Contributing Author: Baba Vader

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CRRRK. CLICK.

Trey’s body stirred as he slowly regained consciousness. The potato chip man’s upper body looked on in amazement as flesh retreated to reveal gears, pistons, valves, and pipes–only to be covered up by neat and perfectly clean metal paneling in silver and gold tones.

Tick, tock.

The man himself groaned, though not before the voice box activated with a hiss-click. He sat up and blinked his metallic eyelids, taking in his surroundings.

“Well, you have gotten yourself in quite the mess, haven’t you, Trey?” Geneva said with their higher-pitched voice, “Looks like my fellow aphids haven’t learned the concepts of preparation and planning before going through with a quest. Not that I expected any different.”

“What?” Tater Tot asked, befuddled.

“Ah, the stowaway. My name is Geneva Convention, space aphid and engineer extraordinaire! You may call me the Master of Clockwork.”

“Your last name is convention?” Trey asked.

“No, Convention! With a capital C! Conventions are the absolute most important part of clockwork. If your gears are not built to their norms, they will break apart as soon as you first put in your activator spring!”

“Huh… That makes sense, I guess.”

“You’re a space aphid?” Tater Tot asked.

Geneva nodded.

“And you’re a machine?”

“No, silly. I just make machines. While I am particularly skilled with clockwork, anything mechanical and most things electrical are in my field of expertise.”

“That’s kinda fucked up.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re like, the epitome of life. Why are you an engineer?”

“Someone has to keep that space ship going, my crispy fellow. How else do you think we get around from planet to planet?”

They were interrupted by a cough from the side. Geneva turned their head to spot the exhausted waitress holding a large plate of pancakes covered in excessive amounts of maple syrup.

“Your order is… ready,” the woman said with a slow blink.

“Ah. Thank you,” Geneva nodded. “I am in no need of sustenance, in fact, I am incapable of digesting biological food with this form. My companion will, however, gladly take the pancakes.”

Tator Tot sputtered, but before he could complain, the loaded stack of fluffy, syrupy goodness was placed in front of him. The waitress wasted no time retreating back into the diner’s kitchens.

“Dig in, my starchy companion. I believe you might need it.”

Tater Tot looked between Geneva and the food a few times, then shrugged and picked up his cutlery. While he dug in, Geneva’s clockwork eyes turned to the box.

“Now, you are quite interesting,” they mused.

“More scrap required,” the box intoned.

“Hmm… yes, we will get you some scrap, don’t you worry. Now, are you a general intelligence or just a simple neural construct capable of attempting to procure resources for whatever it is you’re doing?”

“More scrap required,” was the only answer.

Geneva, I don’t think–

“Quiet, Trey, I’m brainstorming.”

Tick, tock.

For a few seconds, Tater Tot’s noises of munching and cutlery were the only things disrupting the silence. Disregarding the hubbub of the city, of course.

“Well?” Trey asked, dialing in to his modified vocal chords. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m wondering whether I should try to dismantle this box to understand how it works, or stick with a more observatory approach of figuring out its secrets.”

Trey carefully examined the half-finished gun arm coming out of the side of the container.

“Maybe the latter?” he suggested.

“If you are scared of what it might do, the former is much safer. After all, feeding it more scrap will likely enhance its offensive potential.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“More scrap required,” the box sounded almost amused to Trey’s ears–err, mechanical membranes?

Do I have microphones instead of eardrums?

“Yes, in a way. No electricity is used in this masterpiece of clockwork but microphones are the best analogy for you.”

“Hmmpf?” Tater Tot looked up, chewing on the last remains of his pancakes. Geneva winced. She could almost hear the scream of despair and annoyance coming from Daizy, back in the depths of Trey’s mind. She really liked that kid. The girl could be so excited about even the simplest things, it was a breath of fresh air most days.

With a mixture of duty and disappointment in themselves, Geneva returned to the present situation, pointing a finger at Tater Tot.

“Minion, Listen up.”

“Mnnynn?” he mumbled, before swallowing.

“Yes. You will be our minion, now. Temporarily, at first, until you have proven your worth.”

“O… kay?”

“Now, tell me everything you know about this box, minion.”

“I… well. There’s not much I know. It’s holding some stuff the Boss… umm, the old Boss wanted to use for one of his plans. Some horrible stuff. Really horrible stuff.

“The fuel, yes, I am aware of it.”

“Y-you are? Then, can you destroy it?”

“Potentially. Likely, in fact, if I have enough time. There are others of my species that are more suited to disposal, though.”

“Phew!” Tater Tot sighed, wiping the starchy grease from his forehead.

Tick, tock,

“Well, now?” Geneva clicked a metallic finger on the table, “I am waiting, minion. Tell me more.”

“Sorry. Umm, so, I think that’s some kind of security measure thing with the scrap–”

“More scrap required,” the box interrupted.

“Yes, we know,” Geneva patted it lovingly.

“I don’t know what the limits are or how it works. But once it’s activated, it’s supposed to be able to defend itself.”

“That’s it?” Geneva grumbled. “You are worse than a rusted spring.”

“I-I’m sorry,” the potato man said, flinching back.

“Well, whatever. I am going to source some spare parts. Maybe Fred’s Bike Supplies has some scrap for our little boxy friend here, as well.”

“More scrap required!” the box wobbled happily.

Geneva stood and picked up Tater Tot’s body, leaving ten bucks on the table to pay for the pancakes, even if Daizy hadn’t been able to enjoy them. The service was decent here. No interruptions or weird questions. They might come back, even if they had no need for food. It was a good place to talk.

Out on the sidewalk, the automaton took a few moments to reorient themselves. Trey’s memories didn’t help a lot since he hadn’t spent much time in this part of the city. They were still in the Armpit, which was predominantly factory workers and lower-middle class New Citizens.

Luckily, Geneva had followed along and measured in great detail every step their fellow aphids had taken to get to this point. The data they’d recorded was enough to extrapolate the direction they needed to walk to make it back to the safer parts of New City.

On top of that, Geneva knew that they were also going to end up very close to where that flamboyant miscreant had left Trey’s doorman’s Harley behind. Technically it wasn’t that overexcited blastoff’s fault, it was Doug’s, but Doug wasn’t just working with what he had.

In fact… based on Geneva’s calculations, Fred’s Bike Supplies was close. It was only four blocks down and around the corner. That was promising.

Trey was quiet while they walked, as was Tater Tot. Most of the people Geneva passed stared at them with wide eyes–giving them a wider berth–which they approved of.

It was nice not to have to shove around through the crowd.

When they were a block away from the bike shop, they were stopped by a massive blockade. Police lights blinked frantically while EMTs and firefighters ran into a mess of rubble and debris. The surrounding storefronts were were covered in dust–enough that Geneva’s aerosol sensor suite kicked in, sterilizing impurities in the air.

One impurity–which they couldn’t sterilize, just dissuade, was the distinct stench of Beetle.

“This is…” Geneva started, taking everything in.

Tater Tot shifted from his hanging position at their words.

“Oh no. No, this is not for me. Get me out of here. Please. Please?” he begged.

“No worries, my crispy companion. The Terrible One is no longer in the area. Notice the distinct lack of primal fear in the onlookers? We’re just dealing with the aftermath. It looks like a building collapsed.”

Geneva turned to the floating storage device, resting a hand on its side. “Boxy, there is a ton of scrap here. Go out and feed to your heart’s content. While you do so, would you mind keeping an eye on my minion?”

“More scrap required! the device beeped happily. Geneva hefted Tater Tot up on top of it, and then the container was off. The potato man didn’t even have time to yelp in surprise.

Tick, tock.

Geneva looked around for another moment. There wasn’t much to say about the scene. Yes, the Enemy had definitely brought down one of New City’s skyscrapers. The destruction was cleaner than his usual messes, and there weren’t any horrific monsters spawning from his residual aura. Not a single demonic insect in range on their sensors.

“Um, Geneva?” Trey asked, connecting to the vocal chords.

“Yes?”

“Is this… what we’re up against?”

They nodded with a frown.

“In a way. This is the result of his lunch, probably. It wasn’t done on purpose. Just a side-effect of the monster’s presence.”

“Lunch?” there was a fearful waver in his voice.

“Though he was interrupted. You’re lucky. He must not want to make himself known. See how there’s no corruption? At least, none beyond what your people usually get up to.”

“I know we’re all hopeless,” Trey sighed, “But this is still really bad.”

Geneva started walking again, having decided on the fastest detour around the remains of the building.

“I admit that it is more destruction than you would usually see but the effect on the people nearby is much less than I would expect from one of his schemes.”

“Who is he, anyway?”

Geneva jumped back as someone ran free of an alley and almost bowled them over.

“Sorry!” the kid shouted. He couldn’t have been older than twelve.

Shortly after, two burly men shot out after him, yelling for the kid to stop.

“What was that about?” Geneva mumbled as they picked back up their pace, “Anyway, where were we? Right. Replacement parts! Fred’s Bike Supplies, here I come!”

And as they pushed open the door to the shop and a friendly jingle played, their body stopped moving with a telltale CRRRRRRCK.

“Oh, rusted robots. Seriously?”