Fortunately, the alarms were signifying the passing of an antigravity train cruising through the center of town, breaking the sound barrier. Ear protection kept his ear drums from rupturing. While the metallic paint laced with nanites kept the surrounding mechanicals from identifying him as a biological. But colliding with them would be unwise, a mistake he should not repeat.
Shilo took the robots moment of cult-like enchantment to break from the line. He shuffled into a crowd. And the robot that he had bumped into twisted its neck around to find the spot Shilo was in empty.
The line continued its shuffle, and the robot shuffled on. He was shocked by how expressive the mech-heads had been. They were very enthusiastic about the train’s arrival.
Shilo resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow. He’d smear the paint and make this situation go from bad odds to the anticlimactic swift death of Detective Zander. And he did not plan on dying to some mechanoids or worse, ending up pinned on a wall. On display, in what some speculated, was the mechs equivalent to a zoo. That thought was more terrifying than death.
Shilo contemplated returning to the teleportation pad. He could close the business, declare bankruptcy. Maybe the Kohask would offer him a job. Working a front desk at a hotel for angry aliens with sharp teeth and an appetite for raw flesh sounded like a better gig at this point. Why had he thought this would be easy? The tower was right there. It was closer to get the key he’d come for than make his return trip. Press on Shilo, you need a win.
This wasn’t only for Shilo. The Sowbu which had hired him had expressed concern to the importance of returning their property. The safety of the galaxy hinged on his success. As the Sowbu had explained, the technology was key improvements to terraforming equipment which should allow more moons and planets to become habitable sooner. And if the explosive expansion of the Kohask territory was an indication of how pressed for a habitable space, the galaxy was; this tech was desperately needed. To make the matter more pressing, their competitor had sabotaged their device and a colony of Gunks were close to needing evacuation or could die if there wasn’t enough transportation.
Entering the skyscraper was simple enough. He walked past a gate, which kept flashing green as bots entered. There was a booth in a corner which stunned Shilo. It was a coffee shop kiosk. The liquid being served was either thick, tar or a near clear with an appearance of engine oil.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Synthetic oils. Don’t mind if I top myself off,” mumbled a robot to Shilo.
Of course! Even artificial life needed to replenish resources. He pressed the button, sending the annoyingly boring and uninteresting response to the bot that had spoken. A series of beeps and clicks and that shrieking sound modems make.
Laughter, the bot laughed. “I’ve never heard that comparison before. I suppose there is something to that.” The bot shuffled off and repeated the response that Shilo had sent to the mechanoid waiting in front of it. The line of mechs quickly repeated the responses and Shilo quickly zipped on ahead. What was that message? He didn’t pause for the endless room full of creepy robots standing still. They were only recharging either from cables dropping down from the ceiling or standing on circular pads that flashed the only light in the room. He was walking by one of those pads when it flashed blue three times and the human form robot standing on the pad opened their eyes. Shilo froze, but the bot stepped off its pad and waited by a pad nearby.
The next section was part of a zoo. Creatures and aliens that Shilo had no name for were plastered to a wall. The wall ran on in a snake-like pattern. Forms of aliens flashed on a screen nearby with 2d codes. Shilo’s watch could translate that code as a number in the millions. Millions of lifeforms stuck to walls. Micro expressions showed the discomfort in their faces. Alive but barely, something prevented the creatures from moving or reacting beyond the subtle shift of an eye or a twitch of a nose. The form of a Jolangus popped up on the display. The long form and there was enough detail to the sketch to make out the form.
Shilo scanned the code by it and ran the numbers through his head. He searched the wall and looked for the pattern. It was something wild, like a tree or that weird shape that is made of repeating patterns—a fractal. He took a wrong turn and back tracked trying another twist in the maze. Leave it to mechs to consider a single wall the ideal zoo path. That wasn’t quite true. Every five hundred or so wall displays was replaced with a doorway making a maze. Shilo was quickly getting lost, but he thought the numbers were getting closer. He found the display and stopped in his tracks.
It wasn’t just a Jolangus—it was her. How? When? Jolane, what have they done to you? An expression of dread slowly changed from concern to confusion to pleading despair and panic. Jolangus were tall with powerful legs and a slender build. With soft fur covering their bodies. The distinctive markings of light shades of gray and white around Jolane’s covering her and face neck mixed with the darker gray fur of her body were exactly as he’d remembered her. Most of the displays had been non-sentient creatures, but the few that were had appropriate clothing still covering them. Jolane was no exception to this, but he hadn’t expected her to be wearing a dark red dress, a tight fitting one at that. He hadn’t been expecting her to be here at all.
