LOCATIOROV STATION

  SYSTEM: GLIESE 667

  ESTABLISHED: 2289 A.D.

  The aging recycler smiled and stood from his chair to greet his er. “Viktor! It’s been far too long. I don’t see Svetna around. Has she finally wised up and found a real man?”

  The captain of the Amophor rolled his eyes and csped the man on the back. “She hasn’t e to her senses yet, ya old coot.”

  They both ughed at that before the man motioned for them to sit.

  “Have yht me something iing? I see yineer, Mateo, hiding out in the corridor like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.”

  Viktor rubbed the back of his neck, earning a raised bushy eyebrow from the old man. “It might be more trouble than it’s worth,” Viktor finally relented uhe man’s stare.

  Yuri leaned ba his chair, the spring squeaking audibly as he did so. He ime to digest what the captain had told him. Trouble could mean many things. He tried to steer clear of illicit goods, but there was only so much you could do to stay oraight and narrow on the fringe. Most people didn’t e to Petrov Station because they wao and not everything that came through his shop had been acquired legally.

  Then again, Viktor had never brought him anything other than salvaged scrap before. He decided to roll the di this one. “Let me be the judge of that.”

  Viktor nodded and whistled for his eo e in.

  The thing following behind the engineer made Yuri’s eyes go wide. “By the stars, what is that thing!”

  The seven-foot-tall robot had to duck to fit through the bulkhead that separated his salvage yard from the corridor that ran along the outside of the station.

  Mateo stopped a few feet from the desk and without any signal, the robot stopped behind him. Yuri grunted as he stood from his seat and walked around the desk to look at the strange mae. He circled it, pig up the strangely flexible arms aing them fall bato pce. Then he ran his hands along the molten scar that bisected the front of the torso from the upper right shoulder past the left hip. He had seen enough scrap in his life to identify damage caused by a on. If he had to guess, either a Gauss turret or a railgun. Judging by the damage, not some dinky little handheld but a true blue ship on. But that wasn’t what surprised him.

  What surprised him was the fact that the robot hadn’t been obliterated by a gng blow from either on. Normally only ship armor was capable of withstanding something like a direct hit from a ship on. Before heading back to his seat, Yuri flicked the crudely attached holo projector on the robot.

  “What’s with the holo?”

  Mateo smiled and punched in a code on the device glued into the damaged portion of the robot. Soon a cartoon face sputtered into being a few inches over the robot's torso. “I figured si didn’t have a head, we could at least give it a faake it less… imposing.”

  Yuri only quirked an eyebrow at that. “I ’t say it helps much. Where did you even find something like this?”

  The two hesitated and Yuri waved them off. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just tell me, is it stolen?”

  Viktor bristled at the implication, telling Yuri all he o know. “So that’s a no. I’m just trying to see what kind of trouble this thing will bring me if I buy it off ya.”

  “So you want it?” Viktor asked expetly.

  “Maybe,” he respohinking out loud. “It looks military. Although I’ve never seen a military robot like it in all my years. Even during my time with the Coalition. Could belong to an STO member, but they didn’t really go in for automation.” He would know. The Coalition fought for many years against the Sol Treaty anization.

  A rogue faaybe? Hard to say. “What is it capable of?”

  “It fix pretty muything.”

  “Really?” Yuri asked skeptically, “Show me.” Yuri reached into a desk drawer and rifled around until he found what he was looking for. The box he pulled out was rather banged up oside, but he ope and quickly ied the tents within. He had never quite been able to get the delicate device to work correctly. He tur around and showed it to Viktor.

  The man looked at the box, then back at Yuri with surprise. “A music box?”

  Yuri only smiled. “I ain’t trusting that hunk of metal on anything serious if it ’t fix something like this.”

  Viktor shrugged. “Robot, fix this device.”

  The robot bent forward, its agile arms slipping past the men as it picked up the box. That had also been a test by Yuri, he wao see how delicate the thing could be. And it appeared quite delicate.

  After pulling the box close to itself, it kind of just stood there for a moment, turning the box at different angles.

  “How’s it see?” Yuri asked, realizing the robot had no sensors that he could locate.

  The men shrugged before Mateo spoke up. “I think it uses some form of echolocation or something. My tests were inclusive.”

  After about a mihe thing stopped and beeped. Meteo walked over ahe s on the device. “It states insuffit materials avaible to make repairs. it use your printer?”

  “Eh, sure. Why not.”

  As the robot walked over to the prihe old salvager couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” Viktor asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I just find it amusing that a robot is able tram an unknown part into my printer. How did you get it w anyway? I ’t imagihat damage made it easy.”

  “That would all be Mateo’s doing. I’ll let him expin.”

  “It actually made it quite easy,” the Engineer responded as he walked back over. “It exposed the robot's main trol pathways.”

  “So yrammed all of these funs into it?” he asked dubiously, starting to get a sinking suspi.

  The two shared a look and Yuri cursed. “Don’t tell me you just reactivated it.”

  Whewo remained quiet, he swain. “Is it even safe to have around?”

  “It should be fine. We’ve been using it for weeks,” Mateo stated. “All of the ands have to gh the holo, which also funs as the trol box.”

  Yuri rubbed his temples. An unknown robot with unknown programming.

  At least it didn’t look like a bat robot. He would have shown the pair the door with a swift boot to the ass if they had brought something like that onto the statio alone his salvage yard. There wasn’t much that got you oO’s radar faster than bck market arms. And having a on aboard the station was a good way to get spaced.

  He ulled from his thoughts as a box plunked down on the desk in front of him. He stared at it for a moment before watg the robot return to its location behind Mateo.

  Yuri turhe box toward him and opehe cover. A sweet tuarted to py as soon as the cover ened all the way. He smiled sadly as the tune reminded him of his wife who had passed away years ago. The box had been hers since she was a young child. And even though he hated the bsted thing, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it.

  With his deade, he tenderly closed the box and stuffed it ba the desk drawer. Theuroward Captain Viktor. “I’ll give you a thousand credits for it.”

  “You’re joking, right? It's worth at least a huimes that.”

  “To whom?” the wily old man asked. “There’s a reason yht it to me, instead of taking it further toward the core systems.”

  “e on, at least give me ten thousand for it?” Viktor pleaded, not aowledging the previous point.

  “No way. I’m taking all the risk of having this thing around. What if some bck ops team es around looking for it?”

  “I very much doubt that’s gonna happen?”

  “Oh? Are you going to tell me where and how you found it then? You know for my peaind?” Yuri khe salvager captain would never give up his locations or tacts. It's how he made his living after all.

  “I thought we were friends, Yuri. Fine. How’s five thousand? I won’t go any lower than that. Anything less and I might as well take my ces at a more poputed station.”

  Yuri smiled. “Alright, five thousand.” The pair shook hands and Mateo handed him a trol wand along with a handwritten manual.

  After the pair got their money a his scrapyard, he tossed the book into the trash. As if he would trust some unknown programming. Even though he wasn’t nearly as skilled a programmer as Mateo, he knew enough to reprogram the module himself. This would ehere wasn’t a code in it. He hadn’t survived this long by being foolish.

  After fshing the module and erasing the code, he began tram his own. It was simplistic, but he only he robot to move heavy things around, it wasn’t like he to perform brain surgery or anything like that.

  The work was off and ohe course of a year but old Yuri wasn’t in any hurry. He also didn’t want to put too much time into something if the STO suddenly came asking about it. When nobody showed up and there wasn’t a peep about it on the back els, he finally put his full effort into finishing the programming.

  “Move that over there,” he stated, pointing at a rge manifold.

  The robot stood for the first time in a year and tottered over to the rge hunk of steel. Its movements were quite jerky but it did mao pick up the manifold and move it where it o go.

  “Good enough,” he gruhe robotics code he used had some self-learning built into it so the movements should smooth out over time.

  He gave the thing a series of ands tanize his iory a it to work. After supervising it for five minutes he nodded in approval. He hated ing and s the yard. With this robot, he wouldn’t have to worry about that ever again. Now he could simply focus on what he actually enjoyed, fixing things.

  ***

  Alexander didn’t know when it happened or what it was, but one moment he was simply staring at a veil of shifting and shimmering lights. He got the impression that it was important somehow, that it meant something but his mind was having a hard time pieg it together.

  He quickly realized that he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten here. He racked his mind for an answer but came up bnk. As he tried to search his memories, he found odd bnk spots. He knew who he was, and that he was born oh, but little else. There were other memories that floated fuzzily at the edges of his mind. Like he could almost reach out and touch them. Wheried to reach for them, they seemed to fall apart like gossamer.

  Fearing the possibility of losing more memories, he stopped trying to pull at the threads that sat tantalizingly just out of his reach. Instead, he stared at the veil of light. There wasn’t much else he could do, he couldn’t feel his body. He couldn’t even turn away from the lights. He thought he should feel more fear about his situation, but his mind was calm, numb almost. He didn’t explore that thought though as one of the lights drew his attention.

  He thought he saw an image for a moment.