Hotel Colorado, Room 321, Denver, Colorado, February 3rd, 5:02:21 pm
"What did you want to tell us, Bucky?" Zee peered at the young teenager from the couch of a roomy hotel suite. Ro sat beside him, concentrating on a cup of hot chocolate and seeming very disinterested in whatever had to be said. Bucky grinned at Zeta for a moment, not saying anything, instead allowing the tension to build until Ro was forced to look up.
"So, what is it already?"
"Okay, okay. I'll tell you. I've been busy lately, doing some hacking, and decided to check up on your NSA file. You can thank me later."
"Oh, yeah, I'm so grateful. I really care what it says in my file," Ro said flatly, rolling her eyes.
"Do you want to hear what I've found, or not?"
"Alright, already! Just say it!"
"Well, there were some really interesting reports on you. Pages of psychoanalysis. Some pretty funny stuff on why you're so unstable all the time. I could download, but you probably wouldn't be interested. Besides, you'd just make me delete it, and it's just too entertaining." He grinned, enjoying the effect he had on her.
"Twip! Did you bring us out here just to bug me?"
"Nah, there's more. But I'm not sure I feel like telling you," he said in mock hurt. "You called me a twip!"
"If you don't tell me right now-" Ro's threat was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Room service!" rang the cheery voice of a maid.
"Ooh, refills on hot chocolate!" Ro grinned and stood up, only to be firmly sat down again by Zee.
"What's your problem, tin man?"
"Last time you ordered, it took 23.25 minutes to bring the hot chocolate to the room. It always takes at least 10 minutes for the delivery of food alone. However, it's only been 6 minutes and 32 seconds since you ordered."
"Looks like somebody gets a tip today! Good service!"
"No, something's wrong. Let me answer the door. You and Bucky hide until I tell you to come out," he commanded gently. The synthoid exchanged his hologram for that of a middle aged man in pajamas and saw Ro and Bucky off into the adjoining room. Glancing through the peephole, he saw an ordinary young woman and a tray with a small steaming pot on it.
[Scanning contents. Contents Found: 35% Cocoa, 40% Sugar, and 25% milk. Ordinary Hot Chocolate]
But he still could not shake a strange feeling about the maid. She looked normal enough, although she showed no sign of impatience at being made to wait. This was odd, as he had generally known humans to hate being made to wait a fraction of a second longer than necessary. But the reading from his substance sensors told him the same thing that the reading from his optometric sensors told him- she was an average young woman, no threat detected.
He opened the door and smiled. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said congenially. She stared back at him for a moment, then her hand shot out and grabbed his neck. He felt two snaky wires attach themselves to his body, easily going through the synthetic "substance" to his hologram.
"Infiltration Unit Zeta. Please permit a systems shut down and hard drive erasure," came her strange metallic yet feminine voice.
Zeta could feel every system in his body begin to shut itself down. His hologram emitter went out, leaving his metal body to go limp in her firm grasp.
"Ro!" he shouted frantically. "Ro, she's a synthoid! Run!"
Then, he dedicated what remained of his energy to countering the far more powerful programming that she was using to override his own system.
Ro heard Zee cry, and, being Ro, did the opposite of what he asked. She poked her head out of the adjoining room and saw the maid, or where the maid had been. In her place was a large silvery synthoid with huge eyes like old fashioned camcorder lenses towering over the body of her friend.
"Zee!" she whispered, attracting the attention of the frightening figure, who detached one arm from Zeta to point a silvery gun at Ro. The girl looked back, frozen like a deer in headlights, only to be pulled away by Bucky. The robot, seeing a teenage girl as no threat, went back to its task.
"What the hell is that?"
"The thing I brought you here to tell you about! Infiltration Unit Eta, a new synthoid with a death wish directed at Zeta."
"What can we do?"
"Run before it kills him and comes after us?"
"No! I mean to save Zee! We can't let him die!"
"How did I know you'd say that? We could try to jam its processors with an invention of mine. I know just the one. Probably won't be very effective without the right schematics-"
"Gimme!"
"Okay, hold on. Lucky for you, I haven't unpacked yet, or it would probably be in the other room." He shuffled through a duffel bag filled with wrinkled clothes that looked as though they hadn't been washed or folded in quite awhile.
"Here we go!" he cried, pulling what looked like a control for an old fashioned vid-game from the bottom of his bag.
"Hey! You told us you destroyed the blueprints for that!"
"It's not like I was planning to use it on Zeta. It's just way too cool to throw away. Besides, it's a damn good thing I lied. It's not built to work on the Eta, but it should mess up its programs a bit. I just have to get as close to the frequency as I can. It can't be that different from Zeta's."
Bucky flipped on the control and began changing a small knob, trying to find the right frequency. Ro felt a bit useless, sitting on the floor trying to see if Zee was alright, and if the Eta was coming for them. The Eta's programming dictated that it would not go after its next targets until the first was destroyed, and Zeta, despite his inferior defense systems, was managing to hold out. But Ro didn't know this, and she hated just sitting while her best friend was in trouble.
After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, she saw Bucky slide over next to her, pointing his remote control at the intruder. The large synthoid twitched for a moment, unable to control its body, but not quite in Bucky's control, either.
[System error! Unauthorized program present!]
Eta removed its wires from the lifeless body of Zeta, its large eyes scanning the room before landing on Bucky.
[Threat detected. Possible mission compromise. Eliminate threat.]
The robot charged forward, raising several silver guns from the panels in its arms. Bucky frantically began playing with the remote, causing Eta to lose control over her weapons and to begin firing randomly about the room, destroying the couch they had been sitting on less than 5 minutes ago, the table, and the wall separating the adjoining room from the main room. This last blast threw Ro and Bucky across the room, Ro landing against the wall with a painful thud.
She watched Bucky pull himself up from the opposite wall, and the control skid across the room towards herself. Eta saw this and reached for the remote, but Ro was there first. Unfortunately, she soon realized that controlling something without the schematics was a lot more complicated, and she had no idea how to work it. She couldn't quite control Eta, so it advanced at her in strange, jerky movements.
Ro backed away, still playing around with the remote, and noticed Bucky crawling in the direction of Zeta. But before she could wonder if he would be able to fix Zee, she felt a powerful grip on her arm. She continued to press buttons, fighting the Eta's grasp. It let go and she ran, but it continued to follow her, slowly, still fighting the intruding program. Ro, watching, did not notice she had reached the back wall and was letting herself get trapped in a corner.
The Eta grabbed her once again and flung her painfully against the wall, wrenching the control out of her hands and crushing it in its metallic grip, still moving in odd jerky movements but at least in control. Ro felt a stream of blood trickle down her cheek, and slumped against the wall in pain. She moaned, and watched through fuzzy vision as the malfunctioning Eta raised a powerful blade to kill her- and then the blade was struck down by Zee's arm. Eta turned to fire but Zee was too quick, using his momentary advantage to knock the other synthoid off balance.
Eta fired, and a white beam struck Zeta's chest, burning a gaping hole in the metal, but then Ro shoved the cabinet next to her housing to mini-bar at the synthoid, and it fell over on the ground.
"Look at me!" Ro shouted, grinning broadly but wobbling a bit as she struggled to remain standing upright. Zeta turned to her and put his arm against her back to support her, gently wiping the drying blood off her face.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm great," said Ro in a slightly trembling voice. She propped her head against Zee's chest, and didn't object when he lifted her off her feet to lay draped over his arms. She felt tired, and was asleep by the time Zeta had left the hotel with Bucky in the hologram of a man carrying a duffel bag in his arms, clutching it as though it was the most precious thing in the world.
"What did you want to tell us, Bucky?" Zee peered at the young teenager from the couch of a roomy hotel suite. Ro sat beside him, concentrating on a cup of hot chocolate and seeming very disinterested in whatever had to be said. Bucky grinned at Zeta for a moment, not saying anything, instead allowing the tension to build until Ro was forced to look up.
"So, what is it already?"
"Okay, okay. I'll tell you. I've been busy lately, doing some hacking, and decided to check up on your NSA file. You can thank me later."
"Oh, yeah, I'm so grateful. I really care what it says in my file," Ro said flatly, rolling her eyes.
"Do you want to hear what I've found, or not?"
"Alright, already! Just say it!"
"Well, there were some really interesting reports on you. Pages of psychoanalysis. Some pretty funny stuff on why you're so unstable all the time. I could download, but you probably wouldn't be interested. Besides, you'd just make me delete it, and it's just too entertaining." He grinned, enjoying the effect he had on her.
"Twip! Did you bring us out here just to bug me?"
"Nah, there's more. But I'm not sure I feel like telling you," he said in mock hurt. "You called me a twip!"
"If you don't tell me right now-" Ro's threat was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Room service!" rang the cheery voice of a maid.
"Ooh, refills on hot chocolate!" Ro grinned and stood up, only to be firmly sat down again by Zee.
"What's your problem, tin man?"
"Last time you ordered, it took 23.25 minutes to bring the hot chocolate to the room. It always takes at least 10 minutes for the delivery of food alone. However, it's only been 6 minutes and 32 seconds since you ordered."
"Looks like somebody gets a tip today! Good service!"
"No, something's wrong. Let me answer the door. You and Bucky hide until I tell you to come out," he commanded gently. The synthoid exchanged his hologram for that of a middle aged man in pajamas and saw Ro and Bucky off into the adjoining room. Glancing through the peephole, he saw an ordinary young woman and a tray with a small steaming pot on it.
[Scanning contents. Contents Found: 35% Cocoa, 40% Sugar, and 25% milk. Ordinary Hot Chocolate]
But he still could not shake a strange feeling about the maid. She looked normal enough, although she showed no sign of impatience at being made to wait. This was odd, as he had generally known humans to hate being made to wait a fraction of a second longer than necessary. But the reading from his substance sensors told him the same thing that the reading from his optometric sensors told him- she was an average young woman, no threat detected.
He opened the door and smiled. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said congenially. She stared back at him for a moment, then her hand shot out and grabbed his neck. He felt two snaky wires attach themselves to his body, easily going through the synthetic "substance" to his hologram.
"Infiltration Unit Zeta. Please permit a systems shut down and hard drive erasure," came her strange metallic yet feminine voice.
Zeta could feel every system in his body begin to shut itself down. His hologram emitter went out, leaving his metal body to go limp in her firm grasp.
"Ro!" he shouted frantically. "Ro, she's a synthoid! Run!"
Then, he dedicated what remained of his energy to countering the far more powerful programming that she was using to override his own system.
Ro heard Zee cry, and, being Ro, did the opposite of what he asked. She poked her head out of the adjoining room and saw the maid, or where the maid had been. In her place was a large silvery synthoid with huge eyes like old fashioned camcorder lenses towering over the body of her friend.
"Zee!" she whispered, attracting the attention of the frightening figure, who detached one arm from Zeta to point a silvery gun at Ro. The girl looked back, frozen like a deer in headlights, only to be pulled away by Bucky. The robot, seeing a teenage girl as no threat, went back to its task.
"What the hell is that?"
"The thing I brought you here to tell you about! Infiltration Unit Eta, a new synthoid with a death wish directed at Zeta."
"What can we do?"
"Run before it kills him and comes after us?"
"No! I mean to save Zee! We can't let him die!"
"How did I know you'd say that? We could try to jam its processors with an invention of mine. I know just the one. Probably won't be very effective without the right schematics-"
"Gimme!"
"Okay, hold on. Lucky for you, I haven't unpacked yet, or it would probably be in the other room." He shuffled through a duffel bag filled with wrinkled clothes that looked as though they hadn't been washed or folded in quite awhile.
"Here we go!" he cried, pulling what looked like a control for an old fashioned vid-game from the bottom of his bag.
"Hey! You told us you destroyed the blueprints for that!"
"It's not like I was planning to use it on Zeta. It's just way too cool to throw away. Besides, it's a damn good thing I lied. It's not built to work on the Eta, but it should mess up its programs a bit. I just have to get as close to the frequency as I can. It can't be that different from Zeta's."
Bucky flipped on the control and began changing a small knob, trying to find the right frequency. Ro felt a bit useless, sitting on the floor trying to see if Zee was alright, and if the Eta was coming for them. The Eta's programming dictated that it would not go after its next targets until the first was destroyed, and Zeta, despite his inferior defense systems, was managing to hold out. But Ro didn't know this, and she hated just sitting while her best friend was in trouble.
After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, she saw Bucky slide over next to her, pointing his remote control at the intruder. The large synthoid twitched for a moment, unable to control its body, but not quite in Bucky's control, either.
[System error! Unauthorized program present!]
Eta removed its wires from the lifeless body of Zeta, its large eyes scanning the room before landing on Bucky.
[Threat detected. Possible mission compromise. Eliminate threat.]
The robot charged forward, raising several silver guns from the panels in its arms. Bucky frantically began playing with the remote, causing Eta to lose control over her weapons and to begin firing randomly about the room, destroying the couch they had been sitting on less than 5 minutes ago, the table, and the wall separating the adjoining room from the main room. This last blast threw Ro and Bucky across the room, Ro landing against the wall with a painful thud.
She watched Bucky pull himself up from the opposite wall, and the control skid across the room towards herself. Eta saw this and reached for the remote, but Ro was there first. Unfortunately, she soon realized that controlling something without the schematics was a lot more complicated, and she had no idea how to work it. She couldn't quite control Eta, so it advanced at her in strange, jerky movements.
Ro backed away, still playing around with the remote, and noticed Bucky crawling in the direction of Zeta. But before she could wonder if he would be able to fix Zee, she felt a powerful grip on her arm. She continued to press buttons, fighting the Eta's grasp. It let go and she ran, but it continued to follow her, slowly, still fighting the intruding program. Ro, watching, did not notice she had reached the back wall and was letting herself get trapped in a corner.
The Eta grabbed her once again and flung her painfully against the wall, wrenching the control out of her hands and crushing it in its metallic grip, still moving in odd jerky movements but at least in control. Ro felt a stream of blood trickle down her cheek, and slumped against the wall in pain. She moaned, and watched through fuzzy vision as the malfunctioning Eta raised a powerful blade to kill her- and then the blade was struck down by Zee's arm. Eta turned to fire but Zee was too quick, using his momentary advantage to knock the other synthoid off balance.
Eta fired, and a white beam struck Zeta's chest, burning a gaping hole in the metal, but then Ro shoved the cabinet next to her housing to mini-bar at the synthoid, and it fell over on the ground.
"Look at me!" Ro shouted, grinning broadly but wobbling a bit as she struggled to remain standing upright. Zeta turned to her and put his arm against her back to support her, gently wiping the drying blood off her face.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm great," said Ro in a slightly trembling voice. She propped her head against Zee's chest, and didn't object when he lifted her off her feet to lay draped over his arms. She felt tired, and was asleep by the time Zeta had left the hotel with Bucky in the hologram of a man carrying a duffel bag in his arms, clutching it as though it was the most precious thing in the world.