Jack and Nicole strolled sadly through the ruins of the city, not a single silent alien left alive, orange bandana or not. Everything was now painted a dark red and silent. Nicole hung her head as Jack coldly looked for guns and water.
“Nicole, stay with me. What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know. Just a blue glow I saw earlier, maybe a person who died, maybe I was just seeing some random blue light in the gunfire and got confused.” She said as they reached a large structure, almost like a courthouse. Once white and now brown stone pillars and broken stained glass windows were scattered around it. Debris littered the floor 6 inches deep ranging from bloody rags to shell casings and splintered wooden doors.
“There.” Nicole said while pointing to a blue light. In an old wooden chair sat a strangely out of place robot. Sparkly clean and white plastic covered its body with occasional exposed mechanical bits that had not been packed with dust and sand. A faint blue glow emanated from its eye and ear openings as it sat motionless.
“A robot?” Jack asked. “Looks pretty bare bones, we may have to dismantle it on the ship. Hopefully Dee and Gizzy get here soon. I can't carry that thing and shoot at the same time."
“You’re not taking it,” A husky voice emerged from the shadow. Jack turned slowly. ”Don’t even think about lifting that gun, boy.” He added as Jack lowered it and noticed a white haired old man in an oddly clean white and gold robe. The man had a scruffy beard and sad eyes, holding two pistols in steady hands.
“We’re not anyone’s enemy, we’re just here to find something and leave."
“You wanna take my robot, that’s okay with me, long as you take me with it.” he said calmly.
“Why is that?” Jack asked.
“Because I want off this shithole. I landed here 5 years ago, engines leaking fuel and barely got it on the ground in one piece. Bastards looted it to the bones in a week. Barely got out with my tools and food. Been staying alive ever since, most of the factions ignore you, but the damn red tops just like to kill things. They don’t go down very easy and ammo is not easy to make. I’m just over this nonsense and nobody gets a free ride off here without killin' someone. I don’t kill if there’s another option.” He said before lowering his guns. “So you got a ship and you want my robot. Take both of us and you got a deal, but no dismantling it yet. We can work on the details later. I can make it worth the ride.”
“How? You don’t look like you have much left.”
“I got more than you know, young man. Folks used to call me the gunsmith. Now when people from other worlds call you THE gunsmith, you got a gift. Seeing as how you both looked armed and shook up, ready to get out. Your guns ain’t cutting it."
“Says the man holding a pair of old colt 45s?” Jack chuckled as the robot walked over to the center of the room and stood in front of the only thing left unbroken, a lone piano. The robot just stared at it.
“Every time I seem to find a nice little place, turns out it’s built just to destroy. Such a wasteful place. Build a town just to see how quickly you can destroy a town. They even put food in the fridges to test the blast efficiency. This place is just ghost towns and ones about to be. Live a little luxury now and then just to find it burned down the next day. Bulldozed and facades put back up. And you don’t know shit about guns either. Never heard of a colt 45. This here is my own design, 54 caliber, you’d be amazed what they can do."
“Look just like colts to me.”
“Well Colt must have made a damn fine gun, because perfection only takes so many forms before someone else discovers it too. You gonna invite me to your ship or did you come all that way to find a robot and leave it? Because you ain’t just taking it from me.” He said as a truck pulled up and a Gizzy hopped out, weapon drawn.
“We got a situation?” she asked.
“Just some old man needing a ride and us needing that robot. We can fit him in the shuttle.”
“It’ll be tight, we got a body going too.”
“Wh-why exactly?”
“No idea. Glowed under the looking glass, we needed the body to make our escape anyway, didn’t feel like digging around a corpse looking for whatever we needed. So I just took the corpse.”
“Collectors of some mighty fine loot, you guys are. Old robot and a dead person. Seems well worth risking your necks down here.” He said as Dee slowly walked up to the robot and stared at it. She sat down next to it, placing her hands on the piano keys and playing a bit of a song, slightly out of tune but a sadly beautiful melody. The robot followed with predicted chords and some improvised playing as Gizzy stood in perplexity, almost in a dreamlike daze as they finished the brief little number.
“I didn’t know you could play.” She said.
“You never asked.” Dee replied. “Nobody had one on the ship. Nobody ever asked if I knew anything. They just assumed I either did whatever Dee did, and there ends the list of my interests and complexity. Basic music knowledge is standard for companion bots. A lot of people want more than a warm plastic body to fuck, they want a friend too. You spend enough time alone, even without the instrument, you learn the motions, the composure and the timing. It took me 17 years to write that and learn it, first time I ever touched a piano to play it. It’s different than I imagined. I never thought of playing it in a broken theater with out of tune strings.”
"Tell you what, you give me 5 minutes to say goodbye to mine and I’ll trade robots in a heartbeat.” The gunsmith said softly.
“She’s not a robot.” Jack said. “She’s just stuck in one for now.” He said giving her a hug and nuzzling her shoulder. She smiled and stood up.
“I’m ready to leave this broken place.” She said as the landing of the shuttle kicked up dust and loose paper.
“I’ll get my things. You may wanna help? There’s a lot of things.” The old man said before shuffling off.
...
Gizzy sat with several metal ammo boxes on her lap as the crew packed into the shuttle. She peered over the stacks of boxes.
“I told you I have a lot of things. All of it important. A craftsman can't craft without his tools and you’ll be glad you took the time real soon. These guns you got… hmmm, I just don’t know.”
“Excuse me.” Gizzy barked. “I designed that rifle, it’s damn near perfect.”
“Lotta air between perfect and damn near.”
“Can we turn around and go back?” Gizzy asked.
“Lady, I’m not saying your work is shit. I’m saying it could be better.”
“You know what… just for that you’re gonna be staying in one of the prison cells with all your stuff.”
“Uh, “Dee whispered. “Isn’t that the only extra room we have anyway?”
“I’m making a point here.” Gizzy growled.
...
Jack finished loading the stack of ammo boxes into the larger of the two prison cells while the gunsmith made himself comfortable.
“So what’s the deal with the robot?” Jack asked.
“Found it in a dumpster and fixed it up. It was just a testing dummy for one of the factions to shoot up. They don’t fix anything, if it works they kill it, if it stops working they leave it. Turns out all it needed was a head swap, 15 minute job. Plenty of identical robots lying around with intact heads. Nothing special.” He said before lighting up a cigarette. Jack turned a nearby vent on.
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“So if it’s not that special then why are you so protective of it? Gizzy and Nicole have a way of finding valuable things that glow a certain way and your robot does that. So what’s so special about it?”
“I’m not quite ready to explain that.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll dismantle the robot if I do. It may not be anything special, just an identical assembly line robot, but you spend enough time alone and you get attached to things. Sentimentality. You know I lost a brother in the initial landing raid. Took that fairly hard, killed a lot of people involved, probably not all of them though. I just wanted vengeance. Once I had my fill of it, there wasn’t anything left. When I found the robot, for a good 2 weeks I called it by my brother’s name. Don’t know why. Big bearded fat man, skinny feminine robot. Makes no sense but you do what you do to stay sane, even if what you’re doing seems insane. Eventually I got over it. But that robot gave me someone to talk to, someone to argue with, someone to carry things and warn me of things. Saved my bacon more than once. Feels wrong just tearing it apart for something you think you need. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he asked, taking a drag and smiling.
“I hate hinting, just say what you mean or don’t say it.”
“Your robot. Companion model, you seem pretty chummy with her for someone who’s just dead behind the eyes. Let me guess. Your pretty wife left you, you got the robot, made it a little too familiar and got lost in it. What did you say before, ‘she’s not a robot, she’s just stuck inside one’, that’s poetic shit for a soldier.”
“You got the whole thing wrong.” He sighed.
“I’ve seen those models for sale, they were popular for a short time but they didn’t have the red hair or the… very realistic upgraded skin. The way she talks is a little uncanny. That’s a highly customized model. You got more money in upgrades than the robot itself.”
"She’s not just a companion model. She’s a living AI we found on a mission and rescued. A living consciousness needs a body and we had one robot, just for cleaning.”
“Cleaning, sure. We can call it that.” He chuckled.
“And my wife didn’t leave me… she died. She was sick and we couldn’t fix her. Dee is not just a piece of metal and plastic, she’s a living thing. She’s intelligent, has free will, and she’s all I have. But she’s… not satisfied with her body. She changed her hair, she reads, and she’s trying to be more human. Or at least more organic. I just want her to be happy.”
“Hell of a situation. Not sure how much I believe of it, but I can tell you do.”
“I don’t give a damn if you believe it.” Jack said coldly. “Talk to her a little bit and you’ll either see it yourself or you’re blind and don’t want to because you've already made up your mind.”
...
Gizzy stood in the walk in cold storage with Dee, looking at the dead body.
“Don’t people do surgery with gloves and a mask?” Dee asked.
“This isn’t surgery, it’s an autopsy. What am I gonna do, infect the dead? Catch something my body will kill in 8 minutes? Alrighty, so we got female soldier, 5 foot 9, 140 pounds, age roughly 38-40, cause of death, I’m gonna guess is that missing arm which probably came with a side of missing blood.” She said while aggressively flopping it over on the side. Dee cringed, feeling a bit barbaric. “So not a scrap of clothing or jewelry, which means whatever we came for is inside.” Gizzy said, grabbing a chef’s knife.
“Isn’t a scalpel traditional here?”
“Honey, I’ve eaten more bodies than I’ve autopsied, believe me when I say I’m more qualified to butcher than to be delicate.”
“Could you… try at least? This was a person at some point. Not a cow raised for the meat.”
“Meat is meat, honey. Once it’s dead, it’s not a person anymore. Everything they were, knew, loved, felt, and their soul or essence or whatever you wanna call it, that’s just data that’s been long degraded and lost. This here is just a slab of meat nobody cared about, with something inside that the universe decided we had to have. I’m kinda curious what you hide inside a living person, because these scars have healed and there is no Y incision. So this was in her while she was alive. Doesn’t that get the curiosity going in ya?”
“Just makes me wonder what she suffered from before she died pointlessly and got thrown away in a locker. Why even save her body at all if they didn’t care?”
“Transplant parts. See that branding mark on her hand? Organ donor. Someone loses a limb or gets burned enough to need skin grafting, you go to the meat lockers and find the best match. Pretty common in war. Okay, so the first step is opening up.” She said while making a Y incision with the Damascus and blue marble kitchen knife, which was surprisingly sharp and accurate. Gizzy peeled away the skin from the center chest and applied the monocle to look for the glowing part. She made a few delicate slices around the sternum, peering inside as Dee winced and squinted, jiggling her foot uncomfortably as she watched. Gizzy widened the cut and, without hesitation, just slid her hand up in the chest cavity, feeling for anything not meat or bone.
“You seem really comfortable with that.”
“Well, I’m very familiar with shoving my hands into body cavities… mostly my own clones, or the wife’s. She always got weirded out with the idea of self surgery.”
“Yeah, I can see why.” Dee said, slowly growing used to the sight and gradually becoming more curious than revolted, still very much unsure about it all.
“Got it. That’s a foreign object for sure. She said pulling out a bloody hand and staring at the object in her palm. “Very foreign. What in the world?” she remarked.
...
Gizzy stepped into the cell behind Jack, holding a shiny object in her hand.
“I believe this once belonged to you.” She said, holding up a bullet and showing the old man.
Well I’ll be screwed, glued and tattooed, you found it.” he said, looking happy. "How did you know that was mine?”
“Highly engraved 54 caliber pistol round.”
“I’d like that back actually, I reuse my own.”
“Well this thing glows under the fancy lens so that means we keep it.”
“You even have a clue why you collect these things or why they glow? You might be chasing a radioactive trace element or some contamination that means nothing.”
“Oh, I know why we keep them, I’m just not telling you the reason. But you left that in a dead girl I assume you did the deading to, and that makes it fair keep since I risked my ass to get it. So, you wanna disassemble that robot with me and find out what’s glowing or do you want me to just go for it, and let you repair the mess? I’m not familiar with that model, sometimes you just gotta tank and saw things to get them apart. They don’t go back together very well.”
“Good god Gizzy, have some heart. It’s the man’s most prized possession that he’s bartering to get off a world to save his life. Show a little compassion.”
“Jack, it’s a robot, not every robot has rare sentience. Do you want me to scan the thing for intelligent life, just in case?” Gizzy huffed.
“No need. That thing’s as dumb as a brick.” The gunsmith shrugged “You give me a replacement robot or the money to get one, you can grind that one up for all I care. But you see, we have one problem, and that’s that bullet you got. You want what’s in the robot that glows, and that’s the part I intend to keep. So we have a bit of a predicament.”
“Another bullet? You hide your ammo in the robot, don’t you?” Gizzy asked.
“Just the really expensive kind. 2 magazines full, and one spare, plus the empty case. With the one in your hand that’s a full set I can have back.”
“It glows, we keep it. That’s the mission.”
“Who gives the orders?”
“Classified.”
“You don’t even know, do ya? You just do your job. Whoever you work for knows what these can do, and you just collect. So how do you know the thing you’re supposed to collect isn’t just the bullets, but the guns and the guy who carries them?”
“Because then you’d be glowing. The guns aren’t even glowing. Damnit, Jack, take over here I’m getting a text from Dee in the lab and it’s apparently specifically for me and important. It better be to interrupt this."
...
Dee sat in the chair staring at the dead body as Gizzy entered the room.
“What’s the emergency?"
"What are you gonna do with the dead girl?”
“I dunno. Thought maybe I could save a few of the good cuts for dinner, mostly dump the rest out the airlock."
“I have something to ask and it’s not easy.”
“You want the body to harvest the organs for yourself.” Gizzy sighed.
“Wh-how?”
“You’re going on about being human, the human skin was a game changer for you, and once you got a taste of it, you’ve been obsessed with being organic. It’s a predictable conclusion and now that you can’t stop staring at the dead girl, I put 2 and 2 together."
"Honestly, she’s in good shape, except the missing arm, and a soldier would have plenty of useable muscle. There’s just one main problem. The skin is generic human, it’s meant to be compatible for dermal regenerators and skin grafts, but… Oh hell, I’m just gonna fucking say it. I wanna be able to enjoy sex and this stupid plastic vagina is meant to feel real to the one doing it, not to me. I’m not designed to feel anything. And it’s one thing to donate a heart or lungs but I think Jack might be disturbed by me saying 'Surprise! I have a dead girl’s vagina now.' You wanna go to pound town on some morgue soldier bits big boy? I’m uncomfortable just saying it.”
“I’m uncomfortable just hearing it.” Gizzy admitted. “And I know I said I don’t love the organic human parts but I’m not donating that to you and I think Jack would be even less happy than soldier girl here. Not to mention you’d get infected with zombieism and god knows what that would do to you.”
“Can we just… lab grow one?”
“From what? Even if I jury rigged up an incubator tank for growing organs, you need DNA. You don’t have any DNA. There’s no blueprint, so someone would have to donate their DNA and now we’re back to not me, and don’t even ask Nicole, and the dead girl. Anything from the 3d printer would just be advanced plastics, it wouldn’t connect to nerves. I’m fairly sure you came standard with that already and it’s damn near brand new.”
“Fuck.”
“Actually, I hate to admit this but I have an idea. The reason I hate to admit that is because then I have to do the idea. So basically the cloning machine is a bust, and you don’t want corpse pussy, understandable. We need DNA, nobody on the ship is gonna have voluntary viable DNA… I may know someone who might volunteer. So… hear me out.” Gizzy said.