The old man looked like he'd been on the streets for a very long time. His clothing was shabby and his hair didn't look like it had been combed for a century. Two enormous brown teeth – possibly the only ones left in his head – stuck up from behind his bottom lip.
He must have been able to see Laine's blood-soaked arm, but his inane smile never wavered.
"Sir? Oh, thank god," Laine reached out her good hand to him. "Sir, do you have a phone? Please, we've been attacked. I need an ambulance. Can you call the emergency services for us- me?"
The old man gave her the briefest glance. "You should have let him kill you, earthling. It would have been so much easier for you," he said. His voice had a weirdly bubbling, froggy cadence, like his throat was full of phlegm.
The back of her head went cold. "…what?"
"It was good of you to scare off that other human. He was getting seriously annoying. Always asking when he'd get paid. If he could be a partner in our venture. Ha!"
A very large penny dropped. "You're Tark's contact?"
"Yes! What a gullible idiot." The old man gurgled a weird laugh. "Greedy humans are the best. Just pretend you have lots of money, and they'll do anything you ask to get some of it, even if it means betraying their entire species."
"Their species? But-…" His turns of phrase left her deeply unsettled. "Aren't-… What are you?"
The old man ignored her, and addressed Polly, instead. "You will come with us, now, little ball."
"No I will not." Polly rocked forwards just enough that his brow came down in a frown, and gave the stranger his best stubborn look. "I don't think I trust you, so just do what you came here to do, then leave us alone. I need to get my friend to medical help and you're in the way."
The old man fixed the little bot on a weirdly intense stare. "Oh but you are what I came here for. Isn't it inconvenient that you can't remember who you are, and can't call for help either? But don't worry. We'll take very good care of you. The absolute best care for the most important zeroid. Well, important to us. All that lovely data in your broken little head. Ha ha!"
Polly froze. "What- what did you call me? Ss-… spheroid? Zeroid?" The word had made something fizz in his circuits, in the same way the name had. Doctor Ninestein. Zeroid. It all felt familiar, even if he couldn't precisely say why. "You know what I am…?" It didn't feel right, but he had to ask: "Are-… are you doctor Ninestein?"
"Am I the accursed Ninestein!" The old man cackled, delighted. "No, but your commander and I go back a very long way. So many Earth years. I really want him to know that we have you, all safe and sound with us."
Something about the stranger didn't feel good. Where some concepts had triggered little sparks of familiarity that Polly instinctually wanted to home in on, there was something about this old guy that felt… dangerous? It felt absurd – he looked like he was at least a hundred, falling-down decrepit – but Polly's deeply programmed instincts were all saying this is not human and this is not safe, protect yourself, protect earth and its people.
"What if I don't want to go with you?"
"You think you have a choice, you stupid ball…?"
Polly backed tighter into Laine's boots; she… wobbled, precariously. "Well! You're very rude!"
"…buut, we are kind. We know what it is like, being a conscious machine in a world full of noisy biological vermin." The old man advanced a couple of steps. "We will unlock your memory for you. Repair you so you know who and what you are. So you can… help us, in return. Help us understand your mighty spaceship. Help us understand how we can use you to destroy it, perhaps! Possibly whether you want to or not?" His insincere toothy smile widened to something just a notch beyond the point of looking convincingly human. "Come with me, and your pet human won't be damaged any more. I might even let her go. Might. But that all depends on you."
He kept making token attempts to be nice, Polly noticed, but tripped himself up by being unkind, as though that was what came naturally and being anything else was far too much effort to remember.
"Come with us and we might eventually let you go back to your humans."
Polly backed up a tiny bit more. He really didn't want to go with the threatening old guy, but couldn't help the intense (maybe even a little optimistic) curiosity flooding through him. What if the stranger did genuinely know who he was? Where he came from? Could fix him? If it meant Laine was able to get help too, should he just take that chance? He was running out of time to make a decision. Polly had the gun, after all, and the old guy didn't. Once he was fixed, he could just… politely take his leave, and go home. Or not-so-politely, depending on circumstances.
Behind him, Laine sighed shakily and sagged back towards the ground; she propped herself up with a hand flattened against Polly's top curve. Her skin was cold, clammy. He could hear her breathing, rapid and shallow, and her pulse, fast and faint through her palm. "Don't listen to him," she urged, faintly. "You know he doesn't want to help you."
"But he knows what I am! Where I belong! What if this is the final step I need to get me home?"
"He knows what you are and wants to hurt you. They'll never let you go if you give yourself up."
"Hoohoo! So you found yourself a clever human. Lucky you." The old man's expression hardened, his lip curling in something similar to a sneer. "If you don't stop being obstinate, I will just kill the human and take you anyway. But I'd rather you weren't damaged, and I know your kind react badly to being forced to defend yourselves."
" 'My kind'," Polly echoed, quietly. "So there are others like me? Can't you just go ask one of them to help you, instead?"
"Of course not, stupid. They all have their memories intact. You're the one with the data we want. You can either come willingly, like a good little ball, or we'll just… crack you open anyway and see what goodies spill out." The old man's voice grew sharper – impatient. "If we have to destroy you, it will be a disappointing shame, but if you're dead, at least the infernal Spacehawk will remain crippled."
Letting Laine continue to prop herself up against him, Polly straightened himself up, and drew his pistol. "No."
Recognising the weapon for what it was, the man stiffened and took a step backwards. "What do you mean, no. Are you refusing to come with me?"
"Got it in one, Ugly. I'm staying right here to protect my friend. We're calling an ambulance then we're calling the police. I wouldn't want to still be here when they arrive, if I was you."
The old man sighed his annoyance. "Mother. They're not doing what I tell them."
Laine thought it was a strange choice of minced oath, until an old woman's croaky voice replied, out of nowhere. "Stupid boy." It was more of a snarl than anything. "You don't give them a choice! You just take it."
"But he's heavy."
"That is why I sent you with backup, you cretin. So you can disable the zeroid before it has the opportunity to manipulate its weight!"
Polly exchanged a fierce look with the old guy and decided not to let on that he had no idea what the voice meant. (Manipulate his weight? Had to be a euphemism, for… something, surely?) He wiggled briefly from side to side, anyway, as though hunkering down, and a look of transient dismay flashed across the man's face.
"Polly?" Laine leaned a tiny bit harder against him. "There's something new. Over there, in the doorway."
All three turned to watch as the new object approached over the tarmac – a black-and-white cube, roughly Polly's size, with a gloomy face with glaring red eyes etched permanently onto its front, quite possibly a similar robotic entity. It looked like it hovered, possibly, or levitated somehow, just a tiny distance off the ground, just high enough to glide over the rough substrate.
Like a small cuboid Dalek, Laine thought.
"I don't know who or what you are," Polly told it, putting himself between it and Laine. "But I'm not letting you hurt my friend. She is a good person, and kind, and I don't think either of you are."
The cube hissed at him, like a frustrated cat, and there was an answering hiss from not very far away. The gleam of more stern red optics glowed in the encroaching gloom.
"Pol? There's another one," Laine said, faintly.
"It's fine. They don't scare me," Polly lied. "And I'm not letting them past."
"Your choice." The old man looked down at the closest cube. "Disable him."
The closest one flipped forwards onto its face, pointing its top surface at Polly.
Expecting that was a bad thing even if he didn't know what precise flavour of bad, Polly skipped sideways just in time, sending Laine sprawling on the ground. The projectile ricocheted off his smooth casing and by some miracle hit the bins behind them instead of his friend. In a shower of exploding rubbish, she scrambled for cover. The old man also fled, arms over his head, yelping.
Polly fired back – the cube evidently wasn't quite so nimble on its levitation field and couldn't get out of the way fast enough, taking the full force of his close-range attack. It exploded, showering them with shrapnel and chips of scalding plastic.
The second cube was faster – it flipped forwards and caught him with a glancing shot across the damaged top of his casing. The impact sent him spinning, out of control – conveniently ruining the cube's tracking. Its second shot went a mile wide, by which time Polly was behind cover.
For a few seconds, they exchanged fire. It echoed explosively loudly in the cavernous space – there was no way it'd go unnoticed, not in such a busy area. Laine flattened her hands over her ears, biting back frightened tears. Would people think it was gunshots, or fireworks? How long would it be before the police turned up? She didn't imagine the unarmed, conventional police would be sent in response to gunfire. Would that buy them a few extra minutes, waiting for an armed response unit to rock up? Or would it buy the old guy a few extra minutes.
Or would they all just get shot.
Laine cowered behind the bins until the cacophony had faded. It probably lasted less than a minute but to her terrified ears it felt like it stretched out for an entire hour.
She finally summoned enough courage to peek out. The tarmac was covered in smoking shards of what looked like plastic, but no whole cubes. And no sign of the old guy. And… where was her friend? Oh, no. Had Polly been kidnapped after all? Had the old guy taken him amid all the chaos? She inched out into the gloom.
No, there he was; the dim red of his optics glowed against the ground.
But as she got closer, she could see Polly was… broken.
Badly broken. She wasn't sure if it was just one too many blows to that tough exterior, from first their roof and then Tark's axe, or if those horrible cubes were just that powerful anyway, but one had scored a lucky hit, and torn a gash a few inches deep through the top left of his globe, above his eye. Ruined components inside were still smoking faintly, haloing the injury with soot. Some form of… lubricant? coolant?... had oozed into the gap and trickled down his side. His fans growled and skipped with effort.
"Oh, god," she whimpered, and sagged to the ground next to him. "Pol…? Speak to me?"
"-Laine!" His optics took a few seconds longer than normal to find her face. His voice was staticky and distorted, occasionally sticking. "You 'kay?"
"No worse than I was before," she lied, clutching her bad arm to herself. "S'almost stopped bleeding." She left off because I almost have no blood left. "You look terrible. Please tell me it looks worse than it is."
"Suresure; 'm jus' peachy. Lick of polish, be-be good as new, ha ha." He twitched, jerkily. "…ouch."
"Come on, we have to hide. Before they come back."
A motor whined inside him and he slowly rocked onto a different angle, but didn't manage to actually go anywhere. "Sorry. Looks like my mo-motor's broken. But that's fine. I can draw their fire, and shoot-… maybe shoot back."
"Oh no you don't." Laine jabbed her fingers into the crevasse in his casing and used it as a handle to drag him back across the concrete, dimly aware that they were probably both bleeding to death but unwilling to let either of them be caught out in the open by any more of those… cube things. Her blood made his casing slippery and he felt unnervingly hot, like something was burning. "Not when you're the whole reason they're here. The fate of the planet could be at stake! So no making me feel bad for abandoning you."
Underneath the platform of the loading dock it was filthy, but went back a decent way, and no-one would be able to see them unless they were actively crouching down to look underneath.
"Get behind me, then," Polly instructed. "I can cov-cover us both."
"You're falling apart."
"I'm sorry but did you just sprout a gun in the last five minutes? Behind me."
She didn't have the spare energy to argue. She squirmed into the gap and pulled him after her; it had only just enough clearance for him to fit. It was filthy and it stank of fuel oil, with a bank of dead leaves and old food packets and god-only-knew-what-else at the very back, but it also felt enclosed and safe, like a hidden little nest. She wormed her way as far back as possible, dragging him as close as she could without feeling like she was going to catch fire as well.
And none too soon – there were feet, just visible in front of their hiding place. Boots. Scruffy boots with a film of red dust on their upper surfaces. She held her breath, willing him to just go away; even Polly had gone totally silent, not even his unstable fans making any noise.
"I can't find them, mother," the old man whined. "They destroyed our cubes. I think they might have run away while I was taking shelter."
"While you were hiding, you mean, you cretinous coward," the unseen woman snarled. "Get away from there, Yung-star. Those accursed Terrahawks will be on your trail by now."
"They can't have gone too far. The human was bleeding and the zeroid was trying to look after her. I think we shot it! They won't have separated. If I can find her-"
"There's no time! If you keep dithering, you will be the one taken prisoner – and I'm inclined to let them keep you! If you'd just done things properly in the first place-"
"I did try."
"Well, not very hard, did you!"
The voices faded into incoherence as he fled.
After a minute or two there came the sound of… an engine? It sounded almost like some sort of aircraft taking off, even though they were nowhere near the airport. The powerful motors echoed off the walls of the buildings, but rapidly dwindled,
Then it was silent.
Silent, and dark.
It all seemed suddenly overwhelming.
What a way to go: bleeding to death in the dark in an abandoned loading area behind a shop that closed a decade ago.
No-one knew where they were. They had no way of calling for help. Laine's bad arm felt like it was already dead, and she wasn't sure if she could even get out from their hiding place, any more. Polly was crashing spectacularly; he felt scaldingly hot and was twitching regularly, little uncontrolled motor jerks like electronic seizures.
Everything stank – of burnt plastic, and scorched oils, and dirt, and blood. Her stomach roiled but she didn't think she had the strength to vomit.
Would they ever actually be found? Or would their legacy just be lots of missing posters, and sad television specials, and historical 'true crime' podcasts from overzealous influencers?
Would her friends ever know she was dead? Would her parents? Would she just join a long list of missing persons,
Or would they only find them when she started to decompose and stink? Or when they finally demolished the building? A dried-out corpse and a broken little robot, curled up dead together, fodder for the amateur criminologists who would make wild hypotheses about what had happened.
Tears finally took over from hysterical laughter.
"We're gonna die under here," she wept. "Oh, god. I'm so sorry, Polly. I thought I was helping you but all I did was get us killed."
"We're not-not gonna die." Except that they already were dying, Polly recognised. Even if he managed to save his human, he didn't have a lot of time left for himself. "I just… I need a sig-signal. Do you still have your phone?"
"Tark broke it, remember? It's in lots of bits. It'll never call out."
"That-that doesn't matter. I already looked at it. It has a good antenna. If I can con-connect to it, I can transmit through it."
Laine tried to pass the phone over but it slipped from her strengthless fingers and bounced down in front of him, screen-down. "…sorry."
"It's fine. It's fine. I can work with that." I hope I can work with that.
It was fiddly and he couldn't reach it very well, but finally he managed to hook into it, then pulled up the telephony software, and dialled 999 directly through its programming.
It was ringing. It was ringing! He clung to it, hoping it would work.
The voice from the speaker was tinny and feeble. "Emergency ambulance; is the patient breathing?"
"Yes, but she's badly hurt. She's lost a lot of blood."
"Hello? Hello, can you hear me? This is the ambulance service, do you need help?"
No-! The antenna was fine but the microphone was broken. Of all the stupid things to fail to check. Could he pipe his own synthesiser through it? Polly focused his attention on hastily connecting bits of software that shouldn't be compatible.
"Is there anyone there?" the call handler chased, uneasily.
-I have a human here. She's badly hurt and has lost a lot of blood. Please send someone quickly.-
"Sir? Sir what do you mean, you have a human-… Is she breathing? Is she still alive?"
Oh thank goodness they could hear him. -Yes she's breathing. She was attacked with an axe and has a badly broken collarbone. The attacker has gone but she is bleeding lots. Please come quickly. Please.-
"Where are you, sir?"
He linked the location software into the call and sent them the co-ordinates directly.
-Please hurry. Please help us. Please.-
"Sir, I didn't catch… sir? Sir are you still ther-"
The phone blooped sadly as the call finally failed.
Didn't catch – didn't catch what? Didn't catch their location? He could have cried. Had he done enough? What else was there left to try? He knew he was reaching a critical temperature. Connections were fusing and melting. Didn't have a lot of time left to save his friend.
Okay Polly, one last try. You can get a message out.
But how?
Apparently, being actively dying had unlocked something, buried deep in his system architecture.
Huh. That's new.
His higher systems didn't like it, and liked his lack of a functional aerial to operate it with even less, but there it was. Some sort of emergency beacon? Glowing like it was red hot, albeit surrounded by dire warnings and electronic red flags. It really felt like maybe he wasn't meant to use it? Not without permission from someone, anyway. But this was an emergency! And it looked usable. He could use the phone as a transmitter. He clung to his shaky connection with the handset and triggered it.
10001000010
/Help me./
oOoOoOo
"Guys, we've got him!" Kate's voice exploded from Hudson's speakers. "We've got a positive signal with co-ordinates from 101! It's-… what? Shit – it's a distress beacon. I didn't even know they had them! But we know where he is! And he's close!"
Mary pounced on it. "Get after it, Kate. Spacehawk can deal with that ZEAF. We'll be right behind you!"
"Ten-ten!"
Ninestein leaned back over the seats. "Zero, confirm?"
Zero was already concentrating. "Got him, sah," he finally confirmed, grimly. "Sending Hudson the co-ordinates now."
"Don't worry, sergeant major – I hear him too," Hudson confirmed. "He does appear to be transmitting rather widely."
"Get going, Hudson!" Mary exclaimed. "And don't spare the horsepower!"
"Of course, ma'am."
Hudson accelerated up clean over the pavement, undertaking a queue of dawdling buses and forcing tourists to scatter. The humans had to take the metaphorical back seat – trusting the vehicle's own in-built intelligence to avoid mowing anyone down.
"When you say widely," Mary asked, clinging to the seat as the vehicle took an aggressive corner. "How widely, precisely?"
"I think he might have just sent a ten-ninety to every mobile handset across the whole of greater London."
From the corner of her eye, she watched Ninestein cover his face with his free hand.
"I suspect that's why we've never used that particular line of code before, ma'am," Zero imparted, quietly, close to Mary's ear.
"I didn't even know you had it."
"Me either, if I'm honest. Took a lot of digging to find it." The lead zeroid harrumphed. "Trust that little twerp to manage to find that when he can't remember literally nothing else."
oOoOoOo
Kate's team got to the shopping complex first.
A blue heartbeat splattered up over the walls from the multiple emergency vehicles already present, guiding them in. A crowd had begun to gather – people from all walks of life, all looking at their phones, murmuring to each other and wondering what emergency it was that had called such a disparate group of people there, curious and anxious.
…not curious enough to try and get past the streamers of police tape, though. They could probably see the armed response unit, checking their weapons and body armour, on the verge of moving in. An ambulance had already arrived, but the police were holding them back.
Five-five tumbled out of the vehicle before it had even completely stopped, and took up a position in the huge doorway, to a little chorus of exclamations from the assembled humans. Kate and Hawkeye followed him out.
"Thanks, officers. We'll take it from here." Kate forced herself to flash them a reassuring smile, holding out her identification.
The closest officer nodded at it, but raised a cautionary hand. "You sure, miss? We've had reports of gunshots."
Kate patted the holster for her own sidearm. "We're authorised."
The reason the police were holding the ambulance crew back became immediately obvious; as well as the craters left by the gunfire, and scattered chunks of broken alien technology, on the ground were puddles and smears of dull red, bloodied handprints, an axe – and an amputated finger.
"This isn't looking so good, Katie," Hawkeye said, pointing discreetly at familiar chunks of heavy plastic.
"Cubes," she murmured. "Or at least, what used to be cubes. Do you see any more?"
"No, ma'am." He did a long, slow visual sweep of the cavernous space. "I guess these bits weren't worth Zelda's effort to take back. The place looks clear."
The two Terrahawks moved into the interior of the abandoned building, lighting their way with handheld torches. The only other light came from the headlights of the police vehicles outside, and the sad, broken bulb above a distant door, propped ajar with a three-legged chair.
"I feel stupid for asking if this is the right place, but where the hell is he?" Hawkeye exclaimed. "He can't be inside there, surely. One oh one!"
Kate elbowed him. "It's Polly."
"What-?"
"He has amnesia. Tiger said that's what those kids were calling him, remember?" She raised her voice. "Polly! Are you there?"
A familiar little electronic chirp responded. Faint, but definitely nearby.
"We hear you! Do that again!"
"…he-… here…!" A feebly familiar voice replied, with another crackly chirp.
"Oh, hey, do you see that?" Hawkeye pointed off at something invisible. "There's a little light under there."
Trusting the man's computer-enhanced eyesight, Kate followed him towards it; the cantilevered surface of an old loading dock, with a narrow, shadowed area beneath it. She dropped to her knees to get a look underneath, and-…
The dim scrolling red of zeroid optics looked back at her.
"Oh thank god," Kate whispered and sat back on her heels. "You led us on such a wild goose chase. Are you all right?"
101's voice was still fracturing – more electronic than anything, proving he definitely was not 'all right'. Fading, fritzing. "i have a per-person here. she's hurt. please."
"A person? Oh, damn-"
"ha-has the old guy gone? he-… danger, he was... dan-dane-… we hid from him..."
"Yung-star?" Hawkeye glanced back at Kate. "Yeah. Yeah, he's gone." He got right down flat on the ground and swung himself under the overhang. "Well hey. What are you guys doing under here, huh?" he greeted, cheerfully reassuring. "Let's get you out."
"we phoned an ambu-ambulance but i don-don't think they understood-stood my co-ordinates?" 101 stuttered, trembling.
"Oh, they understood, don't you worry, little buddy. They're right here and waiting for us to get you out and safe first."
He scooped an arm around behind the broken zeroid and hauled him most of the way out. Leaving her colleague to help the paramedics extract the injured woman, Kate hastily dragged what was left of 101 across the yard, out of the way and to safety, with the newly-arrived Zero helpfully pushing from behind. Burnt high-efficiency oils left a dirty streak on the concrete.
"Shit," she whispered, trying to find something to put her hands on that wasn't smeared with blood or chemicals or hot or all three. "Oh, shit. This looks bad. 101? Polly? Can you hear me? Are you still functioning?"
"…hi," he garbled, faintly. "do-do i know you? please-… please phone-…"
"You do, you do. It's okay honey, we have you. Just hang on in there for me." She straightened and saw a familiar figure pushing through the throngs of police. "Tiger-! Ten-ninety!"
"you sound nice," the broken zeroid said, dazed. "…my friend is hurt. please phone-… ple-please help her. we pho-phoned an ambulance-lance. she's hurt. hurts. she-… i hurt… is ambu-… ambu… lan?... i- ow…"
"Yes, they're here. She's getting the best possible care now, I promise."
"…oh that-that's good. i thought i was… hurts… phone ambu-… i thought… too slow… too hot… hurts… i thought- too sss-slow-… phone-phone… hurts-… ow…? ow…"
"It's all right, it's all right. We're looking after both of you. Just… try to stay calm. We'll get you cooled down. All right?"
"… too hot… o w …"
oOoOoOo
Hey - does anyone have a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher? We need to cool him down, quickly! Yes, that's great! Bring it over here, now!
And get Hudson in here! We need him to play ambulance! God, this is such a mess. He's overheating bad.
Polly's ability to follow the voices was fading. They sounded familiar but he couldn't access why. He couldn't work out which direction any of it was coming from, or who was speaking. It all just… jumbled up together, an overlapping mishmash of sound.
Does anyone know how to turn him off? Come on, hurry up with that extinguisher!
But they seemed to know him, and they said his friend was safe. Ambulance was here. That meant he'd succeeded. Maybe he didn't have to keep struggling on any more. Maybe he could finally relax. Oh, that would be so nice. A little sleep, with his friends, back where he belonged, at last.
Tiger, he's not a washing machine-! I know, but he might have gone too far to save already, if we don't turn him off then we've definitely lost him. All right, stand back, I'm going to give him a blast with this.
He felt too hot to think much more. Just sat quietly, and listened. Were they talking to him or about him? He wasn't sure. It felt like too much hard work to figure it out, anyway.
Does he always alarm like this? Hiro, can you hear this? Why is he beeping? Yes, it's coming from him! I don't know! Come on, lad, don't you go give up on us now.
There were others like him; he could see them. Intelligent spherical machines, staying just back out of the way of the forest of human legs surrounding him, watching anxiously. Just what he'd been looking for! He wanted to say hello but his antenna didn't work. His voice didn't work either. Or his fans. Nothing worked. He felt so terribly hot.
Any second now and his core would ignite and he'd become a bright little meteorite, lighting his way home.
So hot. So tired.
Can we stabilise him by linking him to Zero? Yeah, extremely hot to touch. Yes, we've tried that. Okay, how do we do that? I don't know-! Why is he beeping like this?!
So hot. The world was losing cohesion around the edges, bleeding apart into jagged lines and false-colour pixels. Found where I belong. Friend is safe. Rest now. was the last thought that crossed his higher awareness.
Then his eyes went dim, and the chirping stopped.