1105 words (4 minute read)

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

1

Having crippled Regulator’s engines, Exceptionalist easily overtook the larger ship and positioned herself above it. Given the helter-skelter manner in which modules had been grafted onto Regulator over the years, there was only one section of its hull on which a ship Exceptionalist’s size -- 700 meters from stem to stern -- could touch down. That section was all the way aft, above the engine housings. The IP ship would fit in almost as snugly as a jigsaw puzzle piece.

Thus with great care did the space defender lower herself onto the unwelcoming Activist vessel. It was like watching a rhino mount an elephant.

2

"Now what?" asked 88-XOR hopelessly, in response to the awful grinding noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, rattling his circuits, loosening his fasteners.

Insofar as any android could feel hopeless, depressed, defeated, nervous, and so on -- which this one could; his[1] code was that sophisticated -- Eighty-eight had experienced all those states of mind (or perhaps states of CPU is a better way to put it) over the past hour.

"We’ll probably be torn apart," he fretted, making his way down a corridor in search of his friend Lita. It was all too like her to disappear during a time of crisis, when he most needed her. Not that he’d ever admit to the needing part.

Eighty-eight was a simple translator bot with humanoid features. His casing had a rich ebony sheen. His random access memory contained information regarding a time, not all that long ago, really, when his kind served, nay, existed, solely at the whim of whomever owned them.

Eighty-eight himself had never been a slave, and for that he was eternally grateful. On the other hand, there had never been a time during his utilization cycle when hadn’t served at the whim of whomever employed him. The differences between the two arrangements were sometimes hard to grok.

"I’m not even supposed to be on this ship," the android muttered, to no one but himself. Which was just as well, because no one else could have heard him over that grating, crunching carbon-nanofiber-on-carbon-nanofiber sound.

Typically when something unpleasant happened to Eighty-eight, it was Lita’s fault. It was certainly true in this case. Lita had insisted they offer their services to the crew of Regulator, and she had also withheld key bits of information about what it entailed. Only when it was far too late had Eighty-eight learned that:

  1. Regulator was an Activist ship carrying something that had been stolen from the Incorporated Planets
  2. The IP would stop at nothing to get the stolen item back
  3. Regulator’s crew were expected to sacrifice their lives for this mission 
  4. Androids were considered to be part of the crew.

The rest, you might say, was just logic. Merciless and immutable.

And now he couldn’t even find Lita, so he had no one to commiserate with. Meanwhile this interminable grinding sound--

Wait. What sound?

"It stopped," 88-XOR said, startling himself with the volume of his voice in the newfound silence. "It stopped," he said again, warming up to the idea. Finally, a break in the gloom! Something going right for a change!

Several crew members entered the corridor at a jog, moving in loose formation. Their expressions were stern. They paid the android no mind, but he took no offense.

"The noise stopped!" he exclaimed happily to the passers-by. "What a relief!"

The straggler of the bunch didn’t stop running, but he turned to tell Eighty-eight, "It means we’re about to be boarded." Then he hurried to catch up to his comrades.

Eighty-eight watched them disappear down the corridor.

"Well, shit," he finally said.

3

If the people he’d just seen were heading into battle, 88-XOR thought, it only made sense for an unarmed, peace-loving, conscientious-objecting, religious exemption-seeking (he belonged to the Church of Self Preservation) non-combatant such as himself to go the opposite direction. And to hope Lita was thinking along the same lines.

At the end of the corridor Eighty-eight encountered a bigger group of crew members, moving faster than the first squadron and carrying weapons. They were going left, so the android went right.

Two turns after that he spotted Lita.

"Oh thank god," Eighty-eight said. A silly thing for an android to say, but he’d been programmed by humans, after all, and some of them still believed in a god, such as the Whibmask, or in multiple gods, or in the mysterious energy field known as the Power.

"Lita!" Eighty-eight called, but his friend had already disappeared around another corner. She seemed very intent on getting somewhere as quickly as her stubby brown legs would take her.

"Where are you going?" Eighty-eight said, knowing she wouldn’t hear him. It was borderline rude the way she hadn’t even turned her head at the sound of his voice. That was Lita, though. She lacked the subroutine for social graces.

"What did I expect?" the android asked in exasperation.

He wasn’t looking for an answer, of course, but he got one anyway, when the ceiling of the corridor collapsed in front of him, and down through the resultant hole dropped a fully armored and heavily armed peacekeeper of the IP.

"Oh my," the android said.

"Easy," the peacekeeper said. "You’re in no danger."

Then a laser bolt gouged a giant hole in his chest and the peacekeeper died extravagantly.

"Good lord!" Eighty-eight cried. No sooner had he turned in the direction of the blast than did he see the shooter, an Activist soldier, taking aim at him.

"I surrender!" the android said, panic overriding logic.

"Out of the way!" the soldier snarled. "They’re coming!"

"Who?"

The answer, it turned out, had two parts. The first was: More Activist soldiers, all of whom took up firing stances and trained their weapons on the hole in the ceiling. The second part was: more IP peacekeepers, who dropped out of said hole in copious numbers.

All at once Eighty-eight was in the middle of a firefight. He screamed, ducked for cover and ran, with all the speed and grace of a knight on ice skates.


[1] The nonbinary gender faction had tried to effect changes in android pronouns as well. But the androids weren’t having that shit.


Next Chapter: Chapter Three