It was early afternoon, and Jaxon had only just managed to extract himself from his slumber when there came a stern rap on the front door.

Who the heck could that be on a Sunday morning?

Expecting one of his fellow students, or possibly a lost delivery driver, Jaxon was surprised to find an older man wearing what looked like a uniform, in dark blue and silver, with a pilot's wings and an emblem that looked rather like a swooping eagle carrying a letter "T" in its claws.

Jaxon squinted at him and rubbed his eyes. "Uh. Hi?"

"Hi," the man replied, with a tense smile that wasn't quite echoed in his eyes. "Silly question, but have you unexpectedly come into possession of some unusual technology, lately? Small, round, and opinionated?"

"Uhh," Jaxon said, so slowly he managed to thoroughly incriminate himself in the process.

The stranger arched an eyebrow.

Jaxon put his hands up. "Bear with me." He pushed the door closed, and drew a long steadying breath before going to check the rest of the flat.

Laine's door was locked, but he couldn't hear anything behind it when he pressed his ear to the wood – not even the laboured whir of the laptop's fans. Sanjay's door stood open, proving he'd already gone out; Carrie's was still locked and he could hear her snoring softly. No point in checking Tark's; even when he was about, he was silent, most of the time, like a ghost. The only person he found actually in the land of the living was Mina, in the kitchen, making coffee.

"There's some weird guy in a uniform here asking about Polly. Have you seen him or Laine? Her room is like, silent. I'm not sure they're even here, just now."

"Polly?" the weird guy in the uniform said, making Jaxon jump.

"Hey!" Mina puffed herself up and faced him. "Where's your warrant? We didn't give you permission to come in!"

"Sorry. I'm not a vampire. I don't need your permission." He smiled. "You were about to tell me about-…" His smile twitched, as though he were maintaining it only by force of will. "Polly."

"I don't think I was about to tell you anything-"

Jaxon interrupted before Mina could make things too much worse. "His antenna's broken! We were only looking after him until we figured out where he came from-"

"Jax!" Mina gave him a shove, equal measures alarmed and annoyed.

"-We didn't steal him, I promise. He fell through our roof." Jaxon gestured at the lounge, and Uniform followed his arm to the hole in the ceiling.

Mina dragged her flatmate behind a dividing wall. "What are you doing? We said we'd look after him! Not blab instantly when someone from the army asked about him!" she hissed, frustrated. "What if this is the guy he was running away from?"

"I thought we agreed with him that him coming here was an accident? And he wasn't trying to escape from anyone?"

"He doesn't know shit, Jax! That was the point!"

"So you did at some point have our missing zeroid," Uniform interrupted. "Where is he now?"

The two students looked at him, then at each other.

"I don't know. Gone, I guess," Mina suggested, bullishly, folding her arms. "Maybe he figured out you were coming for him, and took his chances."

Uniform's expression flattened, unamused. "Do you enjoy being obstructive?"

"I don't know. Do you enjoy your part in enforcing this capitalist hellscape-?"

Jaxon caught her shoulder and pulled her round to look at him, in an attempt to distract her. "You don't think Tark did something, maybe…?" he said, uneasy. "Or one of the people he's been talking to?"

Mina scoffed. "He's an asshole but he's usually an asshole who doesn't like physical confrontation," she argued. "Unless he paid someone else to do it, then no." She frowned at him. "Tark might be why they snuck out without telling anyone, though."

"Tark?" Uniform wondered.

"Uh. Tarquin. One of the guys we live with. He claims to have been trying to help but I'm pretty sure the only one whose interests he's been looking out for are his own." Mina jabbed a finger at Jaxon. "We should never have let him move in with us."

Jaxon put his hands up. "He's only got weird recently." He sounded like he wasn't sure if he was defending the guy, or excusing his own responsibility for introducing them.

He might have said more, but there was a shuffling, plastic-y noise from the lounge, an exclamation of alarm, and a heavy thump. Everyone immediately looked into the lounge.

The rug the flatmates had temporarily put over the hole in the floor was now sticking up like a flower, with something large and heavy at the centre.

Something large and heavy and strikingly familiar.

"I can confirm that is definitely a zeroid-sized hole in the roof, sah," the little robot said.

Uniform gave the new ball a tired look. "This is you being discreet, is it, Zero?"

The sphere struggled for a second to get traction on the carpet, but after a few seconds of spinning in place finally managed to extract himself from the shallow crater. "Well I hadn't anticipated there would be a big old hole under that bit of plastic."

The two flatmates shared a glance. The newcomer had called the man in uniform sir, so was presumably an officer or employee somehow. He wore no number, lacked the wide red stripe, and definitely didn't sound remotely the same, with a gruff welsh accent, but otherwise looked strikingly similar. Another autonomous little spherical robot, interacting with a human in a very familiar way.

"I think this is probably good enough proof that Uniform-guy knows where Polly belongs," Jaxon said.

"Polly?" the new robot asked.

"Quiet, Zero." Uniform nodded at Jaxon. "Go on?"

"He's been staying in Laine's room, since he seems to have adopted her as his liaison or something. I guess – I hope – maybe she's just having a lay in for once. S'been a hectic week, you know?"

Uniform have him a look and drew circles in the air with his fingers, as if to say get on with it.

"Right. Oh, right! Yeah. Guess I'll go check in on them. I have her spare key."

Uniform watched him go. "It's been four days since our zeroid went missing," he said, suspiciously. "What exactly have you been doing with him?"

"You can see what he did to our roof when he dropped in!" Mina thrust an arm at the hole. "What do you think he's been doing? Apart from having a concussion for four days? And you don't exactly make yourselves easy to find! Who even are you?"

Uniform smiled, tensely. "Not something I'm at liberty to discuss."

"…right, and that wasn't at all predictable, or anything."

Jaxon returned after a few minutes. He ran a hand through his hair. "Laine's definitely gone." He held up her mobile with a little wiggle of the hand. "She left us a note. Polly's with her. They must have gone early if no-one saw them leave. I guess she left her mobile so no-one could follow her."

Jaxon relinquished the note into Uniform's hand; Overheard Tark talking to some guy about selling Pols. We're gonna head out somewhere he can't find us to finish looking for where Pol belongs. Don't know where we're going yet but will try and bop you a message if I get a chance. xx

"Just when we thought we had a lead, we're back to square one." Uniform sighed and pinched his nose. "Would you keep us posted? If you hear anything?"

"Well, that depends." Mina folded her arms. "If I think you're going to drag him away against his will, like a thing, a possession, to do what he doesn't want to do-"

"Oh, come on." Uniform actually properly smiled, this time, tired but genuine. "You've met him. From what you're describing, he lost his memories, not his personality. Did he strike you as the sort to be slow to tell you he didn't like a thing?"

Mina and Jaxon swapped glances.

"You let them refuse direct orders if they don't agree with them?"

The other robot gleefully answered before Uniform could get a word in. "Oh, no, he'd do it, all right. Bossy little twit would just make you regret ever asking him."

"Zero." Uniform dropped his voice to an annoyed growl. "The fact these folk have been interacting with One-oh-one already doesn't mean you get carte blanche to do it as well."

"I think they said his name was Polly, sah."

"Don't. Start."

"No, sir. Of course not. Sorry sah." But he didn't sound remotely so, smiling broadly.

"We're just worried about him," Jaxon offered. "He did himself some serious damage when he hit our roof, and none of us have the first idea how to fix him."

"And you don't seem particularly happy that we've been robot-sitting for you," Mina added, although some of the overt hostility was gone from her voice.

"I'm… frustrated," Uniform admitted. "None of this has really gone to plan. Losing him was an accident. They're meant to sit tight and wait for collection if anything like this happens. They have a homing beacon, so we can quickly move in and pick them up. We just… weren't expecting him to come to Earth quite so… abruptly, shall we say-"

" 'Came to Earth'?" Mina echoed. "From where?"

Uniform smiled tersely and ignored the question. "…so the best we can guess is that he broke it."

"Along with everything else. His battery, his memory; he has a great big dent above his left eye…"

"I'm amazed he's still rolling," Uniform conceded. "And now it unfortunately looks like he's drawn the attention of people we don't want to know about him. And who might just make him do what you're worried about. Or worse."

"We did try and keep quiet about him, like he asked us to." Jaxon blew out a frustrated sigh. "I mean he's never left the flat until now."

"Maybe we should have kept him quiet from Tark, as well." Mina frowned at her friend. "Instead of encouraging the guy to 'help'." She threw her hands up. "I thought this would be right up his street, man! Proper genuine real-life AI. The sort of thing he gets all excited about!"

"Nah. Tark likes artificial intelligence – emphasis on the artificial part."

Uniform cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, I do appreciate what you've done to help. Having friends looking out for him has definitely worked in our favour. Please, let us know when your roommate gets back in contact with you?"

"Sure." Jaxon handed over his phone so Uniform could add his contact details, peered at the screen for a second, then glanced up. "Tiger?"

"You have a problem with my name?"

"N-no, I just… with the whole birdy logo, figured it'd be more likely to be Codename Eagle."

The two students followed their visitors to the front door.

"Um-… mister Zero? I'm sorry, I hope that's your name?" Mina said, before they could disappear.

The robot paused and swivelled to look up at her. "It is, and yes?"

Mina crouched and tucked her arms up to her chest. "Your colleague? The other… zeroid? He was sweet. I liked him. When you find him, please tell him we hope he feels better soon?"

"Sweet? I think I heard it all, now," the gruff voice chuckled. "But certainly. I'll pass on your good wishes." After a beat, he added; "for the record, so does we. But don't tell him I said that."

"So, uh. What actually is he?" Jaxon chased.

"One of two little round banes of my life." Uniform yelled up the stairs. "Zero! Come on."

"Obnoxious little secretary, who don't like anyone having any fun," Zero answered, and bounced after his superior. "Coming sah!" The clatter as he went down the stairs echoed through the entire block, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by it.

Jaxon and Mina just stared at each other as the deafening echoes finally died.

"A secretary?" Mina said.

"Well he said he thought he was over-engineered. I guess he was more accurate than he realised?" Jaxon cast an eye at the daylight streaming in through the ceiling, and sighed. "We shoulda asked Tiger about mending the hole they put in our roof. Guess I'll go fix it. Again."

"Hold up – message Laine first, so she knows Tiger-guy's looking for them."

"Right." Jaxon fished a phone back out of his pocket, and froze. "Oh. Right. Well, shit."

Mina looked up at him. "What now?"

"When was the last time you emailed Laine?"

"Who even emails anyone these days. Can't you just message-…" Mina started, but the words died upon recognising Laine's phone in Jaxon's hand. "Well. Shit."

oOoOoOo

Captain Mary Falconer was midway through getting an update from Kate when Ninestein returned to their vehicle, parked just off road around the corner.

"…we've overflown the area a couple times," their top pilot confirmed. "But it's well hidden, wherever it is. Not even Hawkeye could pick it out. Must be inside, or underneath something."

"Still no sign of the ZEAF?" Ninestein intuited, slipping into Hudson's driver's seat.

"No." Mary looked behind her colleague, and watched as Zero (but only him) hopped up into the vehicle and then onto his perch. "And no sign of 101, either?"

"Not so much as a whisper," Ninestein drawled. "So we're back on the road again. What's your next move, Kate?"

"We're going to land at London City airport and grab a hire car; head back to the area we're fairly convinced Zelda's ship landed," Kate explained. "It's a lot of space to cover but we're hoping Five-five might be able to pick something up if we can get closer to it."

"Ten-ten; thank you. Keep us posted." Mary turned disappointedly to Ninestein the second Kate terminated the call "You were gone quite a while. I was sure you'd be coming back with 101."

Ninestein handed over the scrap of paper Jaxon had given him. "Well, he was there until first thing this morning, evidently. We just missed him. Apparently one of the housemates decided to start a… let's call it a monetary conversation about him on the dark web. And he found out, and took off with one of the other students before they could action it."

"Huh! Wish I'd thought of that," Zero chortled. "Could have got rid of the little twit years ago."

"Not helping, Zero." Ninestein sighed. "They're running intentionally incognito. Ironically enough, trying to get in contact with us, except he can't remember who we are, or how to do so?"

Mary nodded to herself. "Well, that tallies with what we thought. I'm glad he's not on his own."

"Yeah, he's definitely made himself a few friends down here who have been trying to help. One of whom has convinced herself he's some poor abused little robotic slave running away from his cruel masters, and she needs to run interference so he can escape."

Mary gave him a look. "…I hope you won't tell Hiro that. He'd be devastated."

"Of course not. Neither of us are total idiots, right Zero?" Ninestein met the zeroid's gaze via the rearview mirror.

"Sah! What does you take me for?" Zero blustered.

"Hmm." Satisfied the sergeant major was on his wavelength, Ninestein turned his attention to the vehicle's controls. Granted, Hudson could (and usually did) drive himself, but the doctor felt like taking the wheel for a while. "We're gonna have to be careful how we proceed from here. Can we trust them to keep him a secret, or do we have to start some… I don't know, disinformation campaign, just in case."

"You don't trust them?"

"I'd like to. They seem nice enough, and there's no question they like that little idiot, and want to look after him. I just don't know that 'looking after him' won't run to a 'free Polly' campaign if they get it in their heads that we're the bad guys."

"Wait." Mary lifted a hand in a stop gesture. "I'm sorry. I need to ask. Did you say Polly?"

"Yes. That's apparently what they've been calling him, because… students." Ninestein threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "It's apparently as in, roly-…" He mimed something tumbling end over end with his hands.

"Isn't it… roly-poly?"

"Is that really the part we're going to focus on, here? And not the fact that a bunch of students adopted our lost amnesiac military robot and called him Polly and he is apparently absolutely fine with that?" He threw the car into gear and slewed aggressively out into traffic, to a cacophony of horns. "I thought you and Hiro were bad for indulging zeroids at roleplaying as humans, but these kids have taken it all the way up to eleven."

Mary smiled in spite of herself.

"At least they have no real idea what he genuinely is, outside of 'probably military'. Or, a secretary – thank you, Zero. I don't imagine it crossed anyone's mind that he might be the missing commander of an orbital battleship. Speaking of which." Ninestein opened a channel to Spacehawk. "Hiro? I need your zeroids to switch their focus to going through CCTV. I'll ensure you get access to the relevant databases without needing to hack them."

"Doctor?" the lieutenant questioned, puzzled. "I thought we had him?"

"Close, but no joy. You were right on your address, but we missed him by a few hours."

"What?" Hiro cursed softly under his breath, the microphone only barely picking it up. "So where has he gone now?!"

"We… don't actually know. He got scared and took off early this morning. We do know he's not on his own, so that cuts down where he might be – he'll only be places where humans can go. Get your team on it – we'll be on the ground awaiting directions."

oOoOoOo

After a day spent hopping between cafés and libraries and shopping centres and stations (and even chancing their luck on the hated Underground), evening had begun to close in on Polly and Laine, at last, and it was beginning to get dark.

By now, most places were closing down for the night, and Laine had discovered that a new problem was starting to needle at her.

She wasn't really sure where she was going to go to sleep? She'd made poor Polly feel naïve, with his lack of preparation to deal with not having hands, but if anyone was an idiot, it was her – in her impulsive decision to help her small friend, she hadn't thought through the logistics for a human in any depth at all. Modern cities weren't precisely friendly to the homeless. In the back of her head she'd assumed there'd be places open 24 hours, which she could lurk in, but lots of locked doors were confronting them, now. (And was she really expecting to sleep in a supermarket? Seriously?)

Did she have enough money for a hostel bed? Could she even find a hostel-

Something caught the strap on her bag and almost yanked her off her feet, making her yelp.

She thought the satchel had snagged on some street furniture, but when she turned, she found a skinny man dressed all in dark blues and black, brandishing a knife. Laine sucked in a breath and stumbled backwards.

Polly had already given a fairly unrobotic little squeak of alarm and scurried for cover.

"Give me the thing!" the man snapped. "Now."

"The-the thing?" Laine tried hard to feign ignorance, when really she wanted to take to her heels and scream her head off for help. "What thing?"

" 'What thing'? Are you fucking with me, lady? That… round thing rolling along with you. What is it anyway. Some sort of scooter? Weird looking unicycle?"

Laine clutched her bag to her chest, as though it were a shield. Where the fuck had Polly gone. "He-he's, I mean-… it's a measuring drone."

"A drone? So, expensive, yeah?"

"I-I don't know! He's not mine! University!"

"Oh! So then it matters even less if I take it. Should get a few quid selling it, at least, yeah?"

"I don't think you could sell him-… it. It's too specialist." Laine looked frantically around herself. Where the hell had Polly gone? He'd worried about being a bad person but now it had come to the crunch, he'd run away and abandoned her to a mugger. For some reason, she hadn't expected unbelievable cowardice from the small robot.

"How about you let me make that decision."

"Uh, l-look, how about-… listen." Laine stumbled backwards into the big wheeled bin behind her, fumbling for the flap on her bag, looking for her purse. "Please, I don't have much money but I'll give it to you if you just leave us alone-"

"Us?" The man looked around himself.

Polly had finally re-emerged, and quietly put himself between Laine and the mugger.

He laughed out loud. "Surely you're not including that thing as part of your 'us'."

"Please leave us alone. Take my money. I won't report you. Just leave us alone."

"I don't want your money. I want all that expensive shit you're toting around London at night, like it's the most normal fucking thing in the world."

"I can't give you-"

"Just give me your fucking bag!" the man screamed. "And the toy! And maybe you'll still be alive tomorrow-!" He swiped the knife at her-

-there was a blink of white light and a sharp crack and the knife suddenly exploded out of the man's hand, flying backwards as if of its own accord. His look of aggression suddenly turned to shock.

Polly had opened up and was staring at him, unexpectedly and unflinchingly intense. A vivid white LED – or was it? – attached to something sharp still glowed aggressively hot from one of the open hatches above his brow.

"I wouldn't do that again, if I were you," he said.

The man gave a shriek of alarm and fled, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste.

"And don't come back!" Polly's howl chased him down the street.

Satisfied the mugger wasn't returning, he pivoted and-… found Laine had sagged to the floor against the bin, still huddling her belongings up against her chest.

"Uh… Laine? It's okay. He's gone?" He edged a foot or so closer.

"No, no, you stay-… shit-" Laine scooted away from him on her backside, breathless with alarm, clutching her bag tighter into her chest, defensively. "…oh, no. You-you stay over there. Tark was right-"

A very large penny suddenly dropped. She wasn't looking at the mugger – she was looking at him.

And his gun.

Polly jumped so hard, it was like he was trying to recoil from himself. "Oh, no, hey, no, nono, wait, wait-… that's not, I mean it isn't- I didn't even know-!"

"You, you have a- you shot him."

Polly cast a horrified glance in her direction. "I didn't know I could do that until now!" he babbled, trying to work out how to stow his pistol. "I-I don't even think I meant to! It just- you were scared and I realised we were being attacked and I needed to protect you and it just- it happened on its own!"

But they'd both heard what she'd said.

Oh god, Tark was right.

Tark was right.

A.

Gun.

With.

A.

Face.

"Oh, no," he groaned, faintly. "Oh, no, no. This isn't fair-… it isn't fair!"

He tumbled away backwards, wobbling out an unsteady and jagged line, confused and unsure where to go. He knew he shouldn't – couldn't? Wouldn't? – go very far. He needed her. Liked her. Trusted her.

But if she couldn't trust him back-…? If she didn't want to associate with him any more? Was too scared of him to help him? Where was he going to go? Close his shutters, pretend to be inanimate, hope someone called the police and he ended up in lost property, not blown up as a suspicious object by the bomb squad? Or worse?

He rolled blindly away into the shadows, completely overwhelmed, determined to find somewhere more secure to hide before he finally lost that last thread of control over his emotions.

Still hugging her bag to herself as though it would somehow protect her, Laine watched him vanish, and tried to focus on getting her heart to go back to a normal rhythm.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was so shocked by this turn of events.

The whole concept of military technology had come up a thousand times. Those bright sergeant's stripes, right there for all to see on his forehead. Solidly-built and heavy, over-engineered to an absurd degree. So why was she shocked he had a weapon? Was it just that it seemed so out of place, on such a friendly, effeminate little thing? Who wasn't afraid to tell her he was scared, or uneasy, or to lean on her for comfort? And she didn't believe he could possibly actually be dangerous?

Chatting to her rubber plant because he was lonely. Dancing with Carrie in the lounge. Hiding behind her arm while the gory bits were on while they watched re-runs of Silent Witness. Giggling about boyfriends. That absolutely human drive to figure out who and what he was, and where he belonged, so he could get back there.

He'd not made a single act of aggression towards any of them, ever, not even Tark – and even now, he'd been protecting her, not attacking the man. And he'd shot the knife, not the hand holding it.

What idiot would waste time programming a robot with an entire personality – and what a personality – if all they were intended to be was an autonomous gun?

Now the acute shock of seeing him shoot at someone – shoot someone; fuck – had faded, the weight of the larger situation began to sink in.

Polly had run away. And was now somewhere out there, on his own.

She had to find him – and quickly, before he had the chance to get so far away she lost him forever.