Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.
This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.
Flint turned to the controls of his pod and settled in. He could see the Earth ahead of him, it’s blue oceans filling his field of view. He could see part of Europe and part of North America. He wondered what it might have been like to live before the meteor impact that had taken out so much of the world. He could see, across the face of what used to be the United States, a huge crater that was all lit up like it was a grand experiment of some kind. He watched as the night side came up and the entire central city was illuminated like a great disc, made of a thousand lights. He watched it for a while. He knew the stories of the great asteroid that had almost destroyed humanity and culture on this tiny little planet, but several asteroids had hit at once. It was only for the digital age that humanity had survived. They still had all the records of mankind’s achievements, so there was no real knowledge lost.
It was a grand catastrophe. Once everything had settled they began to rebuild the cities, but the richest, most fertile land was always in the middle of the craters that had scattered across the continents, and the outlying regions were wastelands where nothing would grow.
It seemed oddly peaceful from up here, all alone in the vacuum of space.
Flint nudged one of the controls on his tiny space vessel. It increased the speed by ten percent, but you couldn’t tell the difference by just eyeballing anything.
He settled back and adjusted his chair. It would be a long way home, especially without anything to read or do. He adjusted his chair, and pulled a pillow from an extra compartment to his left, and closed his eyes.
The silent stream of air from the tanks, and a quick check to determine that there was enough satisfied him, and he allowed his eyes to close again, and drift off, listening to the intake valves and the air conditioning. Otherwise, all was totally quiet.
When he awoke the ship was rocking this way and that and he seemed to be upside down. He looked ahead of him, and his field of vision was filled with blue ocean water. A fish flitted past the window, and then suddenly he could see the sky. He had flipped over again. In his view, he could see a magnetic crane that seemed to be pulling his entire escape pod from the water, and powerlifting him up onto the deck of a large boat.
It dropped him on the deck with a clunk, and the pod began to roll over and over as it headed for the edge. It slowed to a stop, and Flint could hear a large number of people all around him. They popped off the explosive bolts on the hatchway, and let Flint out.
“Sir, are you all right?”
Flint nodded to them and made his way over to the bridge of the vessel. A guard let him through, and waiting for him, inside the warmth of the small command center was the Chief.
Flint raised his eyebrows and greeted the Chief.
“Glad to have you back Flint.”
“Glad to be back. Is there a flight off of this ship?”
“We’ll be on our way in just a moment. Flint?”
“I got them.”
“And Roman?”
“Dead. I tried to save him.”
“We’re beginning to take another plan of attack on the robots Flint, you may have been right. I don’t think we can use them as partners anymore.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Simon’s been a great help. I think there’s room enough for all, let’s just not restrict all partners to human/robot status. There’s got to be a mix.”
“You may be right.”
“Let’s get off this can, and back to the city. I want to see that Simon is properly restored, and get on with my life here.”
“There’s one more thing before we can go back.”
“What?”
The chief turned to the door and called for her.
Dianne came bounding in, she looked a mess. She took Flint by the arms and hugged him, and kissed him.
“How can I tell you are real?”
“How can I tell you are either?” She smacked him on the head and kissed him again. Eyes were closed and satisfaction granted.
They returned to the city center, and Flint to the police tower. Simon was sitting up and seemed to be in a good mood.
“When are they going to let you out of here?”
Simon sat up. “I can go as soon as I’m ready.”
There were monitors stationed around the room that were noting the progress of Simon’s refurbishment. They all said one hundred percent complete.
“What happened to Roman?”
“Died.”
“Pity, I was hoping to give him one more chomp for the last time.”
“I know.”
They poured over reconnaissance photos of the moon base where Roman was planning the outward expansion of the human race through robotics.
“So it was all about getting off the planet,” said Simon.
“Do you think there’s any life out there?”
“No.”
“I don’t know. There should be. Do you think we’ll ever find it?”
“No.”
They reported to the Chief, fresh for the next day, but everything had taken on a glazed look as if someone had put a fuzzy cloud over their world.
Simon got the drinks this time. He brought Simon what was basically a drink cup full of gasoline, oil, and other chemicals he needed to keep his body strong, though it looked like perfectly normal lemonade. They laughed over their lunch, Simon slurping down the strange concoction, and Flint choking down a sandwich.
Something beeped.
Flint checked his pocket.
“It’s the chief.”
Simon nodded, and they made their way from the little courtyard up to the Chief’s office. The chief flicked on a video display.
“We noticed here last night after you were rescued, that there was a serious amount of activity in this part of the city. I thought you’d like the first crack at it.”
“We’ll take it, sir,” said Simon.”
“Good to hear.”
“Sir?” asked Flint.
“Yes?”
“About Dianne.”
“For another time.”
Flint and Simon stepped into their car and buzzed over to that side of the city, and notice right off that several of the buildings had been knocked down.
He parked it on the side of the building and set it so that he and Simon could watch. He turned on the sensors and turned on the video displays so that they could get the best possible angle.
Below them, robots were steadily working. There were new robots, and old models, working together. They seemed to be building something, but it was unclear what.
Much of whatever it was was under wraps, and it looked as if much of the day’s activity was already over. Storm clouds hung in the sky, and it began to rain. Positioned as he was, the rain was falling in sheets all the way around them. It was next to impossible to see anything, save for what was coming in on the monitors. They shout out several tiny robotic spy cameras and sent them to get a better look at the object.
The little camera bots whizzed around through the rain, which really just returned a rain-soaked sky for an image, and then they were under it, poking holes in the covered mass’s cover, and slipping inside.
“Damn! There he is!”
The monitors had picked up Roman again.
“Thermal imaging says it’s the real Roman,” said Simon.
“Not possible. He was destroyed on the moon.”
“There he is though.”
“Check a bio-scan on him. I want to check for any kind of abnormality.”
“Like a mechanical hand?”
“Like anything.”
Simon performed the check and looked up.
“What?”
Simon shook his head.
“Come on, what?”
“It’s the age.”
“How is that a problem?”
“He’s only six.”
“But he’s full-grown already!”
“That means…”
Flint shook his head. “Cloners.”
“Yep. Cloners.”
“Christ.”
“We can’t blow them apart.”
“I wonder what they want.”
“Look there’s three or four more of them.”
“And one of me.”
“What?”
“Look.”
One the screen, next to three of the Romans was a clear Flint clone looking around, and calmly taking orders.
“In no way, shape or form is this okay.”
“They’ll get us from the inside out.”
“Never a worse way to go.”
“We have to take them out, to stop them in their tracks.”
“I know.”
“How are we going to get down there?”
“We’re going to walk right in.”
“Walk in, are you crazy?”
“Nope. it’s the easiest way.”
They lowered the air car and piloted it out into the rain. Water splashed all around them and forced them to fly by their instruments. They sailed down in the nasty weather and landed the a few alleys away.
“I hope this works,” said Simon.
“It’s better than going in stolen uniforms.”
They made their way into the tent and worked their way into the crowd.
Roman stood at the head of the group, a group of about a thousand combined robots, humans, and clones. He tapped on the microphone.
“Gentlemen, ladies, I welcome you all. We’ve had a minor setback and in the interests of time, I am assured that we will all make a hasty journey to the moon this go around. Seeking only friendship and peace with the rest of our kind, I am sure that this will be something we can all share and enjoy.”
He rifled through papers on his podium.
“We have had a minor setback, in that the first expedition has failed to make it to the landing site, but I can assure you that the next one will not fail. I am here to uncover and dedicate the second chance. It’s a rocket ship designed to make it to the moon. From there we will be able to get on with the business of getting on into the galaxy and out into the stars.”
He checked his notes again.
“It is for this momentous occasion that I will pull the ceremonial veil away to show you the craft of the future.”
He raised his arms, and Flint could see the sheer size of the thing. Behind Roman, it must be taking up an entire office block. A grand gray curtain fell across it, and there was a single tassel, which seemed to be connected to a series of pulleys and other knots. Roman pulled at the tassel, and the curtain fell away. A gigantic craft appeared in the moonlight, covered in the falling rain. It stood a hundred feet tall, and gleaming white. It was covered in guns.
“The thing is,” said Roman, we could never make the thing fly, so it’s time to take this city down!”
Every porthole on the ship opened, and every missile bay slid aside, and Flint and Simon pointed their grapple guns to the middle of the ship, to a port that looked highly accessible and shot into the sky. They slung forward through the rain, and landed on the ship, quickly ducking inside. The rain was pouring outside, and the people, robot or not were starting to riot. They flung themselves forward into the throngs as what was left of the ship above them began to swivel and teeter as it raised and lowered its guns and missiles around, targeting all the buildings around them.
The ship was massive, the size of a skyscraper, and yet the people below didn’t seem to know what to do.
Roman stormed into the craft and started climbing up.
Flint and Simon were already planting charges. Flint would toss them to Simon, and Simon to Flint and they clinked them onto the walls as they made their way down into the ship toward the street.
Dianne burst through the door.
Simon scanned her.
“Flint!” she said.
“Simon?” said Flint.
“Robot,” said Simon.
Flint and Simon took turns and shot her with an electrical device that stunned her and dropped her to the ground.
Another gang came in, and started trying to pull the charges off the wall. One of them peeled a charge from the wall and it just went off. The explosion blew a hole through the side of the building and the remains of that squad shot out in a spurt of flame.
Flint and Simon continued, making their way down into the ship, which was beginning to swivel and turn, and fire at the buildings around it. One of the buildings took a hit and toppled to the ground.
Flint slid down a passageway set of stairs that had been built for sliding. They were steep. He held the handrails in his hands and slid down. Simon took a jump and landed next to him.
They pulled their pistols and found themselves in a room devoted to the bashing of the other buildings. Several major cannons were set up in here and manned by robots. They were currently pounding on the buildings around them.
Flint and Simon started with the pistols, cutting the heads off of the robots who were doing the shooting.
They fell to the floor, but the cannons didn’t do anything to stop. They kept firing on automatic. Flint and Simon began spreading the charges around in here, sticking them to everything that they could think of. A few well-placed laser shots, and the machines began to fire on themselves.
Flint and Simon took the ladder down. It was only a moment of time before the whole place went up, as many charges as they have dropped. Above them, they could hear the explosions as the first started to go off on their own.
They landed, and before them it was cold. Their breath stood out before them, even though Simon was now simulated. They looked around. The explosions and fire were about to take the whole place down around them.
“There!” said Simon.
“What?”
“The door.”
Before them was a great steel door that looked like it went back into the buildings beyond. Flint took his remote and detonated all the remaining charges. The ship went up and exploded in a fireball. It crumpled to the ground and sent everyone who could still move screaming.
They pushed open the steel door and behind it lay the cold room. Everything in it was ice blue and totally frozen. There were honeycombs in the walls where it looked like clones were in the process of being developed. They all had Roman’s face.
In the center of the mass was a table, the only thing in the room which seemed to be warmed in any way, and sitting on it, was the crumpled form of Roman. Except he wasn’t the Roman they all knew. He was old. The oldest person that Flint had ever seen.
Was he three hundred, possibly four hundred?
It was little more than a shriveled mass of flesh. The face was right, the smile, certainly the teeth, but the rest was nothing more than the goo of oozing flesh.
It coughed.
Flint and Simon splayed flashlights out upon it and looked him up and down.
The figure coughed again and spat, but it didn’t make it very far. The puss just oozed off and dribbled down the corner of his mouth. It held a cigarette to its mouth and pulled on it. It looked like it could barely move its legs. The feet looked tiny and shrunken. The eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. They were very white in comparison to the rest of the body, the skin, which was all a gray powder color that seemed to fill the very air with the soot of tobacco all by itself.
“Well?” it said.
“Roman?”
“You guessed it.”
“But I, I mean we…”
“I know, You’ve been chasing my clones all over this continent and out into space, and never realized you were dealing with clones, and not just androids.”
They sat at the creeping thing’s side.
“True. We couldn’t let anyone abuse the android system like that.”
“I totally agree, which is why we almost slipped the cloning bit passed you.”
The ancient Roman coughed, again, and held the cigarette to its mouth.
“We’re going to have to take you in, I hope you know that.”
“Yes, yes, your civic duty. I know. I used to be a cop myself, of course, that was in a different time, before the asteroids.”
“You were alive before the asteroids?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
The old Roman reached out and smacked Flint. It was not the best feeling in the world. It was much like being slapped with an old banana peel.
Flint pulled back and looked around.
“You’re not going to take me though.”
Simon perked up at that. “We’re not, are we?”
“No, you see. I think my clones will have something to say about that.”
The clone chambers began to open, and the contents started to ooze out and hit the floor. They all looked like lean and mean adult versions of Roman. They popped their knuckles, and their necks, and leaned in to do some real pounding while the table on which the older Roman was sitting began to slowly lower itself into the floor.
“You take these clones, I’m going after laughing boy there,” said Flint.
Simon nodded and began to shoot the clones. His laser cut through them almost too easily.
Flint leaped over the clones that remained, using his grapple and landed right on the platform lowering into the floor.
“Hey!” cried the older Roman.
“Hey, nothing!” Flint put his fist through the old man’s face, and pulled the unconscious form up and hoisted it into the room. He carried it over to Simon, who had just finished off the last of the clones.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Together they took the elder Roman up and out of the remains of the ship, which was currently on fire and in the process of being dowsed by the local firemen, who hovered in their fire trucks near the scene.
They took the air car and delivered the limp body of Roman to the police.
An hour later they convened near the same cell they had the other Roman in earlier. The elder Roman sat in the cell, smoking, and coughing. On the other side of the glass stood the chief, and Flint and Simon.
“I was a cop once,” said Roman.
They sat down and listened to him.
“I was once a cop when this was the land of plenty before the asteroids came. It was a long time ago.”
“How old are you?” asked Flint.
“I am over five hundred years old. Of course, the records are not that clear during the aftermath of the asteroids. We were not very careful at that time. It was all about survival at that point, wasn’t it?”
Simon stepped forward. “What was it like before the asteroids?”
“It’s actually pretty hard to remember these days. None of it really comes to very much. I think it was hardest to see the differences because everything is so vertical now. Back then everything was about stretching out and getting to the next frontier. Now we’ve built skyscrapers that almost touch space, but we can’t spread out, there are just these few pockets of land here and there that are useful. Ironic that it’s just the areas where the asteroids hit that are habitable, of course, it’s really not that bad around outside these big cities nowadays. It’s evening out nice. It won’t be long before you’ll be able to expand again and get everything you need from this planet, but it doesn’t change the fact that we should be exploring, and exploring right. There shouldn’t be a planet or a moon in this solar system that hasn’t been explored. There is life out there you know.”
The chief responded, “He’s right, we just never looked.”
“Yes, life, and it’s a strange lot to find.”
“Have you seen it?” asked Flint.
“No, but I’ve felt it. Felt it coming. And it’s not far off.”
He coughed again.
“Not long now. Not long before they come.”
He breathed. It was a raspy sort of a thing.
“Not long.”
He died.
They were out in the air car. It was a normal day, by all standards that were normal. The sun was shining, the city was starting to escape its borders a little bit, and the buildings were as clean and streak-free as they could be. Simon and Flint surveyed in the landscape.
“What do you think?” asked Flint.
“About the old guy?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s pretty slim Pickens out there. I think that there’s got to be life, but what is life anyway, I mean look at me, I’m a robot aren’t I?”
“I know, but I mean what about other planets, other solar systems, other worlds, do you think all of that exists?”
“Sure, but I think that if there is life out there in the galaxy, it’s likely not to be half as weird as we are.”
“I suppose that could be true.”
“It’s getting cold.”
“But it’s still sunny.”
“I know, that’s the strangest part about it.”
Somewhere in the sky Alib looked to Bilbnib as they were enjoying a nice spot of fresh parsip , and looked over their controls. It had been a dirty night, and they had been trudging through the stars for years at this point. They were beginning to wonder what the point of it all was when a blip came across their tracker.
“What’s this?” asked Alib. He stroked his many fingered hands and put down his cup of parsip with his second off-hand.
“I’m not sure.”
“Could it be life?”
“Intelligent life?”
“We’ve seen life before.”
“It’s probably just another world of polar bears again.”
“True, that seems to be the norm in this part of space.”
“Is it worth checking?”
“Anything is worth checking.”
They flitted by, and zoomed by the Earth, sliding through the atmosphere, and down over the cities. They glided over and through the central city.
Not a creature on the Earth could see them. Their ship, perfectly cloaked, swung low and managed to scrape the surface of the earth, gathering data as it went, It took a profile of the creatures of the Earth. It cataloged everything it could find. Every flora and fauna the world had available was scanned, tested, theorized about and dropped back into place.
Bilbnib sighed and checked the earth off of his list. He was disappointed to be sure, but that was no real reason to fret. He was sure that given a few thousand more years the humans might have a chance.
“Then again, there’s still hope for the polar bears down there,” said Alib.
Bilbnib broke his pencil and tossed it across the room.
Simon and Flint lowered the air car down to the frozen tundra, near a group of polar bears. Simon wasn’t concerned, but Flint was wearing a massive blue parka and looking out onto the tundra with his binoculars.
“Simon, you have that scan done?”
“Yeah, there’s about fifteen of them in this group.”
“And you think there’s something out there?”
“It was on the scanners. I think we’re looking for something really special.”
Flint looked around. The snow stretched as far as he could see.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s out there.”
They watched the field as the polar bears moved around in the sun. One of them turned over on its back and rolled over. It basked in the sun, and searched the skies, rubbing its back on the snow and ice beneath it.
The ice cracked.
The polar bear turned up and scurried off, as much as one of those critters can get away with, and below it, in the ice, Flint could see it.
“There it is.”
Under the ice, a shape began to appear. At first, it was just a shadow, and then as the ice around it began to melt and crack. A moment or two later, and the shadow grew to a towering pillar of ice and mangled metal. It blew the ground away, sending shards of ice and snow in all directions.
With a subtle shift in the surface of the Earth, the tower began to glow a soft blue, and at its base was a door.
Flint and Simon hiked down to the base of the tower. At the tower’s base, there stood a great door adorned with faces of every kind, style, and predisposition. Some of the faces were filled with teeth, others were adorned with several eyes. Others were covered in fur or scales.
Simon reached out to touch one of the faces.
Flint grabbed his hand and pulled it back.
Simon looked over the faces and examined them.
Flint took a step forward, and the doors slid open.
They both took a step back.
Inside it was dark.
Flint held a communicator to his ear. “We’re going in.”
They stepped through the door and the tower closed behind them.
