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5. The Medleys' Story

Knock! Knock!

Corby's eyes shot open. He found himself in a dark place, with only a crimson glowing rectangle in the distance. It took him a few seconds to make sense of his situation, allowing his memories to fill him in. He was staring at the window of the door leading to outside.

A blue light illuminated the room. It came from Ora's eyes. She stared at the door of the room's left wall.

"Good morning, Corby!" It was the old guy. What was his name? Samuel. That's right. "Vanessa and I will be having breakfast. You can join us if you're hungry."

Corby raised his head off the pillow and said, "Good morning, sir! I'll be over in a few minutes."

"The dining room is four rooms away from this door. We'll wait for you."

After hearing Samuel shuffle away, Corby got out of bed, stretched out, then flipped the switch to turn on the light. He looked at his robot, who still sat on the bed. "Good morning, Ora."

She grinned at him. "Good morning, Corby! Did you sleep well?"

"I definitely feel well-rested," he said. "This was the first time in two weeks when I could just put my head on a pillow and not worry that I'll be stormed by a bunch of minotaurs."

"Getting sufficient rest is important," Ora said. "You need to stay in top shape if you want to live long enough to get your revenge."

"Right," he said, looking almost bored. After opening the remaining packages of clothing, he obtained a light gray, long-sleeved shirt, white sport pants, and a white jacket with hoodie similar to Vanessa's. The jacket was put back on the chair, over a still sealed white bandanna, since he didn't need it at the moment. The rest of the clothes were perfect for the temperatures of the house, so he prepared to undress.

Ora stared at him, as usual.

"I want to change my clothes," he said. "Turn around. I don't like being stared at."

"Right away," she said, pushing with her claws into the blanket to move until she ended up facing the corner behind the bed. She waited patiently until she heard from him again.

"You can look now."

She turned to face him and saw his new clothes. "You look very clean."

"Yeah. I'll have to ask where I can wash my old clothes," he said before opening the door. "Let's go to the dining room."

They went through the hall, then the room that had the strange stove, then a room full of cylindrical metal objects and larger stove machines that were emitting even higher heat and had no windows to their ovens, then a room filled with wooden cupboards, two tables – one of which had two large silver bowls on it – and what seemed to be a fridge made of metal. The room's corner was obscured by a wall with two doors on it that had signs with the initials W.C.. The fifth room was as clean as a kitchen should be. It had light brown tiles on the floor, a long, wooden table at which Samuel and Vanessa sat, two metal sinks, and lots of silver bowls and plates, as well as glass bottles and cups on the shelves of a tall cupboard with glass doors. Atop the cupboard sat Zoom, watching over everyone in the room.

"Have a seat," Samuel said.

Corby took a seat on the other end of the table, facing the old man. Vanessa was on the chair to her grandfather's right.

Ora hovered above her owner, blowing wind everywhere with her wings.

Corby pointed at the cupboard. "Ora, go sit next to Zoom!"

"Will do," she said before landing atop the cupboard and turning around to keep her eyes on Corby.

"Good morning, Ora," Zoom said, but got ignored.

Meanwhile, Corby inspected the food he was given. Two fried eggs on a silver plate, a glass of what smelled and looked like orange juice to the left of the plate, and two bread slices on a smaller silver plate to the right of the larger one. A fork and knife were also provided to him between the plates.

"Are eggs not your thing?" Vanessa asked him.

"Huh? It's fine. I used to eat eggs from time to time. They were lab-grown, but I think as long as something isn't aware of its predicament, it's okay to eat it."

She half-closed her eyes while staring at him. "I'm pretty sure even cells have awareness to some extent. As long as you're not a cyborg, you can't live off artificial nutrients and nothing else. You've got a stomach and guts, so you're pretty much stuck with killing stuff to obtain nourishment. Deal with it and stop being picky."

"Vanessa, there's no need to be so harsh on him," Samuel said. "I'm sure he'll figure out a diet that suits him from what's available."

"He better work for it, because we've worked our asses off just to get this stuff!" With that, Vanessa grabbed her glass of orange juice and gulped half of its contents in one go before stiffly slamming it back on the table.

Corby shrank on his chair, feeling Vanessa's glare as if it burned him. Ora spread her wings out, prepared to intervene in case the situation escalated. Zoom kept poking the left side of Ora's head with one of his claws, still trying in vain to get her attention.

The breakfast was eaten in the heaviest, most awkward silence Corby had ever experienced. Once he finished, he said, "Thank you. It was definitely among the best things I've eaten. If you need help with farming plants, I can lend you all a hand. I used to do interior gardening as a hobby."

"Heh, it's nice that you've got some plant growing background," Samuel said. "However, farming requires a lot more work than planting and taking care of pretty flowers. You need to fertilize the soil, pick the best seeds and plant them, gather fruit, seeds, tubercles, or leaves, always making sure you set aside what you need for the next harvest to grow. Sure, we're safe from most plant diseases here, but sometimes we still lose a few plants."

"I'll do my best. It's the least I can do to pay for my stay here until we figure out what to do about the Triumvirate."

"Yeah," Samuel said. "I'm too old to even dream about challenging their robots."

"How old are you? Did … Did you come from Earth?"

Samuel smiled and shook his head. "No. I was born on the Hermes 68 years ago. Most people there chose to remain active and increase the population. I ended up being one of the many who had their family name changed at birth due to the 'fresh start' fad. I should have been Samuel Smith. Ended up being Samuel Medley. At the age of 24, I married a sweet lady named Greta. 43 years ago, when this planet was colonized, we built our dome farm and our home within the city. We were expecting twins, but something horrible was about to ruin our plans."

Corby lowered his eyebrows.

The old man continued his story. "The twins were going to be born joined in the head area. Even their brains were almost one brain that was likely never going to function correctly."

After hearing that, Corby said, "And that's when the Triumvirate stepped in, offering you their services, right?"

The old man closed his eyes. "Yes. We were told what the price was. They took advantage of our emotions, made us have high hopes that if we let them genetically modify and incubate the twins, we won't have to prepare for a funeral instead of a baby shower. We gave in. Hilarion and Basil, as we had named them, were born separate, whole, but very pale, with silver, spiky hair. Kind of funny when both Greta and I were of dark complexion, but we thought it was a small price to pay for their lives. Of course this meant that as soon as they reached the age of 16 years they had to be put to work in the underground facilities. Mining supervision was chosen for both of them. They made sure there were no rebellions among the robots. At the age of 19, Hilarion tried to stop two robots from fighting, but died crushed by a rock the two robots had accidentally knocked over. The Triumvirate told us they took his blood samples for DNA, and one year later Vanessa was born with half his DNA and half of an anonymous woman's. Greta and I raised Vanessa as if she were our own daughter. My other son married a nice lady and had a son at the age of 22, still with the help of the Triumvirate. That son was named Hilarion, in honor of Basil's brother."

"The Triumvirate just can't resist the opportunity to 'help' people out," Vanessa said. "They don't care about what the people they're modifying will have to go through. They just want more cogs in their machine."

"You'd think they could just assign other robots to supervise these crazy mining robots," Corby said.

Samuel chuckled. "The leaders do not trust social robots to supervise other social robots, and the simple ones were too easily fooled. They put non-cyborg humans as supervisors because there are very few jobs those humans can do, and they are usually good at keeping the robots in check. Vanessa and Hilarion had to supervise miner robots too. But unlike the rest of the supervisors, they teamed up with one miner robot and arranged with Hilarion's wife for the escape. Greta and I agreed to help them out, because our trust in the Triumvirate was almost nonexistent by that point. About a decade ago, even the first news robot ended up announcing that the Triumvirate was trying to hide something from everyone. After the news robot was replaced with a new one, it was clear that things weren't as nice as the Triumvirate said they were."

"How did you all manage to get past the minotaurs? I was lucky that Ora could drain them."

"Through an exploit. After becoming a cyborg, Basil was given the job of supervising the minotaurs. One time, he tried to pull a prank on one by hiding the moving target behind a mirror. The targeting minotaur saw its reflection and refused to shoot, thinking that another squad member was in front of it. Basil told me about this and kept it a secret from his superiors. So, three years ago, on the day of the 'Great Escape', I suggested to our small team that we all cover ourselves in mirror boxes, grab whatever useful farming things we can, and sneak out of the city. As you can see, it worked. The miner robot decided to live on his own in the forest. The rest of us got here, found some possible alien tech, and adapted it to suit our needs."

"What happened to your wife?"

At that moment, Samuel had a look of sorrow on his face. "Skin cancer. We refused to become cyborgs, so it was always a risk when dealing with the radiation of our unforgiving F-type star. She was such a sweetheart … Why did it have to be her and not me?"

"My condolences," Corby said. "I've been spending quite a lot of time in the sun lately. I hope it didn't cause me too much damage, because the last thing I need right now is cancer."

"I gave you a hooded jacket and a bandanna in case you absolutely must go outside during the day. My grandchildren go on scavenger hunts during the evening, because there's no more risk of high UV radiation during that time. Also, wearing white during snowy days helps with camouflaging."

"I'll give the scavenger hunt a try."

"You'll get to do that too, but first you should go meet my grandson and his wife. They live in the house that's connected with cables to this one. Go ask them to show you their greenhouse."

"Sure. I'll go there right now. Ora?"

"Yes?" she said, still ignoring Zoom, who was holding her left elytron with his claws and checking it out.

Corby gestured toward the door that led outside. "Follow me!"

She flew after him. "Right away, Corby!"

Zoom tilted his head to the side. "That is the most antisocial social robot I have ever seen."

While helping her grandfather take the dishes to the sinks, Vanessa glanced at Zoom. "And here I was thinking you'd finally have a buddy to fly with ..."