JMJ
Chapter Five
Refills
"Day after day, how Smytus must endure this humiliation," grumbled Smytus to himself as he wiped some oil that had spilled on the counter with a rag. "Night after night. Hour after…"
He paused briefly from his atmospheric brooding as he noticed that some tiny splash of oil had gotten on him. In an instant he wiped it off so that it squeaked; then he growled under his non-existent breath.
"What's the point of this stupid apron if it doesn't keep me from getting these foul patrons' slurp all over me anyway?" he snorted. "Just to add to the utter disgrace!"
"I'll have a refill," moaned a miserable voice below him.
Smytus did not bother to look at the miserable body attached. "Sorry, it's not happy hour. No free refills."
"I don't care," sighed the bot with a static hiccup. "I—I just want a refill."
"High-sulfur heavy as before?" asked Smytus raising a brow now at the creature who looked like he had taken at least three or four refills past the point of balanced lubrication.
As this was a juvenile-friendly establishment, Smytus had the responsibility to inform the patron of the possible hazards and to ask him to leave if he failed to appreciate it, but as Smytus looked around Can Joe was nowhere to be seen at present. The place was left to Smytus' command. For the first time in solar cycles he smiled wide and menacing. He took the empty can, gave it a generous refill, and returned it to the unhappy bot.
"What's the matter?" Smytus asked all sympathy now. "I thought the reign of Queen Vega was the return of the glory days of Cluster Prime. Why the long face?"
"Oh, nothing really. Just that I was laid off for an uncertain amount of time to give a new bot a chance to shine, but y'know…"
The bot slugged his oil and jittered before clapping down the can onto the countertop. Smytus did not bother to clean up the splash.
"No, I have no idea," Smytus insisted. "I'm just working away here day in and day out in full comfort, you know. I haven't had a chance to see most of our dear queen's achievements."
"Well!" and here the bot looked somewhat annoyed. "You might not be as giddy about it if you were designed and raised for the single purpose of fixing, fitting, and replacing pipes and then having to be removed from that position for someone meant to be a protocol speaker…"
"What do you mean? I thought the rule of Queen Vega was one of fair applications," said Smytus.
"It is. The majority agreed that giving everyone a chance to shine was the best way to move forward," sighed the bot slugging down more oil.
It looked like some of it was leaking out his rudimentary seams, but Smytus poured him more as the bot thrust out his can.
"Now I'm given my new place to shine," sighed the bot. "As a teacher in mathematics. It's not that I don't know mathematics with the calculator built into my mental processors reasonable to know for my design, but I'm not designed for teaching others."
"I see, how terrible." Smytus shook his head. "Well, can't everyone agree that this is a bad system?"
"Only if enough people were unhappy, but the bot below me begged and whined for a chance to shine in my position to prove her metal."
"Well, perhaps if this is a society of squeaky wheels," suggested Smytus oozing sarcasm, "you might want to squeak a bit louder."
"Oh, I'm not designed to squeak as loud as that old kettle screams!"
Smytus looked around. This bot, although the most miserable of the lot, was not the only one who lacked the luster that Smytus had seen at the beginning of his community service. If one did not know better, the patrons looked like they were all under the same community service measures as Smytus.
There was more sizzling and hiccupping alongside all the gulping as the over-lubricated bot held out his can once more. The oil was dripping from his eye sockets like thick dark tears
"She screams so loud that she broke my pipes more when she was through with them," said a newcomer butting her way in. "My old man model says she'd be a better pipe organ grinder than a doctor of pipes."
"How do you know it's the same bot he's talking about?" asked Smytus.
"Because she said that she outdid the one who was left to go be a teacher," said the newcomer.
"Oh, but I hate working with pipes that are so filthy!" complained the terror in question herself.
The other two jumped in fright. "You!?"
"I'm going to complain," the new pipe-worker. "And I have the protocol know-how to do it, too!"
"Or, is it that you just hate working with pipes!" snapped the over-lubricated one sizzling in his drowned passion as he slapped down his can of oil.
As at the release of a trap, the whole place erupted with arguing.
Perhaps it could be called harmless enough. There were no blows, nor did anyone seem prepared to give anything but a piece of each other's minds, which they did by the use of antennae sending mean vibes along with the words from their vocal processors to everyone around.
As the bot behind the counter, it would have been Smytus' job to pacify the squabble, but as one thought led to another and he watched the babble of the ill-tempered patrons, Smytus' mind went into a gear with a plan. It was a pretty good plan and fit together with a plan he had had in the desperate works of getting someone else to break his restraining bolt hidden beneath his apron. He could not touch it himself or be frozen in place at once. When off duty he was not allowed to leave his quarters in order to create an atmosphere that could destroy it through exterior means for an "accident". There was more surveillance in his quarters than at his job. So although, it would be easy to try to convince these over-lubricated fools to send concerns to the palace about policies being revised as the young queen would be sure to entertain them or switching jobs back and forgetting the whole thing, Smytus prepared another suggestion.
He smacked a can on the table loud and hard enough for those arguing and taking sides to notice, especially how it splashed.
"Hey!" snapped one of the tagalongs.
"Oops! I'm sorry!" chuckled Smytus. "It's hard to do my job with all this hostility. Not that it isn't due, but fighting amongst yourselves is clearly a waste of time."
"Right!" snapped the over-lubricated one. "More oil!"
Smytus poured him more, and the lubricated one's bolts began popping out.
"Ah," sighed Smytus shaking his head ruefully, "the victims of a line of royalty far too removed from the suffering of the subordinate to understand."
The others looked at each other with anxious hesitation.
"Perhaps it was unwise to follow a leader too naïve to run a planet on her own with no advisers more reliable than her mothers' servant's successive models— successors who also live the good life at the palace. She is a daughter of Vexus no matter her intentions. Vexus, your dreaded tyrant."
"You do have a point," admitted the younger bot, the victim of the broken pipes.
"Yeah, it was Queen Vega who encouraged me to strive to be more than I am," said the new pipe worker. "Maybe I'm just not meant to better myself. She should be taking care of my needs not the other way around."
"And maybe I need a vacation at that golden palace in addition to my guh—golden chip!" writhed the over-lubricated one from his position on the floor.
"She gets to rest there any time she wants in the lap of luxury!" whined the one who whined for the pipe job.
"Now you're getting it!" cheered Smytus. "And what did Vega say to me before I left her?!"
"What?" demanded the trio.
"'Let them eat gold chips,'" remarked Smytus.
The trio looked at each other and shrugged.
Smytus was the destroyer of worlds. On normal circumstances, he may have destroyed first and asked questions later, but going about the universe and having a boss like Queen Vexus, one grew to know a thing or two about the value of inciting dissatisfaction to cause factions. Divide and conquer! They had had a drone army to prevent such things.
"Feeling dissatisfied?" asked Smytus looking at all the patrons looking at him. "Well, as former Mayor of Moonrobia and commander of legions, Smytus knows the best way to be heard."
"But you were one of the bad guys," someone further back pointed out.
"Was I? Or was I just a victim of Vexus' misguided and misguiding ways?" sneered Smytus throwing an arm theatrically over his brow. "In the end she had been quite willing to blow me up as a necessary casualty just to destroy her enemies. She blew herself up in the process!"
"No one would know what happened at the top more than Smytus," said another backgrounder.
"Exactly!" said Smytus. "And as you've all seen that since you're lives are no longer well-ordered, the thing to do now is to be heard. You've been resting uncivil here towards each other. It's time to be civil in your unrest!"
"Yeah!" shouted some with pounding appendages of various robotic sorts and one shot a blank upwards for a popping sound.
"Your bereavement must be heard!"
"Yes!" they said; a few more had joined.
"You must be seen!" declared Smytus leaping onto the counter.
"Yes!" almost the whole place now was on Smytus' side.
Smytus shrugged. "Then it's time to break a few eggs to make our omelet."
"Or in this case, cans!" shouted the over-lubricated one, and as he threw down his empty can he fell over unconscious.
But the riot had begun.
There was wrecking, smashing, and blasting. Violent things flew this way and that, and all Smytus had to do now was get in the way of a projectile or some swinging action to hit his inhibiter chip on his chest like a badge of shame.
That was a little harder than he had first anticipated. They were terrible aimers. Smytus was a big as a barge, but then again they could be trying their best to avoid the ex-commander. He dodged into a can that hit his face rather than his chest. With a growl he reached out to flip up a table. He stopped just seconds from the action. He would be frozen. He slipped on an oil slick and got some oil froth all over his elbow, but still nothing hit the inhibiter.
At last the door of the backroom flung open. Can Joe flung wide his sleepy grumpy eyes with horror.
"What's going on!?"
Everyone stopped. Some looked ashamed. Some looked about to apologize as they looked around them at what they had done.
"Down with the can!" shouted a waiter regardless.
Then they all started rioting all over again. One picked up Can Joe and threw him right into Smytus.
Yes!
Smytus heard— he downright felt with lingering chills of ecstasy the sound of that crunch he had longed for so many lunar orbits. Smytus did not even care that he fell backwards again on top of a patron. He was free!
"Smytus!" Can Joe screeched as he bounced back up off the floor.
"Aww, Can Joe, what's the matter, can't handle a little revolt?" mocked Smytus sitting up casually off the moaning bot beneath him.
"You did this! I know you did!" squeaked Can Joe red to the brim.
He pulled out his remote, but when he pressed it nothing happened.
Now he was as white as a moon's surface. His eyes like spheres of ice comets, he could do nothing more, so Smytus plucked him up around the middle and shoved him into a decorative can with his logo on it. Throwing off his apron fled away into the city.
#
"I can't do this," whispered Vega as she stared out the mid-tier balcony over the cityscape spread out as far as the optic could get a typical scan.
"What are you talking about, Vega?" asked Drab rolling on his unicycle wheel to her side. "You're doing the best you can. That's all anyone asks."
"Yeah!" agreed Shell. "You're the only one for the job. You're the next model and heir and you know more about being ruler than anyone else."
Tuff took his oral vent off the straw from his oil can and heightened his legs with the use of his golden chip to be level with Vega over the balcony.
"And if anyone's giving you guff, it's because they're ungrateful in my opinion," said Tuff. "You're the one who got back the chips with Jenny's help after exposing your mother's lies. Everyone who cares is trying to help you the best they can."
"I'm sure all the rough edges will be steam rollered into place in time," shrugged Shell.
Vega slumped over the rail abandoning her can of refined oil and sighed. "Thanks, guys, but I'm not so sure your opinions count a whole lot as you've been my friends from the beginning so that you're practically the same model line with me."
"Nah, I'm sure if you were doing bad, Tuff would say so," said Drab.
"That's right, I would," said Tuff.
"I just wish…" Vega faltered. "I dunno— that I could ask one of the founders of Cluster Prime how things were run in the beginning before my mother's reign…"
"But that's not possible," said Shell rubbing his clamp hands together with regret as though it was partly his fault even though it was not. "All the remains of their stored data are distorted or lost."
"And that's the problem," Vega said lifting her head again.
Out at the atmosphere of Prime the golden haze was a filter of dry warm mist hovering over the landscape. The vibration of the planet was the hum of ancients. Would that it could hum to her the knowledge she sought as it was the same hum, the same warmth under the same solar glow as those her matrix models had tread, but not so much as their names remained after her mother had taken power.
Was it possible that Vexus had not even been the rightful heir?
Vega closed her eyes.
If that was true then the true heir had likely been totaled and any line of models to follow in such a tread. She would have offered her position to someone worthier with all humility, but she knew that there was not. A smooth processer most of the time, her mental processors of late felt like they were always on the verge of freezing.
"How can we improve?" asked Vega.
She had been taught well from her beginning stage to act like royalty, to keep her wits, to keep her dignity, her poise, her processors all sharp and clean and ideal, and to look like she knew what she was doing even when she did not. She sometimes regretted that last one.
"Vega?" squeaked Shell quietly.
"We don't get to hang like this often, do we…" said Vega equally as quiet.
"Well, yeah, but we understand!" insisted Drab.
"We're not rudimentary anymore," said Tuff.
Vega smiled. "No, we aren't, but I am thankful for your help. You do more than enough for me."
"Don't push yourself, Vega!" Tuff warned. "You're not a goddess or anything."
"No, but we sure were led to believe that Jenny was a demon when she wasn't."
"She's more like an angel if anything," agreed Shell.
Vega laughed and turned around. "What?"
"Well, 'what' to you, Vega," said Drab. "What're you processing?"
"Yeah, we can tell when you're motherboard's overworking itself," said Tuff.
"I'm thinking that people expect me to be a goddess," said Vega. "Or a matrix anyway."
A hush fell upon the others, and for the moment her advisors had nothing to advise.
"Some people worshiped Vexus," Vega admitted. "She encouraged it too with all the idols of her likeness."
"Which we tore down," offered Shell lifting a clamp.
"Yes, we tore them down but good," Vega agreed. "I can't help but regret we don't have much remaining art of the forerunners, though."
"But they weren't gods either, Vega," Tuff pointed out.
Vega nodded with care, and she took her oil can for a sip despite herself. "Well, then we need to get advice from somewhere else."
"Like where?" asked Drab cocking his head.
"I'm not sure," said Vega. "I mean, there are a lot of planets that have much more experienced rulers than we have. Even Jenny's planet with those— uh, Humans that have such short lives seem to have areas of their world that are very civilized, and somehow they manage to keep their historical data well enough with their primitive data banks."
"Then why don't you just ask Jenny?" shrugged Drab.
"Ask Jenny?" Vega blinked.
"Yes," said Tuff. "It's the one planet at the moment where you know someone that you're on good terms with. As the local protector of Earth, Jenny's bound to know how things are supposed to be run there."
"And they were even organized enough to stop Smytus' drone army almost by themselves!" cried Shell.
Catching her oral cavity hanging open, Vega closed her lips and beamed on her friends.
"You know what?" she said. "Thanks! This is the best advice I've had in a long time. Yes, we should all go for a visit to Jenny and her planet."
"Well, we shouldn't all go!" insisted Shell. "—Er, y'know someone's got to watch the planet."
"And other than Cosmopus," muttered Tuff.
Drab laughed.
Just then, with a shrill but musical chime, an alert went off. Drab almost spilled his can from fright.
"Hmm?" Vega asked as she turned to open holographic communications that popped out of the wall.
"Queen Vega," said one of the guards on screen. "Ex-Commander Smytus has just escaped community service after riling a riot at Oil Can Joe's!"
"What? When? How!?" demanded Vega.
"Just now, it seems! The riot has subsided with everyone sore and apologetic and one bot over-lubricated to point of needing maintenance, and there is the matter of Oil Can Joe's."
"But no sign of Smytus?"
"No, in the midst of the chaos, he seems to have disappeared."
"Right, well, get right on finding him," Vega said. "I'll have Drab alert everyone to be on the lookout for him."
"You're majesty!" bowed the guard and the screen went blank and disappeared into the wall.
"Looks like there's no time for the rest of us to have a visit with Jenny, anyway," Drab shrugged disappointed.
Vega crossed her arms. "Well, I think I—"
"We'll take care of things here, Vega," said Tuff pushing Vega through the door inside. "You go do what you need to."
"But—!"
There was no 'butting' about it. Her friends would not hear of her postponing her mission, and Vega knew that it was indeed the best course of action. After all, it was possible that Smytus might get to Earth for a little revenge. If he succeeded she would have to help Jenny in defeating him too.
Thus once out in the corridor, she hurried for the Transport Chambers.