"So I hear there's been a ZEAF spotted in central London."

Hiro took a long stabilising deep breath before speaking. "Yes, doctor. We were distracted and didn't see it."

"Been happening a lot, lately," Ninestein cautioned, but with a sympathetic cant to his brow.

"I know. Forgive me. I am so used to 101 just… getting on and doing his job that I forgot how well he does it, and neglected to task anyone else with it." Hiro leaned against the console. "With everyone busy with the search, I possibly haven't quite been as on top of things as normal."

"Sure you're doing okay on your own up there?"

"I am not strictly on my own-"

"You know what I mean. Do you need some human company." Ninestein gave him a knowing look, and shrugged one shoulder. "Or, if I can't persuade you to accept a human friend or two with you as company, we can call it verbal support. So you have someone to talk things through with, and don't feel like all this is exclusively on your shoulders."

"Well. It is… quiet, up here," Hiro allowed. Be careful what you wish for. "But we will need someone on the ground to pick 101 up when we find him. And someone will need to deal with the ZEAF. We will struggle to do that if everyone is in orbit."

"Fine." Ninestein looked like he'd expected that. "Seems like I have to make an intervention: once all this is over, you're getting some enforced r-and-r down here at Hawknest. Or… some botanical garden of your choice. But you are not staying up there, with nothing more than a bunch of robots to talk to, for one minute longer than I decide is necessary."

Hiro pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. "No enforcement needed, doctor – and I may be taking you up on that sooner than you think, because the zeroids have found something."

Ninestein leaned forwards into the screen, suddenly serious. "Go on."

"It is… tenuous, I grant. But 43 has been in communication with a sergeant asking about a 'Doctor Steiner', who evidently works for a defence organisation with a heavy involvement in robotics. From the turns of phrase they are using, I am reasonably confident that it is 101 himself."

"Have you asked him for his identity?"

"Yes. We are still waiting. He seems reticent to give much away? I am unsure if it relates to his directives to maintain secrecy about Terrahawks, or he is just… uneasy. Scared."

"Hmm. The sergeant part is new, too, huh. Do you think he's regaining access to his memories?"

"I doubt it. Zeroids do not have an organic brain that can heal. Either someone has suggested it to him – he wears his stripes quite visibly on his brow, it's a logical assumption – or someone has started repairing him. Importantly, we now have enough data to have identified a single location."

"Oh, good work!" Ninestein couldn't help the smile. "We'll check it out first thing in the morning. Hopefully we'll have him back with us by supper."

"What about the ZEAF? They must be there for 101 as well. Should we not try to get to him first?"

"It's London, right?" Ninestein hastily cross-referenced the time. "It'll be dark there, now. Even if they're being helped, Zelda's family can't do anything quietly. Roaming the streets in the dark, trying to abduct a mouthy little robot with a gun who doesn't want to go with them? Even they'll know that's gonna be pretty guaranteed to draw attention." He drummed his fingers on the desk. "Honestly, I wouldn't much fancy our chances of winning hearts and minds, either, banging on doors at midnight."

"You are right, of course." Hiro couldn't help looking a little deflated. "I will wait to hear from you tomorrow."

"Good. Now you go get some sleep, Hiro. Mary says she can see the dark circles under your eyes from right across the other side of the lounge."

"I need to work on finding the ZEAF-"

"No you don't. Zero's men have more than enough data to be working through down here, and I think even he can cope with that. There's plenty of reports popping up on social media, and we have satellite footage too. Cloud cover meant we lost a visual on where it might have landed but we should be able to pin something down from all this. We're lucky that most people seemed to think it's some big delivery drone, or a private vehicle of some sort. Only a few have been suggesting aliens, and they're mostly getting shouted down by everyone else." The doctor's expression became humorously stern. "I'm old enough to be your dad, Hiro. Don't go making me feel like I'm him, too."

The lieutenant found a small smile, at last. "Ten-ten, doctor. I shall get some rest."

o0o0o0o

In London, it was getting late. Polly was hooked back into the mains, grumbling quietly about the current, and Laine was tidying away some of the worst of her clutter, so she could go to bed as well. Everyone else had retired to their own rooms, and the flat was quiet.

The unexpected warble of a ringtone in the hall made them both stop dead. Then someone very loud on the far end of a phonecall. "Tarkers, my good man!" Threat dripped from the friendly tones. "You promised me technology the like of which I've never seen, and yet, here I am still waiting for you to come up with the goods-"

"Keep your voice down!" Tark replied, in a loud hiss. "Shit! Do you want the whole flat hearing?"

Laine hastily turned out her light. She and Polly huddled up behind the door, listening intently through the flimsy chipboard.

"Uh, yeah, sir, there's been a tiny, tiny little hiccup," Tark went on, in a softer voice that probably would have gone unnoticed had he not drawn attention to himself already. "Now just isn't a good time, all right? My flatmate's locked her door and I don't think I can get to it."

"I thought you said it was your grandpa's tech? So why does your flatmate have it?"

"Great uncle, and she's an engineer, I'm just getting her to do some research for me. Look-… just give me until tomorrow? Please?"

"Fine. But tomorrow is your absolute last chance, you hear? I don't like being jerked around and right now I feel like I'm being made a fool out of. I don't like scammers, and you seem a whole lot like the assholes who keep trying to get me to 'buy in' to their fictional tech projects."

"There is nothing fictional about this, I promise! You've seen my photos! This partnership will be absolutely worth every dollar you put into it." His voice dropped, from obsequious alarm to something gently threatening. "Don't forget, sir, you're not the only person I'm in contact with about this. There's a guy here in London who isn't offering me as much, but he's right here. I may decide to cut my losses."

"Are you threatening me, kiddo?"

"N-no, sir. Just making sure we're both clear."

In Laine's room, the two friends could hear Tark muttering unpleasant things the second he'd ended the call, and the quiet sound of his departing footsteps as he headed for this room.

Laine's whisper was almost inaudible. "Don't know about you but I'm not liking the turn this seems to have taken."

Polly hummed an uneasy agreement. "What should we do?" he wondered, matching her volume.

Laine shook her head and opened her mouth to speak-

The lock rattled softly and they both jumped. It sounded almost like Tark was trying to pick it? But Laine had conveniently left her key in it, as she always did, and it was getting in the way of the man's inexperienced fumbling.

Tark soon cursed faintly and gave up. He slunk away a short distance, then returned, ensuring his heavy steps were clear, as if he'd only just got home. He knocked on her door.

Laine put a finger to her lips and made shush gestures as enthusiastically and silently as she could. Polly nodded, very subtly, knowing what she meant – don't even move, no automatic beeps or cheeps or anything that might betray you being awake.

Laine mussed her hair and clothing and made a big deal of looking like he'd just woken her up, before unlocking her door and peering blearily around it. "Ugh. What do you want now, Tark? The place better be on fire, because I'm trying to sleep."

"I was talking to my contact. He said he had some more pictures and wanted to see Polly. Is he awake?"

"It's eleven thirty at night. Fuck's sake." Laine scrubbed the heel of her hand over one eye. "He's recharging. His battery is shot. I'm trying to recharge too, as it happens? Leave it to morning."

Polly remained motionless behind the door, listening in and trying hard to remain silent.

"Well they're in America. You've heard of timezones, correct? It's only the afternoon, for him. And it's Sunday tomorrow. You can have a lay in."

"Oh thanks, captain generous. Perhaps your guy could get up at six am and talk to us at a reasonable time instead?" She leaned into the door to stop Tark pushing it open; out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Polly quietly adding his weight to it as well. "I'm not trying to wake him up. I'm not even sure how."

"You don't need to. I can take a picture of him recharging. That'd be enough."

"Why are you so obsessed with doing things to him while he's offline? He might not want you sending photos halfway around the world to people we don't even know. We've only got your assurance that this guy knows anything about him!"

"Why are you constantly being so obstructive? When he seems to trust me just fine." Tark dropped his voice to a hiss and shoved at the door. "Do you want him to get home, or not? Or are you more worried about losing your little round boyfriend-"

Laine gave the door a return push, caught Tark by surprise, and hit him in the nose with it. He leaped back, startled.

Thankfully he stayed across the hall, hands up to his face. "Ow! Fucking hell, Laine-"

"Sod off, Tark. You're just being mean, now. I'm tired, Polly's asleep, and your guy will still be there tomorrow. So leave it alone."

"I'm being mean-? You just flattened my nose!"

Laine closed the door in his face, and locked it. Tark snarled something incoherent outside, and stomped off down the hall. His own door banged just loudly enough to demonstrate how pissed off he was, but not wake anyone else up.

Still leaning into Laine's door, Polly looked glumly up at her.

She sat on the floor next to him. "We'll figure it out tomorrow. Okay?"

He nudged up under her arm. "I guess."

They sat quietly together for a little while. When eventually Laine retired to her own bed, sleep took a while to find, even with the soft white noise of Polly's fans in the background.

And she didn't get very deeply asleep either, as the rustle of something rolling over sheets of paper nudged her awake. At first she thought she was still in a dream, until she heard the low creak of her key in her lock. That brought her fully around.

"Hey," she whispered, and Polly froze. "What are you doing?"

He looked guilty at having been caught, but didn't look away. "Getting out, while I still can."

The glowing digits of her desk clock said it was barely gone 4am.

"On your own?" she challenged, propping herself on an elbow.

"That had been the plan, yeah."

"Without me?" She sounded more hurt than she'd intended.

"Yes. I was hoping not to wake you, so you wouldn't know about it until I was gone. No-one could lean on you for information if you didn't see me leave."

"Aw, man." Laine sat, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "How are you going to interact with literally any of the infrastructure? It's designed for people with… hands, at minimum!"

He gave her a stubborn look. "I'll figure something out."

"And what if someone comes after you?"

"Oh please. If my own people can't find me, Tark and his… 'associates'… sure won't be able to."

"He could be waiting for you to leave!"

"Why would he be? He thinks I'm asleep. Last I heard from him was an hour ago. I've had my auditory sensitivity at the highest setting and it's been silent ever since, so unless he's sitting motionless in the dark, he's asleep too. I'm taking my chances and getting out before he takes a crowbar to my casing." Polly gave her a hard look and added, meaningfully; "so long as I can sneak out before anyone else gets woken up."

She recognised a please shut up when she heard one, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "If you're going to go on the run, you need someone to run with. Isn't it better to be someone who already knows all about you? And anyway, didn't you say you needed me to be your boss?"

"Didn't you say I had blanket pre-authorisation to make my own decisions?"

"Deciding to sneak off on your own in a world you struggle to interact with and where you'll have no help sounds like spectacularly bad decision making, so I might revoke it. Plus it'll mean you need to find another human to latch onto, and they might not be so understanding as me."

He glared. "'Latch onto'? Thanks."

Laine was already looking for suitable clothing. "And you'll need help charging up, since your batteries are bricked. You can't carry the laptop yourself."

Polly sighed, defeated, and waited patiently by the door for his friend to dress and gather a few supplies. She left her phone on her desk, along with a scrap of paper with a hastily-scribbled note to her flatmates, but took the laptop, and enough cables for Polly to connect to.

They inched out into the dark apartment, locked her door, then crept out into the communal hallway.

"Ooh. Stairs." Polly peered down them. "Long stairs." A little shudder and he closed his shutters. "Oh well. Here goes nothing-"

"Wait, wait." Laine hastily grabbed him and held him back. "Let me at least get in front of you as a bit of a bumper. You go rolling down there on your own, you'll wake the whole building up."

It still echoed hollowly every time he clonked down a step, but at least it was a fairly dull, quiet clonk. They hesitated at the bottom and listened hard for sounds of pursuit, but there was nothing.

The day had strengthened to a murky pre-dawn twilight when they emerged onto the street. A small roadsweeping vehicle trundled slowly along the far side, but otherwise the road was empty.

Polly set off briskly in the direction of central London, forcing Laine to trot to catch up. She wasn't entirely sure how he could see to avoid obstacles, with his shutters closed, but he seemed fairly happy navigating his way. Sonar, maybe?

"Do you even know where you're going?" she challenged, falling into step beside him.

"No, but I know enough," he replied, firmly.

"So… where are we headed?"

"Away."

"…can't help thinking maybe we need to stop and think this through a little bit better."

"Huh."

"We can't keep interacting out loud like this, either," she told him, when it became clear he wasn't going to stop. "It'll draw the sort of attention you don't want, if you keep talking to me out loud."

There was a trace of hurt in his voice at being told don't talk. "How do you propose we communicate, then? Seeing as you're the one who decided I needed a babysitter."

Laine tried not to take the snippy tone personally. "For now, we can use one beep for yes, two for no. That's normally how these things work. As soon as I have a new phone we'll figure out how to rig these earbuds so you can talk to me through it. People will think I'm on the phone to someone, not talking to you."

Polly chirped just the once, curtly.

Laine ducked into the first 24-hour supermarket they came across, drew out as much cash as her card would allow, and bought the cheapest pay-as-you-go mobile she could find. She emerged to find Polly sitting waiting outside, tucked in close to the doors, where he wouldn't get tripped over, closed up tight, facing a wall, with not a single soul paying him the smallest smidge of attention.

"Okay." Laine drew a long stabilising deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. "This should keep us going for a few days, anyway. Let's find somewhere to get organised."

Polly chirped an acknowledgement, and trundled along behind her while she found somewhere to sit and set up the new handset. A short distance around the corner they found a little café with cheap charging points. It was quiet for the time of the morning, at least, so no-one tripped over Polly where he sat partially blocking the aisle. It took a lot longer than Laine had assumed (and more coffee than she'd budgeted for) to charge up and figure out how to connect her friend's flaky antenna to the phone (Okay, can you see this? – Two chirps – Huh, okay. Let's see. …how about now? – Two chirps – Argh) but at last they'd got it figured out, and Polly had his voice back.

"Well." She slipped the phone into the front of her bag, and allowed herself a few moments of enjoyment with the remains of her coffee. "This is it, Pol. We're properly on our own, now – at least for a day or two."

"Thank you." It was strange, hearing him speak straight into her ear. He nudged against her calves. "Sorry. For being rude. I was cross, I shouldn't-…" A sigh. "I thought I'd got it planned out, then you came along and told me to do it all differently."

"Still don't like being told what to do, huh, sergeant Bossy?" She leaned down and petted his top curve.

"You made me feel stupid," he corrected, quietly. "And naïve."

Laine sat quietly and digested his words. Unexpected guilt hollowed out a little hole in her throat.

"I mean okay, fine. I guess I was. I just didn't like being told so," he added, quietly. "I thought I'd done enough research, but humans are more complicated than I thought."

"Humans are complicated to other humans," she said, finally managing to get the words to unstick, letting her hand stay resting against him. "And so are little robots, apparently. I'm sorry. I was worried. It never occurred to me it'd offend you, but I don't like it when people come along and tell me I'm doing something wrong, either, so I should have been more understanding. I guess you weren't strictly wrong, just… lacking experience?"

He hmm'ed out loud, somewhat mollified, and leaned in against her legs. "You're allowed to still call me bossy," he said, with a slightly forced lighter tone. "We both know that's the truth."

They emerged from the café into breezy sunshine, and set off into the street, forging deeper into the capital. Letting Polly bounce was guaranteed to draw attention, so he trundled quietly along at her side. He was almost too heavy to lift, but if he gave himself a little boost then Laine could fake it quite easily, if she had to help him over obstacles. He could pass for something made of plastic, not multiple kilograms of advanced alloys and heavy fusion materials. Stairs could be a challenge, so they tried to avoid them.

If anyone did more than glance their way, Laine flashed her university lanyard and explained he was an autonomous measurement drone, and most people rapidly lost interest. They cooked up a more complex excuse for those few who looked more curious – that it was a timed survey and they couldn't stop. So far no-one had been nosey enough to stick with them for more than half a minute.

"…I don't really know what I'm doing, down here," Polly admitted, after she helped him up a particularly steep kerb.

"Down here?" she echoed. "What does that mean. You want me to carry you?"

"No no, I mean. On the ground, on the-the… planet. I don't seem to have much telling me how to interact with the infrastructure. I don't think being in this environment is what I was designed for."

"…where the heck else could you be designed to operate?" She frowned down at him. "You don't look very well engineered for swimming."

"Hmm."

"Does this mean you're getting your memory back?"

"No." He made a little sighing noise. "I'm not totally sure what it means. I guess I just don't have much experience of interacting with this sort of environment. Maybe I'm a pilot?"

"So much for, oh I'm not an atmospheric monitoring drone."

He collided with her legs, annoyed (but careful not to hurt), and forced her into an ungainly leap to keep her balance.

"Watch it, tetchy. If I go flat on my face then your single point of human contact is lost." Something new occurred to her; "wait; didn't you say you talk to satellites?"

The words hung unspoken for a few seconds.

"Shit, if you're a space alien and you fell all that way, it'd explain the stonking great hole you put in our roof. And why you knocked a bunch of bits off in your brain."

"I can't have fallen from space," he corrected, although he didn't actually sound all that sure of himself and his smooth path beside her wobbled ever so slightly. "That's hundreds of miles. I'd be in a million pieces, impacting that fast. It's called 'terminal velocity' for a reason."

Laine sensed it was bordering on gallows humour and didn't correct him. It was the second time he'd had what looked like an involuntary fear reaction to the idea of falling, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

They merged with a little crowd filtering through the ticket gates into the Underground. He made one of those standing-start leaps, and she bopped him over the top of the gate, then followed him through.

Hey! No ball games! A threatening voice followed them and they hastily scuttled round the corner to the escalators.

The station had platforms for more than one line, and travellers were moving between them in little crowds… which proved impossible for Polly navigate. People kept walking into him, kicking him off balance and sending him rolling the way he didn't want to go.

"Too many people, too many people!" he said in her ear, alarmed. "Laine, I don't know where I'm going. Where are you? Help me! I don't like this!"

"Where are you?" She turned to look back and found him stuck in the middle of the hall, several strides away in the wrong direction.

It looked like he'd dropped anchor, making himself as solid and heavy (and immobile) as possible. That didn't stop people tripping over him, swearing and walking into each other in their efforts to avoid him. He looked like he was unexpectedly startled by the crowds, unable to work out where to go, and not being able to see the throngs swirling around him clearly enough compounded it.

Laine went and stood by him, a human island in the swarm, until it had calmed a little. (He pressed himself firmly against her boots the whole time.)

The flood of people finally slackened and gave Polly time to satisfy himself he knew where they were going. They set off for the escalator down to the platforms at a more measured speed than Laine's usual impatient stride.

Polly was almost too big to fit on the escalator step, his centre of gravity precariously close to the front, fractionally too wide to comfortably balance on his own; Laine stood on the next but one step down, in front of him, leaning back against him to provide a tiny additional bit of support. He was almost half the width of the escalator, and grumpy travellers routinely muttered their annoyance as they bumped against him. His quiet sorry-s came exclusively through her earbud, but Laine soon got tired of apologising on his behalf when people could have just as easily not kicked him.

"We'll get the lift next time," she apologised.

"There's an elevator?" He sounded slightly exasperated.

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm impatient, I never use it! I forgot they had them."

The pair successfully made it to the bottom without accidentally causing any games of human skittles, and headed (slowly, carefully, avoiding crowds just in case) to the platform. They didn't have to wait too long for the train, but made sure they were standing at the back of the platform, just in case.

Had Laine not already pinned him into a corner in a convenient space by the door, Polly would have ended up halfway along the carriage before he realised what was happening, as the train set off. As it was he made her stagger, off balance, and collide with another passenger, who grumbled their annoyance under their breath.

"Oh my stars please please can we not do this ever again," he groaned into her ear. "This is literally the worst form of transport I could ever even imagine existing. First escalators, and now this-!"

"We're not going too far," Laine promised, adjusting her feet to secure him better. "And it's easier than walking."

"For you, maybe!" But he quietened down and sat sulkily in the corner for the rest of their journey.

It was a nice, surprisingly quiet little café that Laine took him to, offering wifi and charging points, and reasonably-priced hot drinks. After getting herself a coffee and a cheap sandwich, Laine took up residence at one of the tables near the window. She mimed lifting Polly to the chair opposite and let him hook into the laptop – shutters closed, just a big inanimate piece of tech, downloading data. Nothing to see here, folks.

Laine took a biro from her bag and thumbed open her textbook, ready to feign working on her coursework some more. "How's the reception here?"

"Not great, but I can work with it. Your laptop took a while to connect but it's online now." It was still weird hearing him just in her ear, and not from his internal speakers, when he was so close by.

"And your batteries? Since we cut you short last night."

"…not too bad. I can top up a little here. I might be grumpy again but I should be good for a day or so." He made one of those little frustrated noises. "I'm sure I should be able to keep going for longer than this."

"Well, it won't be for much longer. We'll find your people, and then… I guess I have to say goodbye." She chewed her pen, quietly. "Huh. I think I might miss you."

"I'm glad you stopped me sneaking off without saying goodbye, as well." She glanced up to find he'd opened up a tiny slot and was peeking out at her. "Thank you for coming with me." Guilt fairly dripped from between the lines. "I hadn't realised how bad the infrastructure would be for someone like me. Can you even imagine me trying to do trains without help? I really was naïve, huh."

"I think we did enough self-recrimination already, don't you?" Laine found a small smile. "At least we know what you need, now. All I really need is food and bathrooms, and only one of those usually costs anything. Plus there's always plenty of options. So, we don't have to worry too much about navigating for my needs, and can focus on yours. We'll need to co-ordinate around like… cafés and libraries and places with wifi and charging points. There should be plenty of choices around."

"And let's please not use the subway any more?"

Laine was quiet for long enough that he didn't need to wait for her to speak, and sighed glumly.

"We'll try," she promised. "But it's a big city. To get anywhere fast, we might have to. And there's going to be crowds wherever we go. That works in our favour, though. I mean I'm pretty sure Tark won't be able to find us now…"