You may have picked up on this by now, but certain segments of this story are semi-autobiographical. Some of these sketches are informed by the attitudes, personalities, and legends I've encountered. This might be the most personal of the bunch.
The evidence of treachery lay there, in the open, atop a console.
Small. Yellow. Candy-coated.
Someone was sabotaging Jones with chocolate.
Jones felt his mouth watering as he contemplated the candy. He was supposed to be supervising Hunter Base's Watch Floor. He was supposed to be ensuring all the Operators had the resources they needed. He was supposed to be providing the extra authority and guidance only a human could bring to a reploid operation.
He was distracted.
Maybe doing some actual work would get his mind off the candy. He walked towards one of the Operators. "Alia, what do we have?"
"Fourteenth-two is in gee-seven, investigating Maverick precursors," Alia rattled off instantly, "while we have show-of-force operations afoot, with Thirteenth-one and Eleventh-one in bee-six and ell-twelve, respectively…"
Jones nodded numbly, to meet expectations rather than from comprehension. The words slipped in his ears and out his brain without truly registering.
He was hungry.
There was candy behind him. Silent and unmoving it might have been, but it was burning a hole in his attention all the same.
It wasn't much food, but it was something…
It'd been three hours since he'd assumed his duties on the Floor, and it'd be another three before he was relieved. That was a long time for him to go being this hungry.
Confound it, he'd eaten before he'd come on watch for exactly this reason! Why did he feel like this?
He realized his attention had wandered, and that Alia had been expectantly quiet for several seconds. Face flushing, Jones blubbered, "Very well, carry on."
Alia mercifully said nothing and turned her attention back to her console. Jones reversed direction, trying to keep his embarrassment to himself.
That just brought the candy back into his field of view.
It was tasty, he had to admit. He wanted it. On another level, he knew it wouldn't fix anything. It was too small to put a dent in his appetite, and eating it might mess with his blood sugar and make him even hungrier.
Experience told him this, too. He was this hungry even though this was the twelfth, possibly thirteenth, candy someone had left lying around for him. He didn't know who it was, or why they were doing it. Process of elimination suggested it was one of the three Operators on duty with him, but why they were doing it—and when they would even have the opportunity to—was beyond him. For that matter, how did they think to put candy on the consoles? They couldn't eat, they didn't know from human food, let alone human vices.
That meant, by extension, that whoever was leaving out the candies was leaving them out for him, and him alone. They had silently confirmed this theory: Every time he ate one, another appeared in a different place.
This wasn't right. Food was forbidden on the Watch Floor. Eating the candy just encouraged whoever was doing this. He couldn't let it continue.
God he was hungry. Nothing interesting was going on, which meant there was nothing to think about other than the candy.
He took a sniff. Hunter Base normally smelled of lubricant and atmosphere control chemicals, but he swore he could make out the faintest hint of chocolate.
Moment by moment his resistance crumbled.
Fine.
Trying to appear casual, Jones sidled up next to the console, pretended to look at something, and swept the candy directly from its top into his mouth.
Crunch, crunch. Yum.
"JONES!"
Uh oh.
"Yes, sir?" he said, trying not to cringe and failing spectacularly.
Commander Grant, the man in charge of the Maverick Hunters, looked like steam was filling his insides and escaping only through his ears. "What on God's green Earth are you doing?!"
Jones couldn't think of anything to say, but that was just as well, because Grant seemed to not require a response; he was barreling along. "Am I going blind, or are you eating candy in a place with a no-food rule?!"
Jones knew the only way out was to take his medicine and hope it all blew over. "I was, sir."
Grant sucked in a breath, and Jones' hope died. "Are you kidding me? What kind of unprofessional, sloppy, raggedy outfit do you think this is? Are the rules just a joke to you?"
"No, sir."
"Ol' Jonesy here is above the rules, he's too good for them, is that it?"
"No, sir."
"'No' what?"
"I'm not too good for the rules, sir."
"Damn straight you're not! And yet here we are! It's not just a cleanliness issue, although as filthy as you look right now, it's clear you don't much care about that, either. When's the last time you had a haircut?"
"Uh…"
"If you can't remember, it's been too long. I'm going to have to start writing down all the things that are wrong about you—there's too many for me to just remember. Now look around. Do you see any nanite slurries?"
Jones turned on the spot, which had the advantage of letting him face away from Grant. It helped. Marginally. "No, sir."
"How about materials washers?"
"No, sir."
"Spare parts?"
"No, sir."
"So your eyeballs work after all! You have now demonstrated the visual observation and language skills of a three-year-old. That's more than I expected. Of course you don't see those things! Because reploids know not to do their personal maintenance or materials consumption on the Watch Floor! And yet here you are doing exactly that!"
"Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean…"
"Shut up if you can't figure out something useful to say! I retract my statement about your having a three-year-old's language skills! Obviously I thought too much of you! If you had that level of basic understanding, you'd know that if we don't let reploids do those things on the Watch Floor, we're not going to let humans do it, either!"
"Of course, sir!"
"You don't get to say 'of course' when I'm having to explain this to you! We are not going to have human-reploid double standards in the Maverick Hunters, do you hear me?!"
"I hear you, sir!"
"What did I say?!"
"We're not going to have human-reploid double standards in the Maverick Hunters, sir!"
"Good! If no part of your higher brain is working, at least we've got some neurons firing in the autonomous part! Because if you were thinking, which you weren't…"
Jones winced, despite Grant being behind him. Grant was on a roll now, and had decided he needed to make a point, and Jones was just going to have to stand there and take it. He couldn't very well try to blame the reploids either, since he didn't know which of them had been placing the candy, and anyway he'd condoned that behavior by eating the candy. He was stuck.
At least the Operators were sparing his dignity. They were all facing their consoles and continuing operations, pretending not to see, although he was sure they heard everything.
He blinked in surprise and reran the last thought in his mind.
Although he was sure they heard everything…
"Is that what you want?!"
"No, sir!" chirped Jones in surprised reflex.
"Good! And face me when I'm yelling at you!"
"Yes, sir!"
Cubit was a reploid servicing Hunter Base as a janitor. Given Maverickism, that also meant he was forbidden to leave, lest he be exposed to anything (or anyone) untoward.
It wasn't too bad a life, though, he reflected. Most of the time. Sometimes it was awful.
Sighing to himself as he replaced his mop in one of his supply closets, he shut the door—only to find himself face-to-face with one of the Base's humans, who wore a nametag with 'Jones' on it.
Cubit stalled out for a moment. "Uh… excuse me," he said, trying to get away. Getting a human's attention never worked out well, in his experience.
"Just a minute," Jones said. Cubit froze in fear. Jones took a deep breath, screwed up his face, and spoke. "I'm sorry for calling you a malfunctioning, low-wattage dumbot."
Cubit blinked in surprise. "Uh…"
"I was in a hurry and frustrated and you were in the way," Jones went on, "but none of that was your fault, and I took my temper out on you. I'm sorry."
Now that Jones had given context, Cubit did remember that incident, though he'd written it off at the time as typical human callousness. This… wasn't. It was, perhaps, the first time a human had apologized to him. His words almost couldn't make it through his vocalizer he found it so disorienting. "No pro… uh… don't worry about it?"
Jones gave a sharp nod before turning on the spot. "There, are you happy now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," was the smooth reply. To Cubit's further surprise, Alia was standing behind Jones—not saying or doing anything, and apparently preoccupied with her datapad, but she could have been working that datapad anywhere, she had no reason to stop in the middle of a hallway to monitor some random apology being made…
She looked up from the pad to meet Jones' eyes. "On a completely unrelated note, the other Operators found some human material in the Watch Floor's north spares cabinet."
"I bet they did," Jones muttered bitterly.
Alia made no note of the tone. "We think it's human food, but we can't tell for sure. We leave its disposition up to you."
"I appreciate it," said Jones, trying hard for politeness. "Have a good day."
"You too, sir," said Alia, and she stood aside while Jones walked past her. When he was gone, she looked at Cubit and gave him the smallest smile he'd ever seen, along with a thumbs-up. Then she was gone.
This really wasn't too bad a life, Cubit decided as he headed for his recharge tube. Not too bad at all.