Sam rammed her good foot down on the gas. There was just no decency to some things.
She took a corner at high speed, getting splattered in Red-Bull as the can toppled from its holder.
This might just be a false alarm. But then again, it might not. The device hadn't been powered in months. And she'd had to go through a lot of trouble to get it. And modify it. And she'd had no way to test it.
The sensors had started beeping four minutes ago, then died down just after a minute. If what they said was true, Bubbletown was in danger.
No. Not just Bubbletown. Much more than that.
She gripped the steering wheel harder but forced herself to slow down. She was nearly there.
Finally, the robot recharge station came into view. She halted to a stop across the street and tapped something on her jeep's dashboard. The car responded with a few soft clicks.
Sam, well, she didn't quite have a plan. More of a hunch with scaffolding. She grabbed the crutch from the passenger's seat and dragged herself out.
The main building was an immaculate white, with smooth, sleek surfaces that glowed under Bubbletown's neon's. It somehow managed to combine the sterility of a laboratory with the vibrancy of red and green geometrics. Outdoor charging bays were arranged in precise rows, each one a meticulously designed alcove with pumps attached.
Sam grimaced her way across the street, painful jolts running up her leg and back at every limping step. Her crutch and her metalic brace clanked against the concrete to a steady rhythm. Her rhyth: thud - step – pain.
She tried to spot the Electrix they had fixed earlier, but it was virtually impossible. There were at least a dozen, and they all looked the same.
Seventeen clients, Sam counted. Nine of them - androids of different brands, some with human companions - waited patiently next to recharging bays to be serviced by an Electrix. The rest were in the back, at the self-repair and calibration modules – a set of compact booths, with various green-and-red instruments and power meters poking out.
She grabbed a random Electrix and it turned around.
"Can I help you miss – oh – Miss Samantha?" The Electrix asked.
"Have you seen this model?" Sam projected a hologram with the android's data. Even this was clumsier to do with the crutch. At least it was the kind that had a semicircle across her upper arm, so the crutch didn't topple as she let go of its handle and tapped her mobile.
The Electrix leaned in, then seemed to process for a bit, running through his databank.
"Yes, miss." He said after a short moment. "He is that one over there, miss." He pointed.
"Great. He's dismissed from the working line. An authorized workshop found a malfunction in his software."
"Oh. I see. Should I -"
"No, thanks," Sam said, limping away, keeping her eyes fixed on the robot he'd pointed out.
She hadn't noticed it before, but the android was causing a commotion. Somehow, the a part of a pump had been broken and fuel was spilling out. Two other Electrix were trying to get the mess under control, like surgeons trying to stomp a blood flow.
"I-I'm s-so-so-sorry." The third one buzzed, mechanical voice low. The same stutter. Excelent.
"Electrix." Sam saw a flicker of recognition in the android. "I need you to come with me."
He tried to protest. Or apologize. Sam didn't know which.
"You're not in trouble, I promise. I just need to do another checkup on you, alright?"
"What's going on?" Another Electrix asked.
Sam replied by transferring them the documents that said he needed to go back to a workshop. Grabbing the Elecctrix by the arm, she started limping away and sighed in relief as the Elextrix started moving with her. There was no way she could have hauled him after her.
Then, she noticed them approaching.
A short man wearing a white lab coat. No more than five feet tall. Ghostly pale skin, white curly hair, silvery mechanic hand and red rimmed glasses. The hover-contraption holding him seemed to be a detachable component of his robot. Ten-feet-tall with a clawed arm, made of an alloy the color of obsidian. Its eyes glowed red.
Dr. K. and Kolossal.
Sparks. That robot looks much larger than the recording. And exaggerated somehow, angles too deep, lines too harsh.
Sam took a deep breath.
"Electrix," She said warmly, "I just remembered, there's something else I need to do. Do you see that?" She pointed at a random car. "That's my car. Could you wait for me by it?"
Why, Dr. K? Why are you chasing robots? Is it what I've been thinking?
Reluctantly, the Electrix nodded and darted away. Sam straightened, working her hand on the handle of her crutch.
She walked back into the gas station. It was time for a little improvisation.
She passed Dr. K. and Kolossal, completely ignoring them.
"Sparks and deadlocks take you fools!" She bellowed.
"Miss… oh…" The closest Electrix models stared at her, then hastily straightened up. "Miss Samantha."
"Hey, you!" She waved her hands, trying to get as much attention as possible.
"This station is temporarily closed!" The declaration was met by outrage protest from the clients. "Yes! C-L-O-S-E-D! Go home and recalibrate your intelligence modules!"
Sam banked on three things: her popularity in this town, the hope that she could intimidate the robots into doing what she asked of them, and the chance that Dr. K hadn't been scrupulously keeping up with her life.
A lot to ask, overall.
"Who's in charge of this place?" Sam yelled, stuffing her voice full of self-importance. Behind her, she could hear the old man groan. Good.
"Miss!" one of the androids said. "You'll want model 170-220-339!"
"Well, go tell him to wait for me inside, and rust take you if you make me stand for the debriefing! And get the rest of those dunces to send the clients away – now! Are you really offering services with that major integrity breach in the back?" Sam leered, blowing the thing way out of proportion. "Don't you know the security protocols? Well quickly, you idiots!"
She folded her arms, scowling. Hoping.
And the androids snapped into motion.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the old man hover down from Kolossal's shoulder. Still she ignored him, putting on a show of barely contained impatience.
"Could I be informed of what is going on here?" Dr. K. said softly. "Or are the clients below this station's notice?"
"Incompetence!" Sam exploded, as if she'd been waiting all day to complain.
"I've half a mind to send all these lackwit androids to the scrap pile! Why they still employ series QX-8000 of the Electrix is beyond me! They're ancient!"
Kolossal's air brakes hissed behind her. Sam's heart lurched but she didn't look behind.
"I mean look!" She waved at where she'd previously seen the spilling. "From now on thirty percent of this station's resources will be directed into the repair and strengthening of the fuel cores. We'll be undergoing major reconstruction! New cybernetic interfaces, new quantum processors, every old positronic relay must be replaced." Sam counted them on her fingers, still not looking at Dr. K.
"I don't want to see a crack a nanodroid could crawl through, let alone gallons of precious fuel!"
Dr. K had hovered closer. She could almost feel his breath. "Under what authority do you command this?"
She spun on him. "As the new senior quality assuran – "
Sam yelped softly, bringing her hands to her mouth. And she didn't have fo fake much. "Why," She breathed. "Professor Kael?"
He looked different. Not just older. No. This was something no recording could show. He was harder, sharper, eyes lacking any emotion, any warmth whatsoever. His face looked different too, one side in shadow, one side lit in flickering red and green.
His lip wrinkled as though he had stumbled into an open sewer. "I see," He said slowly, "I thought I recognized you."
Kolossal's eyes flickered to her, then back to Dr. K, as if waiting for permission to squish her.
"Well, Professor, I – uh – well," She wrung her hands, pretending to be embarrassed by her outburst. "Uh, how have you been?" She offered.
"Enough." He turned his hover-device around.
"Wait!" Sam yelled after him.
You never were one for small talk, Prof. Kenneth Kale.
"I guess – Well, I guess I can make an exception. For an old friend. Did you want a refuel, sir?"
Did you? Or are you here for that Electrix? If so, you'd want an excuse to keep looking for him, wouldn't you?
Dr. K's hover-seat fixed itself to the shoulder of his ten-feet-tall robot. Sam craned her neck, looking up at him. Dr. K studied her with eyes that seemed too hollow.
Sparks man! What happened to you?
"I did, in fact. You can proceed." Then he shifted his attention to a mean looking tablet he'd pulled out.
Right, Sam thought, limping to the closest bay. She leaned her crutch against it, feeling her body tingle with nervousness. She was at a sheer disadvantage without it. As she fetched the pump, she also grabbed the tracking device from the pouch strapped to her thigh, masking the action with a shift of her posture.
Careful, she reminded herself. They've broken into a robot repair shop - at midday - fought Cubix, and then evaded the Civic Officers. Law doesn't mean much to them. You don't know the lengths they are willing to go to.
Kolossal's components gave an ominous groan as he bent down and offered a metallic hand, as big as a car's door.
Sam eyed the metallic hand with not a little worry, worked her hands around the tracking device and the pump, building herself up to stepping on to it. An act of selfless heroism indeed. She wondered for a moment whether it would be wiser to crawl onto it. It would reduce the chance of a ten-feet drop, but it would hardly be appropriate, would it?
Sam hobbled up onto the hand as though she took her life in her hands every night. She wabbled alarmingly as Kolossal raised it, and she dropped to her knees, but managed to stay on.
Good enough.
Kolossal raised her to his chest panel, red eyes like mean diamonds tracking her every move. Sam heaved, opening the chest panel first, then working at the smaller one for the fuel compartment. Her eyes kept looking for something – there! A quirk in the design where the tracking device wouldn't be noticeable. She reached out, making it look like she was steadying herself against the robot and -
"Quality assurance, you said?" Dr. K asked.
Kolossal shifted slightly, Sam's hand hit empty air – just the inch she'd needed.
"Here it says the Senior of this refueling station is a Mr. Thompson." Dr. K. said calmly, looking up from his tablet.
Sam was sweating now.
"Of course it does!" She spat bitterly, as if she squabbled with Mr. Thompson every coffee break. "Won't you believe it? The idiot accepts an offer from another company, then takes all his remaining vacation days at once and flies off to Japan!"
Sam connected the pump to the robot's fuel compartment with one hand, stretching with the other. "He's probably sipping one of those cocktails with an umbrella in it right now. And when my already deployed promotion takes effect," She kept babbling, "All of this will be shoveled of to me!"
"Indeed…"
Steady, steady, just a little closer. There was a soft click as Dr. K detached his hover-seat from the robot's shoulder, Kolossal's hand tightening around her.
Gasping, Sam dropped the tracking device. There was no Mr. Thompson, was there?
Dr. K. hovered closer.
"What are you playing at, girl?"
"What is this?" Sam raged, still sticking to the act. "Let me go at once!"
Her former professor looked down at what she'd dropped, then back up at her with cool control.
"What do you know…" Dr. K. said distractedly. Strangely, Sam noted, he didn't seem to be angry. He just seemed, methodical... Surgical.
"Kolossal, we are leaving." Dr. K. finally ordered. "We are taking this one with us." He added offhandedly, as if Sam was a mere afterthought.
Behind them, something exploded.