw. They didn't care about getting to know her.
It reminded Robot so much of the way humans treated him when he first arrived at Polyneux, either avoiding him or talking about how to use his robotic abilities to their personal advantage. But unlike himself, he didn't think that time was going to make Crystal more accepted. And Crystal had nobody else to go to when the day ended. Even her creator was a monster, hardly a mother, let alone a good one. This made him so compelled to befriend her, despite the little warning in the back of his head telling him not to trust her, simply for being the product of the enemy company.
But surely, she had to have gotten over her own bias in order to befriend him. And she was the odd bot out. She was trapped in the strange place. It had to have been hard to trust anybody, especially with her lack of a welcome. Why couldn't he trust her?
"In total, an estimated seven hundred people paid a visit to Nob's Arkaid today," Becky went on, "to either play some games, or to pay tribute to its past. It would appear the event was nearly a success, but when we tried to contact Mr. Saitō for comment, he could not be reached. It would seem as though Nob's Arkiad is just another in a line of youth entertainment venues that is ready for the record books, but the adorable actions of this young Robot today go to remind us that even children refuse to give in, even at the bleakest of times. Back to you, Todd!"
"Thank you, Becky," the male reporter said as the screen cut to him again. He shuffled the papers on his desk and turned to the other news anchor sitting on his right. "That truly was cute," Todd said quietly to the female anchor.
"Truly, it's a shame," the tanned brunette anchor said. "But not everything can last forever." She turned to the camera. "Well, WBM2 News will be back at 5am. Until next time, this is Selma Orson and Todd Richards signing off."
"Goodnight everybody," Todd said, as both anchors did a little wave to the camera. The screen then cut to a commercial for a law firm that promised checks 'for those in wrecks.'
Robot practically forgot he wasn't sitting and feel backwards.
Cute.
They thought it was cute! All of his hard work, all of his hopes, his dreams. Cute. Like a dream a five year old would have. Cute, like that kitten that had launched out of the cage. Cute, like none of it really mattered, it was all for show.
He could almost stand that James hadn't shown up, ruining the point of the event in the first place. But to have these smug, know-it-all humans write off his efforts as childish at best? After he'd had the most adult like responsibility he'd ever had in his life?
The worst of all was that it was mentioned in a segment not called 'Kids Can Change the World' but 'Can Children Change the World?' As if kids actually accomplishing something was unheard of, and they only liked to pretend kids could do great things because it made for endearing stories, like seven year olds running a Lemonade stand for charity. It made all of Robot's spent time and energy feel completely useless. It was wrong! It was so wrong!
"Wow," Mrs. Jones remarked. "You surely made an impression on those humans, Robot Jones."
Robot balled up his fists. He could shout, he could scream, but what would it do him. He let his frustration sizzle out of him in the form of steam behind his eyes and out of his vents, his arms shaking before finally, resting. "Yes," he answered, coldly. "But not the right kind."
Almost at once, the phone began to ring. Mrs. Jones went for it, telling her son that it was Socks calling to tell Robot that he had been on the news again. Robot groaned and told his mother to tell Socks that he knew already, and that he was going to sleep. But as soon as Mrs. Jones hung up the phone, it began to ring again. Six rings and a minute of silence later, it started up again. And then again. It wasn't just Robot's friends calling. It had to be randoms from school. Kids who wanted to talk to him just because he was that kid from the arcade, or that kid who was up for Valedictorian against Clara Doppler.
One thing was for sure now. After two and a half years of school, Robot was finally popular.
And he didn't give a lick.
On the fourth set of rings, Robot turned midway from the escalator and ran to the phone, unhooking it from the wall and dislodging the cord from the back, slamming the cordless phone down on a nearby table and returning to the escalator, his dumbfounded parents watching on in confusion. Two years ago, Robot had been ecstatic to get a telephone call at home-it was a sign that he had friends at last. Maybe even a perspective girlfriend. But right now, he didn't care if Dr. Jones himself was calling. He needed sleep before he could deal with anything else.
Originally Published October 22nd, 2018
Author's Note for the Story:
In this chapter, Robot learns that the factory may face consequences to the merger with Lightoller, that may affect robots themselves. And a very reluctant Shannon finally opens up to Robot about the number of things, including the biggest mystery of all: How she became an amputee.
Note! This chapter's been edited after I got some constructive criticism on the way Robot would process Shannon's story. Let met me know what you think.
Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network