What Ever Happened to the New Guy?

Skip stepped into the hallway. He had a mission after all, one that not even the Felixian admiral knew about. Super Top Secret. He was only posing as the new Farstation technician. He had a higher calling.

He crouched and looked at the station's carpet. They were filthy. Little bits of dirt and fuzz accumulated. His greatest fears were slowly becoming apparent. Someone had activated the new janitor bot, but the new janitor bot was not doing its job.

Skip looked at his device, looking at the PhōnHōm logs of the latest C5N unit. They just stopped shortly after they had started. Why was that?

He went into the garbage disposal room. Tinsel and confetti still littered the area, and a banner hung by a single thread. WE'LL MISS YOU. He picked up the banner and looked at it. He plucked a stray tinsel from the thin carpeting. He scooped up a handful of confetti. It was obvious that the crew had held a farewell party for the previous unit. They often did this when they grew attached to the loveable and amiable nature of the CXN Janitorial Robots. That wasn’t the odd thing here. The odd thing was that all the party decorations, at least the non-perishable ones, were still there. The robot's box was still here. Everything was just as it had been when the new unit had been activated. It was just that the new unit hadn’t cleaned anything up.

He blew the confetti from his hands and scanned the room with his eyes. There was a camera in the corner. That seemed like his next move.

He plugged his device into the station's port, and using a hacking program written by some individual or group calling itself or themselves Holorabbit, he gained access to the station’s security feeds. He found the one for this room and scanned backwards until he found the unboxing of C5N.

The oddest thing was that C4N was still there in the frame. He hadn’t been decommissioned yet. It wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t the most optimal path for activating a new robot. The instructions recommended decommissioning the old one first before activating the new one; but not very many people did that, as they didn't want there to be a hiccup with the new unit, and then they'd be without any janitorial staff until a replacement or repair could be delivered. Here on Farstation, that could mean weeks or months.

He played the video feed back at double-speed, seeing the Space Hunters leave, bringing C4N with them. Again, waiting to make sure there weren’t any weird bugs was something that people did, even if the Cleanbot Corporation did not officially endorse it.

He needed more information. He pulled out a MechDetector. It looked like a pen that any technician might wear in their front pocket, but it was able to pick up the traces of automatons much like a bloodhound could pick up the traces of a human. Using the security feed as a reference, he held the MechDetector toward the area where C5N had been, trying to catch a trace of his signatures. He found a faint one near the mostly clean section of the garbage disposal room. There was a clear demarcation of debris and cleanliness at this point that only a discerning eye like Skip's could see. Yes, there had been many treks to the garbage disposal room by many crew members since, jostling the microcosm of order that C5N had started imposing on this room, but in Skip's trained eye, he saw the traces of vacuum cleaner marks and solvent sprays. He used the MechDetector to find the most likely next place C5N had gone after that. Presumably, the vacuum canister was full or he needed a more heavy-duty cleaning tool, so he stopped here and walked toward the door. Skip followed the MechDetector's signal toward the door and out into the hallway. He had trouble finding the signature here, as since this area was more traversed, the minute traces of C5N were fainter. He turned up the sensitivity and waved the device around like a magic wand.

“Pen broken?” said a voice behind him.

He turned. It was the Admiral.

“Oh,” said Skip. “You know how these non-pressurized pens are in simulated gravity.” He gave it another weak shake before putting it back in his pocket next to the half-dozen other pens that were practically indistinguishable from it. Indistinguishable to those who didn't know what they were looking for.

The Felixian Admiral smiled, a double row of sharp teeth between his lips. His eyes were occluded by mirrored sunglasses. “Well, we need to make sure that all of our equipment is in operational condition if we're going to execute our final strike against the Star Children. Word is that we're near their nursery. I have half a mind to capture some of their eggs, and then imprint the young. Think of the force we'll have at our disposal. It took the United Worlds to work together to even match skills with them, so adding them to our arsenal would make us an unstoppable force in the galaxy.” He was getting a bit carried away. The Felixian caught himself, cleared his throat, and after an awkward pause, said, “Carry on, Technician Van der Molen. I expect everything, even our pens, to be in their top condition.”

“Yes, sir,” said Skip. The Admiral nodded before walking off.

When the Admiral was well away, Skip took out the MechDetector pen and tried to find the traces of C5N once more. He was able to find a faint trace, but that was enough. His sharp eyes were able to fill in the rest, examining the carpet for the tread pattern of a C5N model. Combining the two approaches, he was able to track the robot's next destination to the supply closet. Obviously.

He opened the supply closet door. The room was a bit of a mess, just like everything on this Farstation. He took a careful look at everything before touching anything. Using a LanCam, he took a picture as well, just in case. Satisfied, he began to organize the hovermops and autobrooms. He moved cans of cleaners and degreasers and disinfectants and deodorizers. Then, finally, when everything was back where it should have been, he saw it: scratches, scuffs, oil spills. There was the sign of struggle here. He used the MechDetector and picked up heavy traces of robot activity. In fact, it was so strong that it was almost like a robot was still here.

He looked in the back corner, where the cleaning appliances were stored. Something glimmered in the faint light. He stepped forward, stepping over the oil stains on the floor. He moved aside a vacuum and a vent snake. Buried under the mess of appliances was the remains of a robot, picked mostly clean. At this point, it was the robot equivalent of a skeleton. It almost made Skip sick to see. Still, he took another picture.

Using the light on the end of his MechDetector, he played the beam over the remains of the robot. The designation C5N met the light. “Interesting,” he said. He picked through the remains, trying to find anything worthwhile. He found an optical node still intact. He picked it up and stuck it in his pocket, trying to not liken it in his mind to picking up a human eye and pocketing that.

He stepped into the hallway, the image still burned into his mind as if he was still looking at it. He did the quick mental arithmetic to determine if this was covered by the warranty. Ultimately, he determined it wasn't. Unless…

He needed a break. He walked down (or rather up, since the hallways all seemed to curve in that direction) the hallway until he came to Hasenrausch. He found an empty table and sat down. After a moment, the proprietress came over and set down a glass of water and said something that Skip didn't register. He mumbled something equally unintelligible to her, and she walked away.

He sipped the water and went over the facts in his mind. The new robot disappeared pretty quickly after being activated. He hadn't even cleaned up after his unboxing, which is the first thing they often do. Then through unknown circumstances, the robot was dismantled down to bare metal, parts harvested for who knew what purpose.

He knew it was a long shot, but he pulled the optical node from his pocket. He had heard tales of people who had been given cornea transplants from cadavers seeing an after image of the donor's killer. The eye was part of the brain after all, so maybe it still had memories of the previous owner’s life. The optical sensor, being designed after human biology, might have the same, or similar principles. He pulled out another device and stuck some wires into the sensor, then fed the feed to his own optical augments. At first static, then as he tuned the device, a shadowy figure began to emerge. It stood in the doorway like a lumbering menace, eyes glowing, though one of those eyes flickered a bit. That was the last image this optical sensor had detected before going offline.

“Can I take your order?” a voice said. He looked up, the afterimage of the robot killer still in his eye. He blinked, clearing it. Before him stood another robot. The old model. He got a strange feeling, as the afterimage matched the outline of this thing.

“No,” he said. “I'm just taking a short break.”

“Very well, let me know if you change your mind,” said the robot. One of its eyes flickered before he left.

Skip sat there, a cold sweat on the back of his neck. He watched the robot lumber back into the kitchen. When it was gone, he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. He wasn't sure if he should include this in his report, or just mark the new unit as defective. He finished his water before getting back to work as a technician.