Mechanical Failure (12 page)

A resounding
ding
came from the control pad, followed by the feminine voice that seemed to come standard with all pieces of military technology.

“Congratulations on activating the Mark III Artificial Intelligence Ground Combat control pad. As thanks for activating this service, you are entitled to one free
It's a Droid Life
coloring book, to be redeemed at any of the many Snaggadir's Sundries
locations available across the galaxy. Remember: whatever you need, you can Snag It at Snaggadir's™!”

“Great,” Rogers muttered. “My life's treasure at long last.”

Oh One beeped, though to Rogers' eyes, it hadn't done anything. Looking back down at the datapad, he found that it had locked again.

“Damn it.” He swiped his keycard again, and the screen came back on. Nothing had changed. He pressed the orange button one more time.

“Command?” the control pad prompted.

“Ah, here we go,” Rogers said. “Now we're getting somewhere.”

“Invalid command,” the control pad answered.

“I haven't commanded anything yet.”

“Invalid command.”

“Hold your horses; I'm thinking!”

“I have received your command,” Oh One said, loud enough to make Rogers jump, “but I cannot execute it due to a lack of equine life forms in the immediate area.”

Rogers goggled at Oh One, wondering what kind of witless moron had programmed these things. When he turned back to the command pad, the screen was blank. It had locked itself in the short interim.

“What is wrong with this thing?” Rogers said as he aggressively swiped his keycard through the reader, unlocking the pad once again. He tapped the orange button.

“Command?”

“Disable the auto-lock feature on the command pad.”

“Security protocol prevents users from tampering with access features on this command pad. Command?”

“Ugh,” Rogers said. What was he supposed to do with these droids, anyway? He didn't know how to fight, himself, so it seemed kind of ridiculous to try and teach them how to do it. Maybe some of that standard, Steuben-esque drill maneuver crap would suffice
for now. It was about the only military training that Rogers remembered other than engineering work.

“Stand at attention,” he barked.

“Command received.”

None of the droids moved, but Tunger's boots clicked together so hard that Rogers thought he might sprain his ankle.

“Not you,” Rogers said.

“Oh,” Tunger said, his face turning sour. “I don't get to
do
anything, either?”

“You're supposed to keep things orderly,” Rogers said. “So, do that.”

Surprisingly, this seemed to please Tunger. “Yes, sir!” he said, and, for some reason, left the room.

Turning back to the droids, he noticed that none of them seemed to have changed position. But now that he thought of it, it was the same position they'd been in the entire time. Was this standing at attention?

“Oh One,” Rogers said. “Why did none of you do anything, even though this thingy here said that the command was received?”

“We are unable to find location: ATTENTION at which to stand.”

“What? It's a military drill term!” Well, maybe they just couldn't stand at attention because it just didn't work with their metallic bodies. Maybe he could get them to move around a little.

He ripped his keycard so hard through the reader that it didn't have time to recognize his credentials, forcing him to do it again. Unlock. Screen up. Orange button. Command?

“Right
face  
!” Rogers barked, astonished at his own drill sergeant-ness.

That did something! The entire group of droids, in one frighteningly smooth and coordinated motion, pivoted and snapped their bodies ninety degrees to the right, bringing their legs down with much less noise than a group of shinies should have made with all their stomping around.

“Now we're talking” he said.

“What are we talking about?” Tunger said as he came into the room with a small dustpan and broom and began sweeping up.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping things orderly, sir.”

“Right,” Rogers said, turning back to the command pad and pressing the orange . . . unlocking the
worthless piece of shit with his god-damn keycard
and pressing the orange button.

“March!”

“For commands to be executed at a later date, please specify the day and year as well.”

“No,” Rogers cried, “not March the month; march
forward
!”

Vibrations coursed through the floor of the training room as the entire formation of droids ran into the wall that was six feet in front of them. As they collided with the wall, they kept moving forward, their legs pumping up and down, though they seemed to be doing little enough damage to each other in the process. Perhaps it was a benefit of their made-for-combat metal alloy or whatever.

“Stop!” Rogers shouted. “Why are you doing that?”

“We are responding to the command given,” Oh One said, though the voice was muffled by his speech transmitter being smashed up against the wall.

“Oh for the love of . . . march backward, will you?”

“Affirmative.”

The formation marched backward until they were in the middle of the room again, at which point Rogers shouted for them to stop. They didn't stop. Looking down at the control pad, he noticed that it was probably because it was locked. Rogers took it in his hand, about to throw it at Tunger's broom, but was distracted by the clattering of a formation of droids hitting the
opposite
wall.

“Stop!” Rogers shouted at the command pad once he'd unlocked it again.

The formation of droids stopped abruptly, the sudden silence almost as startling as the symphony of metal had been moments earlier.

“Dear god,” Rogers said. “What use is this?”

“We are used to neutralize the current threat by utilizing the best—”

“Shut up!” Rogers said.

He took a deep breath. Okay, so moving them wasn't as easy as he thought. He definitely wasn't ready to try anything with weapons yet, that was for sure, not that he really wanted to. Maybe he could march them down the hallway and “accidentally” vent the room to open space, or something. No, too obvious. God, he wanted a drink.

“Everyone stand still and do nothing,” he said.

Everyone stood still and did nothing, and he counted this as a minor victory.

Perhaps simply changing formation types would work; if they were supposed to go to combat, surely they knew things like wedges, columns, staggered lines, and all that, right? At least, that's what they did in the movies. Rogers wasn't exactly a resident expert on combat.

“Alright,” he said. “Alright. Let's see.”

Swiping his keycard—he was going to have a copy made and permanently glued to this damn machine—he pressed the command button. What
were
all those other little green squares for?

“Command?”

“Form a column.”

The droids snapped into action immediately, and Rogers stepped back with a satisfied grin as the whole orchestra started to play the same tune with Rogers on the conductor's stand. Despite his feelings about droids, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride as the droids started smoothly interchanging positions, not running into anything at all, and . . .

Tearing the metal panels off the walls.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Rogers cried. “Stop!”

The inert command pad didn't help him, since it had locked itself again. Slamming his card through the reader, he was greeted only with a crudely drawn—not rendered like regular graphics, but drawn as though by a five-year-old—picture of a battery with a line through it. It was out of charge.

“Tunger,” Rogers shouted, “this is your fault!”

“My fault?”

“This isn't very orderly at all. The damn thing is out of batteries!”

The droids, in the meantime, had convened in the center of the training room, bringing with them pieces of the walls, exposing part of the vast network of pipes, wires, cables, and whatever else made up the guts of the
Flagship
. Arms flashing in silver-gray blurs, they extended and retracted, the droids' legs telescopically reaching higher until they were at the ceiling. In moments, a crudely but solidly crafted shaft of metal ran from floor to ceiling in the center of the room, like one of those senseless metal sculptures in backwater museums.

“What have you done?” Rogers cried once the noise settled down. “You've ruined the training room!”

“We have formed a column, sir,” Oh One said. “Utilizing the best available strategy.”

Rogers stared blankly at the almost certainly laughing eyes of the Froid, wondering if they could do things out of spite, wondering if this was all a joke and Magistrate Tuckalle was about to burst through the door, red-faced with laughter, and tell him that the
Awesome
had been repaired and he could go on his merry way.

But that didn't happen. Instead, the AIGCS stood around their newly formed monument of stupidity, looking at Rogers to give them their next command.

“Low battery,” chirped the command pad.

Rogers looked at the command pad, looked at the tangled mess of metal, and looked at Tunger.

“Charge this,” he said, throwing it at Tunger, who caught it
and saluted with a snap. “And get me an instruction manual. I'm going to go eat a Sewer rat.”

“The presence of rodents, while a viable food source, is unlikely in this ship's waste disposal system, sir,” Oh One offered helpfully. “It is unlikely that you will find one.”

“I'll use the best available strategy and see what happens,” Rogers said, and left.

Picking the last traces of a SEWR rat out of his teeth and wondering how much money he would pay for a good slab of steak, Rogers slowly plodded through the halls back to his room on the quarterdeck. He felt like someone had taken everything good about life and used it as toilet paper. Like he could still see the traces of a life full of drinking and gambling and fun, but there was a lot of poop in the way. Was this automated technology really the future of the Meridan Patrol Fleet? Was it really
his
future for the next three long, long years?

Rogers attempted to put his hands in his pockets and adopt a brooding walk, but he found that his pants pockets had been sewn shut. Another archaic rule said that it looked unprofessional to put your hands in your pockets, so apparently Stan/Eval and Supply had gotten together to rob everyone of a place to put anything in their pants. Rogers thought there might have been something philosophically different between not breaking rules and not being given the opportunity to break them, but he
realized very quickly that he didn't care. He missed his pockets.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
ABRUPTLY GREET
]. T
ARGET
[E
NSIGN
R
OGERS
.] O
UTPUT STRING:
G
OOD AFTERNOON, SIR
.”

Rogers' arms flailed in the air as he screeched to a halt in the hallway. A few inches from where he stopped stood an older model droid, mostly indistinguishable from any other droid on the ship. It was one of the tracked variety, and from its relatively dirty exoskeleton wafted the distinct odors of talcum powder and alcohol-based cleaning solution.

“What do you want?” Rogers snapped. “What are you doing on the quarterdeck?”

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
STATE INTENTIONS
]. O
UTPUT STRING
: I
AM
C
YBERMAN
S
ECOND
C
LASS
BAR-BR 116. Y
OU FAILED TO ATTEND AN APPOINTMENT AT 0830 SHIP TIME THIS MORNING
.”

Rogers gaped. Then he noticed the droid's hands; instead of the standard three-clawed grip, the droid was equipped with rotating discs to which were attached various barbaric instruments, such as scissors, razors, a comb, and a tiny welding torch, which Rogers didn't understand at all.

“So, you're Barber Bot,” Rogers said, taking a slow step back. “I don't need an appointment. I didn't even make the appointment.”

BAR-BR 116 inched forward, its rotating instrument discs clicking ominously.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
PRESENT EVIDENCE
]. O
UTPUT STRING:
I
T WOULD APPEAR THAT YOUR FACIAL HAIR IS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH REGULATIONS SET FORTH BY
M
ERIDAN
P
ATROL
F
LEET
S
TANDARDIZATION AND
E
VALUATION
. Y
OU ARE REQUIRED TO COMPLY
. I
AM HERE TO ASSIST YOU
. Y
OU MISSED OUR APPOINTMENT
.”