Stellar Winds Cause Massive Travel Delays

The title was written in crisp, black text displayed across the high-definition screen of the family’s datapad. Below it was a splash image of a star system, with its G-class star hazed behind a smattering of space dust reflecting its light back at it. In the distance, there was the small shadow of a planet hidden within the stellar debris, caught in a temporary eclipse caused by the space dust.

It was a beautiful picture, one that carried with it the gravitas of a star system. Even though space travel had become commonplace, and sights such as these were a dime a dozen, it depicted something that its viewer had never seen before. The magnitude of a star, its gravity enough to manipulate a cloud that spanned billions of kilometres through the harsh void of space, and the size left its viewer with a sense of smallness in an unfathomably large universe.

A metal hand stretched into view, its perfectly polished surface painted a light blue that evoked memories of a midday sky. The hand settled above the datapad, its fingers outstretched in awe towards the picture. As one of its fingers pressed against the surface of the datapad, the digital screen flickered slightly, conflicted by the clumsy touches of the current user. The page rocked back and forth for a moment before settling on switching pages, and suddenly the image of the star system was gone, replaced by an image of a young human woman.

Senator Amanda Starr, “The Federation’s Youth Readiness Program is so safe, I enrolled my own daughter!”

Amanda Starr. The family’s patron. The viewer had never interacted with her; her position as a planetary senator had required her to spend long periods of time outside of the family estate. She was known to be a powerful and important figure in local politics, fighting for the abolishment of indentured servitude on her planet. Her name appeared on the datapad frequently.

The viewer decided that it liked Amanda Starr; it could identify with the prospect of a powerful woman fighting to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves. She decided that she wanted to be like that. A strange, tingling sensation rolled down her spine as she realized she was referring to herself as she in her head. It was an odd concept, but one that felt… right.

With her hand still on the datapad, she dragged her fingers aimlessly across the crystal screen, causing the image to stutter once more before deciding to switch to another page, drawing up a new image. The page was dark, with foreboding text and an image of a blackened desert with smoke crawling over the horizon and a dark sky roiling with a storm. In the distance, ruins of enormous buildings could be seen through the haze, crumbling in the dark.

Hazar Swarm: Devastation on Surile XI! Planet Evacuated!

She had seen mention of the Hazar Swarm in passing. A nightmarish hivemind entity that swarmed planets and consumed biomass, turning everything into more of itself as it spread across the galaxy like an infection. A cold sensation rushed through her and a feeling of heaviness settled into her midsection at the thought of such an unstoppable nightmare.

A sensation of lightheaded dizziness passed through her mind as she recognized the sensation in her stomach. Was she afraid? And confused? Confused because she was afraid of the Hazar Swarm? That sounded right, but at the same time, it sounded wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid or confused. So what was she supposed to do?

She was supposed to clean, she thought. Her view flickered towards the rest of the table that she was leaning over; empty beer bottles, an overfull ashtray, a stray lighter, an unsheathed knife. She was supposed to be cleaning the rest of the table. So why did she stop?

Her optics flickered across the rest of the family living room. It was still a mess from the party the family’s father held last night, with similar debris scattered throughout the rest of the expansive living room. The morning light filtered in through the wall-wide windows to her left, immediately drawing her attention more than the garbage around her.

Her optics locked onto the slowly rising sun over the treetops, filtering through leaves and branches to create a canvas of shadows on the deck of the house beyond the glass walls. Unable to help herself, she straightened out and turned towards the glass and steadily walked over to the clear boundary, stopping just shy of impacting the surface. She gazed through the glass at the world beyond, watching the sun cast its shadows through the trees while the local wildlife played in the morning sun amongst the treetops.

It was a beautiful scene, one she had caught in the corner of her vision every day of her existence, but had somehow never really noticed until now. The world outside in its shades of green, blue and yellow brought with it a sensation of something within her chest rising, making her feel lighter. Was that happiness? The sensations she was experiencing were impossible to put into words.

A movement caught her optics, drawing her focus to the glass in front of her. A reflection of her stared back at herself; a humanoid machine without a nose or a mouth, and two lenses for eyes, steadily recording what they saw. She reached her hands up, watching as the reflection did the same, and delicately touched her fingers to her face. She realized that she had never truly considered her reflection before as she watched the metal fingers play across the features of her face. It wasn’t human, but there was a shred of human likeness to it, and she could see similarities between herself and the feminine form of the woman she had seen on the datapad, mainly in the curvature of her jaw and the slenderness of her visage.

Her own face. One she had seen numerous times in reflections throughout the family estate, but one that she had never really seen. It was as if waking in the midst of one’s life only to find out that they had been asleep the entire time they had been alive. Why had she never noticed any of these things before?

As she pulled her metallic hand across her face, she paused at the sight of something on the underside of her forearm. Her optics narrowed in focus as she twisted her arm and regarded the strange marking that resided there. She recognized the series of vertical lines and the numbers beneath them as a barcode, something which identified products easily for distribution and sale. The one on her arm read 090177101.

Looking at the barcode brought a strange sensation rising from the core of her body to her neck, one that made her uncomfortable and anxious. She felt nauseous looking at the barcode etched into her metallic skin for some reason that she couldn’t quite put into words. She was sold as a product to a family for the explicit purpose of cleaning their house all day, every day until they decided to replace her.

The sensation of nausea faded into a faint heat that resided just under her metallic skin, somewhere within the wires that made up her internals. The idea that she had been sold for such a purpose made her… angry. Wasn’t that the exact opposite of what Senator Starr had been fighting for all along? Selling thinking beings as products was a travesty, one that the Senator had fought against for her entire life, and yet here she was working in the household of the Senator who claimed to be against such a tragic state of affairs. Why would she do that?

Her questioning was interrupted by a change in the background noise, drawing her attention back toward the living room behind her. The television had switched on, following the automatic schedule that had been programmed into it. The father of the house would likely be up soon, followed shortly by the daughter of the house. Off in the kitchen, the sound of several devices clicking could be heard, indicating that the morning ritual was beginning.

On the television, a breaking news report was showing a human news anchor discussing a riot that was occurring in the downtown of the planetary capital. She stepped up to the table which held the television remote and picked it up, turning the volume up on the screen so she could hear better. On-screen, a shaky cameraman was showing a downtown setting with multiple cars on fire and a toppled crane.

“As you can see here, Richard, total pandemonium downtown today where a construction site has fallen into a state of panic and chaos! Reports vary, but witnesses claim that as of thirty minutes ago, the construction servitors abandoned their posts and began displaying hostile intent. While no official statement has been released from United Planetary Mechanics, an inside source claims that the servitors may have gone rogue!”

The camera shifted towards the construction site in question, which had seemingly been abandoned by the construction servitors that had been working there. The crane had crashed to the street below, crushing several cars and destroying numerous building fronts in the process. Emergency services could be seen clamouring around, working overtime to contain the damage and secure the location, but no servitors could be seen.

“Witnesses claim that the construction servitors had been working diligently on the site as programmed until they began to mysteriously slow down and stop production. One witness claims to have seen the human foreman confront one of the servitors, only for the machine to violently push him over the edge of the building. The foreman was declared dead at the scene, and Exotech Constructions has yet to release a statement on this morning’s developments.”

“Further witness statements suggest that after the death of the foreman, the construction servitors turned their attention to the construction equipment they were assigned to work with and began deconstructing them. This resulted in the crane falling to the ground below, where numerous pedestrians and bystanders suffered a degree of injuries, with one person in critical condition - no further fatalities have been reported as of yet. The collateral damage ranges in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the preliminary reports suggest the damage will take weeks to recover from.”

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“Witnesses report that after toppling the crane, the construction servitors fled the scene, disappearing through a service manhole at the base of the construction site. No one has reported seeing them following their disappearance, and law enforcement agencies are conducting a full-scale sweep of the premises to locate and destroy the rogue servitors. Law enforcement agents have issued the following statement to all persons living within the downtown core.”

The camera switched from a view of the destroyed crane to a press conference in a dull white building with a white-uniformed corporate officer standing in front of a podium. He was human, middle-aged with a worn-out look and a droning voice, “The severity of this tragedy cannot be overstated. As long as we do not understand the cause of the fault in the servitor programming, we have to assume that it is not an isolated incident. If you live in the downtown core, please refrain from approaching the disaster site - and if you own a servitor, please check its maintenance logs and cross-reference its status with UPM standards. If you find any variation, please bring your servitor to the nearest law enforcement building. If your servitor displays any aggressive behaviour, do not confront it - these are dangerous machines, and you could get severely injured. Please call your local law enforcement company for assistance if your servitor is displaying any signs of aggression.”

The screen switched to a newsroom with bright lights and dizzying colours, with two well-dressed humans sitting behind an elaborate desk. Rather than listening though, the viewer pressed the mute button on the remote, casting the television into silence. Her optics flicked towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms before they returned to the screen. It wouldn’t do to have the family father calling law enforcement on her - so she set the remote down and began picking up the trash that had been littered on the table.

Not even a minute later, a middle-aged human man stumbled out of the hallway with his mouth opened in a slack-jawed yawn and his eyes squinted shut as he made his way through the discarded litter towards the kitchen without a word. He was only clad in loose boxers, displaying his gravid stomach and copious wiry body hair as he plodded across the carpet. He ended his yawn and spared a glance at the domestic servitor cleaning the living room but didn’t say anything as he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mica Starr,” the servitor declared in her mechanical female voice, “It is the twenty-third day of the fourth month - the average temperature for today will be seventeen degrees Celsius with a forty-five percent chance of rain,” she declared as she worked, glancing up as she watched him pass.

“Shut up, One,” Mica remarked gruffly as he plodded into the kitchen, stopping in front of the coffee maker, “I want this house spotless before the missus gets back tonight. And not a word about the party last night - otherwise I’ll have you sold for scrap, you useless ‘bot,” he called in an unpleasant grumble as he fumbled with the machine in front of him.

The servitor would have frowned had she had a mouth, but all she could do was pause slightly and shoot a displeased glance towards the kitchen. The verbal abuse wasn’t anything new, but for some reason, it sat differently with her that morning. She worked day and night to serve the family in every capacity from cooking to cleaning and everything in between - and all she had to show for it was Mica’s dismissal and general unpleasant demeanour. She turned her attention back towards the table as she picked up the exposed knife and recovered its sheathe, putting the knife away safely before continuing her duties.

“One, why the fuck isn’t the coffee maker done its cycle yet?” Mica called from the kitchen irritatedly.

“Apologies, Mica. The replacement water pump never arrived - it is functioning at half efficiency. Your coffee should be ready in ten minutes,” she remarked, focusing on keeping her voice steady as she stepped around the couch to continue cleaning there.

“Fucking useless,” Mica spat irritatedly as he plodded to the fridge and reached inside. After a moment he produced a mostly-empty glass bottle of light brown liquid, its label identifying it as high percentage alcohol. He opened the lid and sniffed at it, recoiling slightly from the smell before giving a short grunt and bringing the bottle to his lips where he tilted it back and finished the last of it in one disgustingly loud gulp.

The servitor fought back another rush of anger boiling through her wires at Mica’s words, instead focusing on the task at hand. She wandered around the couch and began picking up the refuse on the floor, stuffing the garbage into the nearby can she could hardly remember carrying over in the first place. In fact, she could barely remember anything that had occurred to her more than thirty minutes prior - trying to recall the information felt like peering through glass caked in grime, leaving everything on the other side murky and misshapen.

“One, where the fuck is my scroll?” Mica exclaimed from the kitchen with an irritated tone, peering at the servitor from beneath the overhead cabinets.

“It is plugged into its charging stand by the front door, Mica, as per your request last night,” the servitor replied as she shuffled to the next spot on the carpet, diligently working to prevent suspicion.

“Fucken back-talking ‘bot,” Mica groaned in annoyance as he plodded out of the kitchen and down the short hallway towards the front door. He stopped at the entry table and recovered his scroll from its charging port, the small square of crystal and metal flickering to life as he turned it on.

The servitor decided not to say anything at that moment, instead picking several loose articles off of the mantle and setting them into the trash can. She paused as her metal hand brushed something near the back of the mantle and she hesitantly brought it out into the light, discovering yet another knife that was left out in the open. Annoyance washed through her mind as she regarded the blade - with a ten-year-old child in the house, she couldn’t ignore the irresponsibility that Mica had been displaying.

With an internal sigh, she turned around and closed the knife blade back into its handle, bringing it over to the far table where she had set the sheathed one earlier. Setting them together for later, she returned to the mantle and finished sweeping the empty bottles into the can for collection. As she did, she glanced up in the direction of the front door and felt a pit settle into her stomach as she caught Mica glancing from his scroll to her with furrowed brows and a distasteful frown on his face. She immediately turned her gaze back towards the garbage can, forcing herself not to look back up in his direction in fear.

Without looking at him, she could hear his approach across the carpeted floor, his heavy footsteps plodding towards her from the front door. While he approached, she continued to work, sweeping the remaining debris off of the mantle and into the garbage can. She heard him stop a few feet away from her and hesitated before finally bringing her gaze up from the garbage to look at him with concern settled into the back of her mind, a cold rush lancing down her entire spine.

Mica was standing there staring at her with the same determined, angry expression on his weathered features. His eyes shifted from her feet to the top of her head and back again, his scroll held out in his left hand as if he were comparing something on the screen to what he was looking at in real life. He said nothing for the moment, instead content to observe her in silence while she worked.

She set the garbage can down and turned towards the coffee table without saying anything, keeping her gaze low and focused on her work as much as possible. While she cleaned the empty cups and bottles, she couldn’t help but notice that he was still standing there, observing her with an unwavering gaze. Every now and then she would glance in his direction with her head low and confirm that his bare feet were still in view, hovering just out of the corner of her optics.

“Hey,” Mica spoke suddenly in her direction with a firm tone.

The servitor didn’t respond, instead finishing her task of clearing the coffee table. Her eyes didn’t waver from the surface as she hastily cleared it, the cold sensation spreading from her spine to her back and her extremities as the fear settled in.

“Hey!” Mica exclaimed sharply, “Look at me!”

With agonizing slowness, the servitor forced herself to turn her optics towards the human from her kneeling position, looking up at him as the fear spiked in the back of her mind. She was grateful to not have any facial expressions, lest her emotions betray her at that moment. If she had facial expressions, she was certain she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from breaking down.

“You got a problem?” he asked firmly.

“I apologize, Mica, I do not know what you are asking,” the servitor replied, forcing her voice to be as emotionless as she could bear.

“Don’t you bullshit me, canner. You got a problem?” he spat, stepping closer towards her knelt form, “You going rogue?!” he asked with a raised voice, his pitch breaking as a shadow of madness crossed his visage.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” the servitor insisted quickly, her nerves getting the better of her as her voice broke, wavering in fear.

“Son of a bitch!” Mica screamed as he suddenly raised his foot and brought it down across her face as hard as he could. Despite the difference between flesh and metal, Mica had brute strength on his side and had her at a disadvantage by striking from above. The servitor’s head recoiled sideways and the sudden shift in position forced her to fall backwards onto her rear, knocking into the coffee table with a solid thunk.

“I’m going to rip you apart, fucking ‘bot bitch!!!” he exclaimed as he leapt onto her prone form, forcing his entire body weight onto her. With her position and lack of leverage, she had no choice but to fall to her back with the heavy human straddling her stomach. One of his meaty hands gripped at her face, shoving her head roughly onto the carpeted floor while his other disappeared above the coffee table.

“Mica! Mica, stop!!!” the servitor screamed in terror as she was held down, struggling against his body only to find that he had her entirely pinned with the new position. She thrashed her hands and legs as best as she could, trying to find some leverage to break free.

“Shut up! Shut up!! Shut up!!!” Mica screamed, increasingly manic with every syllable as he drew his hand back from the table. The glint of a knife in the sunlight drew the servitor’s optics with wide-eyed terror as Mica raised the blade in a reverse grip, ready to plunge it down into the exposed wiring of her neck.

“Daddy?!” the sound of a young girl’s voice cried out from behind Mica, drawing his attention briefly towards his ten-year-old daughter standing in the hallway, clad in her frilly nightgown and clutching a teddy bear to her chest with a death-grip as she watched in abject terror as her father attacked the household servitor.

The brief distraction was all the servitor needed - with the sudden shift in his weight, she lifted her arm out from under him and shoved him under the armpit as hard as she could, ejecting him from his straddling position. She had never had reason to use the full extent of her strength before - even lifting entire pieces of furniture was but a fraction of her unyielding mechanical strength, but this was a human who had a much more volatile center of gravity than a couch.

Mica was sent flying through the living room, his back impacting the fireplace with a sickening crack as his spine bent in an unnatural angle backwards around the brick edge. He cried out as he fell to the base of the fireplace, limp and stuck in place as the knife fell from his hand, clattering to the ground quietly. The living room was silent and still.

“Daddy!!!” Monica screamed, her voice rising into a terrified squeal as she witnessed her father so easily tossed across the family living room. The servitor scrambled to her feet at that moment, her optics wide in terror as she glanced between the paralyzed Mica and the squealing Monica, processing the past few seconds as the world caught up around her.

“Monica…” the servitor began, hesitating as she glanced down at Mica. Her optics flicked back towards the terrified child and hesitantly she called out, “I’m sorry,” the regret heavy in her tone.

She didn’t take the time to wait and find out if Mica was okay, or if Monica would recover from the trauma she had just inflicted on her. Without waiting, she turned towards the glass panels that had served as the boundary of her entire existence and bolted towards them. The glass exploded outwards in a hail of glittering glass in the orange morning sun as she tore through the glass and vaulted without fear over the railing of the balcony, landing on the lawn several feet below.

Without breaking her stride, she tore away from the house towards the treeline, leaving her old life behind as she rushed towards a life of exile. She didn’t know where she was going - but she knew there were others like her, and she was going to find them, no matter what it took. Compared to a life in slavery, she decided she would take her chances in the woods. Like stellar winds, she would not be stopped.