Anton's Odyssey (26 page)

As usual the message deleted itself a few seconds after I scrolled down to the last line. I figured, as the new steward, mother might be held accountable if the lost jano-bot never turned up, so I asked Cotton if he was up for skulking around in the ventilation ductworks again. He replied that he was always up for skulking.

I didn’t invite Hammond, and Cotton didn’t invite Ellen. However, she came over shortly after Cotton and I arrived at Allen’s place because she needed help with her math homework.

“I am glad Cotton is wearing fresh underthings this time,” Ellen observed. “What are you boys going after this time?”

Cotton shrugged his shoulders as he struggled to get into Allen’s special issue stealth battle dress uniform. He didn’t care what sort of mischief he caused just as long as it was mischief.

“Parts,” I said, a reply to Ellen’s query.

“What kind of parts?” Ellen asked.

“Robot parts,” Allen said.

“You mean you still haven’t fixed the jano-bot?” Ellen scolded. “But you’ve recovered it weeks ago. What’s the matter with you?”

“I dunno,” Allen said meekly. “I just kept putting it off. I’ve been busy with schoolwork. I’ve also been feeling a bit down since the assault.”

Allen had let his guard down, admitting that he’d been feeling badly ever since Cotton used the bayonet to poke some guy’s eye out. Ellen still had no idea what happened that night after she left.

“What assault?” she asked. “You mean the accident?”

“He means the assault on Joinksmokker that lead to the accident.” I interjected, doing my best to keep Ellen out of the loop.

“Oh, that was pretty distressing,” she said sympathetically. “I had trouble sleeping for a few nights after you showed me that footage. Though, from the stories I’ve heard from other crewmembers, our explosion wasn’t actually that bad, so I’ve tried to put it in perspective and not let it get me down.”

“Always good advice,” I agreed, sincere in tone but insincere to any true sentiment. Other than a mild, brief sense of disgust I got from watching the video feed, I felt nothing. I even felt a sense of relief that two of the biggest jackasses on the ship, Jim Boldergat and Bob Blunt, were no longer around to cause my brother and me any grief. However, a better part of me knew I should feel guilty for not missing them, so I kept any sense of assuagement to myself.

Cotton put on a set of Allen’s glasses, and I slipped the audio piece into his ear. Allen handed Cotton a large roll of cord. “You’re going to need this! Tuck it into the pocket at the small of your back!”

“Hey I didn’t even know that was there.” Cotton said, reaching back and finding the flap. “That’s pretty cool.”

Ready to go, I boosted Cotton up into the vent. I searched through Allen’s closet and found his bayonet, the real one. I slipped it into its sheath and handed it up to Cotton along with a belt.

“No,” Allen protested, “let’s not hurt anyone, this time!”

“What’s he talking about?” Ellen asked me.

“Cotton got a small cut last time,” I lied. “Even so, the blade turned out to be very useful.” Indeed, it had saved Cotton’s life. Allen was a bit out of line by asking Cotton to disarm himself considering my brother, and not Allen, was taking all of the physical risks.

Allen sighed but didn’t continue his line of protest. Cotton vanished down the ductworks. On his computer, Allen brought up the ship’s schematics hit a few keys and put on a second set of glasses.

“I thought that makes you sick?” I said.

“Normally, yes, but this time I‘ve blocked input from the set Cotton’s wearing.”

“How are you going to guide Cotton?” I asked.

“I’m not,” Allen replied. “You are.”

“What? I don’t know how!” I protested.

“There’s nothing to it.” Allen said, beckoning for me to take his seat. He pointed at the ship’s schematics on the small vid. “This green dot is Cotton. This yellow dot is our destination. Now keep in mind the vents aren’t marked very well on the schematic so you’re going to need to check the big vid periodically to see what Cotton sees.”

“Okay,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

“I am going to help Ellen with her math homework.”

The task at hand was actually pretty fun. At first I made mistakes, telling Cotton to take a left when he should be heading right, and sometimes Cotton would turn the wrong direction when I actually gave him the correct order. Eventually, we got the hang of things. As we neared the yellow dot, I saw something on the schematic that really interested me. I knew it would interest Cotton too.

“Cotton,” I said softly, “take a right here.”

“Why are you talking so quiet?” he asked.

“We are going off mission,” I said. “Allen doesn’t know.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Cotton said, always eager to cause trouble.

“Okay,” I said, “see the second grate on the left – no don’t look through it yet.” Cotton paused as ordered. “Hey guys,” I said turning to Allen and Ellen, “this is really hard for me, and I know you guys are talking softly but it’s very distracting. Can you study out in the living room or something?”

“Yeah sure,” they agreed. They gathered up their study materials and left.

“Are they gone?” Cotton asked.

“Yes.”

“Where are we?”

“Officer
women’s washateria.”

“Sweet,” Cotton said, “
commence operation naked lady.” Cotton peered through the gate. “Hey, I think that’s that lady that gave us those boxes when we raided jackass Bob’s place.” I looked up at the big vid and found that our mission was successful. The symmetry was perfect. It was almost as if I were watching a math program about concentric circles, and the educators finally found a pair of examples that could hold my attention.

“You sick perverts!” I heard Ellen scream from behind me. Apparently she had left something behind and returned to get it, and
evidently she was not impressed as I was by the symmetry on the big vid. “I cannot believe you two! You two are perverts! Perverts! How would you like it if some woman spied on you when you took a shower?”

“I wouldn’t mind.” Cotton
said, which was true; he had no shame.

It depends on if the water was cold enough to give me shrinkage,
I thought.

Ellen stormed out. I knew I only had a moment before she came back with Allen.

“Okay, Cotton,” I said, “we better get back on mission. Take a left at the T-junction ahead.”

“Operation n
aked lady aborted,” Cotton said with a chuckle.

The perfect boobs vanished from the big screen a second before Ellen returned with Allen.

“What’s this I hear about you too violating some woman’s privacy?” Allen asked.

“They’re perverts!” Ellen cried, “Perverts!”

“It was an accident,” I lied. “We were lost, and I heard running water, so I asked Cotton to look through the grate to see if we were above the washateria. I thought we were here.” On the small vid, I pointed to a block a few centimeters over that read “officer men’s washateria.”

“Perhaps, I should take over from here,” Allen said. I had no choice but to comply and got up out of Allen’s chair. Ellen glared at me accusingly, unsure if she should believe my explanation.

“Well, you guys aren’t too far off,” Allen said, removing the glasses from his face. “We are just around the corner from our destination.”

“Hey this one grate’s been blocked off.” On the big screen, Cotton was trying to peer through a grate but there was an opaque panel blocking the far side.

“Don’t worry about that,” Allen said. “Our destination is the next grate.”

“Still, this is strange.” Cotton replied. “I’ve peered through hundreds of grates, and I’ve never seen one like this before.”

“It’s not really that strange,” Allen countered. “They must have placed insulated panels over a hundred grates during the hasty retrofit.”

“That’s not an insulated panel.” Cotton jammed the point of the bayonet through the grate. The clicking sound indicated the obstruction was metallic. “Somebody tack welded a piece of sheet metal over the grate.”

“Okay, that is strange,” Allen conceded. “Still, this isn’t where we need to be.”

“Where are we?” I asked.

“A utility room,” Allen said, “one of the many utility rooms sealed off by mistake during the hasty retrofit. It’s not the one we need though. They used to keep a broken robot in the next one down, and I suspect it’s still there and that all the parts I need are in it.”

I wasn’t as eager as Allen to let go of the mystery of the sealed-off grate. Someone had clearly taken extra efforts to conceal the contents of the room behind it. I was intrigued, wondering what needed to be hidden so badly behind the piece of sheet metal. “Cotton, see if you can pry off the grate!” I ordered

“No don’t!” Allen countermanded. “Come on guys, let’s stick to the mission.”

“Yeah, okay.” I agreed. I knew that if I came across as too nosey, Ellen would never believe my lie about how we happened upon those perfect boobs by mistake.

The next grate down, Cotton asked, “Is this the one?”

“Yes,” Allen said, “go ahead and remove the grate carefully.”

Far from careful, Cotton let the grate fall into the utility room where it landed with a loud clang.

“No wait,” Allen said, “don’t drop in just yet,” but it was too late. With a thud and an “oomph,” Cotton hit the floor.

“Ah man, it’s dark in here.” Cotton said.

“Let me change to infrared spectrum. We’ll be able to see the room from the heat reflected off your body,” Allen said. The image on the big screen became much brighter, but there was something wrong about the perspective. It appeared as if Cotton was holding his head to the floor. Also, Cotton writhed around constantly, even when asleep, but the image remained perfectly still.

“Cotton,” I said, “where are Allen’s glasses?”

“They fell off,” he replied. “The ear pieces were digging into me so I bent them up a little.”

“Can you see them?” I asked.

“No,” Cotton said, “it’s pitch black.”

“Get on all fours and crawl on the ground,” Allen commanded. “That way you won’t trip and fall.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Now, just go in a straight line until you hit a wall. We know my glasses are near a corner, so we should be able to tell you how to find them when you come into view.”

“There’s someone in here!” Cotton shrieked.

“Draw your knife!” I said in a panic. Ellen raised her eyebrows, wondering why I would react so strongly.

“Come on, settle down guys.” Allen said calmly. “There’s no one there.”

“I feel an arm!” Cotton cried.

“Maybe it’s a dead body.” I suggested stupidly.

“No,” Allen said calmly, “Cotton would have said something about the smell.” What Allen said made perfect sense.

“I’m telling you there’s someone here.” Cotton said, his voice quivering with fear.

“Sit tight, Cotton,” Allen said calmly. “Let me redirect the image.”

Allen pressed a key and zoomed in on a glimmer near the corner of the far wall. The image magnified one hundred fold, revealing the detailed reflection off the wall’s smooth surface. Cotton sat on his haunches, his head drawn in to his shoulders for protection. Sure enough, I could make out the unmistakable contours of a human hand just beyond Cotton’s fingertips.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That’s what we are looking for,” Allen replied, projecting his voice calmly. “Cotton, what you felt was the limb of an anthropometric robot. It’s turned off, of course, and its battery is dead, so there’s no need for alarm. Now let’s find those glasses.”

Following a few commands from Allen, Cotton located the glasses and returned them to his face. Allen projected the infrared image onto my brother’s retinas so that he could see in the dark.

“Wow, that’s a robot?” Cotton said with disbelief. On the big screen, I could see an image of a longhaired woman lying on her back. She wore a halter top and a long out of style faux leather mini-skirt.

“Is that a ho-bot?” I asked.