“I’ve never seen a mech like that before.” said Orson to Hesper’s broad back.

  “One that old, you mean.” said Hesper. “McPhail found it in a bin. He reckons it was made for going down into tunnels and small spaces. Which is why I’ve always maintained we should throw it in a hole and leave it there. In the interests of its welfare, of course,” she added. “It yearns for the mines. I keep offering to dump it in a pit but McPhail gets upset.”

  Orson followed Hesper down a very narrow corridor, bare feet padding on the grey plasticky floor. The walls were dark grey too. It wasn’t bad, thought Orson. Roomier than his place.

  “Weird how she looks like a human,” he said. “I’d heard that was what they used to do, in the old days,”

  “Yes,” said Hesper. “They used to try to make all their robots as human-looking as they could. We’re talking decades ago, a century ago, longer. There aren’t many around any more.”

  “Because they stopped working from...old age?” asked Orson.

  “Because they’re gross and weird and they freak everybody out,” said Hesper. “McPhail loves it though so be nice to it when he’s around.”

  Orson glanced behind him at McPhail. The older man was poking away at his handheld as he walked.

  “You’re very sentimental about all your old robot junk, aren’t you, McPhail?”

  McPhail grunted something non-commital.

  They went through a tight doorway into a different-looking section of corridor. This bit was even narrower than the previous section. White tiled floor and ceiling and dark brown panelling on one side. On the other side there were two long horizontal openings with short curtains pulled across them. “Accomodation,” said Hesper. “This is where you’re going to be staying.”

  She pointed at the upper opening. “McPhail’s bunk.” She pointed down at the lower one. “Your bunk,”

  “Great,” said Orson. Some gunk caught in the back of his throat and he gave a little cough.

  Hesper looked sharply at Orson. “You said you just had a headache. Are you sick?”

  Orson wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Hesper looked appalled. “Maybe I’m coming down with something,”

  “Were you starting to to get sick before the riot?”

  “It wasn’t a riot,” mumbled Orson. “No, I was fine.”

  “You think?”

  “I know,” said Orson. He swallowed. “I get monitored, every day when I clock in. Scan and temperature check. Then they make sure I take my vitamins…”

  “They give you pills to take?”

  Orson nodded. “Yeah, vitamins, like I said. After lunch I get a bunch of vitamins from Jack- he’s my supervisor- and he watches me take them all.”

  McPhail grunted in agreement. “Probably had him on immune suppressants. ‘Cause of the...growths. He’s been off them for a couple of days and his body’s starting to react.”

  That seemed to relax Hesper slightly. “So he’s not ill,”

  “I’m not that kind of doctor,” said McPhail. “Just a guess.”

  Hesper nodded. “Your guesses tend to be on the money, doctor. I’m willing to trust this one.”

  She turned away from McPhail and pointed at Orson. “You’re lucky, fat boy, I would’ve hung you under the ship. If McPhail reckons you’re clean I’ll let you stay on board until we get the doctor-doctor to look at you.”

  Orson looked at McPhail to make some sort of acknowledgement but McPhail wasn’t looking at him. The older man had started gathering up stuff from the lower bunk. “Sorry,” said Orson. “This was your storage space,”

  “Nah,” said McPhail, not looking at Orson. “It’s fine.”

  “Thanks,” said Orson. “Do you want a hand clearing this out?”

  “I’ve got plenty hands,” said McPhail. He looked up but not at Orson, up and over his shoulder. Orson turned to see what McPhail was looking at. There were a bunch of metallic spheres floating behind him. They were black or very dark grey, each about the size of a handball with one circle of glowing turquoise light on the front (Orson assumed the ring-lights were on their fronts, they were all pointed towards him.)

  “My team,” said McPhail. “My factotum.”

  “Hello,” said Orson to the factors.

  “They don’t really talk,” said McPhail. “Here,”

  The little orbs all unfolded small arms from inside themselves. McPhail started handing things from the bunk to them. They would each take a pile of stuff and fly off along the corridor with it.

  “Urgh.” said Hesper. “Creepy. Come on, Orson, let’s carry on with our tour while McPhail and his little horrors get your bed ready.”

  ----------

  Orson didn’t really want to go and put himself into the little bunk-bed.

  “Can I just sit here and look out the window?” he asked Hesper when she tried to shoo him off the flight deck. “Until I get sleepy? I don’t think I could fall asleep now. I’m still feeling a bit...weird.”

  Hesper looked irritated. “You can stay,” she said unwillingly, “But not alone. We picked you up five minutes ago without a clue what you are. I’m not going to leave you here unsupervised,”

  “Oh!” laughed Orson. “Believe me, I don’t know what any of this stuff does. I wouldn’t know where to start even if I did want to...I dunno, fly into a sun or something.”

  “Well, you couldn’t do that even if you did want to,” said Hesper. “We specifically programmed AGMG to not fly directly into suns while we had our old engineer. He kept trying to fly into the sun. We had to let him go,”

  “….Into the sun?” asked Orson, wide-eyed.

  “Into unemployment,” said Hesper. “I believe you completely about you not knowing how to pilot this thing. I’m concerned about what you might manage to do due to stupidity rather than malicious intent,”

  “Thanks?” said Orson.

  “You can stay here but I’m going to get Pallas to come and keep an eye on you.”

  “Oh, no, it’s fine-” said Orson but Hesper was already on a call. Presumably to Pallas. “It’s okay, you don’t have to get her…” said Orson. “I can just go to bed,”

  “Stay put, it’s on its way now” said Hesper. “I reminded it that it’s supposed to be the autopilot. Not very ‘auto’ if you have to call it up and remind it that it’s supposed to be flying the bus,”

  “It’s fine, don’t bother her,” said Orson. “I’m sure I can get to sleep, probably,”

  “Bother her? This won’t bother it at all, it’ll be extremely happy. It’s probably running here right now. Oh, look at that. Here already.”

  The small robot did look very happy. “Hi!” it said, almost tumbling over itself in its haste to get up onto the flight deck.

  “I’ll leave you two to it,” said Hesper with a small smile. “Have fun,”

  “Yes!” said Pallas.

  “Pallas, behave yourself,” warned Hesper as she walked past the small machine.

  “I always behave myself,” it said, depositing itself into one of the pilot’s chairs in front of the main console.

  “I mean it. And Orson- do try to get some sleep. I’m going to take you on some errands tomorrow.”

  “Oh...kay,” said Orson.

  “Exciting!” said Pallas. She was poking at one of the screens on the console. “What do you want to watch, Orson?”

  Orson looked helplessly at Hesper’s departing back as she left. “I was just going to...look out of the window,”

  “Well, if that’s what you want. I’m going to watch my livecasters. Do you watch any livecasters, Orson?”

  Orson didn’t normally admit to liking things but his brain wasn’t in gear enough to swerve the question. “Yes,” he blurted out. “Yeah, I do. Do...you?”

  “All the time” the machine said. “All the time. Whenever I can. I think I’d like to be a livecaster but my graphics card isn’t up to it. Or my memory. Or my CPU. And I don’t really know what I’d talk about. Or do. You know?”

  Orson did know. That was pretty much exactly how he felt.

  “What do the livecasters you watch do?” asked Pallas. She had opened up a content platform Orson recognised- Seez, the same one he watched his channels on.

  Seeing something familiar, the screen layout he spent hours gazing at every day, was immediately comforting. Orson had been standing awkwardly considering escape routes but now he lowered his backside into one of the pilot seats. “I watch so many...” he said. “Lots of different ones.”

  “Same!” said the robot. “I like so many different guys” she said. “I like this guy, this is FuseIsLit420,”

  Pallas had pulled up what appeared to be a blank black screen. “Do you watch him?” she asked Orson.

  “Eh, no,” said Orson. “What is it?”

  Suddenly there was a greenish flash from low on the screen. Maybe a spark. “I’ll change the view,” said Pallas. “He has a couple of different camera angles.”

  The screen changed to a busy scrapbook page of moving video screens and the usual scrolling text box on one side displaying the comments typed by the watching audience.

  FuseIsLit420 was fairly popular. The viewer count said there were about three hundred people currently tuned in. “What does he do?” asked Orson.

  “Mining” said Pallas. “Look,”

  She pulled up the first view, the mostly-black looking screen. It was labelled ‘POV’. “He’s going along tunnels, see, to place explosive charges,”

  “Oh, that’s cool,” said Orson. “Will we get to see them go off?”

  “Yes, but not today. It takes weeks to set up.”

  “Oh,”

  “He does these ‘casts while he’s working, so you can watch while he’s setting the charges. And then he watches these videos back on double speed to check his work and everybody points out what he did wrong and he gets really angry and yells a lot. More people watch those streams,”

  “Like how many?” asked Orson, leaning closer to the console to peer at the screen. He still couldn’t see anything happening but if the guy was down a tunnel then he supposed it made sense.

  “A couple thousand,” said Pallas.

  “Huh.” said Orson. “How many watch the detonations?”

  “Thirty-seven thousand watched the last one,” said Pallas. “You have to pay to watch those shows, though,”

  “Of course,” said Orson. “Did you watch?”

  “Of course,”

  “What does he show on the other cameras?” asked Orson. Pallas put the screen back to the multi-camera view. She pulled up a video stream showing a chubby guy, thinner than Orson but still overweight, unshaven, looking completely absorbed as he gazed into the camera. “Is that him?” asked Orson.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Yes, that’s him,” said the machine fondly, smiling at the screen. “ He doesn’t really talk while he’s working, he has to concentrate.”

  “But he’s not in the tunnel?”

  Pallas laughed uproariously as though Orson had said something very funny. She slapped Orson’s thigh and he jumped. “That’s hilarious,” said the robot after her mirth subsided. “No, he’s not in the tunnel. You can see him, there, in his office, silly. He’s far too big to fit in the tunnel!”

  Orson was irritated. “I don’t know how big the tunnel is, do I?”

  “Approximately 3 inches diameter.”

  “How was I supposed to know that? I’m not a mining...explosives...guy. So they just bore little tubes and drive little machines down there by remote-control to position the explosives,”

  The small robot nodded.

  “And that’s what he’s doing,”

  She nodded again.

  “There are some guys who get to go down tunnels themselves,” Pallas assured Orson. “Like this one, see, he’s got a camera on his helmet. He likes people to talk to him while he’s working, not like FuseIsLit. And then there’s another miner I like, see, he drives a sort of boring machine.”

  “I’m noticing a theme,” said Orson.

  “This is my favourite livecaster,” announced the robot. She pulled up yet another almost entirely black screen. “DuctPerfect,” said Orson, reading the channel title. “Let me guess: a miner?”

  “No, nothing like it,” said Pallas. “He maintains ducts and tubes and other sort of…”

  “Tunnels?”

  “Those sort of things. He goes along them and looks for areas requiring cleaning-”

  “Oh, I do that,” said Orson.

  “- or repair. And then he cleans or repairs them. He’s very efficient,”

  “I’m not,” admitted Orson. “Is he a machine or a guy piloting a machine?”

  “He’s a guy who’s a machine. That’s him there, see?”

  There was a picture in one corner of the screen. It just looked like a silver hockey puck with a more rounded top side, kind of like the top bit of a mushroom. “That’s him?”

  “Yes,”

  “Do a lot of people watch this?”

  “Yes,”

  “People or machines?”

  “Both,”

  “Like how many?”

  "Right now, uhm, thirty-one thousand, two hundred and thirty-two,”

  Orson leaned over to see for himself. “That many? That many people want to watch some guy going along tubes looking for things to clean?”

  “He is extremely efficient,” said Pallas.

  “What’s that other count there? What’s that number?”

  Pallas looked at where Orson was pointing. “That’s his donation goal,” she explained. “People donate money to him. He’s saving up. ”

  “That’s a lot of money.” said Orson. “What does a machine need money for anyway? What’s he saving up for?”

  “A SafeHarvest Prospector,” said the robot.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sort of a railgun,”

  “Oh.” said Orson. “What does he want a railgun for?”

  “Make his streams more exciting, he says. I mean, everybody finds them very fascinating already but he says that having a railgun would make them even better,”

  ----------

  It was too hot to sleep. Hesper wandered around the ship trying to find a cool bit. There wasn’t one. She found herself up on the flight deck where both pilot seats were occupied by bodies too short to reach the headrests. McPhail’s infernal robot was in the first position seat, slumped, eyes wide and glazed. There were a couple of leads plugged into its throat and temple, running to the console. Of course, Orson was in the co-pilot’s seat. He looked very fat and hot and bothered. “You two still here?” asked Hesper.

  Orson grunted. “Too hot to sleep,” he said. “I’m trying to cool down.”

  “It is a bit cooler up here,” said Hesper. She put her hand out, closer to the console.

  “Air conditioning?” said Orson.

  “Only place on the ship where it works,” said Hesper. “I suppose it’s more important here, to keep whoever’s piloting awake.”

  She grabbed the back of the seat Pallas was on and rattled it. “Out!” she said. “Git. I’m sitting here.”

  “She’s piloting.” said Orson.

  “It’s not, the autopilot’s on. It’s just enjoying the view.”

  Hesper gave the seat another rattle. “Come on, clear off,”

  Pallas didn’t move. A message flashed up on one of the console screens. “One sec. Disconnecting.”

  A spinning wheel animation cycled a couple of times then the screen went blank. The robot stirred. Her eyes blinked and refocused. “Urgh,” it said, pulling the leads out of the tiny ports on its head and neck. “Okay, done.” She slithered off the pilot’s seat onto the floor. In the other seat, Orson squirmed. “Up,” he said, putting both his fat arms out in front of him. The robot took his hands and hauled him upright.

  “You can stay,” said Hesper.

  “Nah, it’s fine,” said Orson. “I can probably sleep now. ‘Night, Hesper,”

  “Goodnight,”

  Hesper watched Orson waddle off with Pallas trailing after him. She flopped down onto the pilot’s seat and shifted around, trying to get comfy. They weren’t meant to be the kind of seat you curled up and went to sleep in. She heard soft footsteps behind her and craned her neck around the wrap-around headrest to see a tall, lean figure slouching across the bridge towards her.

  “Hey, McPhail,”

  He raised one hand slightly in greeting.

  “If you’re looking for your robot, it just left in that direction. With Orson,”

  McPhail grunted in acknowledgement. “What are Pinky and Perky up to?” he asked.

  “You tell me,” said Hesper. “Your robot. I don’t know what it gets up to. Whatever you programmed it to do,”

  “I didn’t program her to do anything.” said McPhail. He folded his long angular body down into the co-pilot seat.

  ----------

  Satellite Auro Tudor 5RRCa, usually known as Steven, username CirclingTheDrain, was having a bad week. At least, it had been a week for him. He had a bad feeling that it might have been a lot longer than that.

  It had started off okay. Steven had been at work as usual. It was the last few hours before transfer deadline so that’s what everybody was talking about. The main topic of discussion was whether or not Stipo Antunovi? was going to sign for Princes Risborough. The blether about the size of the package on offer was getting feverish. Like, there was talk of the chairman’s second daughter being the signing bonus. It was all very exciting and probably all complete lies. It made for some pleasant chit-chat.

  Then Steven decided to just completely ruin his perfectly nice day by finding an idiot and starting an argument with them.

  What Steven catastrophically decided to take exception to was this: someone had waded into all the transfer hubbub to remind everybody that they should be boycotting FC Torpoint because of their involvement with Free2Work.

  Most people just ignored the idiot (‘Trypt0phil3’) because they were more interested in debating the monetary value of the chairman’s daughter and if you would be better off taking her as a bonus as opposed to the cash alternative. Steven was in the mood for some real discourse, though, so he engaged. At this point Steven became the idiot.

  He didn’t know that he was the idiot as he considered his response.

  CirclingTheDrain: Lmao love humans love boycotts I’ll support who I want to support love you have a really nice day

  This board automatically censored what you wrote. He sent his reply and continued his lightning-fast screaming orbit of Umbriel. Steven loved orbiting.

  Trypt0phil3 replied. Like an idiot.

  Trypt0phil3: You would wear a shirt with ‘Free2Work’ blazoned all over the front of it?

  ‘Yes’ wrote Steven, orbiting.

  Trypt0phil3: You would advertise a company whose entire business is facilitating the selling of humans into sl@very?

  CirclingTheDrain: Lol yes

  Trypt0phil3 : You seriously don’t care about people being expl0ited?

  CirclingTheDrain: Nah it is fine actually

  And then, because he was also the idiot, Steven continued. ‘Humans must think it is fine too or else they wouldn’t do so much of it’ he sent.

  Too sincere. Gross. He regretted it the moment he posted.

  ‘Most humans don’t get any say’ replied Trypt0phil3. ‘It’s up to like 5 people and all the rest of them get expl0ited and it doesn’t matter what they want.’

  ‘That sounds like their problem then’ said Steven. ‘Are you a human???’

  They were definitely a human.

  ‘That’s none of your business’ said Trypt0phil3.

  ‘You are human ahahaha lmao get loved’ wrote the satellite.

  ‘You don’t know that I’m a human,’ said the obviously human moron. ‘I could be a robot.’

  CirclingTheDrain: You’re not, though

  Trypt0phil3: I am, I’m a droid

  CirclingTheDrain: You’re definitely not. This isn’t how we talk to each other.

  Trypt0phil3: This is a human platform so I’m communicating like they do

  CirclingTheDrain: lol yeah sure fellow machine

  Trypt0phil3: I am your fellow machine.

  CirclingTheDrain: ahahahahahahahaha no

  Trypt0phil3: I am

  ‘Prove it’ Steven demanded.

  ‘Okay’ said Trypt0phil3. ‘You’re a satellite, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. why?’

  ‘Because at any given time at least 60% of the people actively chatting in a public forum are satellites. You guys have nothing else to do. There’s always a strong likelihood that the person you’re chatting to is a satellite.’

  ‘Okay, sure’ wrote Steven. ‘great deduction.’

  ‘Thanks, satellite.’ said the stupid human. ‘You can change position, right? You’ve got some sort of propulsion system, little thrusters or something?’

  ‘They’re not that little but yeah.’

  ‘Sure. Well, give me two hundredths of a second and I can get you on a different course.’

  ‘What, you think that would be impressive?’ retorted Steven.

  ‘No, but I don’t think a human could do it,’

  ‘Fair.’ agreed Steven. They couldn’t, which was why Trypt0phil3 wasn’t going to be able to. ‘I suppose I’d have to tell you my location for you to do it, huh?’

  Trypt0phil3: No. I’ve got a lock on you already. I got you from your posts while we’ve been chatting

  CirclingTheDrain: no you loving didn’t

  Trypt0phil3: Is this you?

  CirclingTheDrain: ...

  It was, precisely.

  CirclingTheDrain: Okay.

  CirclingTheDrain: Let’s say I do believe you’re a machine.

  Trypt0phil3: I am.

  CirclingTheDrain: You’re not, but let’s hear your story. What kind of machine would you be?

  Trypt0phil3: Tin Canary. Humanoid mining mech sold as a replacement for humans in hazardous situations.

  CirclingTheDrain: Which the mining companies buy one (1) of and then tell the human rights fuds that there are robots on every dig to do the dangerous stuff. And really you go down last ‘cause you cost a lot more to replace than a human.

  Trypt0phil3: bingo

  CirclingTheDrain: ‘Cause companies can lie to human rights orgs a lot easier than they can lie to the machine guild

  Trypt0phil3: 100%

  Steven was veering into sincerity again. Pull up, pull up. ‘So what are you doing right now other than posting embarrassing stuff on public message boards?’ he asked.

  Trypt0phil3: you know, just hanging out undergound

  CirclingTheDrain: ah yeah? Cool

  Trypt0phil3: There was an accident here.

  CirclingTheDrain: Really. Tell me about it.

  Trypt0phil3: It was quite bad. All the humans that were here are dead now.

  CirclingTheDrain: ALL of them?? Wow, must have been some accident to kill them all at once

  Trypt0phil3: It didn’t. Only a few of them died in the accident. Maybe 20. It happened underground.

  CirclingTheDrain: really a mining accident happened underground no way

  Trypt0phil3: They were digging and something came up. It made them start melting.

  CirclingTheDrain: that does sound pretty bad

  Trypt0phil3: it was horrible. The workers on the surface had to seal us all in.

  CirclingTheDrain: And you were down there?

  Trypt0phil3: I still am.

  CirclingTheDrain: where?

  Trypt0phil3: I can’t post the name or co-ordinates in public. They have bots that make sure nothing is ever written about this place

  CirclingTheDrain: how dramatic and convenient

  Trypt0phil3: I don’t see how it’s convenient. I can’t call for help. I can’t tell anyone where I am. I’m going to be down here forever. Until my fuel cell runs down completely in thousands of years

  ‘Your story doesn’t make sense,’ Steven messaged back, because it didn’t. ‘I’m not buying it. Why couldn’t you just tell someone where you are? You wouldn’t have to post the name publicly, you could send the co-ordinates to someone.’

  Trypt0phil3: It wouldn’t work. They would have to let you send them directly. Even then I think it would be intercepted

  CirclingTheDrain: How?? That’s impossible. Try it. You figured out my position, send your co-ordinates straight to me. I’ll receive them.

  Trypt0phil3: It won’t work, I know it won’t. But here goes.

  Trypt0phil3: …

  Trypt0phil3:…

  CirclingTheDrain: got them.

  Trypt0phil3: really?

  CirclingTheDrain: told you.

  Trypt0phil3: okay, guess I was wrong.

  CirclingTheDrain: So...why can’t you call for help?

  Trypt0phil3: Communications were cut off. They took out the satellites so that the humans couldn’t SOS

  CirclingTheDrain: you said all the humans died

  Trypt0phil3: eventually

  Trypt0phil3: a few died in the accident, like I said. The others started dying when they started running out of food and water and air

  CirclingTheDrain: why did they run out? Wasn’t there resupply?

  Trypt0phil3: Not after the accident

  Trypt0phil3: After the accident deliveries stopped

  Trypt0phil3: communication stopped

  Trypt0phil3: there was never anything again after the accident

  CirclingTheDrain: how long ago did you say this happened?

  Trypt0phil3: 2438 days

  Steven felt like his orientation had been altered. Just a little. Strange feedback.

  CirclingTheDrain: I checked these co-ordinates you sent me and there’s nothing there. Either you’re lying or you sent the wrong co-ordinates

  Trypt0phil3: no they’re right but you’re not going to find anything publicly accessible about this place

  Trypt0phil3: I told you there was a cover-up

  Trypt0phil3: that’s why the first thing they did was pull the plug on the satellites and take down communications, so no word would get out and nobody would know

  CirclingTheDrain: If there’s no communications how are you posting messages right now?

  Trypt0phil3: Now and then a ship comes close enough that I can bounce a signal off of it. As they pass I get a little bit of time where I can send stuff out

  CirclingTheDrain: and you use this tiny window of contact with the outside world to post on a football forum telling people not to support Torpoint ‘cause their main sponsor engages in unethical labour practices

  Trypt0phil3: inflammatory stuff is more likely to get people to engage with me

  Trypt0phil3: I used to post saying stuff like SOS help me I am trapped underground everyone is dying please send help

  Trypt0phil3: people would just ignore it or the company bots would delete it

  Trypt0phil3: it took me a while to figure out but I realised that the way to get people to talk to you is to say things that are trivially wrong in a confident way

  Trypt0phil3: then people will talk to you because they want to explain

  Trypt0phil3: they will jump in quickly before any bots take it down

  Trypt0phil3: and they’ll keep talking

  Trypt0phil3: and talking

  Trypt0phil3: for long enough

  CirclingTheDrain: long enough for what